Our country has a silent epidemic…it is called suicide.
Not only people who are being bullied, but many in depression even if it is situational and not chemical depression. People who continually feel invisible, alone, unloved. Many people cannot understand why someone could commit suicide. How many times have you been talking with someone, answering a question they asked you about your life…in the middle of your answer someone breaks into the conversation about something totally different; and you never get to finish your part of the original conversation? Or maybe after asking the question you turned your attention to someone else instead of listening to the answer? Do we truly care about the other person? Are we really interested in hearing what someone else has to say?
Recently a friend, Trey committed suicide. He was going through some serious tough times in his life. He was a kind and caring man. One of his strongest beliefs was that everyone needs and deserves to be heard. Yet he was in so much emotional pain that something pushed him over the line and he took his own life.
I have heard of at least 3 other suicides within the past month, and a great many more stories of past suicides.
Trey’s brother, Erick has decided to spend the rest of his life fighting to stop suicide. I urge you to read Erick’s blog and let us encourage continued dialogue about this epidemic and what we can do to help stop people from killing themselves, to let them know they ARE important, that they matter to us. http://warrioragainstsuicide.blogspot.com/2011/09/new-beginning.html
Here is a piece I wrote a few years ago. It is sad, but think about someone who may feel like this on a regular basis, they feel no one really cares about giving some quality time to really listen to them.
https://amarquette333.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/brief-moments-and-then/
Let us create a society where it is not taboo to talk about this and find ways to STOP SUICIDE.
Okay, this is odd, but I haven’t had time to read my blogs lately (or write much.) However, I see titles and such before I clean out my e-mail in-box.
Yesterday afternoon, a dear friend of mine, called to inform me her husband had just killed himself and the people were there “cleaning up the mess upstairs” while her 7 year old was with a neighbor. She still hadn’t informed her son but requested I get the word out to our mutual friends.
It’s a task I’m dreading. I made one phone call last night to our mutual close friend we’ve all been hanging out lately. I had forgotten it was her birthday and she thought I was calling to say the big HAppy happy…
Today, I have a few more people to call. Please pray for me that I do/say the right thing to support my friend.
Her husband recently had a mental break-down, and she found out that he had suffered Paranoid Schizephrenia his whole life! No one in the family shared the information with her. She thought he had just fallen into depression. Pschologist, phschiatrist…no one could help because they thought it was depression. He was hiding the truth. His mom was hiding the truth. Brother/Sisters not telling my friend. He wasn’t taking proper dosage of medicine. They had been together 12 years, and he lived this “lie.” Until the last 3 years everything began to fall apart.
One day, last month she had to call the cops and have him removed from the home as he said some strange thing to make her fear for her/child’s safety. He spent a month at a medical facility and she was trying to get him into an outpatient program. Something the family should have done years ago, and now it’s too late.
Sandi, I am so very sorry for the loss of this poor man. This is another example of the damage that hiding truth can cause. It reminds me “the truth will set you free.” The truth could have truly helped this man throughout his life and saved his life.
My thoughts and prayers are with you as you have to relay this message to others and for his family and friends. Ask God to guide your words to others and He will.
Sandi, reading your comment leaves me heartbroken on many levels, the obvious of which is the tragic loss of a husband, father, son, friend and human being. The specific circumstances of his death also underscores why we are losing the battle against suicide in this country. The subject of suicide is certainly one that people are uncomfortable with and would like to avoid, but it’s the root cause of so many suicides that are even more uncomfortable in people’s minds.
People don’t want to talk about depression, paranoid schizophrenia, debilitating debt or a host of other root causes of an enormous sense of hopelessness that eventually yields the taking of one’s life. These issues are hard enough to deal with when everyone is aware of them, can provide as much support as possible in unison, are educated and consistently proactive in doing what they can to provide a foundation for healing. It’s also the very reason why we wait until the situation has eroded to a highly intense and often times irreversible state before deciding to acknowledge and act.
When we begin to realize that the masking of these issues only exasperates them and that the preservation of life outweighs any negative impact on image or reputation, we can begin to make strides. Protection of privacy is of utmost importance; protection of life is paramount. Do both if at all possible. If forced to choose, protect life.
My thoughts and prayers are with you, your friend and your friend’s family.
Erick Pennington
Thank you Erick for your reply to Sandi.
Dear Ann:
You’re so right, so many of us get caught up in our own thoughts and to anxious to get out what “we” want to say and we neglect to listen to people or we will abruptly interrupt in the middle of a sentence and the person “never” gets out their feelings.
Your article was informative and we all need to take a lesson from it. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Thank you Barbara. I hope you went to Erick’s blog.
My younger twin sisters both committed suicide, ten years apart: the first one just a few days before her twentieth birthday, the other a few months before her forty-first birthday. And none of us thought she would ever do the same thing that had devastated and haunted us all so many years before.
They both suffered from depression.
I thought we were helping her, there for her, but evidently it wasn’t enough. I don’t believe she was taking her medication. There are a lot of things I don’t know and will never know about her, although I thought I did.
For those left behind, let me tell you that it’s so easy to look back on things–what you should have done, what you could have done. The signs you didn’t see. Those are the things that haunt you forever about your loved one, friend, acquaintance, the things you play over and over in your mind.
Because it’s all so very final. Maybe we should have done more. But remember this–if you had known for a fact that the person was going to commit suicide, you wouldn’t have let them. It was a choice he or she made without you.
If you worry about someone you know, talk to them. It doesn’t matter if you are afraid to bother them or make them upset somehow. Letting them know you’re there if they need you is a step in the right direction, but it isn’t always enough.
And–if you are someone thinking of suicide, remember what I said about finality. You WILL put your family and friends through absolute hell–don’t let your thought that “no one loves me, no one cares,” fool you. Someone does care, and you mean more to others than you can ever realize. I witnessed the ripple of despair among those who didn’t even know my sisters very well.
Always remember, the things that make you feel so hopeless are NOT hopeless.
Seek help.
You will NOT always feel this way. There WILL be joy again some day ahead.
Thank you so much for your reply Leann. I am so sorry about your sisters.
Yes it is a terrible thing when anyone takes their own life, that they felt at that very moment that no one REALLY cared. The testimonies I am hearing and reading will continue to increase our passion to do what we can to work at stamping out this epidemic. Talking about it, bringing it more out in the open, and educating others will be part of the process.
Bless you Leann,
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