The body of actor Andrew Koenig was found in Vancouver’s Stanley Park yesterday. His father, Walter Koenig, said that his son “took his own life, and was in a lot of pain.” Like most of my generation, I grew up with Walter Koenig as Chekhov on Star Trek, and he played a superb villain much later, on Babylon 5. Until his press conference yesterday, I didn’t realize he was a man of such incredible strength and dignity. He asked for his family to be left in peace to mourn their loss. I hope he won’t mind if I take this sad occasion to address others who might be following the road that ended in Stanley Park for Andrew. No matter how far you have gone down that road, there is always a path that leads away. I could offer no greater tribute to Andrew and his family than trying to help you take it, or at least see it.
You won’t find the beginning of that path in your house, or your room, or any other private place where you torment yourself, and wonder why a world you’re hiding from can no longer see you. You’ll have to step outside, and take a walk through your town. You’ll pass hospitals where the gift of life is unwrapped and presented to the universe. In another wing, life is held as precious treasure by families gathered around quiet beds, surrounded by tireless machines and their tired, but determined, keepers. Perhaps you’ll find a hospice, where the dying embrace their last opportunity to share their lives with all who receive the blessing of a seat beside them. You’ll pass churches and temples, filled with the sworn enemies of despair.
You may find yourself wishing you could give the unwanted years of your future to the clients of those hospitals and hospices. I did, years ago, when I stood where you are standing now. I was on my knees at the time, offering that trade with all my heart. It doesn’t work that way. Those who tend the hospices can tell you why, and the people in the churches and temples can explain why it shouldn’t.
Stroll past your local police station, where the noble calling to risk your life in the service of others is answered… and the worship of death as a solution to problems meets its humiliating end. Maybe you’ll spot a recruiting station, where men and women who love their friends and families accept a duty that could take them away forever… because they know others love their families too, and there is no safe way to build and protect the future for them.
If your walk takes you past sunset, watch the cars rolling into the driveways of apartments and houses. If you walk from night into morning, watch the people reluctantly leaving their homes, to provide for their families. Those people are not wasting their lives, but fulfilling them. They return home to enjoy their reward, and renew their inspiration. Every day, they write new pages in the human story. None of us will see the end of that tale… but I know you share my appetite to read another chapter, and then one more after that. You may have convinced yourself to ignore it, but it’s still there.
Step into a convenience store for a cup of coffee or chocolate, and take a look at the newspapers. They are filled with pleas for help that you could answer. From the inner cities of America, to the broken streets of Haiti, and around the world, there are places where the clocks are filled with nothing but desperate hours. Another pair of hands, or another few dollars of support, are always needed. The years ahead, which you regard as a painful burden, can be given to them. It will take effort, and courage… but along the way, I can promise that your life would stop feeling like a burden.
You may view suicide as your last chance to shake the pillars of a world that has turned its back on you. The world doesn’t need any more shaking. If you’ve been telling yourself that no one will miss you when you’re gone, you are wrong. Your suicide would tear a hole through the future, and nothing could ever fill the space where you used to be. You might think you’re alone, but you don’t have to walk more than a couple of miles from your house to see a building full of people who would be delighted to meet you. There are places like Suicide Hotlines, staffed by men and women who have spent their entire lives preparing to hear the sound of your voice, and greet every day hoping to learn your name.
You may be afraid to face the years ahead. You’re not the only one, and if you extinguish the light of your faith and wisdom, you consign others to darkness. You might see death by your own hand as the end of unbearable pain… but I ask you to think about Walter Koenig, facing a wall of cameras with quiet grace in the hours after finding his son’s body, and understand that it’s only the beginning of agony.
You might have decided your fellow men are rotten to the core, and you’re weary of their company. Listen to the music of Mozart, or look upon the work of Michelangelo, and consider the argument of those who profoundly disagree. Maybe part of your problem is that you’ve been listening to the wrong music, or looking at the wrong pictures. Dark waters are easy to drown in. The judgment of the human race will not lack witnesses for the defense, and they will make their case to you, if you give them a chance.
Now, take the last few steps back to your home, and set aside one sorrow or terror with every footfall, until your mind is clear. If you’re thinking of incinerating the remaining years of your life, surely you can spare a few minutes for quiet reflection, and hear this prayer from the living world:
Please don’t leave us. We need you.
It is a quiet prayer, spoken in a soft voice, but it’s never too late to listen.
Cross-posted at Hot Air.
