[quote=ātigerā]In carrer guidance last year in school we got a leaflet from spunout with all councelling services on it but I dont where tis now, I looked up spunout there Mac theres a good few here
http://www.spunout.ie/help/[/quote]
Cheers tiger - will have a gander later on.
Mac, I didnāt actually go to any counselling myself. My mother went to someone locally but only for one session - she didnāt find it much use. I was directed towards a website set up by a Rosbrien community group in Limerick and I took any further reading from what was referenced there.
Iāve just googled the site there now to get the address for you - it has moved on a bit from when I used it but hopefully you may still find it of some use. I read an awful lot of other stuff but this was the one I felt was most relative to our situation. At the time they had a few lines on each of those who had died - their age, jobs, interest etc.
http://www.suicideawareness.com/main.htm
We are all fine now - it was a few years ago - but everyone deals with their grief differently and some will overcome it quicker than others. Itās very hard to remove that element of blame or thinking what you might have done otherwiseā¦he had been in Dublin with me the w/e before - was there something I didnāt seeā¦maybe if Iād come home that w/e - I might have caught him before it was too lateā¦maybe if my parents had done things differnetly etc etc.
Thanks for the votes of sympathy from others.
Jeez tough one OāMalley. Sorry to hear about that.
Remember reading about a service that was setup in Donegal for after hours emergency counselling/assistance etc. Saw a fundraiser for it and they were doing ridiculously good work. Outrageous that they were doing it all without any government assistance.
I know itās difficult and you probably know this Oā Malley but you just canāt think about the maybe ifs.
Very sorry to hear about your loss. The amount of funerals of young suicide victims Iāve attended down through the years is unbelievable now that I think about it
2 young girls died through suicide down here in the space of about 2 months, terrible, both were under 18 aswell. I remember a case there a few years ago where a young chap about 13 wasnt allowed to go to a disco by his mother and he went and killed himself, terrible stuff. My heart goes out to anyone who loses someone through suicide.
give me one reason why
re: suicide
Every so often a national newspaper will publish an article on suicide. The article usually quotes statistics and there is a certain amount of hand-wringing in relation to āthe stigma of suicideā / āfacing up to suicideā / ānot sweeping suicide under the carpetā. The overriding message is that the root causes of suicide should be addressed and people should confront rather than deny.
Which brings me to the mediaās reporting of suicide. If a person dies accidentally, of natural causes, as a result of an assault or is murdered their death will be reported as such. However if they commit suicide the reports are inevitably fudged with banal and intelligence-insulting euphemisms such as ānot looking for anyone else in connectionā, āfell in front of trainā, āentered the riverā etc. Frequently a coronerās report will state a verdict of accidental death when it was anything but.
The reason for such reporting is usually given as āto protect the familyā etc. But how can a family face up to a suicide if nobody will dare speak the dreaded ās wordā.
On one hand we have the media bemoaning increasing suicide numbers and complaining about people have their heads in the sand about it while simultaneously refusing to tackle the practical issue head on and print the actual facts when it comes to reporting one. This double standard filters downwards to ordinary citizens who will speak in hushed tones about the deceased and rarely mention the why and how of his/her death.
My personal experience in this regard stems from when my uncle committed suicide. At no stage throughout the years did anybody in my family admit that he took his own life and it was only much later that I accidentally discovered the truth.
Sorry for your loss OāMalley.
Interesting debate here lads, fair play.
Ten years ago I was at a 21st with all my mates, one of my best friends left the party and went home and hung himself in a house he was building across the road from the family home.
Without doubt the worst moment of my life to date was walking up the path to his house the following day to meet his family. I guess in these situations you need to look for the positives and if nothing else it made me and my friends very very close. I grew up very very quickly after that.
Some points
I never worried about discussing anything with my friends after that. Some things will always be awkward to discuss but in general people want to help others. Even by hearing that someone else has problems can make someone fell better and this is an inclusive act as well as being getting stuff off your chest. Fellas in particular think it is a sign of weakness to display any emotion, or say something that makes you look stupid in front of others.
