Tell me all about it, dear...

Amy - 2011-01-05 20:18:01
I'm very sorry for the loss and the hurt and confusion this has caused you. *HUGS*
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dichroic - 2011-01-05 20:53:59
A bit too much sanity in your case, I think. I've seen a few cases where depression deluded people into honestly thinking that their families would be better of without them. I guess it has to mess up your logic centers pretty severely for that to seem logical, but apparently it does.
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Stephanie - 2011-01-05 21:35:24
There have been times when I thought death might be preferable to life, but the thought of what that would do to my daughters snapped me out of it. Sadly, I think a lot of people who commit suicide are too far gone to think about the consequences of their actions for those left behind.
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gbw - 2011-01-05 23:06:31
a friend"s (in elementary school) mom ended her life in the garage with the car running because she had been given a diagnosis of cancer. I often wondered why she thought that was better than the cancer. Her daughter felt alienated from pretty much everyone after the event and our friendship faded. It was not easier for that child to deal with the chosen death rather than the natural death. Folks who go that way are beyond considering anything outside their tunnel vision.
I had a friend as a teenager who succeeded where Karen Ann Quinlan didn't - that was weird.
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Stub - 2011-01-06 02:29:01
My mom committed suicide at the age of 57. She was only a day or two from dying of cancer, after fighting it for 2.5 years. I was 32 at the time. Somehow, she convinced all her kids to go out with friends that night and then shot herself with only my dad in the house. We understood and forgave her for the suicide, her pain must have been overwhelming, literally. But I don't think I have forgiven her yet for doing that to my dad, making him see her with her head in bits all over their bedroom. For the next 10 years I had nightmares about my mom, dreams that she was alive and only I knew that she was really dead; or dreams that she had died already and was going to die again; or dreams that she was mentally torturing my dad (one time I dreamed she was throwing dog poop into the house and on him and he just smiled tolerantly at her) because she was a crazy dead woman somehow come back to life. In all those dreams I knew I was going to have to live through her death again and I would wake up gasping or crying. They finally seem to have stopped. The first time my dad took a walk with a gun strapped to his hip after the police gave them back to him, I had to call my cousin and talk the whole time he was gone for fear I would hear a shot and have to go find dad dead in the woods. But he later promised me he would never do such a thing. Dad got Alzheimer's about a year after mom's death, and I am convinced it was brought on sooner by her suicide. Dad died peacefully 7 years ago (also of cancer) and I was there to kiss him goodbye and watch him take his last breath and I have never had one single bad dream about his dying.
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Joan - 2011-01-06 02:44:55
I've been depressed but never THAT depressed. I've run away or burrowed deeply under blankets for days and days and even slept in a parked car behind a restaurant for hours on a cold winter's night to avoid facing my shame of depression, but I never considered suicide. ....and Stub, I am so sorry for your losses. I hope you find peace someday.
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dichroic - 2011-01-06 07:17:14
There's also the part no one considers, when it doesn't quite work. I don't know if anyone else here read Marn's account of how her family was bankrupted by her mom's medical expenses after a suicide attempt that didn't work as quickly as planned (before Canada had universal medical coverage). So the family had not only the trauma but lasting financial consequences to deal with. (She posted it years ago, so you can tell how much effect it had on me, that I still remember details.) But I still think the selfishness is generally driven by depression and doesn't *feel* selfish at the time.
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terri t - 2011-01-06 17:45:42
Thankfully I haven't had to deal with depression of that magnitude. There were a couple of suicides on my husband's side of the family...one that broke everyone's heart. I can't imagine how Stub and family suffered. I agree that the person who takes their life has no concept of what their loved ones go through from then on.
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Mayhem - 2011-01-07 05:07:26
An ex boyfriend's father called the ex up to see him. The door was locked when he got there and when he called out to his dad the next thing he heard was a gunshot. He had called his som up to be the one to find him and deal with the questions and testing for gsr to be sure it wasn't murder. I have always felt it was the most selfish thing I had ever heard of. I understand depression, but I don't understand the cruelty to others in taking that kind of action.
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