Suicide

Sorry for your loss. As a social worker, after thinking about his life , do you see perhaps some missed cues , like borderline personality disorder, or any other disorders? Most people that are mentally healthy just don't suddenly off themselves.

My grandfather killed himself. There were no signs, I had talked to him the day before about how excited he was to fly out for my graduation.

It's tough thing to through. You blame yourself for not helping, or noticing the signs. Honestly, cooking meals or having some way for them to ease their Dailey routine helps. I flew out to cook for my grandmother while my mom and her siblings handled everything surrounding the case.
Try and let her know you're there for her, and don't push her to open up. Just be a supportive, helpful friend.
(I edited this because i had really bad autocorrect.)

**This post was edited on Jan 19th 2016 at 1:12:13pm

Thanks guys. I'll find out a bit more when I get off work. I'm sure it will sink in a bit more once I see others that knew him. He wasn't my closest friend, but we still hung out every couple of weeks or so?

I don't think I had enough regular contact with him to see any major signs, although he did come to my church last week (he was an atheist), but he was always open to good discussion about other's belief systems, so it wasn't super weird. That was probably the biggest out of the ordinary thing though.

I feel super bad for his wife though. They recently bought a house, but she doesn't work (I think she has some cognitive functioning issues? Not super bad or obvious, but I'm pretty sure that's why she isn't working). I have no idea what she's going to do now.

That's terrible man, I am so sorry for your loss. Vibes to you and your friends.
I don't know much about suicide in particular, but there is a long history of mental illness in my family, so if there's anything at all you need (albeit from a random newschooler, but still), I'm here.

I think the only way to deal is to just let time pass. It's going to hurt, and everyone is going to be grieving, but that's natural. To his wife, I would just let her know that it's natural to feel heartbroken, but you just don't want her to feel alone. Let her know she has people around her who care.

Rest in peace to your friend. Keeping him in my thoughts.

daxtonThat's terrible man, I am so sorry for your loss. Vibes to you and your friends.
I don't know much about suicide in particular, but there is a long history of mental illness in my family, so if there's anything at all you need (albeit from a random newschooler, but still), I'm here.

I think the only way to deal is to just let time pass. It's going to hurt, and everyone is going to be grieving, but that's natural. To his wife, I would just let her know that it's natural to feel heartbroken, but you just don't want her to feel alone. Let her know she has people around her who care.

Rest in peace to your friend. Keeping him in my thoughts.

Always shitty to hear about this stuff. As a sophomore in high school I've experienced 3 suicides already, all of them nice kids. Makes you really think about how society is functioning these days. Much love for you and his friends.

TRUMPLIFEAlways shitty to hear about this stuff. As a sophomore in high school I've experienced 3 suicides already, all of them nice kids. Makes you really think about how society is functioning these days. Much love for you and his friends.

oops didn't mean to quote that

Man. It's great to know that NS can be a solid, supportive community during crappy times.

I haven't found out too much more info, but it sounds like there were a series of emails and journal entries on his computer going back to the summer outlining his thoughts and plans to go ahead with his decision. It wasn't something that just came out of nowhere (not that it ever does). Family is going to be coming out over the next few days, so it'll be pretty rough.

Thanks again NS.

Frankly, im still fucking pissed at 2 of my friends who jumped in front of trains and that was 10 and 5 years ago respectively. If they dont want people to know, people likely wont know till it happens.

I guess anger is easier to deal with than outright sadness. Not much help, i know. I always get people pissed when i elaborate upon my feelings towards suicide, so ill just leave it at- Im sorry this happened, itll get better with time.

californiagrownFrankly, im still fucking pissed at 2 of my friends who jumped in front of trains and that was 10 and 5 years ago respectively. If they dont want people to know, people likely wont know till it happens.

I guess anger is easier to deal with than outright sadness. Not much help, i know. I always get people pissed when i elaborate upon my feelings towards suicide, so ill just leave it at- Im sorry this happened, itll get better with time.

