Regarding Freeper Obit. TrappedInLiberalHell and Depression

self | Self

[joesbucks]

The problems of depression and despair.

[Dane]

Dane, suicide is irrational to a non-depressive

I understand that, my point is that should suicide be elevated to being "noble".

My opinion is no.

[bonfire]

I don't think he was being crass. He voiced and unpopular opinion. No, not an opinion...but his feelings about suicide. If people were honest, they would probably admit to the same feelings.
He was voicing his concern for Chris' wife. Maybe not the way you or I would, but in anger over what Chris did to HER.

I feel terrible for Chris' wife and for how Chris felt such desperation. But I understand AF's point of view too. Anger and grief aren't that far apart.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

I suppose you could call it selfish, but it's probably no more selfish than wanting someone who is in extreme (and I mean really extreme) psychological pain to suck it up and stay alive for others. I wish no one ever did this - but having lived in a house with someone who did, I just don't have it in me to call them something like that.

Agree with you on the tone of Arne's posts today, though.

[cyborg]

I won't resort to being a nattering nabob of negativism. That won't solve anything. However, I am concerned at the trial baloons being sent up by Bush and SCOTUS decisions,etc. A citizen is going to need a lot of mental fortitude in times to come.

[Nita Nupress]

I think one of the reasons exercise helps is that it jars the brain stimulating the receptors and transmitters that produce the chemicals necessary to process the brain's messages of well-being.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison just published a research study that you may find interesting. Their research with mice indicates that "exercise is addictive" due to the increased release of dopamine in the brain when the mice were kept from running.

Article:
Bred at UW, running rodents may yield clues to addictive behaviors http://www.jsonline.com/alive/news/nov03/189263.asp?format=print

The researchers found that the same areas of the mouse brains that were activated when they were denied a chance to run also are known to fire up in drug-addicted mice that are denied their next fix.

(snip)

For the study, the mice were allowed to run all they wanted for six days. On the seventh day, they were not allowed to run.

The mice then were euthanized, and researchers checked levels of a protein that is an indicator of brain cell activation. Among the super runners, the levels of that protein were 42% to 63% higher, Rhodes said.

The higher levels were found in parts of the brain that are activated when drug-addicted mice are denied drugs such as cocaine, alcohol, nicotine and morphine.

The researchers said the higher levels of the protein show that the mice were highly motivated to run.

Vanderbilt is currently doing similar research on humans regarding sex/internet addiction. The results should be interesting, to say the least.

[CounterCounterCulture]

I missed that post #22. Care to reveal what he said?

???

[bonfire]

Well, as someone said earlier, he DOES have a way with words!

[sweetliberty]

"That may bring some people out of their depressions."

Made my day.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

It's just not that simple, OP.

[EggsAckley]

Oops. that was supposed to be post #322.

[christie]

From my experience, if you just mention depression, friends and family run for the hills. I'm not sure I believe the ones who say, "If I'd only known." If you really looked, you did know. Just the other day I had a friend tell me that when she told her husband just how depressed she had been for years, he said, "Yeah, I know." What did he do about it? This summer when I was going through hell, I tried to tell my sister and after getting absolutely no response from her, I hung up and we did not talk for months. She never called to see how I was doing. I've learned how to hide depression because not only do I know I won't find support, but I know I will be shunned.

At a very low point, I checked out the suicide hotline on the internet and found this essay. For some reason, it helped me: http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

If you are thinking about suicide . . . read this first

If you are feeling suicidal now, please stop long enough to read this. It will only take about five minutes. I do not want to talk you out of your bad feelings. I am not a therapist or other mental health professional - only someone who knows what it is like to be in pain.

I don't know who you are, or why you are reading this page. I only know that for the moment, you're reading it, and that is good. I can assume that you are here because you are troubled and considering ending your life. If it were possible, I would prefer to be there with you at this moment, to sit with you and talk, face to face and heart to heart. But since that is not possible, we will have to make do with this.

I have known a lot of people who have wanted to kill themselves, so I have some small idea of what you might be feeling. I know that you might not be up to reading a long book, so I am going to keep this short. While we are together here for the next five minutes, I have five simple, practical things I would like to share with you. I won't argue with you about whether you should kill yourself. But I assume that if you are thinking about it, you feel pretty bad.

Well, you're still reading, and that's very good. I'd like to ask you to stay with me for the rest of this page. I hope it means that you're at least a tiny bit unsure, somewhere deep inside, about whether or not you really will end your life. Often people feel that, even in the deepest darkness of despair. Being unsure about dying is okay and normal. The fact that you are still alive at this minute means you are still a little bit unsure. It means that even while you want to die, at the same time some part of you still wants to live. So let's hang on to that, and keep going for a few more minutes.

Start by considering this statement:

"Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain."

That's all it's about. You are not a bad person, or crazy, or weak, or flawed, because you feel suicidal. It doesn't even mean that you really want to die - it only means that you have more pain than you can cope with right now. If I start piling weights on your shoulders, you will eventually collapse if I add enough weights . . . .no matter how much you want to remain standing. Willpower has nothing to do with it. Of course you would cheer yourself up, if you could.

Don't accept it if someone tells you, "that's not enough to be suicidal about." There are many kinds of pain that may lead to suicide. Whether or not the pain is bearable may differ from person to person. What might be bearable to someone else, may not be bearable to you. The point at which the pain becomes unbearable depends on what kinds of coping resources you have. Individuals vary greatly in their capacity to withstand pain.

When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources.

[Dane]

DOAIJV, and this is just my opinion, Arne's beef was that people on FR were putting TILH's sucide as a noble and heroic act. He was crass in stating it, but the basic point remains.

I have uch sympathy for TILH's plight, but not respect for his ultimate act.

[Nita Nupress]

FYI bump. You two guys may be interested in my last reply about exercise & endorphins.

[Nita Nupress]

Thanks.

[CounterCounterCulture]

You've got FreepMail

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

I wouldn't call it "noble", either.

But in our case, for example, my brother believed that his mental illness (paranoid schizophrenia) had become a horrible embarrassment to our family. We lived in a small town, and everyone knew he was sick. There were public manifestations of the disease (sobbing in public, frightening people, walking around outside in a thin bathrobe in the middle of January in Wisconsin). My parents were aging at an accelerated rate, trying desperately to help him.

He probably thought he was doing it as much for us as he was to escape the pain.

All I can say is I wish he hadn't...and maybe anger at people who commit suicide (a side-topic in this thread - not something in your post) is appropriate in some cases, but not in ours.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

I agreed with some of what he said.

[At _War_With_Liberals]

Suicidal thoughts can occur when a person who is ill realizes that medication has not worked, or, at best provides little relief... and, realizes that their lives will never be the same as they once were, because the illness makes it literally impossible.

It is a point when one realizes that a paradigm shift has occured in life (in one's subjective reality), and life may be more difficult UNTIL DEATH. An attitude of "I will beat this, I will rise above, this is not a problem for a strong person" is particularly dangerous when those expectations are unreasonable.(depending on severity) But the cliche to 'get over it and move on' is simply a fallacy.

It's also a matter of comparisons. For someone who had a career, athletic talent, a wide social circle, etc...and now struggles just to accomplish basic functions in life, is DEVESTATING.

[CovenBuster]

I'm so glad you're gone. It's hard to imagine how someone could be so thick that they couldn't understand why such an attitude would promote hopelessness in someone who's already so close to giving up hope. I truly believe that's why we lose so many who could be saved -- because they fear disclosing their innermost despair lest they open up to an oaf such as you.

God help any of your loved ones who might be facing abject depression at some point in their life. I pray you get down off your high horse before someone you love really needs you.