Gloom and doom today on the way home from college classes.

[Jamastiene]

I was driving on the 6 lane part of Highway 74 on the way home and there was this woman walking in the middle right toward traffic on my side of the road. She was more in the lane to the left, but I didn't see her until almost too late. She was talking to herself and walking with a cane. She was wearing a red tshirt, shorts, and tennis shoes with no socks. She had this look in her eyes that I have seen in the mirror during my darkest hours of depression. There was a cop trying to get her out of the road and she was still steadily walking toward 55 mph traffic right in the middle of the highway.

About 5 years ago 2 teenagers committed suicide using the trains in Hamlet, so the police have started patrolling the tracks and putting barriers up to keep the younger people in this town from committing suicide that way. It's a depressing place to live. That's pretty much agreed on by everyone here who has any heart or brains.

Seeing this lady was hard for me. Part of me wanted to run from her, part of me wanted to stop the car and get out and walk beside her right in the middle of the road, and part of me wanted to stop and try to help her. I didn't know what to do so I just drove home bawling like a little baby. My heart sank so low seeing that. I think the part of me that wanted to help was dying a little inside. I can't quit thinking about it. I know the local newspaper won't tell if they were able to get her out of the road. They only printed the teenagers obituaries without pictures and didn't list the suicide as why they died. We just knew because we either knew them or knew someone who knew them (like I did).

Should I feel guilty for letting the police handle the situation? Why did part of me want to join her?

[skygazer]

1. First of all, you shouldn't feel guilty

Had the police not been there, it might have been an option to stop and try to get her out of traffic but they were there and I'm sure they'll call the appropriate agency to help if need be.

You wanted to join her because sometimes it's easier to go with a person that to face the awfulness of thinking of them going alone. That means you're a compassionate person. :hug: That's a good thing.

Hard thing to see - I teared up just reading this. It's a terrible thing to think about the unhappy and unfortunate that wander the world alone.

I guess all you can do is do what you can and try not to dwell upon that which you can't change. By that I mean contribute to charities, volunteer if possible, help those you can help, work to elect official who care and do all that you can to make others aware of those lost people.

:grouphug:

[Jamastiene]

2. Thank you for that insight. I wondered why part of me wanted to

join her so badly. I guess it's because I've been there in my feelings before. Or at least, I've thought about it in the past. It's a hard place to be all alone. I'm just glad the police were there. I have to give some of the local police some credit. They do try to take care of us somewhat. I hope they can help her in any way she needs. She looked so distraught. I saw her face. I shouldn't have looked, but I did. I couldn't help it. I didn't want to hit her for sure and to some degree I had to look at her face while I was hitting the brakes. I didn't want the car in the next lane over to hit her either. I wanted them to be able to get into my lane in front of me. I didn't want them to hit her either. She looked like it didn't dawn on her that either of us could have tangled up with each other and hit her in the process. She just looked so distraught. I look into people's eyes. That's a positive sometimes, but sometimes it hurts too much. I think that is the difference between us the the right. They are dead inside and we still care. I just hope she gets help and has a happier life in the future.

[cssmall]

3. It's because you are going through two culturally significant phenomena.

Survivor Syndrome and Status Identification. With survivor syndrome, you have survived depression without committing suicide (though perhaps not through lack of trying), therefore, you, having empathy, want to protect that woman and aid her in a time of need. And, because, you did nothing, you have a perceived lack of caring. But, because you feel this way, you have proven that you care.

As for staus identification, you have been depressed once. The status of that specific state of being does not end. You will always identify whether you want to or not with people that have been or currently are depressed.

As to the town, why is it so depressing?

Also, I'm glad you are still around that you have come from your depression and can talk about your problems. That is exactly why we need social, cultural and perhaps even mental groups that aid people through that hard time in their life.

:hi:

[Jamastiene]

4. "As to the town, why is it so depressing?"

For one thing, the poverty rate here is over 50% of the people here. We have an extremely high crime rate for a small town and only 55 officers for the whole county. There are no opportunities here. That is not an understatement. The jobs that were here were the cotton mills. They are forever gone to China, Mexico and who knows where else. For young people, it is especially hard.

Up until only recently, every time anyone tried to provide any musical entertainment for the young people, it was called devil worshipping and shut down. Young people turned more and more to drugs to alleviate the depression. They used to ride around the shopping centers on Saturday nights for something to do on the weekends, but that was banned too because people who were trying to do their grocery shopping complained. Imo, the teenagers shouldn't have to drive around a shopping center in circles on the weekends. There is no reason they can't have something to do that is fun and positive at the same time. Recently, a few new more openminded Christian groups sat down with a few of the bands and made an agreement that if they only performed either Christian rock or songs appoved by them, they could play. That went nicely until a few bad apples made it violent. Now, most of the younger people don't attend the concerts because they fear the violence. The police stepped in to try to watch for the group that calls itself "the Irish Mafia" from East Rockingham that wants to keep black people from attending anything. Years ago, we had a teenclub that was closed because they started so much trouble when they saw some black kids dancing with white kids at the club. They threw rocks into the windows and destroyed the front of the building and the owners were forced to close it eventually.

