It is the season of Suicide - what can we do to help out?

[The Straight Story]

I have been there, tried to kill myself once with an overdose. Things were bleak, and I still shudder thinking about those times.

So many people out there in our country are depressed right now and only getting worse. They are our friends, neighbors, co-workers, family, and so on.

Money pressures, impending law suits, bad marriages, loneliness, lost hopes, etc linger in the mind of people - especially at this time of year.

Obviously being educated as to the signs of depression helps us to help others.

I don't want to sit on my ass this year touching my keyboard while others are suffering. I do help out each year with the adopt-a-family program (having a fund raiser at my house next weekend for it again this year) and my team at work always comes through - we raise money, buy the gifts, wrap, and deliver to the St. Vincent church.

I know it helps some people. But there must be more I, and others, can do.

When I was at my worst, all I needed was someone to talk to about it and some money to save my ass.

To help my wife with her depression (over her parkinson's and fatigue, spending days in bed) I got her out to CA to see her family for 3 weeks. She is happy as can be right now :)

But still, there is so much more I can do. So many more people out there needing help, and I feel like a damned 5th wheel - selfish in ways sitting here in my basement rolling my own smokes, having some good drink, and enjoying myself (though a tad depressed as I miss the wife and daughter).

Somewhere right now someone is crying and thinking of taking their own life. And I have no idea how to reach out to them and offer them help.

So lost in my life I have spent more time researching things I enjoy without spending 1/100th of my time finding ways to help my fellow humans.

Many of you I am sure have helped, and so I am hoping you can give me some ideas.

Yes - I can google. But I trust folks here and their experiences and ideals.

And if YOU are depressed and need someone to talk to - PM me for my phone number. I have been there, and it sure sucked. Different reasons to be sure, but it never hurts to tap into a network of people (like here on DU) and talk. (BUT PLEASE - CALL a Suicide hotline first, seek professional help, etc - but if you just need someone to talk to right away, I am more then willing to listen as are others here) I don't care if you are a lurking conservative, you are important and your life is worth living. Politics are a separate issue.

I can't spend a lot of time away from home (well, I can for a few weeks until wife gets home, but then back to caring for her) but I can email and make calls, answer calls, and try to raise money.

I cannot imagine that some day my little girl could grow up and be alone and pondering killing herself, and no one was there to help her. It's just not right. And I don't want to bitch and moan about it all, I want to do something.

My wife would be more than willing to talk as well to people, she has a degree in psychology and has worked with many people from her time at the AID's clinic to a variety of social work. She may be a stay at home mom now, but she always finds time to talk to her friends over their issues and longs to help others. Were it not for her health she would be working in a clinic now.

Thanks for reading my post, and if you have any ideas - please pass them along.

And once more _ PLEASE if you are reading this and need some help, seek it out. A lot of great people here at DU, and there are hotlines to call. You don't have to be suicidal to need help or someone to talk to :)

[wtmusic]

1. Anyone who gets depressed this time of year should get info

on Seasonal Affective Disorder, and consider light therapy. The results can be dramatic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder

[dubykc]

7. Excellent thought!

[elehhhhna]

15. Just move to Texas! Dems especially welcome in TX-BLUE-22,

and housing's cheaper than anywhere.

C'mon DOWN!

[TallahasseeGrannie]

2. I've been there, too

and some more suggestions are:

get out of the house, go for a walk, anything at all to change your environment

connect immediately with another person

eat carbs

quite often depression is paired with anxiety and a chill pill (legally prescribed) and send you to bed early and you can sleep through the worst of it (for temporary bouts, not a bigtime clinical event)

do something to help someone else .. you forget about yourself

If you don't have a cat, get one!

exercise and get those endorphins flowing... swimming is especially good

take vitamins, especially B

Remember always that suicide destroys those you leave behind.

