- Joined
- Nov 3, 2009
- Messages
- 7,589
Maybe I am opening another bag of worms, but hopefully, not.
In a very interesting book that I have read about writers and suicide, the author arbitrary divided mankind into three groups:
- those who never thought of suicide
- those who had fleeting thoughts but never came up serious plans
- those who occasionally became so serious about it that they started planning or tried
In a statistic anonymous study done among college students, 25% commented on having thoughts of suicide at least once in their lives. Note that these are high-functioning, serious, ambitious people who potentially have promising future.
So it is close to us. While there may be statistic differences between different groups of the society (I am not talking about economic status; it probably plays no role), suicidal thoughts and attempts are ... more common than many people think.
I always thought I was emotionally very stable, and was considered such, and probably one needs to be to work in my profession, but I remember how after birth of my second child everything got wrong, I developed serious OCD and anxiety. And at the peak of it, I had this very, very strange thought. "Maybe there are worlds where it does not matter if you are alive or dead". It was so weird and unlike me... I stopped it but for several days felt... uninvolved. I was doing everything, but very mechanically, even my OCD went away. It was not classical postpartum depression because I did not have any symptom of depression. Then it all went away.
Professionally, I think, It was good experience. I understood that these feelings are creeping, that in most cases, a person does not wake up planning to kill himself, and that even minute thoughts require attention.
I do not know if our medications have reduced the rate of suicide. Likely, in those who take them. Unfortunately, only 40% are fully compliant, and medications may be either a total hit or a total miss. I can talk a lot about medications and which of them help to reduce the risk (actually, only two - Lithium and Clozaril, have statistically been proven to), but this is not a professional post.
We all see it, hear about it. I feel profoundly sad when someone ends his/her life, and this is the main feeling...
I think that other people might chime in. I am not asking to share personal experiences, although 25 %, likely, stands for all groups, just to tell us what they think of it.
Feel free to delete this post if you feel it is too serious for this forum.
P.S. this post was not about me, my own example, likely, proves that there is no first group. It was about the sadness of suicide... something else which is hard to explain.
In a very interesting book that I have read about writers and suicide, the author arbitrary divided mankind into three groups:
- those who never thought of suicide
- those who had fleeting thoughts but never came up serious plans
- those who occasionally became so serious about it that they started planning or tried
In a statistic anonymous study done among college students, 25% commented on having thoughts of suicide at least once in their lives. Note that these are high-functioning, serious, ambitious people who potentially have promising future.
So it is close to us. While there may be statistic differences between different groups of the society (I am not talking about economic status; it probably plays no role), suicidal thoughts and attempts are ... more common than many people think.
I always thought I was emotionally very stable, and was considered such, and probably one needs to be to work in my profession, but I remember how after birth of my second child everything got wrong, I developed serious OCD and anxiety. And at the peak of it, I had this very, very strange thought. "Maybe there are worlds where it does not matter if you are alive or dead". It was so weird and unlike me... I stopped it but for several days felt... uninvolved. I was doing everything, but very mechanically, even my OCD went away. It was not classical postpartum depression because I did not have any symptom of depression. Then it all went away.
Professionally, I think, It was good experience. I understood that these feelings are creeping, that in most cases, a person does not wake up planning to kill himself, and that even minute thoughts require attention.
I do not know if our medications have reduced the rate of suicide. Likely, in those who take them. Unfortunately, only 40% are fully compliant, and medications may be either a total hit or a total miss. I can talk a lot about medications and which of them help to reduce the risk (actually, only two - Lithium and Clozaril, have statistically been proven to), but this is not a professional post.
We all see it, hear about it. I feel profoundly sad when someone ends his/her life, and this is the main feeling...
I think that other people might chime in. I am not asking to share personal experiences, although 25 %, likely, stands for all groups, just to tell us what they think of it.
Feel free to delete this post if you feel it is too serious for this forum.
P.S. this post was not about me, my own example, likely, proves that there is no first group. It was about the sadness of suicide... something else which is hard to explain.