As far as organizations or charities locally, there are only 2 or 3 locally run groups that I know of. One is the Humane Society which has its hands full trying to treat animals that have been abused, not just neglected. Pit bull fighting and cock fights are very popular here. I won't go into too many ghastly details but I once worked at a grooming salon and the Humane Society brought some of the dogs they had confiscated to us for baths. One was a toy poodle that had been taken away from a man who had been caught standing in the front yard having sex with the dog (sodomizing it). Another dog was a pit bull that had been brain damaged and torn up from the fighting. The people who had owned it fed it gun powder to make it meaner. It was sad. I saw too much and I don't want to remember it all. I want to forget.

The only other organization around here that I know of is a domestic abuse group that has its hands full trying to keep women and children protected from abusive families. A child had to be treated for exposure from freezing temperatures a few years ago because the parents had made the child drink an entire gallon of water before going to bed and when the kid wet the bed, they made him sleep outside in temperatures below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. He ended up being taken away thankfully by the state to live away from those parents. The weird thing about that is that I worked 2 houses down from where that happened and the next house over from that had a child who used to wander around in his diaper in 55 degree temperatures. When my aunt came by to pick me up from work that one day, we had a small distance to do before we stopped at the stop sign. The kid (about 3 or 4 years old) came to the car and knocked on the door and begged us to take him home with us and feed him. The parents started yelling at US because we stopped to keep from hitting him. He was in the road at the stop sign. We told authorities about it and listened to the wrath of the parents who weren't jailed the next morning.

Luckily, that was our last day there before my boss set up shop in a better area of town. There were problems galore there too. One of the new neighbors she met there, a lady I really liked, comitted suicide because her son had to carry a gun for protection when he was away from home and one night when he got home, he took the gun out of his pocket and it got caught on his clothes and killed him. She never got over it. She called one of the neighbors and killed herself.

As a matter of fact, I'm curious to know what the actual suicide rate is here. I bet it's high. I know of several who have committed suicide and I knew at least 2 people personally who committed suicide. I was the last to see Stanley alive too. He died under the bridge I drive over every single day on the way to community college. He was a good friend. I still miss him.

I could go on and on, but this is already too long. I know of at least two murder attempts that have happened here (one successful, if you want to look at it that way) where parents have taken hammers to a child's head to kill them not in malice but as a mercy killing because they can't afford to take care of them any more. It's a terrible place. I hate Richmond County, NC. That's all I know.

[cssmall]

6. Hm.

And, according to the statistics that I just read, the poverty rate is high in Rockingham, which is the problem. I know the same thing, though not in the terms of poverty. Mainly the rich only allowing themselves the comforts of freedom.

What are you studying in college? The goal of us here and people of the left are to aid those poor and those powerless, especially us social scientists. So, please, though easy it may be to turn your back, no matter what you do with you life, do not forget your home. Return to it. Help it.

[Jamastiene]

7. That is one thing I have always wanted to have the power to do.

I am studying Computer Engineering and Electronics Engineering. I have always had dreams of doing something fun that would create jobs. I have this one idea for a RC (remote control) Racetrack/Treasure Hike Amusement Park for kids and teens. I know from previous attempts by business owners here that I would have to fight to get it done. The main thing would be that it would be cheap for kids to enter their remote controlled cars/boats/airplanes into the race and if they won, they could go on to the next race for free. If they won the final race, they would win some cash amount ( I haven't figured out the cost ratio, but it would be at least $25 to $50.) In the center of the track, I'd like to set up hot dog stands and other concession stand areas rented for cheap so people could make some money cooking hot dogs and homemade recipes for the crowd. The main idea for the whole thing would be the cheapest possible entertainment so people could enjoy themselves. Also, the treasure hunt would be an all day entry fee (again cheap) and they would each get their own map for different "treasures" buried in different locations on the course. On the side, I would mainly concentrate on a "pit stop" repair shop for the remote control toys. The main expense would be the land. I would want it to be close to the current race tracks and feature a camping store as well. If they developed that area as a business area, they could create jobs and bring some tourists back. They lost Nascar because they didn't put the lights in. There is no reason we couldn't do our own thing with the track. I have tons of ideas for fun places for young people and older ones alike. A theme room restaurant, the amusement park, a skate park (kids like skateboards here, but have to skate in the streets and dodge the police), a library/media center learning day care where younger kids could go after school and learn about all sorts of subjects in a fun way. I have tons of ideas that the people here could actually benefit from, but I am barely scraping by myself as it is. I do want to leave one day just for the opportunities. I'd like to fight the doubting thomases and negative attitudes here though and send some happiness back for the teens.

[hfojvt]

8. wow, that is pretty depressing

it was not that bad in 1979 which is the most recent year I have stats for. Lots of job loss since then apparently. It seems to have been "whiter" than neighboring Scotland county. I am not sure what to make of that.

From my experience in a town of 5,000 it is pretty hard for a youth center/arcade to make any money. However, for him the ministry may have been part of the problem. He operated by raising donations and with volunteer workers, of which I was one.

[childslibrarian]

5. You are going to college and

Trying for a better life. Become what you can be and then come back to help. They will need your strength and your compassion...