Suicide

I was reading today about a 11-year old boy who hung himself after frequent bullying by other kids at school who thought he was gay. He didn't have to be, just they thought he was, and they were relentless, until he quit. He left this life we value so much. And while people are looking at the issue of why he chose to commit suicide, let's not forget what happened up to that moment, and why everyone else didn't see, and talk with him to help him with his feelings.

I'm more afraid in the aftermath a lot of people will start speculating about this incident, teen suicide and bullying among other topics around the issue. And there are always the verbal rubberneckers, those who have an opinion without any real understanding, knowledge or experience with suicide. Even people who know people who have tried or expressed the notion to try to commit suicide don't understand.

And that's the point. All the people in the world just don't get it. Ok, an overstatement, and not true. I've written a little about suicide in NP's. If you have to commit suicide, I can't think of a better place if you love the outdoors. And there's always the likelihood you can go so deep into the NP not to be found for a long time, if you want to be lost.

My point here? Well, depression so deep you're not just considering suicide but are close to succeeding. I lost a nephew to suicide and watch other families members die a slow death that may have been called suicide, they chose the long road to emptiness and then death. My Dad went to bed after his 75th birthday and quit life. My brother knew he was dying and went home to die in the place he knew the most.

And I'm always just a thought away from falling into the abyss where the only answer is suicide. I've been there and am still alive. I've learned my symptoms and have to continuously monitor my thoughts and feelings, only because I survived and know better, at least until the day I find life harder than I want to continue. And that's what I find frustrating in the discussion about suicide.

Too many people with no real experience or undestanding about suicide talk and too few who do want to stand up to give the truth and reality. No one wants to hear about the waste of a life, about hope of the future, or learn to be something they're not. It's angering to hear how suicide-susceptible people are "supposed" to view life because we're told we don't see or understand.

We do understand and we are entitled to our view of life. I'm angry the child took his life because of others, those who bullied him, those who turned a blind eye and deaf ear, and those who didn't see it coming. All the signs were there. I saw it in my nephew but my sister and brother-in-law didn't. They swear he was better while he was only hiding and disguising his feelings.

I know my view isn't the only one, or even close to the right one. I only know experience has taught me others are far more wrong than me and they oblivious to their ignorance. And I wish they'd stop talking and begin listening, to those who have been through to stand on the other side and didn't succomb to death by their own hand.

That's because it's not just about us but the world around us, we're just standing and living it and reacting and responding to how we're treated. We're not weak or don't care about life. It's just the rest of the world becomes too much and getting up every day is too much. That's what family and friends should know. We don't need to talk about it. We just need to know you're there to listen.

We don't need lectures or pep talks. We need an ear, one with heart to be there and listen without anything else except love and understanding. It's not hard, but it's also the hardest thing you'll do in your life. Listen as someone talks about the darkness and depths of their feelings. You want to save them, but only they can save themselves. And that takes time and patience.

And what we fear the most is that we may not succeed and they may decide their own fate. Try as we can, sometimes it's never enough. That's our reality and the reality of life. I don't know if anyone could have helped the 11-year old kid. All the talk will focus on problems and solutions, but it won't address the basic issue of the human heart. Even an 11-year old child's heart.

I'm sorry he's gone. I'm sorry for his parents and family. I'm sorry the world creates circumstances and situations where a child thinks about suicide. I'm sorry the answers aren't all in the child, but the rest of us. And that's our burden we're life with, our failure to see and understand. And that's the question we must ask ourselves, do we see and do we want to understand?

All the actions in the world won't matter if we don't see and understand. And tomorrow we'll read about someone else who committed suicide for reasons we all know. So, when will it end?

Naps and death

Since I retired to work on my small personal photography business and my photography and history projects, I can schedule my own time. I'm all things of my work these days, and while it's not always the best or wisest thing to do, it's what I'm doing, good, bad or indifferent. And this includes taking days off for other things, emergencies, and whatever else life throws in the way, such as putting the van in for service yesterday for a new clutch master cylinder and walking around the area on errands.

The one thing I have really liked is naps in the afternoon, especially after lunch on the days I've done my exercise in the morning and read the newspapers during lunch. Sometimes while lying on the couch the mind wanders into ideas, and it occurred to me, which isn't new by any stretch of the imagination, that death sometimes is a nap you never wake up from. And waking up from a nap reminds me that while I have to wake up and continue with my work and life, death wasn't on the schedule that day.

I read about these people who die in their sleep during the night. A nap is the same thing, except shorter and more conscious, but there always is a moment in the nap where you fall asleep and then wake up, usually for me 15-20 minutes later, but 30-60 minutes on days I'm really tired, often from a bad night's sleep. One moment you're thinking and the next you're thinking but time elapsed in between.

