Depression and Suicide Awareness

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Depression and Suicide Awareness

Suicide Information, Suicide Statistics, Suicide Facts, Suicide Stories, Person Suicide Stories, Suicide Survivor, Depression, Mental Illness, Mental Health, Surviving Suicide, Depression Chat, Suicide Chat, Depression Help, Suicide, Help, Depression Resources, Suicide Resources, Depression Hotlines, Suicide Hotlines, Suicide Links, Depression Links, Mental Health Links Depression and Suicide Awareness

·Of the many millions of Americans who suffer from depression in any given year, 80% can be effectively treated, but only 30% seek help and of that number, slightly more than half are accurately diagnosed and receive appropriate treatment.
·Every year, 500 Minnesotans die of suicide - and 30,000 suicide deaths occur nationally.
·The #1 cause of suicide is untreated depression.
Info. provided by the SA/VE Org.

Every year, 30,000 Americans take their own lives in suicide. At least 15% of people with depression complete the act of suicide, but an even higher proportion will attempt it. While depression is one of the most treatable mental disorders, it is also one of the most under-diagnosed and under-recognized.

One of the most scary experiences people suffer in their lifetime is to experience a form of depression. Over 1 in 5 Americans can expect to get some form of depression in their lifetime. Over 1 in 20 Americans have a depressive disorder every year. Depression is one of the most common and most serious mental health problems facing people today.
This information provided by Mental Health Net

This page has been made to hopefully be able to help even one person see that they can survive depression and that suicide is not the answer to the pain. It may also alert you to symptoms you see in a friend or family member and hopefully motivate you to get them help, because they or you cannot do it alone. I will share my story in the hope that it may also further demonstrate that this illness can be beaten, through doing the right thing, which is the hardest to do, to ask for help.

My story starts with my mom's struggle and eventual defeat at the hands of depression. She was a vibrant person before depression took hold of her. She struggled with depression for only about 4 months at least the most severe stages of it. She had had a lot of different things going on in her life that led up to her finally going over the edge, which I feel do not need to be gone into in depth because the circumstances do not truly matter, the person is the driver of their destiny.

Depression from what I saw and have learned makes the person it affects not truly themselves anymore, they obsess over little details and when something goes wrong with those details, to them their entire life is thrown into chaos.This is just a single symptom of this disease. Depression affects all areas of a person's life and it not only affects them mentally, but also physically, behaviorally and their actions. It is not simple little mood swings that last for a day or less but, rather a feeling of utter helplessness that a person cannot shake. Extreme highs and lows over an extended period of time, such as a month or a year are a definite sign of depression and should not be dismissed as someone simply feeling down. All of which my mother had and unfortunately none of us were able to recognize that it was depression, as we had no idea what it was or how to treat it.

Depression is not a character flaw or weakness in a person, but rather a chemical imbalance or deficiency that essentially causes the brain to become ill just as any other body part may succumb to illness. Factors that may cause the onset of depression can be genetically, psychological or environmental, as well as reaction to certain medications. People can be born with a genetically higher risk of suffering depression and can, but is not always inherited through the parents.

My mother displayed all these symptoms and at one point attempted suicide by running out in front of a truck, but luckily my brother was there and got her off the road and home. We talked to her for an hour or so that night telling how we wanted her around to see everything in our lives and that eventually things would get better. She talked about suicide and we pleaded with her to not to go through with it, because we needed her just as much as she needed us and she promised us that she would never go through with it. These actions are, as I have learned, dramatic signs of depression and also that if this person does not get some help eventually when they are in a low of a mood swing or when something else goes wrong compounding the problems, they will try to end their life. I’m sure you are asking yourself how could they not realize these things and get her help. I ask myself these same questions, but at the time, things just didn’t click there was just too much going on to realize the significance of all these signs. She had promised us that she wouldn’t and my mother’s word was always good, so we believed her.

Eventually my mother did commit suicide about a month before I returned to school for my senior year, she did it while I slept. I can’t remember how many times previously she had woken me up in the middle of the night crying and asking to talk or just for me to hold her and tell her everything was going to work out. As the saying goes, “hind sight is always 20/20”, these major signs never made sense to me, I thought she was just sad, lonely or confused with everything going on, just as all of us were. But this night she didn’t come downstairs for consolation. I still remember that night so clearly, even after nearly 6 years, being woken up thinking it was mom and coming to the realization that something was terribly wrong when I saw two great family friends, my neighbor and my best friends dad, standing beside my bed. Our pastor drove my dad and I to the hospital and my brother and his wife me us there a short time later. They delivered the news just like I had seen many times in movies or on T.V. it all seemed so surreal like a horrible dream, until we went in to see her body. I can still picture it all perfectly just by simply closing my eyes and can feel the frigidness of her skin when I touched it, that caused me to step back for a moment. Her depression had finally gotten the best of her and drove her to do something that in her right mind she would never have considered.