Oh my, beautifully written and so very true of the hole that suicide tears a hole thru the future, my youngest daughter lost her father to suicide three weeks before graduating from High School and I don’t know that the hole he left will ever be filled. Thank you for writing this.
You are a beautiful man, Dr. Thank you.
WOW. That was beautiful.
Thank you for writing and sharing with us!!
Thanks, Doctor Z. As one of those millions who have gone through those times where you wonder if life is worth the pain (I have suffered from GAD and Depression in my own life.) , all I can say is that a change to a different viewpoint often seems so large and just impossible to reach, and thus the despair seems a logical conclusion. But the reality is that this perception can be altered and it does not have to come as a result of a large change in your life. Like you said, sometimes its a change in how you view your external environment and the people in your life; sometimes its reaching out to others to help and for help in a club or a church or a support group; sometimes it comes from getting physically active; sometimes from changing the way you breathe; sometimes, its just spending a bit of time with yourself in quiet and realizing it is just a bad moment in life and it will dissolve in time as all things do. At any rate, when you feel really bad, its time to reach out for help. And you will be surprised by how much help there really is out there — and inside.
Yet another great post Doc. I’m sure it will encourage someone who is in need of that encouragement.
You already have a big audience, but nowhere near as big as the one you deserve, or the one that I am confident that you will have in time.
A great voice for conservatism– and for humanity in general.
Doc – thanks so much for your graceful and clear call for a detour. I lost my dear younger sister in 2004, and yes time does offer a lot of healing, but the hole remains. My family on my mother’s side carries some sort of predisposition to depression. I’ve found myself on the proverbial ledge at times, and your essay gives me renewed hope. I have your site bookmarked and check it almost every day. I am grateful for the gift you share.
Thank you so very much.
M
Thanks for this post…
Superlative, Doc…
Perhaps a life saving piece, my friend.
Only a person who has been there can really know what it’s like to feel “worthless” and better off dead. Sadly, far too many of us have suffered those feelings and each time someone chooses to end their life, that decision haunts far more than the victim could ever know or understand.
Thanks, Doc, for sharing a personal side that some of us have known and many of us are all too familiar with.
I was the person your post is addressed to. I took the walk you suggested, broken and ready to give it all away, and yes wishing i could give my time to someone more worthy. a wise friend introduced me to a friend of hers, a marine who was also going through a rough time. We became best friends, got each other through the darkest hours of each other’s life.
Without me people say he would have never survived his deployments, never had a reason to come home.
without him, i simply would not have hung on. together we kept a foster child going, rescued animals, and made a life. we are now both glad to be alive. No longer broken hearted.
its true. no matter how improbable it sounds if you get going and just keep shuffling along, then find something to do that matters, you will matter, then something will start to matter to you, and eventually life may not become a joy, but it will be something you can look at with satisfaction, a fight well fought. Its not safe. Its not fun. You might be wounded. You might find love. Even friends that love you too. I never thought the invisible sucking chest wound my life left me with would heal… but though i have scars, i am whole. I may not be like i was, but i am here, and i am satisfied with the results of my fight. I still battle depression, my bills, life and all it throws at me, but at this point i am again curious to see what happens next, and dont dread what is coming round the corner for me.
thanks Doc Zero.
you spoke to my heart tonight.
To tho like the me who had given up on living, please keep going, try to get out somewhere, work with animals, if humans have hurt you. Try books, take a class. your life is out there waiting for you, wanting you to take it and live it….
Since I posted yesterday on the suicide of Andrew Koenig, I’ve had some response in comments, via text, and in private mail. Rather than address it all piecemeal, I’ll do it in one fell swoop.
My comment in posting the news article was “There but for the Grace of God…” So yeah, it’s personal to me, and while I might see how one could see my comments after as cynical – well, not to long ago I defined a cynic to someone as a person who smells flowers and looks for a casket. I’ve seen the casket. So I don’t think cynical is an appropriate word.
Whatever the coronor’s report is on Andy Koenig, one thing will be missing. And that will be the cause of death. It will say “Gunshot” or “Poison” or something, but the real cause is major, chronic, clinical depression. And yeah, there but for the grace of God go I. I’ve beenva fortunate man to have in my life at a couple of critical times a couple people who were real friends, and wouldn’t let me go gently into that night. I said a couple people.
Most people couldn’t be arsed, and probably would have been more comfortable standing around a casket saying “Who would have thought…” But to Hell with that.
So what is depression? It’s not a blah day. It’s not the blues. It’s not the understandable sadness or grief of loss of a loved one.
