survivors of suicide

Discussion in 'Mental Health' started by Samhain, Oct 12, 2006.

  1. Samhain

    Samhain Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    there are a lot of threads on here at present about suicide, I want this to be a serious thread for people that have attempted suicide and come through it and for anyone who knows someone who has commited suicide or tried to, in this way you will have been a survivor too, as you coped being close to someone.

    this is a hugely emotive subject, so I will edit any posts that I feel are being disrespectful and/or not taking it seriously.

    your experinces with this may help others that are at the moment feeling that suicide is the only way out or trying to cope with a family member or friend who may be at risk of taking their life.

    what advice can you give for supporting someone and coping and coming through this without actually going through with it?
    S
     
  2. Samhain

    Samhain Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    thankyou
    S
     
  3. Samhain

    Samhain Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    that was fine Dirk_Pitt
    S
     
  4. shirley

    shirley Member

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    Got pretty close last year before the police tracked me down..
     
  5. Balloonatic

    Balloonatic Senior Member

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    yes, i have. i really dont like talkin about it though.

    i have known a few people that have comitted suicide, and now i would never even think of putting someone else through what they made me go through.
     
  6. rebubla72

    rebubla72 Member

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    i od'd 5 years ago this month; my fiance` at the time found me. i spent some days in ICU and woke up with my parents standing over my bed asking me how i could do this to them? no one ever asked me why i did it. i was mad at first that i survived but was so happy to see my son's face on his birthday a few days after getting out of the hospital. that little boy keeps me going. the thought to do it again crosses my mind but i remember him & think of what it would mean if i were no longer here.
     
  7. moonlightdancer

    moonlightdancer Member

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    I have a friend who commited suicide. I, myself, have tried many times as well. It used to be my coping mechanism. As soon as something felt too strongly, suicide would immediately come to mind as an escape. After my last attempt (three years ago), I knew I had to change my ways of coping. I started practicing meditation and thinking mindfully as a way to de-stress. I find that the way to let go of the suicidal thinking for me was to take personal responsibility for my relationships with others. If I was going to commit suicide, I would have to let go of all of my relationships. It is my responsibility if anyone was to get hurt by my commiting suicide. Therefore, since I enjoy my friendships deeply, I now know that suicide is no longer as option for me. Now, don't get me wrong, I still have thoughts and destructive impulsive actions. But, they do not include death or negativity. I try to live my life in a way that I am adding to the greater Good.

    personal note: The person who first introduced me to the forums was hurt very deeply by my depression. My behavior was childish, egotistical and manupulative. I am sorry. You are so important to me.

    [​IMG]
     
  8. rebubla72

    rebubla72 Member

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    Last night my friend, who was like a brother to me, lept to his death. Now i know what happens to those left behind. Life is a hard lesson to learn; death even harder. ALex we love you.
     
  9. xscoutx

    xscoutx Member

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    i'm a survivor in that my younger brother killed himself
     
