Suicide

[English Noodles]

Some very open and honest postings on this subject especialy from Meemiathai and SiamSam, thank you both for being so candid. The only thing that i wanted to say has basicly already been said here.

A very close friend of mine committed suicide in 1999, he had just completed a masters degree in physics and by coincidence was like siamsams father very gifted in martial arts. One night he called for a taxi and asked the driver to drive him somewhere, as they were crossing a road bridge he asked the driver to stop for a moment as he felt sick, he then got out of the car and jumped from the bridge and died.

He was inteligent, from a good suportive family, had a very stable relationship with his girlfriend, physicly fit and had many friends and a promising life infront of him.

Clinical depression is a disease that unfortunatly alot of people do not even acknowledge the exsistance of.

To make rash statements such as "cowards way out", "only for cowards etc", "not an option", only shows peoples ignorance to the reality of some peoples lives.

Until you can say that you have been so far down with only a numb feeling instead of the feeling of life, been to the edge where you think there is absoloutly nothing in this world that can make you feel ok, feel completley disconected from your surroundings and people around you (this can go on for decades). Until you have experienced this first hand and have come through it ok can you make a negitive comment about people who take there own lives.

Anyone who is suffering from deppression i would encourage to go for proffesional help, there are many treatments and they are getting more advanced all the time. It could make the difference for you and give you back the life you deserve.

Take care everyone.

Noodles.

[siamsam]

My fathers suicide had some what of a spritual component. In fact he stated in his suicide notes that he believed his act would "neutralise" karma and preserve his work. He also mentioned that he'd aknowledged different faiths' perception on suicide and came to the conclusion that, and I quote " There is a long and disinguished heritage of it in the face of an enemy, I believe this is true spirituality ". Strangley for some, if not most, but not so much for me because I was brought up with it, He had firm beliefs rooted in astrological influences, not the horoscopes in the funny papers n' stuff but more of how it influences ones phsyco. make-up hence spritual journey - If such a thing exists.

His death had/has had a profound effect on my life. They say grief after suicide is particularly complex, and is driven by learning, but most of what is learnt is negative. This is true for me. The fact that I'm still young and at the time obviously even younger wasn't helpful with respect to my emotional maturity. I've spent most of the past five years tormented by overwhelming feelings of guilt/fear/anger with debilitating depressive episodes also. My father was profoundly intelligent, spritually evolved and very sensitive - a curse in todays world, on a more shallow level he was very handsome and in exceptional physical condition. We used to sit and talk 'til sunrise, I loved him dearly and I miss him terribly. Although I'm still in my twenties I feel like in mind I've aged a great deal. Everything seems so superficial and meaningless now, especially here in the uk, tv shows on house make-overs etc etc. I've personally witnessed the worth of material gain in a man's life when I sat in my dads house after his death.

[asdfg]

I'd like to add my own story here it might be of help to some of you, even if it just the ones that are on about suicide being a cowards way out.

My wife of 12 years who I dearly loved died (in an accident) about 6 years ago, I was in my early 30's she was 30, we had no children.

I was devastated, no warning one minute she was there next she wasn’t. I felt my life had come to an end. After the initial intense period of grief, I just found my life empty. I'm very good at covering up my emotions so most people thought I was adjusting quite well.

I had a good well paid job, nice house, car ect all the trappings of a successful man, it doesn’t mean sh!t. I started throwing myself into work, working all hours, going anywhere at the drop of a hat usually living out of hotels most of the week. I started to get noticed at work and was promoted twice in 2 years. The problem was no matter how much I worked I still had to come home and when I stopped doing stuff my life was very empty, I started drinking more, and living for going out with my mates on the piss.

I started to realise how meaningless every thing was, I've been one step away from suicide (literally that one step would of been off the bridge), I've gone home at night after a gut full of beers closed all the doors and windows, turned the gas fire and cooker on (without lighting) just to see if I'd wake up in the morning. I did but it gives you a splitting headache. I got to the point that I'd be thinking up reasons not to kill myself, like "oh I won’t kill myself today as we are all going out on Friday I'll wait until Saturday I might be a bit better then".

Anyway a mate of mine suggested coming to Thailand on holiday, I was a bit reluctant as we actually came here on honeymoon, but agreed. As can be expected given my mental state we hit the bars and basically had 2 weeks of drink and sex, all still pretty meaningless as well but as I was making good money and could get lots of holidays it did help, now I found that when I felt like topping myself I could say "well wait until after the next holiday" so I started coming out every 3 months.

The problem was I still didn’t care if I lived or died, the holidays were just an excuse not to die. After about a year of this my company started offering redundancy packages and as far as I was concerned I had nothing to loose. So against all good advice I sold every thing and came out here all I had was the clothes in my case and money in the bank. Of course every one thought I was crazy (I might well of been), "what if something goes wrong" "what if you want to come back" what they didn’t realise was that for me there was no going back it was a one way deal, I was going to find some happiness or die.

I'd met someone before I came to live out here, we weren’t having sex but got on really well and I thought she was sweet, but young (this wasn’t why I came), anyway we started living together and had the usual arguments about trust and money "how can you be sure she really loves you and it's not just about money ect" her "how can I know he's not just run off with some bar girl" so I just stuck 3 million baht in her account and told her it hers go or stay up to her (ok I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone but at the time as I wasn’t really bothered about living so it didn’t really matter).

To cut a long story short we've now happily married, all the money in her bank we used starting a business which does well and I hardly ever think about killing myself any more. I've been very lucky but a lot of people aren’t, it could well of been me balcony diving in pattaya.

I'd just like to say to all those who might be contemplating suicide, give yourself short term goals, think of reasons not to kill yourself or reasons to put it off until an other day and then an other ect, you never know what the future holds.

To all those who say its a cowards way out I hope you are never in the position where life is so bad you feel that dieing is a valid option.

I've changed my nick for this one post, as I wanted to share the story, but I'm not that open to do it on my normal username.

[Doctor John]

asdfg,

Thanks for sharing that story.

Nice one.

[meemiathai]

I did go to see a psychiatrist recently (2 months ago, for not being able to fall asleep), but with negative results.

I have been to psychologists as well some time in my life due to family problems, but most of what they could tell me were something I knew or understood already.

But thanks very much anyway for the responses.

I am actually doing OK.