It’s not even sadness. It’s flatness, and it is an almost constant companion. Sure, you get a good day here and there – depending on how your biorythym cycles you might even get weeks or months. Manic-Depressives cycle wildly. Unipolar depressives cycle between down and normal, though when they are normal, sometimes the giddiness of being that way is often taken as manic.
That’s one thing you learn – if it’s clicking, live, and seize it. There’s no telling how long this will last.
And when it goes … mmm. It’s not a … Lord, how do you explain color to a blind man? Flat. You can’t touch your emotions. Pleasure, anger … it is not some Star Trek Vulcan absence of it, but they become intellectual exercises. There, but you can’t touch them. A favorite meal – it tastes good, yeah, but it doesn’t bring you the excitement of digging into your favorite foods, all you can eat, cooked to perfection. It’s almost like being a passenger in your own brain.
Or, more fun yet, is when the connection between intellect and emotion is inappropriate. Like when someone giggles at a funeral. But it’s not stress of the moment, it goes on for days. Yes, I know I should not want to throttle my wife for saying she loves me. (And I don’t do this, to be sure – It’s just walking around for days, or even a couple weeks repressing yourself.)Things that should make you smile make you want to weep. Things which should make you angry make you laugh. Things that should make you serene cause wrath.
And like I said, a constant companion. Flat. Misconnected. You’re wrong, something is wrong, and you know it but don’t know why. It creeps up on you when you start a down cycle. And you don’t start in black and bleak despair – it may seem so, but when you later get to reflect, it just starts out flat and dull and grey. Pretty soon you can’t be arsed to seek out the good. The real problem is that when “The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to” hits, there becomes no point in solving them. That is the despair.
Think about it – if finding joy is just too damn much trouble and not worth it…. You do the math.
It is hard to explain. I am not like you. And truth is, that also means you’re not like me. Common referential points are hard to find. I guess before puberty hit, I was like you, but God help me, I don’t remember what it was like not having this inside me somewhere. Even when the Beast is asleep, it is there.
People will all nod their heads sagely about it being a real disease, a real problem, oh yes, um-hm, youbetcha. But they don’t *GET* it. Eventually 99% of them wind up waggling a finger in your face, archly lecturing you to suck it up, man up, get a grip, yadda, yadda, yadda (What You Need To Do Is…) and if you don’t want to scream in frustration “You think I LIKE this, you piece of crap?” you want to laugh in their face at their abject cluelessness. That is, when you can be bothered to feel something. I remember telling my second wife once when she asked me to get something off a high shelf “What’s wrong with you? Just REACH for the damn thing, goddamn it! You’re pathetic!” She never quite got it – a reason she’s an ex-wife.
People know but don’t believe in this. I could spike your drink with LSD – or something – in amounts too small for you to see, and totally warp your world, your ability to perceive or to react to it. And the LSD does nothing, it is what it breaks down into and then sits in your neuroreceptors that does this. If I did that to you, and you killed someone, no court in the country would convict you. People KNOW this. And yet, try to explain a chemical imbalance doing a similar thing, and they treat it like a character flaw. Yet, they’d think a person ill used if they were told while under the influence of whatever you slipped them as a mickey “Just THINK those things away!”
What. The. Frack. Ever. Been there, done that. Lost one career when it was found out I’d been hospitalized for my depression. Another job turned into a dead end after I asked not to head up this project. Made the mistake of telling them I was adjusting to new meds and wasn’t sure I was up to the stress, to just let me be a worker bee for this month or so. Hey, be honest. Hey, we care. Hey, here’s the EAP. Hey – um – yeah, we just can’t tell when you’re going to collapse under pressure, so… sorry. You understand, don’t you?
Yeah, I understand you could take the time out to send that alcoholic piece of crap that runs receiving to dry out for a month, and bend over backwards to give her a leave of absence; but let me ask to switch out my turn to be project lead, and I’m forever damaged goods.
Cue someone standing over Andrew Koenig’s grave asking “Why didn’t he TALK to someone?!?!?!?! Why did he just retreat away from people” in 3 … 2…. 1…
Oh, mind if I field that one? Because he didn’t trust you. Because you betrayed him. Any other stupid questions? Because he got taught a similar lesson – get some raging alcoholic drunk at a company picnic and fooling around on her husband, and it’s important to “reclaim” her because “We are a family here.” Ask for a lighter load for a brief time to get your feet under you … so solly Cholly. No? Not the lesson you wanted someone to learn?
Pity. It’s the lesson you taught. Maybe you should do something about that, hm?
