Reporting suicides

Everyone experiences varying degrees of depression. It's a natural part of our chemistry. It took me a good three years to fully recover and find some peace with the deaths of my father and my brother. The healing pattern varies, and there are a lot of dark holes along the way.

I say again that suicide is a SELFISH coward's refuge, which is visited tenfold on the survivors. If anyone ever even thinks of it, they should consider their loved ones. They're the people who are going to have to carry the load.

 

Not everyone experiences that level of depression. And you never know what somebody else is going through. Of course people should consider others, but when you are in a deep enough hole you can't see any light.

 

And I say again: maybe you don't understand what it feels like. Otherwise, you would be a little less inclined to pass judgment.

Suicide is not about respect.

 

No, I have no idea what it's like.

I grew up in the teen suicide capital of the U.S.

 

I didn't say "don't know what it's like." I said "don't understand what it's like." There IS a difference.

(I did not know there was a teen suicide capital, unless you're talking about Vegas, which is the suicide capital of everywhere. But I digress.)

 

I wasn't trying to start a philosophical debate on being killed versus killing yourself.

I was trying to start a realistic debate on the difference between printing one and not the other. I don't give a shit who thinks what's cowardly and what's note. I'm give a shit about trying to find a practical answer why we report A but not B.

 

I have to agree with Buck here, LBJ. I don't think you really understand what some of these people are going through. And there are very different kinds of depression, and in some chases it is physiological and brutal in a way that you and I can't possibly imagine.

I've got a friend who has a family history of severe clinical depression. Her mother tried to commit suicide a couple of years back. Told no one. Just disappeared, drove to a motel a few hours away and downed a bunch of pills. They found her in time to save her.

My friend has battled depression her whole life and sometimes she is terrified that she will try something like her mother did and succeed. It's not just life's trials (she's had plenty of those), but a physiological problem that has needed treatment.

I am sorry to hear about your father and brother. I understand exactly how it feels to watch somebody fight like hell while cancer eats them up inside. That's exactly how I lost my father.

And yet, I can still understand try to understand that some people who commit suicide (and I say some, not all) are succumbing to a physical condition, just as he did.

 

My hometown had a rash of suicides when I was in high school. The first few basically were hush-hushed, and no one was addressing the major issues we had in the community -- drug overdoses and abuse, alcohol abuse, clergy abuse. Once the papers came in and did stories on it, people finally unburied their heads for a millisecond to acknowledge issues.

 

My point exactly

 

I wanted to share this [Torrance, Calif.] Daily Breeze story on the suicide of a 17-year-old high school football player to continue the debate on this issue: http://www.dailybreeze.com/sports/prep/articles/5081961.html. Its headline: Posthumous honor: Morningside player's suicide leaves questions.