  10. vcr

    vcr Member

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    I was 30 years old, it was finals week, I was completing my 2nd year at a CA junior college with a 4.0 GPA, I'd been working full time, going to school full time, working as associate pastor for youth 20 hours a week at church, and twice during that period took care of my 3 year old daughter and my wife as she was on total bedrest in failed attempts to not miscarry, when the phone in the kitchen rang, my father was dead, by his own hand. I screamed so loud, and so awfully the police came.
    There was now no way I could ever be forgiven, no way to say I was sorry for having hurt my dad way back when I was 12 years old and screaming at him, at the top of my lungs, things I hope I never remember, the memory of the look on his face, will never leave me. It was a look that snapped my mouth shut, and drove me to a week of solitude in my room listening to Neil Young and Simon and Garfunkel, It's only castles burning, and I am a rock. What I did in that week I was to pay for mayhaps forever. I annexed emotions, totally amazing the psychologist my primary professor sent me to see at 33 when it became apparant that something was very wrong with the student he'd personally drafted into his research group 3years earlier, and who was headed for a "full ride" PhD program upon graduation.
    Something was very wrong indeed, I had crossed the ice blue line, in the first of what would become many horrific events, but perhaps being the first,the most dibillitating, I experienced catastrophic failure of the structural integrity of mind, of the I of me, in the place that has no space, insanity struck hard. Inside of 6 months I lost my god, my career, my wife, my kids and became homeless, but, I'd also survived my first, standing at the threshold of deaths door. For at least 5 full minutes I stood in the garage of a duplex in Turlock CA with the muzzle of a rifle between my lips, and my finger pressing on the unsafed trigger. My mind begged for release, demanded it, the thought of what my wife would find, stopped me.
    I'll be 50 in less than 2 weeks, and most of my life since then doesn;'t qualify as life. oh btw my father was an inpatient at a VA hospital when he bipolar disorder murdered him, the only resource I had available to me, I didn't take it, for fear of what happened to him, for over 12 years I existed while untreated bp progressed to one of it's worst manifestations, bp 1, mixed states, ultra rapid cycling, with psychotic component. As far as I'm concerned Stephen King is a teller of childrens bedtime stories.
    At 42 years old I nearly succeeded in what I am convinced was a covert "attempt", I ignored the symptoms of a bleeding ulcer until I collapsed with lips turned grey in the shop I was working/living at, the ER staff said I had maybe half an hour left when i showed up there and they squeezed the first of 5 units of packed red blood into me. A month later I had no option, I walked into a VA hospital and told them my story, it was over a year before I walked out again.
    Suicide? NO WAY I don't care how bad it gets, I will never do this to another person no matter how long I must live.
    sorry, but I"m not doing to well recently and this is the first time I saw this question, you asked about survival well there's survival, now if I might just find out what living is about, it just might be worth it.
    sine cera
     
  11. pattyp

    pattyp Member

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    I am so sorry for the pain expressed here. My son has been dead for 20 mos. He was murdered. Grief is terrible. I have found that starting a site for him helped. Someplace I could talk to him, anf light candles. The forums speak to every form of loss, and you don't have to host a site to get help. Please accept my deepest condolences. I know what you all are experienceing. To you VCR. Hang in there honey, you are not alone.:H
     
  12. superusername

    superusername Member

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    hi my name is dan i survived sucide my only attempt was last month. I tried to eat some pills after being depresed for 3 months. I have only told 1 person about it yesturday but all I renember is that my feelings were hella empty towards life when I was eating thouse pills and when I was in my last waking moments of life I thought I was gone but at peace. I woke up 24 hrs later my dad asking me while I slept so long and told him I was out all night getting fucked up and was hella tired. He believed me and I contoplated about it all day. I see now that I was not spose to die there and what ever life throws my way is just part of it. I don't believe Im ever going to end my life now Il see how it goes though but I can relate to people who need to do it they come to with death and that is the wisest and most foolish thing you can do in life. You chose to be here they chose not to be and they are probly happer now not that you should kill yourself but in the great order of things people who want to die just need to see the other side life is pointless for them and you shouldn't feel bad that there gone be happy. As for anyone contemplating sucide here are some lite facts about life
    1. Someone loves you
    2. Shit goes on
    3. How ever bad you feel is just as good as you can feel at a different moment.
    4. If you think you are too differnet or in general f ucked up from drugs or
    mental health renember what Lit John say "If your a Crazy motha fucka and you know it If you a crazzy motha fucka betta show it If your a scared motha fucka go to church" <you are who you are so live it up if your free do feel bad about it
    peace and love and hope you all make the best decision.
     
  13. Relic

    Relic Coming Unhinged

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    sorry somehow double posted
     