I definitely get where you're coming from. I don't think I'm at a place where I'm pissed yet, but will probably get there eventually. If anything, I feel bad because I don't feel much at all. That's kind of just my personality, but I guess it means I can help others without falling apart right now and deal with the questions later.

saskskierI definitely get where you're coming from. I don't think I'm at a place where I'm pissed yet, but will probably get there eventually. If anything, I feel bad because I don't feel much at all. That's kind of just my personality, but I guess it means I can help others without falling apart right now and deal with the questions later.

That's a pretty natural reaction, it's all really overwhelming, you're probably still experiencing some shock. I would say that getting all of your friend group together, group meals, going on a hike or doing something that you all enjoy may help. Best of luck and good vibes your way.

saskskierI definitely get where you're coming from. I don't think I'm at a place where I'm pissed yet, but will probably get there eventually. If anything, I feel bad because I don't feel much at all. That's kind of just my personality, but I guess it means I can help others without falling apart right now and deal with the questions later.

Remember to stay sane yourself. Loosing people to mental illness reaches further and hurts everyone around the victim. If guilt or regret feeling surface, you have to take a break and focus on your own personal life. Helping people with emotional issues can take a bigger toll than you can think. Cautionary tail...
I have been fighting depression since 2009 with the suicide thoughts peaking in 2010. It was at a point I was going down as much rubbing alcohol I could drink with orange juice at work. There were many causes; bad relationship with girlfriend that degrated relationship with family, work was not going as well as I hoped, but I was helping a good friend overcome depression at the same time. When I slept 3 straight days and didnt get up for 7 days...It was too late; I lost everything. My family didnt want to hear about my troubles, my friends didnt pick up the phone and my job prevents me from getting help (medical certificate includes mental illness...nice transport canada).

There was one constant throughout the whole process I was aware of. I just could not cry, scream in anger or just break down. No way to release the information in a safe way, to undo the knots in the stomach. So, I just stayed strong and just acted like everything was fine. Still today, no one suspects a thing.

After going through all of that, I picked up a few tips for someone what is dealing with a suicidal person:
-Just shut up and listen. Just shut up and dont give your opinion
-Physical contact is deeper than words, a hug can go a long way
-Remind the victim they matter in the world and the people around them
-Get them moving and excited for something.

my best friend hanged himself in 2011. I did everything I could have ( short of telling his parents he would attempt suicide again and again until he followed through) although it probably wouldn't have changed anything i should have told them. it is incredibly difficult to continue life when your best friend kills himself. You need to talk to his friends and family to show your support, even though you might not have known him for very long you need to tell them the effect that he had on your life. they will appreciate it. people live through memories you know? I never got over it, i doubt i ever will. i doubt ill ever have another friend as close as john was to me. just keep swimming. be nice to people. everyone. be safe and try to be happy. it might take awhile, but the sun will shine again.

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Not cool dude.

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dick move

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that's so uncalled for

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i get your from lynn but you dont have to act like your from lynn you peice of shit scum bag. i hope you stay grounded in that fucking shithole town.

killabeesmy best friend hanged himself in 2011. I did everything I could have ( short of telling his parents he would attempt suicide again and again until he followed through) although it probably wouldn't have changed anything i should have told them. it is incredibly difficult to continue life when your best friend kills himself. You need to talk to his friends and family to show your support, even though you might not have known him for very long you need to tell them the effect that he had on your life. they will appreciate it. people live through memories you know? I never got over it, i doubt i ever will. i doubt ill ever have another friend as close as john was to me. just keep swimming. be nice to people. everyone. be safe and try to be happy. it might take awhile, but the sun will shine again.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Sorry for you loss man. Hope you both are doing okay.

Mental illness sucks.

As far as the signs there are plenty of cases where everything seems fine, just as much as the ones where there are "obvious" signs.

There are plenty of people that are struggling with mental health problems that are funny outgoing people.

We tend to think of these people as all being somebody who's hiding in a dark room, not going to work, not talking to people etc.I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but there are plenty of people where if you look back you would think "everything was going fine, they were happy" etc.

