Suicide w/ no warning -- what do you say/do? How do you make sense of it? - Page 2

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by momtoS 

My brother took his life last week. So shocking to all of us. Never had any clues that he was in pain or thinking about suicide. Never.  I can't imagine him doing this and hurting us (especially my parents) like this.  It is so hard to understand.

I don't know your brother, but I do know depression (at least my depression - it does seem to manifest a little differently from one person to another). When I'm suicidal, it would never even cross my mind that my death would hurt anybody, because it would never cross my mind that I matter enough to anyone for that. I pulled myself away from it when ds1 was about six, by reminding myself that if he were the one who found my body, that experience would scar him for life...but I still didn't really believe it would hurt him. I thought he'd be better off without me (and  my ex was barely employed and refusing work for no reason, doing nothing around the house, barely interacting with ds1, and sliding down a path of crack addiction that eventually ended up with him on the streets, then in jail). I truly believed that the best thing I could do for my son was remove myself from his life. Depression is really, really, really ugly.

[cisonit]

Sad to hear of all the suicides that have taken place but the only way to make any sense of it is to not try to. I work as a Mental Health Therapist and before I graduated, I worked as a Psych Tech and sadly, a lot of men don't show obvious signs and tend to be more lethal in the method of how they commit suicide. Not sure who is to blame, society, the family, the person or all 3 but at a certain point it may help to reach out to some organization that does address this issue...maybe even volunteer some time to prevent someone from doing the same thing. It's a little more acceptable in a lot of societies/cultures for a women to express her emotions and reach out for help than a MAN(smh). Not to say suicide with no signs do not happen with woman but it is not as common.

I will keep the families/friends that have shared loss in my prayers!!!