[wellstone dem]

4. no, no get a dog

:-)

[TallahasseeGrannie]

12. Actually I am more a dog person than

a cat person, but I suggested a cat because they are a bit easier to handle in a major depression. On the other hand, having to walk the dog is very good for you in a depression. And there is NO DOUBT that a dog OR a cat absolutely knows when you are low. They stand guard over you, or sit on your chest. For a person in an anxious state (my depression was the flip side of anxiety) petting a slowly breathing cat gave me some relief. I would try and match her breathing rate.

The most important thing to know about depression is that you do get better.

[wellstone dem]

22. I know what you are saying about a dog being overwhelming

when my daughter was going through terrible depression, I took her to the humane society to get her to volunteer, instead we came home with a puppy. AFter which we both panicked, wondering whether we had just gone over the cliff with more than we could handle at a horrible time, but that little girl would sit on my lap and cuddle up when I felt like crying and would quietly sit near my daughter when she was home. Now she's a wild animal, but at the time she was exactly what we needed. But a cat would have done the same, without nearly the fear--but then I have allergies which is another story.

[we can do it]

28. Purring Works Wonders

[niallmac]

14. cat, dog, ...just get a pet I'd say.

'eat carbs' Is that a known depression fighter? I never heard that before but just happens
that when I have the blues I eat a baked potatoe with my fave topings and I find
this very comforting. I just considered it my own personal oddity until I saw
your post.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

26. Pets Lower Blood Pressure & Anxiety, Help Fight Depression

Recently I've had the pleasure of working with representatives from Tony La Russa's Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF), a no-kill shelter in California with pet adoption and visiting animal programs.

In their work they not only promote people rescuing animals, but also animals rescuing people. Medical studies prove that the companionship of dogs and cats has positive effects on our physical and mental health. The reason may be the unconditional love provided by animals that accept us as we are, no matter what our limitations. Lonely seniors, troubled teens, people with disabilities and more can benefit from a purring lap blanket or a tail-thumping foot warmer.

PS - I love the story of why La Russa created ARF:
"The catalyst for Tony La Russa's Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) came in May of 1990 during a baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees when a stray cat wandered onto the playing field. Terrified by the roar of the crowd, the frightened feline dashed about, eluding umpires and players. Tony, then the Manager of the Oakland A's, coaxed the cat into the dugout, secured its safety for the remainder of the game, then took responsibility for placing it with a local shelter. To his dismay, Tony discovered there was not a single No-Kill facility in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. When Tony learned the cat would be euthanized, he and his wife, Elaine, named her "Evie" and found a home for her. His experience with this cat was the genesis for the founding of ARF, a No-Kill organization dedicated to bringing people and animals together to enrich each other's lives."

Edit to add: www.arf.net

[Name removed]

3. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DemBones DemBones]

5. Since your wife has Parkinson's, with the associated fatigue and

depression, you are already doing a lot to help someone and limited as to what you can do to help others, as you noted. Don't beat yourself up because you can't do more for others. None of us can save the world alone.

Your offer to talk to anyone on the phone is generous. You might want to post it in the Disabilities and Chronic Illness forums, for obvious reasons. Do we have a Mental Health forum or group? Probably, but if not you could start one. You could research suicide prevention resources online and post a list here. There are probably suicide prevention groups or hotlines who'd appreciate a donation of any size.

Oh, writing to Dems in Congress to urge health care parity for mental health care is another thing you, and all of us, can and should do. Many people who have health insurance still can't afford therapy because their insurance only pays 40%-50% of the cost, as if it weren't a necessity for many. And of course many people have no health insurance.

[The Straight Story]

6. Thank you, and all so far

Sometimes I miss the most obvious of things :) Did not even know we had the disabilities forum! DUH on my part :)

[butterfly77]

13. Go to the topics page ...

you will find so much on any subject you can think of or go to the lobby...