Mental health is weird, we don't know that much about it. Unfortunately it's a taboo issue. It's been discussed more the last 5 years but still pretty under the rug imo. I mean breast cancer has a huge month, football players wearing pink etc, and the fucked up thing is a good amount of that has nothing to do with disease itself but the marketability of boobs.

How marketable is depression? Not very.

Hopefully his wife is able to keep things together and it doesn't push her down too hard. Obviously it's going to have a big impact, there's no way around that.

Remember when we were kids and we all wanted to grow up because it seemed so awesome? What the fuck were we thinking. It just seems the more years you live the further away from any shelter of innocence you move. It makes sense, but it still sucks.

As far as being mad at people I can understand it, but at the same time, they're in a fucked up spot. Sometimes people are hanging on through some shit just because they don't want to hurt the people around them, and that can be good in the sense of keeping them going, but can also pile on another layer to everything.

Don't beat yourself up about not recognizing the signs and not having been able to do anything. Not saying you were but just mentioning it. You could seem perfectly fine on the outside and be suicidal. Mental health is weird.

I'd love to do a fundraiser relating to skiing for this topic, but good luck getting that through. Marketing would be like "LOL NOPE". Understandable but sad. Yet at the same time, you can do a breast cancer fundraiser of any kind, any time, any place for the most part.

Fortunately I've only dealt with suicide on a professional leve and never a personal level but from my experience the signs are typically people reaching out wanting attention and the people who truly want to end it just do it



As already mentioned, just be there

Support id what is needed

I can definitely relate to feeling angry. One of my best friends took his own life about 7 or so years ago, and it was horrible for a lot of people. We had unresolved conflicts and hadn't spoke much in the year leading up to it. To this day his suicide is the thing I remember most about our relationship, despite years of good friendship that's not what I think about usually. Which is unique for me because with most every other death I've experienced I eventually reached some sort of acceptance and can reflect positively on that person's life after grieving their death. I'm not sure some wounds ever heal, that was some of the rawest stuff I've ever been through.

In all honesty, chances are I'm not going to get all that angry. It's just not who I am. I haven't had a chance to really sit down and talk with other friends, but that time will come later. There will be questions and I'm sure many will go unanswered, but it is what it is.

It's weird. One of my co-workers passed away this summer (she was morbidly obese and died of related health issues. We weren't close, but I work in a small office), but other than that, no one close to me has passed away since my grandpa back in 1998. I've been lucky to have a lot of love and a lot of life and a lot of happiness in my personal life (My work lends itself to lots of pretty darn dark and depressing stuff at times).

Regardless, it sounds like I'm going skiing this weekend, so that'll help get my mind off stuff.

Also, if it turns out you dont have much of an emotional reaction to it that's completely normal. Dont let people tell you that you just haven't dealt with it yet. Everyone deals with shit differently.

As someone that suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts for a majority of my adolescent life I can tell you its hard to keep that happy persona going for so long. You can only act like someone you aren't for so long before you just can't take it anymore. Depression is a fucking monster that eats at you with every step you take and if you aren't careful and don't ask for help before its too late, it can swallow you up and fucking spit you out. Lucky for me my attempts went unsuccessful and I was able to get help. Having the perspective of the other side I can tell you: It isn't your fault. Don't ever blame yourself for anything that happens to your friends. They don't want you to know because they think that they'll make things worse. Also, it gets much, much, much easier.

Barry.McCockinerAs someone that suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts for a majority of my adolescent life I can tell you its hard to keep that happy persona going for so long. You can only act like someone you aren't for so long before you just can't take it anymore. Depression is a fucking monster that eats at you with every step you take and if you aren't careful and don't ask for help before its too late, it can swallow you up and fucking spit you out. Lucky for me my attempts went unsuccessful and I was able to get help. Having the perspective of the other side I can tell you: It isn't your fault. Don't ever blame yourself for anything that happens to your friends. They don't want you to know because they think that they'll make things worse. Also, it gets much, much, much easier.