That's the interesting phenomena with naps. Two moments of life and consciousness in between moments of life and sleep. And one day, the second moment won't happen. You won't know or feel it. And that's the strange feeling when I lie down for the nap, I'm betting it's not my time and I'll wake up a little later. Or so I hope.

It often makes we wonder, what if I did die, What would everyone think when they walked into my place and saw where I was in life and work. My unique existence on this earth would cease and everything I was or had done is now history, which it is anyway, but now it's really history as there is no more and no more me to carry one. What would they think?

But then I wake up and roll on. Or so far anyway.

Being normal

I got to thinking about psychologists and the effort that is underway to update the Diagnostics Standards Manual, called DSM IV-TR in its latest iteration. I have no doubt that some of the conditions some people have and described, er. diagnosed, in the DSM are real and individuals need help if not intervention.

But I've slowly come to the conclusion those bunch of mostly white old guys are expressing more of their morality than a professional view of peoplef, and I say this for several reasons.

First, they call anything they think isn't normal abnormal. Ok, that's a word, but it's also a word that stigmatizes the individual that what life gave them and who they are isn't right and they're not like the rest of people, they're just not normal. They don't have a condition, but they have either a disorder or a diseaase, a mental health problem society wants them to at least treat if not cure them.

I find that repulsive.

People who are perfectly fine getting along and getting through life now have a label they're not one society thinks is normal, all because this crazy bunch of old white guys says so. Ok, that's a bad description of them, for today anyway, and there are a lot of good to excellent therapists and psychologists, but when you look back at the history of psychology up through the 1960's, it was established and dominated by a bunch of old white guys.

And they made it clear that their "opinion" was true and real about people, but in reality was just their opinion based on a set of observations they made with "patients" who they deemed mentally sick. And yes again, some were sick as some conditions are serious and require therapy, but some conditions in the DSM are simply made up ideas about being normal, meaning their morality of society.

I make no bones about the fact I have genetic (lifelong) Dysthymia. I was diagnosed in 1991 on Depression day (October) when I visited a clinic to see why have always had a mild depression since childhood with several episodes of severe depression. It turned out I was the only person that afternoon and had a near two hour conversation with a psychologist. I had a few followups with other psychologists, but mostly decided it wasn't worth the time.

Why?

Because psychologist have to first label you, meaning diagnose you using their interpretation of the DSM, and then they cure you, or they try. But the trick is this form of Dysthymia isn't curable, not with drugs, not with therapy, and not with a combination of both. These can help you deal with it and get through life better, but it doesn't do the one thing that is most important to you.

They don't inform and educate you about it. I've had some say I'm self-diagnosed, and that is partly true. After the session that day I read the DSM for a variety of conditions. I found and have a small collection of books dedicated to Dysthymia (since it's only given a passing glance in 99% of psychology books). And I listened to interviews with psychologists about depression and its various forms.

In short, a psychologist pointed me in the right direction seeing who and what I was and I followed the information trail. And I've followed the trail to understand it, to learn to live with it and to get through life. I'm a normal human being, as normal as everyone else. And that's my beef with the DSM.

Its used to punish people. And it's used by the medical profession to control people, to exercise power that you're abnormal and they're not, and they have the knowledge and tools to cure you if you go along with them, meaning don't fight the diagnosis and treatment, and certainly don't disagree with their view of you.

And this is where I part company with them and the DSM. I'm not sick. I'm just me. We all have our own quirks, maladies and demons, and we all have our childhoods that we bring into and carry through our life. But does any of these make us "sick" simply because a buch of old white guys wants to think and say we are?

I learned the ways to improve myself, both physically and mentally, through exercise, photography and my focus on what I want to express in the world to help others. That doesn't mean despression is gone, it's always in the background of my mind and only a step away from my consciousness to take over, and perhaps fall into an abyss, to find the total darkness of my existence for awhile, until I light a candle and climb back into life.

And I know all the drugs in the world won't help, and could actually hurt. For me, in a way, my Dysthymia keeps me sane and focused, and in a way a little angry. I may see the world a little negatively and have difficulty comprehending others' inability to see the whole of life and the world (people forget that ignoring things doesn't change things), but it's the world I see and live, which is fine with me.

And I don't have a problem telling a bunch of old white guys to go fuck themselves.

And all this isn't just about Dysthymia. The DSM has other conditions they've long labelled abnormal, some removed, like cross-dressing (now a fetish, which I wonder if some of them are and didn't like the label) and homosexuality (only because some of their own came out of the closet), and some deserving of removal, like transgenderism which is just the normal range of sex-gender expression and behavior (some of them are now, so there's hope for others). And I'm sure you have their peeves with some of the conditions.

