Before you do anything…

I am a 49 yr old woman who has had mild depression all my life. I have made a half attempt of killing myself before. My brother made a successful attempt 1 month ago tomorrow. I wanted to write here to hopefully help anyone contemplating suicide to please think about a few things before following through with this decision.

When I tried it was a cry for help. I was in a marriage  that was falling apart… I lived away from my family…I worked 3rd shift in a boring job so any friends were not accessible on any regular basis and I felt totally alone. I know the feeling of being in that deep well of depression that you feel you can’t ever climb out of . However, I failed at my attempt and I am so thankful I did! I never told anyone for many years that I had tried it…I was too ashamed or guilty that I had tried to do something so devastating. It wasn’t easy and it was several years still before I can say things finally felt truly better but time can be your best friend! What I learned from my failure is that there are people who care about you and who will be effected by your death (believe it or not). Whether it is your family, guardian, children, co-worker or student that sits next to you in class. You have no concept of how your death will effect them and the guilt that they will endure the rest of their lives wondering if they could have done something or said something to make you not choose suicide as an answer to your pain. Loosing someone to suicide is a totally different loss than someone who died of natural causes, an illness or car accident. There are questions and feelings that will plague your survivors for the rest of their lives!!!!!!!!!!!

My brother hung himself May 14, 2010. He was someone no one would ever have thought would commit suicide. He was happy go lucky, never met an enemy, active in the community, talented etc. He had so much going for him. But stress from his job and depression began to take over. The doctors started changing his meds and in 3 months time, 4 different antidepressants later he committed himself to the psych ward only to be release 24 hours later and the next week he was dead. Somewhere between 800-1000 people came to his wake. His suicide not only affected his family but the whole community! I realize though that it was not his decision…it was the medication. I have little faith in the medical/psychiatric/pharmaceutical profession these days. They are not God..most do not have your interest at heart and the drugs they hand out have not been tested enough…they test to get you on them but little testing has been done on getting you off of them. If a doctor wants to put you on antidepressants and doesn’t do blood work first to check your chemical/hormone balance then run as fast as you can!!! How do they know which drug to put you on if they haven’t tested your blood work first? They don’t!! They give you the drug that the salesman says will do this or that and who is he/she but someone peddling for the pharmaceutical companies. They don’t have a medical or pharmaceutical license/degree. And very few doctors/psychiatrists continue their education past med school.

My best advise and my hope for you is to take charge of your life…don’t depend or expect others to make you happy. I know that may sound easier said than done but do it one day at a time. Each day do something that you want to that is positive. Lay in a field and watch the sky go by, take a hike in the woods, read a book you’ve wanted to read, pay a compliment to someone….simple small things can make us feel so much better. When you  are depressed you think why am I here? What does it matter? Who cares?…  But turn that around to …Why are any of us here? Who matters to us? Why do I care about them? Everyone has someone that matters to them and the first person that should matter to you is you! You are the only person that can make you happy and you are in charge of how happy you want your life to be.