No, Andy Koenig learned that when people say “Be open and honest and people will understand” that it is a lie and it is bullshit. Andy learned that on the road to recovery – with very few exceptions – he was on his own.
And I plead guilty, that sounds cynical and bitter, but it is the jump up and smack your face God’s Honest Truth. That’s not to say that everyone doesn’t care – even though a lot of people really don’t, they are just uncomfortable with you – but some people, like Walter Koenig, Checkov, his Father, care too damn much to be of any use in getting better. This leaves damn few for you.
Getting better. Where to start? First someone has to figure out that there is something wrong and the person in question is not a piece of human debris. This harder than it sounds. Drug Dealer? Poor victim who lacked opportunity. Gloomy Gus, there – well, what a worthless sack of crap who needs to Get A Grip ™. Then you have to diagnose what is wrong. Inevitably this starts with therapy. It also includes among them a whole host of therapists who think drugs are the Tools of Satan. No to mention “You need to find a therapist you click with” and “You’re just not trying!”
(Yeah, real productive that. Nice way to insure that someone goes ahead and does the crime since they are doing the time. Hundreds of dollars in therapy and regular trips for months – yeah, that shows no f*cking commitment or desire to get better at all. Asswipes.)
It’s at this point that a lot of the mentally ill…
Oh, I’m sorry. Does the term “mentally ill” give you the willies?
…the MENTALLY ILL start to self medicate. Yeah, we all know how this eventually plays out. Tell this to the guy or gal who just has, for the first time in a long time, gone out to a party and had fun – just like everyone else.
So – we’ve finally figured something is wrong, and that therapy alone isn’t the answer. How many years has it been? Seriously. I was 29, and this started manifesting at puberty.
We’ll assume the proper diagnosis has been made, though. Combined with drug abuse, this isn’t always the case. Let’s also toss out and toss away “Psych Wards.” One of these days I am going to update “The Inferno” and I think I will make the Iron City of Dis into a psych ward.
Drug treatment?
…sigh…
For all that we know about this, sometimes I swear that doctors treating this need to wear a loincloth, beads, and put a bone through their nose. Witchdoctors, I swear to God, just bloody Shamen.
Okay, that one truly is not fair. It just feels like you’re a lab rat sometimes.
I will get briefly pedantic here. A few chemicals regulate your … moods. When they are out of whack, you are out of whack. Sometimes this is transient, sometimes, not. When it is not, you have Clinical Depression. This is forever. Sometimes you have too much of one. Or not enough of another. Or it is re-absorbed too quickly. Or not quickly enough. Or doesn’t bond with your neuroreceptor. Or any of the above in any combination. One day they will beable to plug you in, do a brain fluid test, or something, and say “Well, this Calls for Happidol!” That day is not today.
It starts with “Try this.”
If you’re lucky, it works.
A lot of doctors are married to a particular drug. Even some specialists. Either they believe it a magic bullet, or want to believe it, or are paid to push it with kickbacks. If it doesn’t work, and you’re lucky, your doctor isn’t one of those.
Antidepressants. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), tetracyclic antidepressants (TeCAs), selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are most commonly associated with the term. MAOIs. Wow. Yeah, eat the wrong thing, and watch your heart explode. Or you can piss your kidneys out after they melt, or something. Unhappy is the person who has to take these. Seriously, you have to watch what you eat, or how much, or you can die, and if there is a class of drug with more interaction dangers, I have no idea what they are. All I know is I am amazed at how many things I have in my over-the-counter medicine chest that say “Do not take with MAOIs or you will fucking die.”
In any event, these react with your brain chemicals in different ways for different ones. One does this with that, the other does the other with this, certain classes has similar mechanisms within themselves. What this means is if one SSRI works well, another one probably – PROBABLY – will beat least somewhat efficacious, or at least not mess with you.
Probably. What it also means if that is a TeCA is what you need, an SSRI may mess you up.
Serious business. Some of these SSRI’s, in trace doses, are used to (maybe)curb the anxiety from smoking cessation, and even then they include the caution “Warning: May cause suicide!” Yes, sir, the very thing these things are supposed to cure, they may cause. And these are sub-therapeutic doses.
But try it. It might be what you need, if it doesn’t kill you. Isn’t this wonderful?! You starting to get a whack with the cluebat on how much someone may want to be better to roll dice like these? But wait! There’s more!