  14. Relic

    Relic Coming Unhinged

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    In 02 I had a friend that I work with and about 10p.m. one night her girlfriend called me and said they had broke up and Makala had just called her and tol her she would see her in the next life and they had no idea where she was she wouldn't ansewer the door at her house and they couldn't find her. She had just moved into town and she didn't know her way around so me and my hubby went to her place the door was unlocked so we went in. We found her passed out on the floor i could semi get her awake or at least to open her eyes. My hubby grabbed her up and took her to the car the hospital was 3 blocks away. I ran to the kitchen a found a empty bottle of tylenol with 3 pills still on the counter and several empty beer cans. The doctor at the ER told us that if Makala would have taken those three pills she would not have made it. I watch what they do to overdose victims and if scared the heck out of me. I thought about killing myself several times but that shocked so real since into me. I was so scared I never left her at the hospital. I delt with her family and friends that came they were all so up set because they couldn't see her some would just cry others screamed at me and asked who I thought I was to keep them from her. Me and my husband were the only ones she would see. I even went to the mental health faciltiy evrytime visiting hours were open. She told us how glad she was that she didn't die. It was all overwhelming. I am glad she made it but after she recovered as much as possible evreything the doctors told her not to do she did again a few months later drinking, drugs, taking tylenol for headaches. I couldn't take it anymore and had to cut her loose. I saw her earlier this year she was doing well she had finished college and told me that it not for us she wouldn't of had that chance. I wanted to but just could let her back in again. I was to scared.
    My sister-in-law has bp and mutiple personality dis order. She is always cutting & burning herself and trying different ways to kill her self. I have been there for her for so long to try and help her. she has beat up on me and my hubby for taking her sharp things she has been in and out of the hospital but this last time she refused to get help she just wantes us to let her use us for punching bags this time she was attacking my parents, my brother refused to take her to the hospital because she wanted to go to her son's wedding that weekend. They promised she would go in the following Monday. She never did they just keep her home. I have given up trying to help her. I know it is wrong but I mentally can't take it anymore. I struggle so much emotionally on my own that I can't handle hers anymore. She needs to get help but refuses. This probably makes me a bad person that I can't take anymore. but suicide and atempts are so hard on the people that are left behind or are the ones that truely suffer. Sorry all I kinda dumped alot on you
     
  15. Ehoney29

    Ehoney29 Member

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    In October of 2005, my best friend began trying to kill herself. She took pills two times within just a few weeks. Then a few days before Thanksgiving, she took more pills and she got real sick. She was throwing up for a few days. I had known about the first two times, but not the third. She told me that she had caught the flu from her mother and that's why she was sick. Then, the day before Thanksgiving, she decided that she needed to get help. So she told one of the teachers in our school. A mobile crisis unit picked her up from school, along with some detectives and took her to the local hospital. Her mother called me from the hospital and said that she was there and that my friend had taken pills. Not knowing that she had done it a thrid time, I assumed that my friend had taken more that day, so I didn't know if my friend was ok or not. All I knew was that she was in the hospital because she had tried to kill herself. Needless to say, that one phone call changed my life forever. I rushed to the hospital with a million thoughts going through my head. I found a nurse and asked to see my friend. I turned the corner and saw my friend sitting up on one of the hospital beds and it was the most relieved I have ever been. I sat and talked with her for a while. I didn't want to leave, but she told me that it was ok for me to go. The next day, Thanksgiving, she was supposed to call me and let me know how long she would be there and whatnot. So I waited all day and all night with no phone call. The worst day of my life. My father called the hospital and found out she had been taken to a mental institution about an hour away. She was there for 7 days. I visited her 5 of those days. then she was released and starting going to group therapy everyday. She didn't like it at all, so she stopped going. And all this time that everything had been going on, I was just a mess. I became terribly depressed. I lost weight and became an insomniac. I started having anxiety attacks. I worried every night about her. I always worried that I would say goodbye to her at the end of the school day, and that that would be the last time I ever saw her. So about 5 weeks pass since she's been out of the institution and I still knew she wasn't ok, even though she tried to act like she was. Then on January 20th of 2006, she finds out her mother has cancer, again. My friend was doing well, and I was terrified of what she would do. The 20th was a Friday, and I saw her next on Sunday. I went to see her at work. She saw me and just broke down, so I just hugged her. I told her that her mother would be ok and that everything would be fine. Again, I didn't want to leave her, but the store was closing. Her mother was supposed to have surgery the next day to get rid of the cancer. I told my friend that I would go to the hospital with her. So we made plans that she would call me in the morning and I would meet her at her house. So the morning comes and no phone call. I called her phone and it went straight to voice mail. So I was really scared. About 9 at night, her boyfriend calls me and tells me that my friend had left to New York to spend some time with her family and try to get her mind off things. I just began freaking out. I cried so much that I threw up. Her phone was turned off all week. That week was the lowest point of my life. Then on Thursday, I get a phone call from her. She said that she was at the hospital that she had been taken to a couple months before. So I went there and she explained to me what had happened. She had went home after work and had alot of suicidal thoughts. She began to cut her wrist in hopes of taking those thoughts away. Her wrist was the worst thing I have ever seen. She ended up taking 100 tylenol pills. Her mom called the cops and an ambulance came and took her to the hospital. For a couple of days, he was in the ICU, hooked up to all kinds of machines. When she was first brought there, she said there were about 10 doctors trying to save her life. She said she chad her boyfriend call me and tell me that lie about New York because she didn't want me to see her in the hospital the way she was. I know I definitely couldn't have handled it. the most amazing thing about all this is that now, almost a year later, she is in college, doing great. As for me, I'm still pretty messed up over everything with her and because of my own personal problems. The fear and feeling of not knowing if she was alive or dead as I was rushing to the hospital is still with me today, the worst feeling I have ever felt. But I thank God every night that she's ok. It's aboslutely incredible that she is totally healthy after all the pills that she has taken. A real miracle. She tells me that I'm the reason she's still alive. And that I gave her the courage to get help. I don't believe any of that because I was just trying to be a good friend. I know this is really long, but I just wanted to share my story with you guys. Me and my friend both believe that everything happens for a reason and I know that she went through all that to make her a better person. I'm sorry for you people who have lost someone to suicide. But I believe they're in a much better place and God needed them in Heaven more than he needed them down here. Sorry again that this is so long.
     