I didnāt drink for a long time after it happened. Drink made me morose about it and I didnāt like feeling that way. The fact that my friend was drunk when he died was a major factor, every little incident is magnified when your drunk and maybe gives people that Dutch courage to actually follow through with the act. Go on the piss for a few days and wait and see how you feel when your coming down, alcohol is a serious depressant and this point isnt nearly emphasized enough.
For a long time afterwards I was completely paranoid if any of my family or friends were late for anything, in a bad mood or even a bit quiet. I associated everything with suicide. My mother told me years later that for years and years she couldnāt sleep until I got home after a night out, due to the āclusterā effect mentioned already. This is the unseen effect of suicide.
ngbllth- your point is valid. I do believe though that the family has the right to have the death reported in whatever manner they wish. Increasing peoples pain at what must be the most sensitive time of there life is not a good idea. I would also hesitate a guess that in many of these cases suicide isnāt listed as cause of death as Life Insurance wont pay out for suicide. Whilst this may sound calculating on my behalf I have come across at least two cases at work where this is the case.
IMHO the number of suicides is going to increase dramatically in the coming years due to the economic situation. I am coming across men in terrible situations now, borrowed up to there eyeballs, bank putting pressure on, wife not having a clue what is going on in the background spending goodo. For many the perceived climbdown involved in selling the house, the car and losing social status, and āletting the family downā wil be too much to take.
My heart goes out to all families affected by Suicide. Good luck to yours O Malley
Whoās going to do what needs to be doneā¦
[quote=ādancarterā]Interesting debate here lads, fair play.
Ten years ago I was at a 21st with all my mates, one of my best friends left the party and went home and hung himself in a house he was building across the road from the family home.
Without doubt the worst moment of my life to date was walking up the path to his house the following day to meet his family. I guess in these situations you need to look for the positives and if nothing else it made me and my friends very very close. I grew up very very quickly after that.
Some points
I never worried about discussing anything with my friends after that. Some things will always be awkward to discuss but in general people want to help others. Even by hearing that someone else has problems can make someone fell better and this is an inclusive act as well as being getting stuff off your chest. Fellas in particular think it is a sign of weakness to display any emotion, or say something that makes you look stupid in front of others.
I didnāt drink for a long time after it happened. Drink made me morose about it and I didnāt like feeling that way. The fact that my friend was drunk when he died was a major factor, every little incident is magnified when your drunk and maybe gives people that Dutch courage to actually follow through with the act. Go on the piss for a few days and wait and see how you feel when your coming down, alcohol is a serious depressant and this point isnt nearly emphasized enough.
For a long time afterwards I was completely paranoid if any of my family or friends were late for anything, in a bad mood or even a bit quiet. I associated everything with suicide. My mother told me years later that for years and years she couldnāt sleep until I got home after a night out, due to the āclusterā effect mentioned already. This is the unseen effect of suicide.
ngbllth- your point is valid. I do believe though that the family has the right to have the death reported in whatever manner they wish. Increasing peoples pain at what must be the most sensitive time of there life is not a good idea. I would also hesitate a guess that in many of these cases suicide isnāt listed as cause of death as Life Insurance wont pay out for suicide. Whilst this may sound calculating on my behalf I have come across at least two cases at work where this is the case.
IMHO the number of suicides is going to increase dramatically in the coming years due to the economic situation. I am coming across men in terrible situations now, borrowed up to there eyeballs, bank putting pressure on, wife not having a clue what is going on in the background spending goodo. For many the perceived climbdown involved in selling the house, the car and losing social status, and āletting the family downā wil be too much to take.
My heart goes out to all families affected by Suicide. Good luck to yours O Malley[/quote]
Great post. I donāt know the extent of the link between suicide and alcohol but Iāve spent enough days in the doldrums after a heavy session to know how exaggerated a persons problems can become in the confines of their own head. I honestly donāt know why its not talked about more, but its an awful reassuring thing just to hear one of your mates say they go through the same thing. Biggest fuckin tragedy in this country is that it takes ten pints for anyone to build up the courage to talk about something thats actually bothering them in the first place.
have to say id be one of them lads that only really talk about these thinge after a couple a pints myself,kinda sad really,think its a irish thing,whats that quote freud said about the irish?matt damon uses it in the departed
Yup. Which doesnāt suprise me, after going to school there during the worst of it, depressing little hole. Nothing to do there but drink or play sports.
