It that not just mental anguish and symtomatic of a mental illness/depression?
I think in certain cases it’s because they are cowards who don’t want to face the consequences of their actions. You see it a lot with guys who don’t want to be confined to a life behind bars etc.
I must admit I struggle to understand depression. I have encountered it an awful lot in my job as a secondary school teacher. I teach in an affluent fee paying school and have encountered many kids who have suffered from serious depression over the years (this has included attempted suicides).
Why i found it difficult to understand is that many of these kids would have been popular amongst their peers, excelled at sports and came from a very good home environment. You would look at these lads and wonder ‘what the hell have you to be depressed about’?
Mental Illness does not discriminate. It can hit any of us at any time. Communication seems vitally important to helping to treat this illness as ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’ so to speak.
Really? There’s a million things to be depressed about. The world is full of shit things and people are generally shitty, no matter who you are or what you’ve achieved or have.
I understand that now thraw but when i was younger (when i started teaching 10 years ago) this was not something that i overly thought about in relation to these lads.
That’s what I find hard to understand really Thraw. Maybe I’m just very simplistic but there’s only a few things that would effect me sufficiently, they would be family & friends, relationships, work and money. Everything else outside that wouldn’t have a massive bearing.
It’s likely related to social norms and expectations. Suicide rates vary a lot between different backgrounds and ethnicities and in my view the culture a person grows upin has a lot to do with it. The culture that has developed in Ireland is many ways a very nasty one. It’s based largely on material wealth and consumerism. I’m struggling to think of another country that has bought into the culture of materialism as much as the Irish. Children here are socialised into a potentially very damaging environment and culture. Most things in our modern culture seem to be designed to heap pressure onto people.
I admit this is a very bland and generalised rant.
Everyone is different though Totti and each of us have any number of things that can be triggers for depression.
That’s true Fenway. I’m just explaining why I might have a difficult time understanding it.
I was reading a book before about barefootrunning. It was about a tribe in mexico that ran barefeet. It was mentional that suicide rates were very very low amongst these people. This maybe had something to do with the very simple life that the people led away from commercialism and the likes. this would certainly remove a lot of triggers that exist in modern developed economies.
accept that totti.
The whole area of suicide is a topic very close to my heart as I posted about previously on here. In this instance the one thing that has really pissed me off is the continued ignorance of the Irish media in dealing with the topic. I spent the last hour or so in the car flicking between RTE1 and Newstalk. They talked of Gary Speed but neither would mention the word suicide. Tragic circumstances is the phrase used. This pisses me off for a number of reasons and I’m not going to bore you all going into them but the main one is that the topic of suicide can not be dealt with properly if the word itself still has a stigma attached to it by our media. This has to change. In the English media they’ll mention suicide or at least say he took his own life.
Of course it’s a tragedy and I can’t even imagine what his wife, family, kids and close friends feel at the moment but our attitude to suicide or self harm or whatever you want to call it will never change unless the stigma is removed from it. I’m glad that everyone here is mature enough to give it the discussion it merits. Reassuring that there’s some people out there who are willing to discuss it rationally.
One of the admins should move the last couple of pages of this into the “Suicide” thread.
Whether we like it or not many of the posts on this forum reflect the type of culture in Ireland which contributes to suicide.
Sid, please correct me if I’m wrong, but I would take from the tone of your posts that you or your family haven’t been touched by suicide, and I hope they haven’t. Suicide is not something that can be understood easily if at all. I just take a small bit of exception to your comment re the damage to the family that’s left behind. Of course this is admirable but spare a thought for the person who feels that a better option is to take their own life. TAKE THEIR OWN LIFE! Just think about that for a moment. How bad do things have to get before contemplating that. Speaking from experience in suicide situations it is much more constructive to think about the reasons for it, not the consequences.
Just one more point when suicide is mentioned people always conclude depression. Often depression has absolutely nothing to do with the decision, if indeed suicide is a decision at all.
A relationship with a wife/girlfriend breaking down seems to be a huge factor amongst men when it comes to suicide,we seem to be alot more sensitive to love and the potential heartbreak which can stem from it.
Luckily my family has not been touched by suicide.
Again, nobody is saying there should not be compassion or sympathy for the person who commits suicide. Perhaps by saying that suicide is a selfish act, I’m guilty of generalising which is not what I want to do at all because suicide shouldn’t be generalised. But it’s difficult to have any opinion on the matter and not generalise in some way. I do think though that in a large proportion of cases it is an ultimately selfish act and I don’t see why it should be taboo to opine that there are many, many cases where it is, ultimately, an act of selfishness. Mental illness is something I’m very far from being an expert on but I would suggest, or guess if you want, that a high proportion of mental illnesses are acquired through life circumstances rather than being a natural condition, for want of a better phrase. In the majority of cases there has to be a better way.
What do you mean by that Sid?
Good man Bandage
RIP Gary Speed
These are situations which almost all of us have experienced or will experience at some point. The nature of life, sadly is that it is full of disappointments and heartbreaking events. These events are not a reason to take your own life.