[TahitiNut]

8. It'd be nice if a "Neighborhood Listen" were as popular as "Neighborhood Watch"

Even within walking distance, we all have neighbors close to seppuku. It gets tough, sometimes, to keep up appearances. That "happy face" gets as difficult to carry as a mowed lawn, painted front door, flower boxes, and the rest of the minutiae we attend to out of fear that "the neighbors will be angry." Property values, you see - often devoid of human values. Of course, it's not often comfortable being grist for some do-gooder's mill - someone who values going through the motions above a genuine interest in other human beings. It's even tougher mustering up the energy to crawl out of the pit of depression to even say anything. Once enveloped by that dark side, it's often more than we can do to raise the "diver down" (human down?) flag to signal our plight.

That's why the effort to reach out and "get to know our neighbors" is so important - before it's too late. Drop the pretense. Dress down. Leave the "I'm so good" trophies behind and just be open and listening to our neighbors. It's time well-spent. Hell, we might even discover some people we actually like for who they are. Go figure.

[hsher]

9. TSS, you are brave and beautiful

Thank you for offering this.

[Pool Hall Ace]

10. I have dealt with depression, especially around the holidays.

Besides antidepressants -- here is what has been helpful for me:

• physical exercise -- particularly brisk walking
  
• journaling -- gets the nastiness out of my head and on to paper where it is easier to deal with it. Any thoughts that wind up on paper that seem too evil or undesirable can always be destroyed
  
• pet care -- sweet fuzzy faces are mood elevators!
  
• self-talk -- reminding myself that I don't have to max out my credit cards or go to a bunch of parties this time of year just because others are
  

[TallahasseeGrannie]

11. I also found bibliotherapy

helpful. Everybody has certain things that make them happy. For me, it was books about flowers. I also did some self help and remember one especially during some very bad times called "You Can't Afford the Luxury of Negative Thought." It was written for folks living with HIV or life-threatening illnesses and it was enormously comforting. Being a believer, I also found "Guideposts" (which when I am not depressed I find hysterically hokey) to be comforting. During a depression, even ten minutes of relief makes the day worth living.

[petgoat]

16. Exercise is good.

Cleaning the house is good. If you're going to be miserable anyway,
you might as well accomplish something while you're miserable, and
you might be glad later that you did.

I used to have a lot of trouble with depression until I discovered
Albert Ellis's principle that the root cause of human unhappiness is
irrational ideas. I never read his books; I just read about the idea
in a book review somewhere.

I thought it was worth a try to root out irrational ideas from my life.
Ultimately this included a lot of stuff loaded on me by my parents, a
lot about expectations about how the world was supposed to be, and how
I was supposed to fit in it.

The result is that my excessively rational approach to life makes me a
bit eccentric because I don't indulge many of the irrational conventions
of this society, but I haven't been depressed in many years, despite some
pretty crummy things (divorce, some extended homelessness, business
failures, and an acute awareness of how f*ed up our country is) in my life.

[BlueStorm]

17. I have bi-polar II disorder

and I get very depressed around this time of the year. Hell I get depressed alot. I have a hard time discussing it to others as some of the issues are trivial, such as getting into a spat with my dad (I live with him at this time), my looks, etc. The fact that I am a year old on disability and unable to afford things that I need such as bills and food. My fibromyalgia really makes me more depressed an fatiqued. I don't have many friends and people to talk to and I feel foolish to call anyone over such trivial things.


SS, you can PM me your number if you wish.

Blue

[The Straight Story]

18. Done (nt)

[BlueStorm]

20. Thanks...

I could use a listening ear at times, not just when I am feeling suicidal, which is, thankfully more rare now that I have medications. I need a compassionate person to talk to, not just my counselor and family.

Blue

[tpsbmam]

19. TSS, what a wonderful and generous post......

It sucks to be alone during the holidays. You can make something of it -- I was alone many times when I was in grad school and then doing a residency & post-doc. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I volunteered, usually at soup kitchens. It's a great reminder to be grateful for what you have, not what you don't have. And people here are right -- helping others helps you.

(NOTE: I am absolutely not equating "feeling sorry for myself" with depression. But I've been clinically depressed and it worked even better at that time.)

