Suggestion about suicide prevention

[abaris]

Well, I personally believe that we should educate people on the real consequences and ways to overcome depression.

That's a job for professionals. Not Gurus, pastors, priests or well meaning individuals. You don't know what a real clinical depression entails until you suffered from it. I did and to say I underestimated what other people said about being depressed, would be an understatment. To an outsider, who never had been in that situation, it's virtually undescribable. And that's why nobody, not trained to treat that illness, should attempt to do anything about it.

[brewer]

Just say no?

Relax, joke.

[Minimalist]

That's a job for professionals.

Yes, and even they struggle to resolve it.

[Faith No More]

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Well, I personally believe that we should educate people on the real consequences and ways to overcome depression. When you die, that's it, there are no second chances, and everything is lost. However, if someone feels that things are so terrible that they don't want to live anymore, it is their life, and it would be selfish to tell them to continue suffering so that someone else doesn't have to feel the pain of loosing them. I have struggled with depression in the past, so I know what its like, and I found the real cure for me was truly finding and loving myself, and making myself feel important to myself.

 Loving yourself sounds easy, and for some people it may be, but it took me a long time to accept myself for who I am and be happy with myself, I think that is the real key to valuing your own life. The hard part was finding that on my own, because no one can really help you do it, and I believe it requires a higher intellect to even have a chance at understanding what it means to love yourself. To start, I had to find independent qualities within myself that make me feel good about who I am, and after I found those qualities I defined myself by them. Once I knew who I was, and became happy with who I was, I found an independent source of happiness within myself that could not be extinguished by environmental factors. I no longer relied on the approval (and/or acceptance) of my piers, I no longer felt the overwhelming desire for companionship and the pain of being alone, I became my own support system and established a close relationship with myself. This may sound a little confusing because it is really hard to explain accurately, but I saw myself from "third person" point of view as well as first person. I cared about myself in the same way you would care about others close to you (if that makes sense at all). It helped me to feel not so alone. All of this may sound ridiculous or naïve, but it worked for me. Anyways, I believe trying to get people to that point would help a lot, or who knows, maybe I'm just crazy and talking out of my ass. A simpler thought would be "You only get one life so if you have nothing to lose, why not just roll the dice?, you can always die later". Anyways, that's my thoughts on the subject, and I hope it helped.

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Those are some good thoughts. Learning to accept and appreciate who you are can be extremely valuable when fighting depression. It creates a sort of internal foundation that will allow you to cope with all of the external conflict.

[abaris]

Those are some good thoughts.  Learning to accept and appreciate who you are can be extremely valuable when fighting depression.  It creates a sort of internal foundation that will allow you to cope with all of the external conflict.

Only one question: Did you personally suffer from a clinical depression? And by that I don't mean feeling down, but a real one with all the symptoms associated with it.

The advice of just learning to appreciate yourself is exactly the New Age nonsense that's more likely to worsen the situation. Sometimes well meant, sometimes ignorant of what you're dealing with and - in extreme circumstances - used to make a dime. Depression is an illness needing a combined therapy of medication and professional analysis.

[Faith No More]

That's a job for professionals. Not Gurus, pastors, priests or well meaning individuals. You don't know what a real clinical depression entails until you suffered from it. I did and to say I underestimated what other people said about being depressed, would be an understatment. To an outsider, who never had been in that situation, it's virtually undescribable. And that's why nobody, not trained to treat that illness, should attempt to do anything about it.

I think what was meant was that collectively we should educate each other about depression, as in a similar manner to a school ciriculum. In the U.S., as I'm sure they do in other countries, we have classes in school for teenagers that teach life skills and sex education. That would be a place to introduce material that was pre-approved by professionals.

[Faith No More]

Only one question: Did you personally suffer from a clinical depression? And by that I don't mean feeling down, but a real one with all the symptoms associated with it.

The advice of just learning to appreciate yourself is exactly the New Age nonsense that's more likely to worsen the situation. Sometimes well meant, sometimes ignorant of what you're dealing with and - in extreme circumstances - used to make a dime. Depression is an illness needing a combined therapy of medication and professional analysis.

I've been hospitalized eight times for it, yes, and I've been on anti-depressants for the last twenty years.

I've never said "just" learn to appreciate yourself. I said learning to appreciate yourself is a valuable tool in fighting depression.

[abaris]

I've been hospitalized eight times for it, yes, and I've been on anti-depressants for the last twenty years.

I've never said "just" learn to appreciate yourself.  I said learning to appreciate yourself is a valuable tool in fighting depression.

Yeah, well. It just makes me angry when people post that learn to appreciate yourself as if it was the answer. I was lucky enough to never have been suicidal, but I know what the tunnel looks like and that it can be too much of an effort to even take a shower.

Before it hit me, I was just as ignorant. Which, possibly, makes me even angrier when that kind of advice comes up. And it does every time, like a bad habit.

[Faith No More]

Yeah, well. It just makes me angry when people post that learn to appreciate yourself as if it was the answer. I was lucky enough to never have been suicidal, but I know what the tunnel looks like and that it can be too much of an effort to even take a shower.

Before it hit me, I was just as ignorant. Which, possibly, makes me even angrier when that kind of advice comes up. And it does every time, like a bad habit.

Oh, I get it. There's a lot of dumb shit out there posing as advice for depression. A lot of people out there think they are totally qualified to tell others how to fix themselves when they are really talking out of their asses. It pisses me off, too.

Unfortuantely, I have had more than my share of experience with depression. Not only have I experienced it, many of my best friends did, too. Two of them didn't make it to their thirties because of it. You can rest assured I'm not one of those people just talking out of their ass.

[Philomath]

Well, I personally believe that we should educate people on the real consequences and ways to overcome depression.

That's a job for professionals. Not Gurus, pastors, priests or well meaning individuals. You don't know what a real clinical depression entails until you suffered from it. I did and to say I underestimated what other people said about being depressed, would be an understatment. To an outsider, who never had been in that situation, it's virtually undescribable. And that's why nobody, not trained to treat that illness, should attempt to do anything about it.

I'm not the sort to exaggerate or delve into stories of personal hardship, but I had quite a struggle with depression when I was just a bit younger, and it landed me in a crisis management center, and it didn't matter what personal experience or professional training anyone had, they didn't have the answers I needed. This is what makes it so difficult to overcome depression, because you have to do it on your own, and when you're truly depressed (not just sad or down) you feel like there isn't any way out of it, and convincing people otherwise is the real struggle. Psychology is one of my few true passions, and I have a great deal of respect for the APA and DSM-V , but they aren't perfect. I believe anyone under emotional distress should first seek professional help, but they shouldn't expect mental health professionals to have all of the answers. Medications like anti-depressants are also very helpful in many cases, but too many people expect these medications to be the solution to all of their problems, and that's not how it works. Unfortunately, in many cases depression just isn't "curable" (as with biochemical discrepancies), but in many others it is. I believe it has a lot to do with perspective. In my case I was focusing on the wrong things (the things that made me depressed), and it took years for me to realize that. Preventing and managing depression is a lot easier than preventing suicide, and as a society we should promote education that does exactly that.