Jim Jones? You must be younger than I.

It's a slow night, so I'm perusing your postings and just free associating a bit.

It is probably a poor analogy, but for some reason it reminds me of the mass beachings of marine animals. Or Jonestown from the '70s.

It's kind of scary that people can be talked into taking their own life just because someone else has lost perspective and is hopeless and without options. It is a bit fascinating how teenagers get into this mindset at times, whether it is copycatting behavior, or perhaps a bit infectious.

Just remember one thing folks, suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems. Before you take your life, go to the funeral of a suicide, and that is your legacy. People asking "what could I have done, why didn't I see this sooner, why didn't he/she talk to me, why didn't someone get help for this person".

Suicide is not a Tom Sawyer experience. It is probably the ultimate tragedy.

By the way, I think murder/suicides, which I think this will turn out to be the situation, are terrible and should be reported as horrendous. What is most terrible is many of them could have been prevented as someone, if not many, knew it was coming.

i'm going to toss this into the ring: cultural definitions of life are not always understood by others.

This is.....without a doubt-- an oasis of sorrow; and I feel it(our standard of reasoning, and justification) is not to be determined by us to question intent, reason or "inside the box" answers.

So you eluded to this in your posting and the article itself does not substaniate the validity of suicide, so I am not 100% convinced this was in fact a suicide.....Creepy though...

Weird. I told a friend the other night it was my intention to swim across the Georgia Strait or die trying. She phoned the authorities. Luckily, in my case, the authority is the Fire Chief who called me to say that someone had called and said I was having personal problems. This I could not deny.

Later, I asked her why she turned me in. Evidently, earlier in her life a friend repeatedly told her he was going to kill himself. She ignored his final plea for help. She never got over it.

Don't even entertain the possibility of suicide. It is the wrong thing to do.

The Good Morning America suicide piece posted here a while back correctly pointed out that in economic hard times, suicide rates increase. Suicide should never be an option for anyone and yet, facing homelessness, which as Torrey's new book indicates is now considered not an economic problem but a symptom of severe mental illness, a severe shortage of jobs and rising food costs, along with our society's blame the victim mentality, I suspect the blood is on all of our hands in situations like this. If we as a society don't realize how interdependant we are and began to share, TF will spend a lot more time locking up suicide risks against their will in psych hospitals so horrible suicide really is a rational option. Compassion not control folks.

It's not as TF suggests that society should scrutinize individuals and lock up those who express hopelessenss, but instead that those of us lucky enough to have access to food and a place to live should share and be compassionate, and yes TF, you should go to the unemployment office and volunteer free "therapy" for the unemployed who feel that their unemployment is a symptom of some personal inadequacy or god forbid genetic brain inferiority, explaining to these people that the job market and economy should not be internalized. I, a rehab counselor in a previous life, do volunteer job counseling and resume prep.

Blaming untreated mental illness for this sort of tragedy is a crime. We need compassion for despair as a reasonable human response to a seriously sick society and a collapsing global economy, not blame and condemnation.

Alison, your comment about 'funeral crashing' a suicide victim is in rather poor taste. No need to disturb the procession of the dead for your unwanted and unknown presence. Any funeral is tragic if the departed dies unnaturally (not from old age).

But yes, if you -have- attended the funeral of a suicide you learn something from it; just like how we learn from reading the classic tragedies. There has been lots of academic criticism done on the purpose of tragedy in individual human development. Unfortunately, for real life tragedies such as suicide, someone pays the toll so that those around them may garner the experience and learn.

Sally, sometimes you come across as clueless if not just terminally rigid. Here's a tip: go find the M*A*S*H episode (Season 3 I think)where Hawkeye reports to the MPs the Ron Howard character as underaged and to be shipped back to the states after Hawkeye could not save his friend's life, who had been shot and died on the operating table.

Ron Howard says to Hawkeye: "I hate you, I am going to hate you for the rest of my life." where Hawkeye replies, "well let's hope it's a long and healthy hate."

I'd rather err on the side of caution than listen to people like you who see any psychiatric intervention as an invasion of civil liberties. Try rationalizing with someone on the street who firmly believes dying is their only option. What would you do in hearing such dialogue, tell the person to go home and sleep it off?

