You need to spend some time Googling for messed up celebrities. If you look at the lives of many of the world's wealthiest, most famous and even most powerful people, you'll see that a very high percentage of them experience extreme depression in their personal lives and turn to outlets like violence, drugs and prostitution to try and fill the void. A lot of them attempt suicide as well, and a lot of them succeed, although many such attempts are passed off as "accidental" drug overdoses. It might seem weird at first, why the heck someone would feel miserable when by all appearances they seem to be on top of the world, but it's the reality. A lot of these people keep wanting more out of life no matter how much they already have, and when they reach their peak success, they have trouble coping with the comedown. Money without a wholesome view of life and relationships will rarely bring long term happiness, if ever.
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A simple answer: Coping resources are not adequate to deal with life issues. There are many different types of coping resources, e.g. social support, etc... Locus of control and internal or external attributional style also has a big impact, but again that is influenced by coping resources and life issues. Situational pressures in life are also varied. A person that will kill themselves given one situation may never actually face that situation so they never kill themselves (for example dealing with an abusive relationship). Anyway this is just a short answer. You should read some of the research my work publishes at the World Health Organisation Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention. You can search the head of our organisation 'Deigo De Leo', he is an author that will bring you up a heck of a lot in a literature search.
Probably. You should quietly go see a psychiatrist. I know this has stigma where you live. So do not talk about it. Just do it.
Hi Saint, I am learning to be a doctor, and I have just finished a section about mental health. This is a long post, and it might be difficult to read. Please ask if you want extra information. You can also PM me for my email address and phone number if you want. What I have learned: Many people who suicide don't really want to *die*, they just want the pain to stop. They want to escape from the misery, hopelessness, and guilt they feel. Suicidal people are often afraid that they will kill themselves. They know that their sadness is making them thing wrongly. The overwhelming feelings are often not something you can escape by thinking your way out . Our bodies make their own mind-altering drugs, and sometimes we make the wrong amount. Suicidal depression is a real sickness, in which your own body is drugging you. Depression isn't just a state of mind - it's just as real as being drunk or stoned. Now, there is good news! There are safe ways to escape from the overwhelming hopelessness. It is easier with help. Your doctor is a good place to begin. If they do not help, go see another doctor. Tablets can help a lot, but there are other good options if you don't want tablets. Things we can do to fix our body's drug control: Exercise. Jogging, yoga, sport... your body will make more feel-good drugs and less feel-bad drugs. Do stuff with people. Our brains give us happy drugs when we connect with other people. Get sunlight while awake, sleep in darkness. Melatonin is a happy drug your body makes that is controlled by daily cycles of light and dark. (You can get extra melatonin in a tablet in some countries, but I don't know how well that works.) Thinking exercises. I don't know much about this yet. Your doctor might suggest a clinical psychologist can help you with thinking exercises. As Asguard says below, a clinical psychologist is the best person to help. They help much more than just "thinking exercises". Tablets. You can take medicines that help control the drugs your body makes. For example: SSRIs, NRIs, and SNRIs (including tricyclic antidepressants]tricyclics) stop your nerve endings from sucking back too much of the drugs like serotonin and noradrenaline that they spit out, so you get more of a kick from them. MAOI's stop your nerve endings from breaking down the drugs they've sucked back up, so they have more to spit out. My text (Rang & Dale) has some others that block some of our body's drugs: Mianserin, Trazodone, Mirtazapine, and Hypericum. Hypericum is St John's Wort. Don't take it with other medicine unless your doctor says OK. It is a herbal remedy, so it can be hard to know just how much active ingredient it has. Be careful. In extreme depression, the sickness that mixes up your body's own drugs can lead to delusions and hallucinations. If that happens, some time in hospital is needed.
Firstly to make it clear your talking about depression type suicide. Not the other types (though im sure the guy who jumps on the grenade would like to live too) Secondly St johns wart should be banned, it interacts with so many different kinds of medication but its sold over the counter in supermarkets and in some preperations its not even listed in the name (they are called "mood staberlisers" or whatever) Thirdly shrinks only study psychopharmocology and therefore they act like antidepressents are a treatment rather than a staberlisation method. Fourthly "psycologists" arnt nessarly clinical psychologists. Fithly (before i get accused of bias or whatever) clinical psychologists are the best people to help, they are required to have a masters and then do 5 years under another psychologist. All there training is specifically aimmed at treating depression and other mental illness so they are the experts I have herd the same thing as what you are saying about sunlight, exercise but its hard concidering one of the first things depression hits is motivation and energy levels.
Thanks Asguard, I agree with all. I was editing the whole post to simplify the language while you were posting, and I've now also added some emphasis to the role of a clinical psychologist. Except maybe about what Psychiatrists study. That changes with place and time, but I'm led to believe that a psychiatrist who has learned what they're supposed to will have a lot more in their toolkit than drugs, and will also refer to a clinical psychologist when required.