It takes a lot sometimes to convince a doctor “This isn’t helping.” You can tell them “I have gone from being unable to motivate myself to do the dishes to hiding under my bed shaking and sobbing because little purple men on flying carpets are throwing spears at me” and you’ll be told “A little anxiety is normal. We’ll give you a benzodiazepine to take the edge off that” or “Well, we’re going to up the dose” (WHAT THE FRACKETY-FRACKING _FRACKETY FRACK?!?!?!?!)or “We’ll, why don’t we try adding a second drug into this mix?” (Oh, what can POSSIBLY go wrong here? Gee, how many people have I known who have this med, and that med for the side effect, and then another for the side effects of the second, rinse, repeat….)
No. Hell no. Hell F*****G no. It’s only after you’re strapped to a bed raving that they might consider “Maybe we need to look at another treatment.” MIGHT. If you’re not told “Well, the fact that you have a twitch like someone with Parkinson’s, haven’t slept in three days, and have homicidal urges – pshaw. You just aren’t giving this a fair chance.”
Oh, and the bonus – it can take a considerable time for these to get to “therapeutic” levels, and then if they decide “Maybe we need to try something else” – you can’t just quit them. Yeah. Serotonin syndrome. Look it up. And you have to step it down, AND let the remainder burn out of your system even when you have stopped it, before they try something else. And even if they do help, you should check out the side effects. “Good news Honey! I don’t wish I was dead anymore, but I have no interest in touching you ever again! Isn’t that wonderful?” And that’s a mild one. (Almost as fun as “I no longer have any sense or morality, and am aroused all the time. Anything that moves. The fish have stopped swimming when I walk into the room.”)
And then you find something that works.
For a while. Then it stops working. I think your brain must be convinced that “Self Destructive Urges are the norm, so I need to fix myself.” Begin again. I had that happen a couple years back. What fun.
It took me 14 years going through the drug list – doing the “Try this!” “Oh, that’s no good … Try THIS!” – to find something that I can tolerate, and has proven a long term, stable and consistent effectiveness.
Inevitably, someone is going to come up with a snotty comment about how weak willed Andrew Koenig was, and how he took the coward’s way out. It sounds like he had it worse than me. I know I won’t judge him
But I imagine that someone who hasn’t even tried on his moccasins, let alone walked the mile in them, will. And probably that some person, I’d bet, wouldn’t have lasted three steps in them. He lasted 41 years.
May you rest in the peace that eluded you in life, Andy.
Thank you for your eloquent posts! I read your posts regularly on Hotair, but this one, I am going to print out for my dad, who tried to commit suicide last year.
And sorry if I waxed a touch profane there in a spot or two. It hits awfully close to home.
I had children to live for. I will never know, so I canot claim, the courage it would have taken to live for myself. The way the “mentally ill” get treated as damaged goods and wind up isolated, is probably the biggest factor in all of this.
It makes the dark and peaceful sleep look awfully inviting.
As difficult as it is to have a “favorite” Doc Zero post, I think this one is it.
I normally disagree with most of Dr. Zero’s diatribes, his insistence on Sarah Palin.
This was different. This was human, and wonderful. Thank you. I’m saving this for myself and my loved ones during times of need.
Thanks Doc. I too, have been at that place in my life. After 9/11, I went into a horrific depression. There was only one way out. Death or the Bible. Reading it brought me comfort that I have never known before. I made it out alive.
Thanks again,
-Pat
Nice job lad, VERY nice job, & well done.
Back in High School in the 80′s we had section in “Health” class about suiside….The theme was always….”Talk to someone”….I think that this piece written so well by DZ should be included in EVERY high school class…..I printed out a copy to show my kids when they are a little older, high school age, so we can discuss it and let them know….life is so wonderful…..go out in the world and see for yourself!!!!! and yes…get out of your bedroom, house, little world that you are living in and see that there is a whole world around you living!!!!! Thanks Doc Z!!! You are the best!
My God, this was magnificent. If ever anyone has doubts that you can write, sir, I will show them this and rest my case.
Why a writers’ talent agency or publishing house hasn’t scooped you up to write about any conceivable is perplexing, and the fact that you continue to write for free is both a mystery and a great blessing.
Wow! You hit on the source and said it well. Life …. live now, discover the precious over the vile and make the contributions that we can bring to so many. Thanks Doc!
Bless you Doc. That was beautiful. I’ll keep it with mine if I should need it someday
I wish my father had read your post before he took his life two months prior to my birth.
Suicide is a terrible thing to do to your friends and your family.
@ Peter Dane:
Wow. Thank you for taking the time to deliver that message. I had no idea….