I've had patients thank me for putting them in the hospital and had patients tell me to go to hell. But, at least that person who hated me had the opportunity to say it later.

Like I said earlier, go to the funeral of a suicide and get back to me how you felt. It is preventable many times; sometimes you have to be inconvenienced or have some flagrant pain to feel good and reassured later.

Quick vignette to illustrate my point: I had a patient years ago who came in depressed and had no overt negative issues, got promoted at his job, moved into a new home, and his wife was pregnant with their first child. He had it in his head that he was going to fail with his new job demands, end up losing the house, and put his family on the street, destitute. I started him on an antidepressant and he started seeing a therapist, but on the first follow up visit with me two weeks later, he was not feeling any better, and the way he talked, I had a sense he was not being forthright with me. I pressed him and after a few minutes he broke down sobbing and told me he was going home to shoot himself int the garage as he had no hope. I called his wife and she found the gun, loaded, at his workbench in the garage, and I had to get this man immediate help with 24 hour monitoring. He fought with me verbally at first, and as I was getting ready to have to petition him, his wife came to the office, talked with him and convinced him to go to the hospital, and he did.

He was there 5 days, came back to see me the following week, and told me fairly directly:
"you saved my life, I was an idiot to let my depression guide my decision making, and I hated you when I was admitted, and then my wife reminded me you were doing your job, just like I had to do tough and painful things with employees at mine. It was a good thing you were paying attention to what I wasn't saying, because I would be dead and my wife would have been miserable, and it would have been my fault. thank you for being a bastard two weeks ago, do what you have to do with others."

Tough stuff for him to say. I remember it to this day, because it taught me sometimes change, even when it is all perceived as good, can be overwhelming and cause heartache in the end.

So, to bring it back to you Sally, I can't treat poverty as a psychiatric illness. It is a societal issue, solved by the society. I hope you will give up this crusade to mock and demean my position on issues. I don't sense much empathy from you, at least when it comes to real mental health illness.

If that assumption is wrong, then you will correct me and I will move on having erred. So far though, you haven't done so.

TF, Why did you think it necessary to put that first line in your comment to me? What point do your insults serve? I feel mocked and demeaned. Why is such behavior okay in you and not in me? I don't concede that I am mocking and demeaning you, but I believe you feel mocked and demeaned.

What I fear about you and your attitude is your abosolute certainly that you are right, your lack of insight. Having lost several people I care about to suicide over the years, I'd have to bet that the harm caused by have a psychiatric inpatient record has caused more suicides than it has prevented. And I've been to more than one funeral of a suicide. It seems we both want to prevent suicide but have opposite positions on how to do so. I've attended three funerals of people who died by suicide, all three brutalized and ruined by the psychaitric system that purported to help them. Three brilliant, decent people whose lives were wasted by "mental health" professionals who like you forced these people to believe there was something terribly wrong with their world views. At the times of all three deaths, all three were on meds and I held you views. My mind has changed. I hope yours will. I fear that if you check back with those suicedes you think you prevented, some will now have been completed. I hope I'm wrong, but I can't imagine the sort of lack of curiosity that you express helping anyone.

As a member of society, you have a duty to your fellow humans. Poverty is one of many causes of the despair that you call mental illness. Providing counseling and encouragement to people who lack the basic necessities of life is crucial, if not as crucial as providing jobs and housing. Viewing all of your patients as irresponsible victims who need to take responsiblity for their situations and "brain chemistry" is toxic, callous, and dangerous in my experience.

I still can barely go to the post office where a friend shot himself in the head...this is tragic, and I have no idea why anyone is squabbling over the why's and how's. I also was suspecting as Angie stated that it has an odd ring to the story, of what exactly happened.

Sometimes, I think we all say too much in responses to some of the most horrific stories written here. Like the therapist who was murdered by a patient thread.

Sometimes, it's just good to be quiet and reflect on life, because we are here, we have one, and maybe they've been hard but hell we're here aren't we? Why be bitter?

Huh? I didn't post anything about crashing a funeral. All I mentioned was Jim Jones, first comment, go read and please don't insult me for something I didn't even write.