Without out being smart, you could say the same about most other towns in Ireland
Undeniably your right, although its a matter of degrees, some places are worse then others. It doesnāt help that the main secondary schools there,the tech and the brothers, are poorly run dumps rife with bullying.
Its difficult to explain - there is just an air of apathy and a dourness in a place like Midleton that makes every small problem seem much worse. Anyway, I was very happy to get away from there.
[quote=āTurenneā]Undeniably your right, although its a matter of degrees, some places are worse then others. It doesnāt help that the main secondary schools there,the tech and the brothers, are poorly run dumps rife with bullying.
Its difficult to explain - there is just an air of apathy and a dourness in a place like Midleton that makes every small problem seem much worse. Anyway, I was very happy to get away from there.[/quote]
Iād know it cos Iāve relatives down around Aghada. Never thought it was that bad but there was always something odd about it that I could never put my finger on.
A lot of towns are like that though. Nothing for young people to do other than drink or play sport. If theyāve no interest in sport thereās nothing for them only drink and drink at that age more often than not leads to drugs (apologies for generalisation) which when people are living in a depressing place can make things worse.
the only race immune to psychoanalysis.
great question, how much of it is down to alcohol or drug abuse?
my own familyās experience of the subject would suggest that a cocktail of drugs over a 12-18 month period drove a relative to 2 failed suicide attempts. plonker is still a heavy drinker and iād be lying if i said āselfish bastardā is a phrase iāve never used to describe him.
as for the mental health services, iāve visited him in the best private hospital in the country and also the public mental hospital closer to home. the level of care in the private hospital was far superior, but the level of treatment in the public hospital was better, mainly due to the psychiatrist actually taking the time to get to know him.
I would have to put a fair amount of blame on drink. Based on our own experience, I wouldnāt say my brother drank anymore than his peers but I guess it was typical binge drinkingā¦no drinking during the week but then head out on the tear on a Sat nightā¦much earlier too than what we would have, and drinking crap like WKD and vodka & Red Bull. There would be 5 years between us but the whole social culture seemed to have changed in the years in between. Iām not blindsighted to the fact I have no doubt he experimented with some sort of drugs but I donāt believe on any regular basis and he certainly hadnāt on the night in question.
He was out drinking the night he died - a typical Sat night for him. Got a taxi home with his friends some time around 3.30am. Whatever entered his head after that, I am convinced that if he hadnāt been drinking, he wouldnāt have made the decision he did.
I think the roots of the problem are so deep Iām not sure we will ever overcome them. Binge drinking, drugs, depressing climate and the expectations some people may not live up to all lend themselves to it. I think in the last few years the pressures on younger people to be successful in exams, go to college, make money, buy property etc have been enormous. In the coming years that will probably be replaced with the worry people now have at losing jobs, trying to repay a mortgage and maintain a lifestyle they struggle to afford.
I would love to see a more relaxed attitide to life and a more mature and responsible attitude to drink being taken but I think itās bred into us as they say!
Dancarter - great post.
After it happened, my mother would not sleep either till my brother and myself got home and I cannot stand anyone calling or ringing me late at night - I will automatically assume the worst.
ive dealt with spunout with work - they do very good work - when you meet the staff there you would be very impressed by the passion they have for their jobs
sorry to hear about all that Oāmalley
heartbreaking stuff
[quote=ādancarterā]Interesting debate here lads, fair play.
[/quote]
We had a tragedy in the family last year (not suicide), I still go through the very same thing Dan. As soon as anybody runs late, or hasnāt texted me when they get home etc, I start to panic and the worst goes through my head. Iām sure itāll ease with time but itās not the easy to deal with.