Suicide

[murphyc]

YF, thank you for starting this thread. Suicide, or even depression in general, is one of those "Shhh, don't talk about it out loud" type of subjects. But it needs to be brought out into the open.
However, the last line in the original post has been gnawing at me since I first saw it: "If anyone is ever suicidal, please reach out to someone." I understand what you're saying and I fully trust it wasn't typed in any kind of condescending way at all. Still, it kind of struck me the wrong way and here's why: when you are seriously contemplating suicide, you're not thinking clearly. You don't want help, you just want the pain to go away. Maybe if someone sees you're not fine and gets you help, that would be okay. But you're past the point of reaching out for help on your own.
At least that has been my experience.
Yes, I've considered suicide in the past. There was the 1990-91 school year, eighth grade. I was in a new state, had a real hard time making friends, my brother had left for college and I was miserable. I was (am, and always will be) a Dale Earnhardt fan. If Earnhardt hadn't been kicking butt at that time, I don't know if I would still be here. I was so miserable, watching Earnhardt run well and win titles was just enough to keep me going.
I was depressed again after high school, but not to that extent. Besides, I was looking forward to starting college.
About a year and a half ago, I fell into the suicidal rut again. I found myself looking at various overpasses while driving and imagining which would be the best to jump from. My relationship with my wife wasn't going well, our son was being a pill, finances were tough and I didn't really want to go to work each day. In some ways, the depression was even worse this time around than in eighth grade because now I had a family that depended on me. Plus I've been a Christian since I started college, so there was that pressure as well.
What saved me? I apologize in advance, but I'm going to get a touch preachy. I went to an event called Men's Roundup, a Christian weekend held in Oregon each September. I realized how lost I had become and God drew me closer to Him. I realized I hadn't been spending much time with God or reading the bible and it was showing. Not that things are perfect now or ever will be, since I'm a human after all (and still a journalist), but I'm doing much better and I give God all the credit and glory for that. I started ushering at my church after years of teaching Sunday School with my wife and realized God was calling me to serve in a new way. Last spring God tapped me -- yes, the guy who didn't want to live a few months before -- on the shoulder and called me to restart Men's Ministry at church.
Bottom line: there is hope out there.

 

[YankeeFan]

Very happy to read your story.

Thank you for sharing.

And, I know you're right. When someone is suicidal, they don't want to talk to anyone. So, maybe I should ask people to reach out to friends and loved ones that they know deal with depression. When you don't hear from them might be when they most need to hear from you.

And, they might not answer the phone, but everyone reads their text messages, even when they are isolating, and don't reply.

 

[albert77]

A boys basketball coach at the big private school I used to cover walked into the locker room one morning before school, put a pistol to his head and blew his brains out. He'd been fired a couple of months earlier and I guess he was despondent about his chances of finding another job. I wrote what I thought was a good story about it, but our editor (who lived next door to this coach and his family) spiked it, he said, because he wanted to spare the family's feelings. I think he was just too close to the subject.

I'd like to say suicide is the ultimate selfish act, but I've been there too. I went through a phase where I thought about just driving off the road somewhere. Thankfully, I told my wife, she called my physician and he got me in that day to start treatment for depression, for which I still take medication. I'm glad I went through that, because it helped get our daughter through a rough stretch when she was dealing with bi-polar disorder and basically spent a whole year holed up in her bedroom writing very dark fiction and poetry. She later said the only reason she didn't commit suicide was she knew how devastated I would be (she's a real daddy's girl). She's better now. She recently graduated from college and has a steady boyfriend for the first time, but she still takes medication and is keenly aware of her moods at any given time.

 

[SFIND]

 

[novelist_wannabe]

I've actually wrote about suicide a lot when I was covering preps. There were three during a two-month stretch at one point and all were football players of varying prominence. One of the private high schools made a very impassioned case that we shouldn't report on it, because it would inspire more suicides.

Going into those living rooms to interview the families forever changed me.

In the aftermath of each, I got hundreds of messages from all different directions. Everything from "Why aren't you covering this epidemic more?" to "Why are you glorifying such a shameful, selfish act?" to "If these kids wanted to be dead, we should let them die."

It's not a time of my career I look upon fondly.

One of my best friends told me recently that he's had thoughts about it before. Not serious, but things like "What would happen if I just drove my car off the road? What would the reaction be?" and it scared the **** out of me. I immediately told him to call me if he ever has thoughts about that again, but when I really thought about it, I even remember times during my younger years when I had similar strange fantasies in my mind, but never acted on them, of course.

The whole topic is awful and fascinating at the same time.

I wrote one about a star quarterback whose dad committed suicide. Went to their house. Asked one question and his mom started bawling. The whole thing just tore me up. I did a couple of stories about student-athlete deaths, but they weren't suicides.

For this family, there was light on the other side of it. The kid is happily married with two kids now and at least by appearances on Facebook he has recovered quite well.

 

[ChrisLong]

One of he toughest interviews I ever did was with a mid-major basketball coach whose daughter died from anorexia nervosa. This probably isn't suicide, technically, but might be in the same classification. She was 21, a beautiful blonde, who just stopped eating. I had met her a couple of times and always said hello when I saw her at the games. I heard about her death from a source at the coach's school and went through that source to set up the interview. He got back to me and said the coach wasn't ready to talk about it, but I would get the first interview when he was ready. That happened a few months later. Very difficult, interviewing a grown man who is crying his eyes out, while I was trying to not cry my eyes out. "She didn't want to die, she just couldn't force herself to eat."

 

[Smallpotatoes]

Yankee Fan, I'm sorry to hear about that. Almost 23 years ago I had a cousin who killed himself. He just split up with his wife and was running his own business, which I guess wasn't going to well.
I sent my aunt a card after it happened. Until then, I always thought she didn't like me much. She always seemed kind of critical of me. In retrospect, I think she probably just felt I had more potential than I was showing and wanted me to do better.
We got along a lot better after I sent the card and became much closer. For me, I guess something good came out of it, but would still much rather have had my cousin still around.