Boxing These Down, Here
54 minutes ago
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Holes in people's lives
I guy I went to High School committed suicide a few days ago. It's taken me some time to process it. We weren't super close, but close enough that I went to his wedding. While we didn't usually hang out, we've share a few beers at barbecues and the like. Most of us know people at that level. It could be classmates, coworkers, friends of friends and the like. While not close buddies, we had enough in common to have things to talk about.
Now he's gone. One day he went up his deer stand and hung himself. I don't really know why.
Sure his house was being foreclosed on and his truck repossessed. His love life was a mess. A few years back he lost a good manager's job. It was tougher to make a living as small businessman. There were a few other things that I suspect might have been bothering him, but I won't get into it here.
Not everyone with those problems takes their own life. At least, I hope not, as a number of my friends are dealing with similar issues. So far, they keep on keeping on.
Even though we were not super close, his death will keep affecting me for years. Suicide punches a hole in a web of relationships. Already I'm dealing with the depression of those who were very close to him.
Death is hard enough and I'm no stranger to it. Accidents, disease and old age are things we deal with. No one gets out of this world alive. However, quiting the game before your time is worse. The whole thing about it being an unnecessary death is a punch to the gut.
-Sixbears
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I felt similarly about a guy that I was in school with from first grade to 12th. We'd been in Scouts together, too. He lost his job, started drinking, gambled his material goods away and blew his brains out. I hadn't seen him for several years, but I still bump into some of his family on occasion. I don't think people realize the hurt they're leaving behind them.
ReplyDeleteIt's a huge hole that doesn't have to be there.
DeleteThey don't, Gorges, you're right. I used to work in psychiatry for years and met many people with depression. I remember a woman whose daughter had been killed by a hit and run car, she had another daughter and a husband, and yet she was so low that she felt worthless and just wanted to die. She had tried to kill herself on several occasion and succeeded by jumping off from a car park. In our town, another young woman recently killed her three young children and then killed herself. The grief for the families must be unbearable. I have long thought that depression is an extreme form of self-pity, and people in that state just can't see the damage they cause to others.
ReplyDeleteNo they don't. Nor do they know how far the damage reaches.
DeleteMy commiserations Sixbears...
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteI, also, have lost people to suicides. It is a selfish thing to do, but, we are all fighting some kind of battle. However, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. You immediately are experiencing two emotions, anger at the way they left and sadness that they are gone. Not to mention guilt at not being able to stop it. My condolences to his family and friends.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your condolences.
DeleteThe trouble with suicide is that there is no second thoughts. Once one kills himself, there is no reversing it. Although there are people and causes I would give my life for, I would never just take it. So sorry for you and your friend.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dizzy.
Deletehi. i have a form of depression. after years of doctors testing thyroid and saying nothing wrong with you and one doctor saying 'people get done what they want to get done.' -- in other words, 'you're lazy.' . a decent doctor told me that i had B-12 anemia. i didn't know of such a thing but the other doctors should have!!
ReplyDeleteyears of misery, not counting what lack of B does to the body, all for no reason.
if any of you are depressed try st. john's wort [but not if you work in the sun].
if your doctor is worthless to you, go to a different one!! one you keep going back to an eatery where the cooking was bad? don't go to a doc who is not helping you.
also discovered , thru PBS program that many years of agony could have been saved if i had known i cannot digest gluten.
the agonies of the physical health contribute to depression.
hope it helps someone.
Bible says God makes a way out.
remember to let Him help you.
deb harvey
I am sorry about your friend six bears, I don't understand people who commits suicide or even those who think about it. I have had a lot of dark days during my lifetime but I look at life that there is a solution for everything no matter how tiny that solution may be.
ReplyDeleteA toast for absent friends and the choices we face. I wish for him all the peace now, that he could not find in this life. Hail and fare well, Friend of Sixbears.
ReplyDelete