The Heaven's Gate was terrible. This story is also sad.
But this events has no connection whatsoever and we have very few data to say anything.
Suicide is a very complex question. There is not one reason why people take their lives.
Why can we "understand" Sylvia Plath, G. Deleuze and Virginia Woolf and the "flirt" that Camus had with death?
There are many questions circling this issue for me.
I don't dare judging or condemn.
All I know is that drug-induced suicide is a crime.
If someone dies induced by others or by drug it's something of another nature.
It's very complex.

Stephany, I think being quiet has it's place and it's not necessarily in a thread about suicide unless of course you want to be quiet. I've lost people I loved to suicide. I don't think it's an area in which people should be silenced.

We don't know who is reading this blog. I'm not saying the blog is or should be "therapy," but when suicide is mentioned there's a certain amount of stuff that needs to be said for obvious reasons. The idea of a despairing person googling suicide and coming here is sobering to me.

Perhaps no one but perhaps one isolated person is saved by reading me saying that for most people therapy hurts and exacerbates and it's okay to quit. Though that's what research tells us you hardly ever see that point mentioned.

Someone else might be saved by TF's suggestion of therapy, and his assertion that not liking it is a symptom of mental illness and still someone else by lamictal. My theory is that sometimes all it takes is a second of distraction or connection to save a life even if the salvation is some psych drug or therapist the saved person will play hell extricating herself from in the long run. My theories can be wrong just like anyone else's.

We can't all always agree but I think we're all better off when we express ourselves. The direct attacks I could do without but I understand why my thoughts sometimes anger others so it doesn't bother me too much. And yes I get angry too. I find TF's tone irritating and disagree with him about much. I feel that not to rebut his statements would be irresponsible, to let them stand as unchallenged fact, harmful, but I know he views himself as helping people and I hope he's not harming any. His apparent decision not to rebut my assertions about therapy shocks me and I like to think I can communicate and remain open to the views of different people. Life goes on.

I trust Philip to be responsible in what he posts. I think posts by a purported psychiatrist in which he "diagnoses" people through their comments on the web should be at least edited but it's not my blog. Philip does a great job, better than I could do. I don't like TF commenting about his private discussions with Philip about moderation. It seems like a violation that invites trouble (like me).

Me, maybe I'm bitter. I don't think so but like William Blake wrote: "I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow."

Repressed anger kills. Suicide is a matter I feel deeply about as we all do. Tragic and confusing. Better to talk about it I think....

Sally,
Tyger, tyger burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry!
..........................
Blake
You all know...
Sometimes th tyger is dreadful and it's not a chat that can convince someone what it's a beautiful animal.
I'm sorry but I believe your theory is simplistic.

Sally, I understand more than you might know. You've had a horrific experience. It is one others don't know about.(because you should write it on your blog) I do. I've lost friends-- and teen students-- to suicide; my heart suffers every day with that loss. There is no right or correct answer ever....in this. I don't know what else to say, I just appreciate all viewpoints. (because we are all just us, you know? even doctors...)

PS- "even doctors" that sounds awful too. I meant to say, we are all just human beings, here together. UGH!

Ana, you don't need to apologize for believing my theory is simplistic. I think it's probably incomplete and that there's no one reason to explain all suicide. I'm curious though, what exactly is it that made you think my theory was simplistic?

Stephany,
Your silence meant a lot. Quite eloquent.

Sally,
If I said your theory is incomplete I believe that it would be worst for it has a proximity with:
"inexact, erroneous, imperfect., unsatisfactory, partial, mediocre, inaccurate, inadequate, fallible...
http://www.onlinethesaurussite.co.uk/reference/thesaurus.jsp?q=incomplete

"simplistic" is what I meant:

embryonic, reductionistic, unworked, conceptually crude

according to the same dictionary.

In other words: you have approached one aspect of the problem.
You have already answered.
there's no one reason to explain all suicide
simplistic sim·plism (smplzm)
n.

I believe we agree that there are millions reasons why a person commits suicide. That's all.
To me, according to my feelings, some of them I respect and you all must think I'm crazy: i agree that it was the only possible solution.
But I will not explain it all here. Too complex.

we are all just human beings, here together
I go with this Stephany quotation.