It's important to keep this in mind year round. As a matter of fact, it's a myth that suicides increase during the holidays. Pretty much every study that's been done has found that isn't the case. Suicides tend to peak during the spring and fall. Suicide actually tends to decline around the holidays. Here are just a few representative studies or reports:


http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/PressRelease20051216_Suicide.pdf

Despite data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics (see Figure 1 below) indicating that suicide rates are at their lowest in December, while peaking in the spring and fall, the holiday-suicide

myth has been perpetuated by reporters reluctant to give up the ultimate, counterintuitive take on the season of good cheer.

http://www.ontario.cmha.ca/content/about_mental_illness/suicide.asp?cID=3965

Seasons
Despite a commonly held myth that the Christmas season has the highest suicide rate of all the seasons, studies have proven that across North America, suicide rates are actually lower at that time of year.14 Studies suggest that while the holidays can bring up some very difficult emotions, they also tend to evoke feelings of familial bonds and these feelings may act as a buffer against suicide.15



There was a national epidemiological study done on suicide rates during major holidays for an entire decade. It used data from the National Center on Health Statistics. It showed that for all but one major holiday, the suicide rate fell. The exception was New Year's Day (I could come up with a number of hypotheses for that, most of them pretty obvious....note, though, that the rate doesn't tend to climb on people's birthdays, which would put one of my hypotheses in doubt). Admissions and hospital visits for psychiatric reasons also tend to dip around the holidays.



http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm

Most popular press articles suggest a link between the winter holidays and suicides (Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania 2003). However, this claim is just a myth. In fact, suicide rates in the United States are lowest in the winter and highest in the spring (CDC 1985, McCleary et al. 1991, Warren et al. 1983).




One of the many symptoms of depression is a tendency to isolate oneself. The isolation then contributes to the depression, leading to a vicious cycle. So you're doing a great thing when you reach out and encourage people to connect at any time of year!

[smoogatz]

21. I've suffered from seasonal depression off and on.

It's the definition of no fun. Anti-depressants and moderate exercise helped.

[tomreedtoon]

23. A few thoughts, probably repeating some other posts.

First, be aware of the Chatterbox. That's the little voice that criticizes you, mocks your efforts, derides your successes and tells you you're no good. It's a voice that was installed in you by your parents, your teachers, bosses, acquaintances and others who saw a reason to put you down. And you keep it going yourself.

You turn down the Chatterbox by forcibly reminding yourself of all the good you do and all the worth you have. It's hard. It may even seem silly. But it works, if you keep at it. It takes a leap of faith to start out-shouting the Chatterbox, but sometimes you gotta say, why the hell not?

Second, choose to take some kind of action. I like helping someone who's even more down than I am. For instance, I'll get nothing from family or friends from Christmas, but I'll feel good wrapping and giving little presents to a lot of people I barely know. It reminds me that as long as I can choose to do good, I am not helpless.

Third, exercise does work. Walking does wonders. Breathing outside air, even if you have to bundle up, helps clear the system.

[NuttyFluffers]

24. ban holiday music. especially pop culture holiday music.

lord knows the chipmunks/pokemon/disney christmas, followed by american idol winners/jessica simpsons/new kids on the block christmas, and jingle cats/dogs have definitely left me contemplating opening a vein. and if i have to hear adam sandler's damned hannukah song one more time...

[TallahasseeGrannie]

27. Oh Dear God, you are so right

When I was at my deepest in depression, I couldn't listen to any music at all. For some reason it just tore me up. Now, I use it to stay up. I have Sirius in the car and love the 60's station where every song takes me back to good memories. Now, if your early years sucked lemons, you might go for another station. But music is powerful.

[Generic Brad]

25. Thank you for your post

There are many out there who need desperately to know that there is a way out of the depression they have unexpectedly found themselves tangled up in. There is not one of us who is permanently stuck in a hopeless situation. If there is anyone out there who needs someone to speak to, there are many of us DU'ers out here who are willing to listen and provide encouragement.

[wicket]

29. kick for those in need

:kick: