Posted on 08/15/2014 10:36:06 AM PDT by NKP_Vet
Something happened yesterday.
It began with a post I wrote about depression and suicide called “Robin Williams didn’t die from a disease, he died from his choice.”
When I clicked “publish” on that piece, I felt confident. I was sad that it had to be written, and upset about the circumstances surrounding it, but sure that I was saying something that needed to be said; something truthful but uplifting, frank but compassionate. I actually found myself getting emotional as I wrote it. I’m not suicidal but I have demons of my own, so I submitted that post to the public, praying others would find the same solace in the promise of hope and the power of free will.
But then things got out of control. Rapidly.
My post on depression and suicide has been viewed 3 million times and received tens of thousands of comments (so many, in fact, that the Facebook commenting system on my blog crashed). My Twitter feed was flooded with responses, my email inbox overflowing, my Facebook page inundated. Dozens of bloggers have written responses. Several radio and TV shows have contacted me to ask about it. There has been an incredible amount of feedback, and the vast majority of it has been negative. Not just negative: often vicious, brutal, hateful. I have been told to kill myself more times in the past few hours than I can count. I’ve been called every name in the book and labeled everything from “human garbage” to a “worthless piece of sh*t” to a “disgrace” to a “monster” and a “psychopath.” I’ve been told that my kids should be ashamed and my wife should leave me. I’ve actually had more than one person “pray” that someone in my family commits suicide. Even my wife has been targeted and harassed.
(Excerpt) Read more at themattwalshblog.com ...
Suicide is a choice, and probably the most selfish choice there is. I will be out of pain but my family and loved ones will suffer the demons of Hell wondering if they were at fault or could have done more to help.
Suicide is a the ultimate form of self-centered behavior.
I got kicked quite a bit yesterday for posting how selfish suicide is and how Williams’ kids will pay for his act for the rest of his life.
Yep, some people got pretty nasty.
Having grown up with an alcoholic, bipolar mother (that pretty much ruined the first 21 years of my life) I feel like whether anyone agrees with my opinions on this subject, I’ve certainly earned the right to have and express those opinions.
My attitude towards those that don’t like my opinions? Bite me.
As regards Williams, I have the same thing to say as I do with most celebrity burnout deaths. Why is the ending of his life so much more important than that of the poor smuck that lives in the suburbs?
But consider this: most of this country is unperturbed when the Sec of State publicly belittles the heinous deaths of four patriots in service to their country and yet these same people rend their garments and cry rivers of tears for an actor that died by his own hand.
It is sad that he was so unhappy that he saw death as a viable solution, but how about some perspective here?
Five generations hurt in my family.
When my father killed himself, my great-grandfather tried to throw himself in the grave. Thirty years later, my grandmother was still weeping for her son. His brother was still asking why. My mother talks to her dead husband sometime. My brothers and I are scarred; our children affected by our scars, or never conceived, because one is incapable of forming a relationship.
And right now, we are trying to keep one of my brothers alive, as he struggles with his own depression and says his father had the right idea and his children don’t need him.
Five generations. Please God, let it not happen again.
Suicide behavior seems to affect the whole family. From an article on CNN in 2009, I found this:
” A first-degree relative — a parent, sibling or child — of a person who has committed suicide is four to six times more likely to attempt or complete a suicide, said Dr. David Brent, psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Studies on twins have shown that suicidal behavior is between 30 and 50 percent due to heritable factors, he said. Suicide victims’ biological relatives who were adopted away also show an increased risk of suicide, he said.”
I personally believe that choosing suicide as a way to deal with life’s problems encourages impressionable members of the family to consider it as a way to solve problems, not that they necessarily will, but the option is on the table. That, to me, is the most damning thing about suicide and while we can understand that someone is depressed and feeling hopeless, it is a terribly selfish act and instead of lauding Robin Williams, maybe the media should stop slobbering on and on about what a wonderful human being he was and state clearly that suicide is a cowardly act.
I disagree. Depression is a choice.
I take it from this that you have been depressed, and were able to decide not to be, and recovered.
If you want more of something, excuse it. If you want less of something, condemn it.
I disagree with you.
Please tell me how depression is a choice.
Children Who Lose a Parent to Suicide More Likely to Commit Suicide Themselves
I agree, and those same explanations can be used for things like divorce, smoking, alcoholism, etc.
My father was an alcoholic and the children were 80% more likely to be alcoholics; i.e my three brothers and sister have problems, I do not.
Divorces in a family show the children that divorce is an option.
All of this goes back to the same point; actions are just that - actions. No matter how we feel or believe, once we actually do something, we have made a choice. And we can always say no.
if depresion is a choice and there is not upside, why choose to be “depressed”?
Given a 'choice', I'd rather have been in a wheelchair than deal with clinical depression.
Yeah, that'll probably generate some comments, but that's what I think.
BTW, FWIW, I came DAMN close to suicide about 5 years ago. Scared myself so bad I doubt it will ever happen.
Yes, I went through severe depression off and on for years. Someone I trusted implicitly told me that depression was a choice and I angrily stewed over that for a year. Then one day I snapped to the truth of that and in a few minutes my depression lifted completely. I literally felt it physically lift off of me like a heavy blanket. That was in '96 and I haven't been depressed a single day since. The whole thing became clear as a bell to me.
Robin Williams had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease a few months before his death, and according to some doctors there is decreased hormones in the brain (like dopemine) that would normally keep one from Depression, but Parkinson’s really does increase Depression.
I felt there was more to his taking his life than just suicide, and the change in chemical brain activity makes more sense. I thought he may have been murdered, but Parkinson’s does bring clarity to his state of mind.
As for the years a suicide in the family remains, that is true. When I was eleven an uncle who had served in WWII and was shell shocked committed suicide...about two decades after the war. It was expected as my grandmother was told when he returned to U S that he would not harm others but might harm himself. He was in heavy fighting in WWII and radios or planes overhead would make him hit the ground in fighting position. A few years ago my cousin lost a son to suicide and that was first thing he brought up, it does linger in families and anything that comes up brings it back.
I am surprised at cruel comments against people we disagree with here, and although we know RW was liberal, he was still a human being who lost his struggle w life/demons/illness. I found him funny and everything in life isn’t political democrat/republican or hatred, if it is we are now just as bad as the left...no better in Gods eyes.
Ask an alcoholic who is being killed by alcohol why he takes another drink.
Good choice.
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