I can relate to all of that. I've been quite a hand full in the past but now I won't even speak on these issues despite them being there.

I've also found the easiest people to hide it from are social workers.

This morning i woke up to a suicide text message from one of my best freinds. I won't read the whole message, but It stared along the lines of "By the time you see this I will be long gone." Thankfully I managed to catch the text message right when she sent it to me despite it being 5 AM, I somehow manage to talk her out of it, and I believe I managed to really change her outlook and cheer her up, but to this point i still don't know exactly what's going through her head and am worried sick about her. The thing that freaks me out the most is that if that text message didn't wake me up she would most likely be gone right now. I've had a pretty messed up day.

C_DowdThis morning i woke up to a suicide text message from one of my best freinds. I won't read the whole message, but It stared along the lines of "By the time you see this I will be long gone." Thankfully I managed to catch the text message right when she sent it to me despite it being 5 AM, I somehow manage to talk her out of it, and I believe I managed to really change her outlook and cheer her up, but to this point i still don't know exactly what's going through her head and am worried sick about her. The thing that freaks me out the most is that if that text message didn't wake me up she would most likely be gone right now. I've had a pretty messed up day.

yeah, you need to immediately tell her parents. like now. You didnt get her out of depression through a text convo.

californiagrownyeah, you need to immediately tell her parents. like now. You didnt get her out of depression through a text convo.

The messed up thing is that that it out of the question, I really don't want to get into all the details because things will get to personal, but I dont know exactly where in the world she is at the moment or where she has been for a decent amount of time now, and I have no way of getting a hold of her parents or anyone else that could help in this situation. I know under normal circumstances it would be nearly impossible to talk someone out of depression over the phone, but due to what was bringing on these suicidal thoughts I may have hopefully pulled it off. I wont go into more details than this because things will get to personal, but basically she did something terrible to me and a bunch of her other friends and felt like an absolutely horrible person because of it. I know that I'm the only person that could possibly make her think otherwise, and I'm hoping that I managed to pull it off. Due to the mess of the current situation I really don't know what else I could possibly do at this point. I'm going to continue to keep in contact with her, and tell her the things that she needs / want to hear, but I really don't know what else I can do. Idk this whole situation is a mess.

C_DowdThis morning i woke up to a suicide text message from one of my best freinds. I won't read the whole message, but It stared along the lines of "By the time you see this I will be long gone." Thankfully I managed to catch the text message right when she sent it to me despite it being 5 AM, I somehow manage to talk her out of it, and I believe I managed to really change her outlook and cheer her up, but to this point i still don't know exactly what's going through her head and am worried sick about her. The thing that freaks me out the most is that if that text message didn't wake me up she would most likely be gone right now. I've had a pretty messed up day.

thats a cry for help. she needs help. make sure she gets it. if she only sent that to you, you mean alot to her. do everything you can to help her out

theabortionatorRemember when we were kids and we all wanted to grow up because it seemed so awesome? What the fuck were we thinking. It just seems the more years you live the further away from any shelter of innocence you move. It makes sense, but it still sucks.

Seriously though. What the fuck were we thinking.I just want to say fuck everything, and play in the sand box, or paint, or something. Life is a trip. It just doesn't make any sense sometimes.

To forget about all the bullshit in the world, in your life, and live in the moment. Let your mind go almost blank for even a few minutes. That's what skiing is for me though. I can't wait to get back on the slopes. Sometimes even in the worst seasons, the most horrid conditions, you just have those moments. It's on. Whether you're charging it in full on send mode, or just dipping low into some fat turns on groomers, a flowy line through the park. Where it becomes nothing but muscle memory. Robotic to an extent and you're just floating there. In that place where all the bullshit in the world couldn't wipe the smile off your face.

I just need some snow therapy.

This whole mentality that men can't talk about their feelings is bullshit. Anything remotely emotional is considered pussy and less manly. It's killing thousands of men a year. As a society, we need to get away from this notion that talking about your feelings makes you less of a man, or you're going to see men keep killing themselves at astonishing rates. Sorry to hear your loss.