Thank you all for your comments. Thank you to those who PM'd me.
I mentioned to Jacqui today that with the killing of Osama bin Laden I find myself dwelling on September 11 and re-living it minute by minute. When I am able to focus on something else, I start remembering petty slights like a car that cut me off in 1962. The anger is resurfacing. I will be fine. I have learned how to deal with anger, depression, guilt. But I wonder about the young ones who were so completely trumatized on that day. Some were never able to return to school. Remember that there were schools at Ground Zero and teachers who disappeared.
Add this research on brain malfunctioning to the mix.
I agree with Eliza that depression and suicide is in some way genetic but whether it is hard wired in us or taught by ancestors repeating parenting mistakes, I don't know. I am amazed at the number of relatives and friends who marry into the same emotional problems they endured as children.
Alcohol survivors marrying alcoholics long before they show their drinking problem. A sister-in-law whose father committed suicide marrying the grandson of a suicide. Is it being attracted to what you know or is it possible that the problem is so fdar reaching that it can't be avoided?
Shakespeare writes of teenage suicides - Romeo, Juliet, Ophelia - making me believe it was not uncommon in his time.
Certainly in my childhood it was not discussed for fear of being refused burial in consecrated ground.
Animals starve themselves to death when depressed. Shelters are seeing it now in Alabama with isplaced pets some of whom lost their owners and all suffered horrible stress during and after the storms.
I am rambling. Thank you for the opportunity.
Mary