Sad and tragic though this is, it doesn't surprise me.
We live in an age of controlled insanity.
The masses are constantly overwhelmed with pressures and stresses which our bodies and minds simply cannot cope with.
War, murder, suicide , depression, anxiety and psychiatric drugs are the symptoms of a sick society.

Dearest Philip:

It's really too bad that some are so lost in their own personal suffering or opinions to just feel the sadness and gravity of the grief we all should feel by articles such as the one you brought to our attention here. I’m not sure if some lose prospective of the bigger picture and landscape of this precious gift we call life.

Though I have not been commenting here for a while; I have been reading the comments on many threats that sadly have turned in to personal agenda battles, and lose all concept of the topic matter that began as a discussion of thought worthy issues; morphing into this personal attack syndrome to somehow justify their own opinion and validity.

I can’t grasp the concept that by demeaning another, it somehow makes what is said/written in anger and tainted posture make these statements of groveling babble more palatable, or adds weight to their very own imprisoned ignorance arguments.

Maybe there is something else wrong besides the injustices of the mental health system and paradox we live with today. That’s for each of us to closely examine and wrestle within ourselves I would suppose at this time.

But the slow process of true change doesn’t happen by creating division, demeaning one another, and the infighting among us.

I personally believe the vast majority of us can come to a comment ground, and still hold on to our well researched, documented, lived, and self actualized personal opinions/visions without grinding up others with similar but different goals of creating a better mental health system that has the very basic principles.

Compassion, dignity, respect, humane care, the right of self determination, proper sustenance goals of proper food and housing, and opportunities being given to be re-assimilated in the work place or at the very least the pursuit of happiness.

Real people with real feelings just like you and I being weaved into the social network of our society as a whole; as others with various disabilities have before them. What would happen if we each of us agreed on those basic principles as one voice; whatever you happen to believe on one particular topic or another.

It’s not complicated rocket science to realize the system is broken and needs repair. With needed opportunities given to those that suffer from mental health disorders to overcome an unjust suffering stigmatized state, and be part of our communities; finally being seen as our equals in every sense of that expression of humanity.

Now off my soap box and back on topic:

Suicide -

Unfortunately there is no upside to the tragedy of suicide. There are the victims that leave us, and the victims that are left behind. Sadly there is more than enough anger and torment left behind to touch everyone involved. That goes with the so many unanswered questions of why? As we that are emotional attached to that person ask ourselves why didn’t I see this ugly event coming? It’s like questioning ourselves over something like a bad weather event or an earth quake that we have little or no power to control.

There are also those thought to be crowned selfish for what they feel; yet hold on to quite valid questions of why would someone that cared about me, and professed to love me: betray me in such a heartless and brutal fashion? All these emotions are valid, and will surely be felt in a broad spectrum of intensity and measure.

I heard so many times from those sitting in the bleachers as unattached on lookers; tauntingly grumbling from those seats so ardently and articulately that those that commit suicide are weak and take the easy way out. I happen to believe that is so far from the lived reality, and in all actuality light years from the horrific truth. I also have been to that perilous edge many times in my life, and know all too well the anguish and agony that grabbles your mind in that delusional gloominess dark, moronic, painful, hopeless, and fragile state of unbearable Hell.

I myself have had suicidal idealizations fairly often. I have learned through time and experience to embrace those times and draw strength from them; as if I was drawing buckets full of life giving water from the well of existence itself, renewing and quenching with vigor and fortitude the very thirst for this precious gift of continued breath.

There are no satisfactory summations to be made for the act of suicide; just the scattered ruins of one more life left unfulfilled, and those trying to understand and pick up the remnants of their shattered being which is never completely understood or fathomed with any true clarity or peaceful resolution in our very heart of hearts.
I guess our only hope in limiting this horrific and tragic outcome of self inflicted death is recognition, intervention, and prevention. The stark and cold reality is that many of these of those options will ever be foolproof or effective in all situations. Which is sadly obvious by what the menacing data and statistics bear out on this act; whichever study you wish to believe as most accurate or valid, the numbers are still staggering.

Each of us at some point will peer into the dark empty eyes of death itself; the only question at that moment will be can you stare back without remorse or fear, and walk with dignity into your ultimate destiny?

Yours Truly
Stan