I will never look at clinical depression the same way ever again. I mean it. Thank YOU.
Thank you, Doc. I love all your writings; but this beautiful and powerful piece compels me to share it with all of my friends and loved ones.
So compelling. Cast your bread upon the water and after many days it will return to you. Sow your seed in the morning and in the evening withhold not your had for you do not know what will turn out this or that… that is from Ecclesiastes but it describes what you are doing. You have no idea of the rippIes of effect you have on people. love how you think. your writing is is better than chocolate. I will be the first to buy your book on anything subject you choose. Your greatness is destined for greater fame. Many years ago an anonymous person wrote about an abortion their girlfriend had called ” there is no baby.” I read it as I was pregnant, and wondering if abortion was the lesser of two evils. It would of been so easy to end that life but the poignant regret of that man tipped the scale for me on the decision of life. that anonymous man does not know that there is a baby, that grew up and had more babies, greatly enriching the world. — all because he had the courage to share his heart. By the way he was lambasted by the prochoice crowd. keep it up Doc Zero. If you are not saving lives you are greatly improving them by all a call to live purposefully and with regard for others.
Yep, the doctor is definitely in the house. Keep it up!
man with black hat: A Prayer From The Living World
A work acquaintance of mine was laid off last March and he ended his life at Christmas time. He was still unemployed.
I wish he had read this beautiful prayer.
Perhaps….
Dear Doc, Please don’t leave us. We need you.
[...] been linking this, and for darn good [...]
Thank you sir for such fine thoughts and expressions. Fortunately I have never been in a place where such words might rescue me but I am grateful for them should I ever encounter anyone who does.
There is just so much out there to challenge kids’ confidence, that communication is critical; even the God-awful discussion of suicide. Thanks Doctor Zero for the thoughtful assist.
[...] Doctor Zero has written another beautifully life-affirming piece. You might have decided your fellow men are rotten to the core, and you’re weary of their company. Listen to the music of Mozart, or look upon the work of Michelangelo, and consider the argument of those who profoundly disagree. Maybe part of your problem is that you’ve been listening to the wrong music, or looking at the wrong pictures. Dark waters are easy to drown in. The judgment of the human race will not lack witnesses for the defense, and they will make their cas…. [...]
I don’t know how to do a trackback, but wanted you to know I have quoted and linked to your post from my little blog. It is one of the best essays I have ever read on the topic. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Doc- that was very heartfelt and powerful powerful piece. I am going to print it out, make copies and distribute it at next week’s Depression and Dysthymia Support Group meeting.
Thanks.
“Sworn enemies of despair” – I like that. That’s what I want to be.
The objections to this are interesting. Most of them seem to be a reaction to the attitude that depressives should simply “will themselves better.” But that’s not what Doc is trying to say, I think.
I think he’s given us a call to action. This was an attempt to cut through the numbness and the pain and remember the value there is in life or to find some if necessary. It’s hard. It’s asking a lot. But if you can find the motivation to do the work necessary to get help, it could be a lifesaver.
This essay isn’t a suggested cure – it’s a lighthouse. I pray it lights the way home for some. There is a chance, however small, that I would have one more uncle today if only he had seen this and considered that perhaps we were worth the effort.
Pretty damn good, Doc. Pretty damn good.
Wow. I am a really good friend of Ray’s who does your Podcasts. He shared this with me this morning, knowing that I too walked down the path of darkness to self-destruction not too many months ago. By the grace of God and a great shrink, I have SO much to be thankful for and so much to share with others.
The timeliness of connecting to this piece, so eloquently written, couldn’t be more important. I have a good friend who is struggling with feelings of helplessness and thoughts of ending it all. She is also grappling with a recent suicide of a soccer dad who took his life at a shooting range last Sunday, after months and years of health and financial issues. I just shared this with her. I hope and pray that pieces and testimonies like this can reach out and bring more happy outcomes.
Thank-you for publishing this for all the world to see.
Zoloft saved my life, and my husband’s, so I am not going to put down SSRIs or any other drugs made to help people. Yes, they have potential side effects (none that I’ve experienced other than weight gain), but LIFE has all those same side effects!
Suicide is forever, and if someone is that desperate to die, they can always kill themselves after they’ve tried the pills for a couple of months — but I’m betting at that point, they’ll no longer want to.
I’ve been there, too, but thanks to SSRIs, I’ll never be there again.
My Dearest in the name of God
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Kindly email me now
mrssan1953@yahoo.com
Mrs Sancredi Mathew