Anyway, I roll on through life knowing the DSM is a good door stop, paper weight for flattening print (no, I don't really have a copy of it, God forbid, it's a waste of money when it's on the Internet), and other neat things for something big, boxy and heavy. But most of all I'd like to see the word abnormal abolished from the lexicon of psychology. You'd think a bunch of old white guys could find a better way to make people feel good about themselves?

Shadows and ghosts

I was listening to NPR's Saturday Weekend Edition with Scott Simon's interview of Patrick Hemingway. Scott asked Patrick about the "shadow of suicide." I forgot Patrick's answer but it wasn't about suicide, but it got me to thinking about the incidence of suicide in people and families.

And the thought?

Well, in short, the shadow of suicide runs in families, wired in the brain, and pased on to each generation, wired in descendent to awake when the circumstances arise or the situation occurs. We, in such families, all have the reality of suicide that runs in our mind, and most of the time quietly resides where shadows dwell, out of the light of the day, but it walks through the past, present and future of the family and engulfs some to act.

The ghost of suicide sits in our mind, often throughout their life and sometimes absorbing our soul and spirit to fall into the depths, and maybe the solution many think is wrong or worse. Yet, those who know not the mind of those afflicted never feel or begin to grasp our ghost, and know not the depths of our affliction to seek solace in the darkness for answers and solutions. It is our ghost.

The ghost always lives in the shadow, the shadow of the family, to appear when genetics and experience are right, and the individual experiences the ghost as their own, to fall into the deepest cavern of depression where some succomb and succeed, and the rest are never the same. It prevades our mind and our life, throughout it all.

As some people stand in the sun and find happiness, we stand in the sun for the warmth from the darkness and respites from the ghost. And we fear it won't last before the shadow blocks it and the ghost appears. And we struggle through the darkness for the next light and warmth from the sun, hoping, knowing the consequences if it doesn't. We sometimes fear our own mind, where and when it falls under the shadow under the spell of the ghost.

So, we live in the shadow and with our ghost, for we know in the end, death will win, by our own hand or by life itself. And we will find relief from our existence, an escape our history, and freedom from our ghost.

Suicide in NPs

I was reading an article on suicides in National Parks. It's interesting. Not because someone wouldn't commit suicide in a National Park, but because people forget suicide is about time and place. Everyone who commits suicide has to determine, when, where and how to die. And everyone who commits suicide wants to die in a place they love and find comfort.

What's so hard to understand? A National Park is a beautiful place to be and people find a person connection to be there. Some for a visit and some, like me, for a lifetime to keep going back. And some would like to die there. I plan to have my ashes spread in my favorite spot, if I can arrange and the National Park Service is accommodating, which I understand they are, and if they're aren't, people do it anyway to the departed.

So why the inerest in the article?

Well, I once thought about what I would do if faced with emmient death, meaning know the short time I have left alive due to some calamity, illness or accident. I doubt anyone would be able to find me, at least well into the future and I've essentially disappeared from this life. Harsh and cruel? Not really. Facing certain immediate death, we all should have the right to choose when, where and maybe how. That's just being humane and human.

And as I've written, I've seriouslythought about suicide twice, and once planned and nearly executed it, stopping just a handfull of seconds before fulfilling it. I'm not always sure what changed my mind, but something did and It haunts me still why I did and why I didn't. It's the reality of living with Dysthymia, suicide isn't always far from the surface of your consciousness, sometimes to pester you with hints about life and death.

It's no longer a serious thought with me anymore, or at least it hasn't been since the early 1990's between my brother's death and my Dad's death. But I still have to be conscious of it to make sure it's not just hiding. So I can understand what the article is saying, but I don't understand why it's a concern. How many people jump off the Golden Gate Bridge every year? Too many but they know it's a reality of the bridge and its attraction.

I'm also curious what training the rangers get for suicide prevention. Enough to stop it and get them to help? I can't see where they would get more because talking with someone on the edge about to commit suicide is risky and touchy, and I doubt that many rangers have the perspective and experience to save but a few lives. And do they get a standard method of persuasion? While I know rangers have a lot to do, with only two dozen or so suicides every year at all the the most common spots, I can't see where it makes them sufficiently qualified to be a suicide counselor.

The article didn't say how many they prevented, so it's hard to say if their efforts works, except I expect it does in some places and at some times. But if a person were convinced to commit suicide, only luck would make a ranger save that person. National Parks are too big and public to stop everyone, and you don't know if some deaths are accidents or suicides, and we know there at least one or more orders of magnitude more accidents in National Parks, so the rangers have more important things to learn and do with visitors than worry about the rare person who wants to die.

Anyway, I don't have an answer, just an observation. I don't have a problem with rangers helping the obvious ones, but the rest? They shouldn't worry about them, the rangers didn't walk in their shoes to understand, and if they did, who knows what they would do then. The best you can do is know they died in a place they loved.