Quick correction, Suicidologists are actually the experts in suicide... Also things are different everywhere. I know for a fact though that the first 4 years of study in psychology teaches you almost nothing about psychopathology, just 1 subject on it in 4 years! It's a joke. Clinical psychologists do have their 2 years masters, but generalist psychologists (at least in Australia) have to do 2 years supervised practice in which time they have to undergo a series of competencies, so they are still educated quite a lot in mental illness. It all depends on which area the psychologist has work experience in. A few years working in a clinic treating only suicidal people will make any generalist or clinical psychologist an expert in that field.
Wikipedia is a really bad source for this information. Please refer to the actual statistics that have been published in journals.
whats the point, the guy doesnt read it anyway. Why should i spend a day traulling through psychology journals and behond blue and health department websites and cochrane and hospital websites when i can get what i want quick and easy and it wont be read anyway?
Fair enough. But some of that information is damaging. For example imagine if your brother had comitted suicide and then you read about how there would have been clues, you'd feel guilty for not seeing them and doing something about it. Your better off putting out more accurate information.
actually it is accurate. Most people who commit suicide do talk about it with at least 1 other person first. Me it was a guy who used to be here. However that doesnt make missing the signs you fault, some are people are quite open about it but others are quite subtle. The biggest sign is actually a calm attitude in someone who has been distressed. But the point is to always take a sucide threat seriously, you might be the only person who knows and therefore the only person who can help. Seek medical help straight away, in south Australia ASIS (NOT the secret intelligence agency, the mental health service) provide over the phone help. 000 if the threat is immidiate and ask for the ambulance service and tell them exactly what is happerning. These services will assist you and the person but you have to be proactive in aproaching them. The depressed person cant see another option so you have to do it for them and if you can help it DONT LEAVE THEM ALONE. It might also be a good idea if you think the situation warrents it not to tell them your calling the ambos. Just do it and stay with them till they arive
I can understand why most doctors would think that way and take it upon themselves to impose things on uncooperative patients. I have several doctors in my own family who have been trained with this attitude. Sometimes the effort does indeed bare fruit over the long term, even when the patient initially resists. Very often, however, the effort does not bare fruit, nor do followup efforts have any success, and instead of acknowledging that there's no objective, scientific definition of happiness, contentment, fulfillment and quality of life, nor what the "morally correct chemical balance" should be, the medical system will still judge itself to have done these people a favour, even as they suffer bitterly until death in old age, with absolutely no compensation whatsoever for the intrusions. I wonder what modern medicine would say if these folks started to feel suicidal? The drug commercial starts at 0:35. Seems western psychiatry still has a fairly black and white view of things, and if slavery were still around I have no doubt you would see products like this on the shelf.
yes, people who committed suicide actially did not want to die, they wanted to stop the pain they feel, so, find ways to make yourself to have hope, to feel meaningful.
I have heard that people who are serious about committing suicide don't make a point of talking about it, at least no much - they just do it. Yes, this is the assumption. I find it horrible. But by bringing a child to this world, such an obligation is implied. I agree with that, but I certainly do not agree with the "solutions" that official medicine, psychotherapy and psychology offer. I think those "solutions" are for robots, not humans. I myself do not know of a viable solution to life's problems. But surely by killing oneself, one also makes an end to the possibility of looking for such a solution. True - the reasoning goes both ways. "If you want me to get over you after you've left me; why should you not make an effort to get over me after I've left you?" "If you don't get better after these anti-depressants, then something is wrong with you and you should be really really ashamed of yourself!" - is the message sent, sadly. Agreed. I don't think so, though. Sure, they may sometimes officially state that their norms are "religious" - but given that there are so many other religious norms that they ignore, I'd be careful to take their word for it. I think a factor in people's reluctance to accept suicide as a valid option is that people who (want to) commit suicide are very uncomfortably reminding others that the norms that society promotes as "right, healthy, sane" are not all that they are made out to be and that they don't even remotely guarantee happiness and wellbeing. Suicides are proof that our system doesn't work. And no, forcibly preventing suicides will not make the system look good, despite what some people think. I am thinking about things such as a newly widdowed wife worrying about how she will pay the bills. I think that much of the crying and lamenting at funerals is actually about such economical issues, rather than about "losing a loved one". But it is taboo to talk about such things, as if one would, it would often be taken as "He died and all you can think about is money?! You didn't love him at all! You're so selfish!" I wouldn't call that compassion. For myself, I hope I will become advanced enough in meditation to be able to stop my heart at will should the need arise.
Yes, go to WikiHow! http://www.wikihow.com/Find-Meaning-in-Life http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Happy Yeehaw!