I tell you these things so that if you know of someone who may show some of these symptoms, so you get them help immediately so you will not have to face a night like the one branded on my mind. Suicide leaves everyone who was close to the person with the classic questions of what if I had done this or if only I had said this. These are questions that you are faced with each time you think about them while you are going through the grieving process. The only thing we could have done was to get her help and unfortunately at the time we were uneducated in the signs and symptoms of depression and suicide or we believed that we had convinced her that it was not the answer to her pain.

After my mom was gone, I jumped back into school and the football season, basically trying to avoid it all. I covered like I was doing all right, but inside I was completely hollow and my emotions were nonexistent for the most part. I became cold and kept people at a distance, not letting them get too close to what I was feeling. I did this because I felt that if I admitted that I wasn’t ok, that people would think I was weak for getting help and I also felt that I would be weak to get help. We did do some counseling here and there for a while after it had happened, but nothing to substantial. As I continued to distance myself emotionally from my family and friends, it all just continued to get worse. As I was getting ready to leave for college, I began having my first thoughts of suicide as a way to escape the pain. Many time while at college my freshman year, when my wife (girlfriend at the time) wasn’t around I would obsess over the idea constantly. I still wasn’t talking about any of what happened or how I was truly feeling. The only thing that kept me from going through with it, was the fact that I knew how my suicide would effect other people having been on that side of it in my mother’s case. I knew it might solve my problems, but it would add to everyone else’s and leave them with more questions of what if or if only. Also I had realized through my experience of my mom missing out on my brother’s and my life’s, that I too would miss out on many amazing moments of life.

I suffered with this depression until about a year ago now, when my life was really falling apart around me because I had never confronted this problem with myself. Finally at the urging of many of my family members, whom I thank from the bottom of my heart, I went in to get some counseling. At first I felt ashamed to go in because it was like admitting you were sick or people would think you were crazy, the same thing that I feel kept my mother from seeking help through counseling. As I continued to go to sessions, I felt better just getting everything I was feeling off my chest and out into the open so I could deal with it. I thank, my wife and her family for introducing me to a counselor they had used in the past and Louise I thank you so much for helping me, something I desperately needed and for being so caring and understanding with me.

If you are reading this and recognizing some of these behaviors that I have talked about or listed on the page, in a loved one, encourage them to get help and do whatever it takes to get them in there, if it means taking them to their sessions or being in the session with them. I cannot stress enough that getting someone help or getting them to admit they need help is the key to defeating this disease that effects so many.

If you are depressed, or think you may be, I encourage you to seek out help, it is the only way you will truly be healed. I still struggle from time to time with what is sometimes called the “blues”, but I truly feel saved from the depression that claimed my mom’s life. If you are suicidal, you must not only think about how it would end your pain, but rather think of the pain it would cause in the people around you. Maybe you’d say to that well they really don’t care about me anyways, but I guarantee you they do, someone loves you. If you insist that no one does, then love yourself, imagine all the things you’d miss in your life. Think of some of your favorite things and then imagine never having them again, imagine not seeing the sun shining on a warm summer day or not getting to smell the wonderful aroma that come with spring each year. Everyone is valuable, life is valuable, not something to be snuffed out because of pain in your life. If you need an outlet for your feelings, write about what you are feeling, for me writing poetry (my poetry page) about it and creating this page are therapy in itself. You can also just open up a document or your computer or pull out a notebook and just start writing about what you are feeling, which has also helped me. These do not replace counseling though, find someone you are confortable with and get everythin gout in the open so you can deal with it. Everyone has pain in their lives, some more than others and some more severe than others, but in sharing what you are feeling with loved ones or with a counselor is the only way to beat this disease of depression.

If you need someone to talk about your fight with depression feel free to e-mail me by clicking here

Or here are some other online resources you can contact for help:
The Samatitans are a non-religious support group you can e-mail them at jo@samaritans.org
or at their anonymous e-mail samaritans@anon.twwells.com

Online support group for people with suicidal thoughts at suicide-support-request@research.canon.com.au

Suicide Survivor for those who have had a love one commit suicide at suicide-survivors-request@research.canon.com.au

If you need someone to talk to instantly if you are facing a crisis call:
1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433)American National Hotline

UK Hotline number is: 0345 90 90 90

Republic of Ireland Hotline number is: 1850 60 90 90

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