  16. AnOriginalName

    AnOriginalName Senior Member

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    hah. my two best friends just talked me out of it then.. i was pretty close, i'm just glad i didn't do anything i couldn't take back..
     
  17. dances in pajamas

    dances in pajamas strange little girl

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    My first fear was in freshman year. I knew if I went home from my therapist's office that night that I would not be alive the next morning. I was hospitalized that night, for the second time. I was lucky because I finally felt like I could say something.

    Every time I've tried someone has found me. My parents locked up the medication in the house after I was hospitalized the first time, knowing how suicidal I was. I picked the lock on the box my parents kept the medicine in more than once, sitting on the bathroom floor staring at the bottles, sometimes for hours. My parents came home and I had locked myself in the bathroom, once again contemplating swallowing bottle after bottle. After they caught me, the medicine was locked in a safe, a safe with a combination lock and the weirdest looking key I've ever seen.

    I've had many razorblades, stolen medication, thought of where I could get a gun. Every time I tried, someone walked in at the right time. I don't often think of suicide anymore. I think my most recent contemplation, which I could easily carry out, considering I have access to all my meds now, was in September. But I'm much more sensible about it now. I know how much it hurts to lose someone, and I try to make myself think of that when I feel like killing myself, which thankfully isn't too often.
     
  18. happyonehit420

    happyonehit420 Member

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    I haven't attempted suicide, but I do think about it often. My best friend just shot himself 2 weeks ago, and I've just been hella depressed ever since. I'm so mad at him for doing it....I wish I could've said something to him beforehand....at least a goodbye.
     
  19. Lodui

    Lodui One Man Orgy

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    I've been passively suicidal most of my life. I made several near attempts when I was a kid.

    My father is violent, hostile, and crazy. We'd go weeks without saying a word until he decided to pick a fight.

    I've lost a girlfriend and one of my best friends, and I'm afraid of getting close to people.

    Over thanksgiving my sister and her girlfriend were in town at my parents house. My sister and I have a cooking rivalry going on, and we were arguing about how many onions to put in mashed potatoes.

    My father came up and shoved me and demanded I get out of the house. I said no. He walked off cursing, threw some stuff around, and threatened to kill me before the ngiht was over.

    After that, I sheltered my sister and her girlfriend for a day. Shortly after thanksgiving my electric got turned off. I was living for a month without electicity before I could afford to pay it.

    Around December 23rd, I was going to do a small christmas thing with my mother.

    I've used there house as mail forwarding because I bounce around a lot, She ended up opening some of my mail and finding out I had unpaid traffic tickets, and broke into my apartment screaming at me and canceling christmas.

    She also accused me of turning the whole family against her.

    I'm prescribed heafty doses of Zoloft for depression and klonopin for anxiety and sleep problems. I quit taking them cold turkey on the 23rd.

    During the holidays, I was cleaning by myself awake for 4 days straight. At one point I gave myself a superficial cut on my thigh to relieve stress.

    Finally, I ended up calling up my mother and my aunt for help. They couldn't offer any advice at all.

    Finally I checked myself into a hospital. A mental health hospital in San Angelo. They got my medication stabilized. I gained 6 pounds which I had lost thourgh intense dehydration and malnurishment.

    I was there during New Years eve this year. They gave us little hats.

    I feel better now, I've eaten, and I've sort of put my life in a little bit of perspective.

    I've figured out what I need to do about school, and I've realise that my relationship with my mother is extremely unhealthy, and will be as long as my father is alive, which may not be long as he isn't well, mentally or physically.

    life can be rough, but theres still a lot left. I'm 21 and in great health, and I have a lot to look forward to.
     
  20. Justagrrl420

    Justagrrl420 Member

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    Two of my relatives have commited suicide, my best friend tried to commit suicide but survived. The thought has crossed my mind a few times when I was younger. I miss my family members, they were loved and wanted, there was no reason for them to go. :( But I guess they felt that there was no way out.

    My uncle shot himself in the head with a .22 back in September. The pain and turmoil that my grandmother and his two sons have gone through has been heart breaking. He was addicted to drugs, had been in rehab a few times before and was in serious pain. He had fibromyalgia and some severe burns that weren't healing and the doctors weren't helping him. I still can't believe that he did it. I found out after a drunken night, and hearing of my friend nearly getting raped..well her other friends who where with her thought that she had gotten raped so they came knocking on my door to see if I had seen anything. I had been passed out and had no idea. They said they had seen me, or someone that fit my description but I was so out of it I can't remember much. I was talking to my mom and had to go to the bathroom. I come back and my dad is writing me a message telling me to call the house. I call and he explains that my uncle was found dead. Everyone was in hysterics. I called my grandma because I didn't believe it, she was crying so hard. I love my grandma so much and those tears she cried I'll never forget the sound. It was a sound that made my heartbreak instantly. Everything after that was a blur, I had to go home, then we travelled for 2 days to get to my moms family. Spent a week arranging the funeral, spending time with family. I spent most of my time alone crying, because I didn't want anyone to see how upset I was. I was very close to my uncle growing up. He was like a father to me, and his sons were like brothers to me. So it hit me really hard. But I wanted to be there for my family. And I'm not one that likes to cry around family anyways. Never have been, I'm not the emotional type. The funeral was nice, some of my family I haven't seen in 10 years. So it was a family reunion/funeral at the same time. It's made me look at things in a different light. I'm now afraid of loosing people around me, especially family, since I haven't seen them in so long. I want to be able to know them and have a relationship with them. My family is extremely important to me and I miss them all so much.

    My cousin, killed himself by playing Russian Roulette, he had just found out that my uncle was his father and the family was getting to know him. It was really sad, I can't say that I really knew him, but I knew of him and he was family so I loved him. How quickly a life can go..

    My best friend who attempted suicide, od'd on tylenol at school. They couldn't get ahold of her parents so my family's an emergency contact, I recieved the phone call because I was homesick, or something can't remember if it was after I dropped out or not. But either way I got the phone call and started freaking out. I kept trying to call the hospital and find out how she was doing and they couldn't tell me anything because I wasn't family. And all I could think was "I AM FAMILY DAMNIT THAT GIRlS LIKE A SISTER TO ME, WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M NOT FAMILY!" Thankfully she was fine, but I still worry about her, since her parents haven't sought help for her and it's like it never happened to them.
     

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