World Suicide Prevention Day, September 10, 2012

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. Almost every site I have seen have places to call if you are feeling suicidal, and lots of history and statistics of suicide. Some bloggers are adamant that suicide can be prevented. Some aren't. A few sites, eager to show that the blogger has a very good education, spew out facts from Durkheim, and go into 21st century stats.

Here's the honest truth. Most suicides can be prevented. Most suicidal behavior, if taken over that hump when a person is suicidal, leads to the person being glad the next day they are still alive. I've met several people in real life who are grateful their attempt(s) failed. I've met people who as they were swallowing pills ended up calling 911 because they changed their mind.

Then I've met people, including myself, who were upset they failed. They can't figure out what went wrong, every detail was planned to the Nth degree, and something caused it to go wrong.

How do you prevent a suicide? The best method is to listen to the person and do not judge. President Abraham Lincoln went through such a bad, suicidal patch in his life, his friends didn't leave him alone. It obviously worked, and he went on to be one of the best American Presidents.

Four years ago I wrote about a friend of mine, Kevin Greim, who suicided on Sept 14, 2008 in a most gruesome manner that still gives me nightmares. Out of all the pieces I have ever written in my life, I am the most proud of this one. Kevin was more than a statistic of two suicides that died in Mercer County NJ that weekend. He was a real live person, with the most beautiful aura I've ever seen. A person who totally gave of himself, was always there if you needed to talk and meant so much to so many people at my old support group. Yet since his suicide, I've learned he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, dealing with several problems, that if only he had discussed with his friends, he might not have died. If only he opened up.....

I think about Kevin every day. Kevin loved cars and when I see something cool on the road, I want to pick up my phone, snap a picture of it and send it to him. Only I can't. His friends, still are haunted by his death. One of them never got over it and his life took a turn for the worse.

Then there's the guilt. We all have it. Everyone who was at his memorial service and funeral has it .If only he had talked to me. I remember several of us looking at the urn his ashes were in, crying so hard we had to leave the funeral parlor. Standing outside in the cool Indian Summer with snot rockets coming out of our noses from crying to hard ,and all thinking or saying "Why didn't he call me"?

Some have moved on, as you do with life. Some have on the outside but, like me, are haunted in dreams of what must have been the last milliseconds of his life.

Here's what I want someone who finds this piece to take away.

I get you are hurting.

I understand you feel it won't go away. 

I understand your life has gone to s**t because of drinking, drugging, job loss, or love. 

I understand how you feel helpless and feel that if you were dead you wouldn't be in pain.

BUT

Have you really thought about the people you would leave behind? Yes, in your convoluted thinking, you feel they would be better but they won't. They will feel like they had the hearts ripped out and will miss you every day of their lives. They will hate you sometimes for leaving them, and other times they will miss you so much it will feel like Atlas holding up the weight of all the world. Only instead of holding the earth, they are holding up a broken heart that will never heal. If your friends and family are lucky, they won't go through divorces, or drug use or other ways to make themselves feel better. Ways that don't work and only make things worse in the long run.

One of my favorite movies of all time is "It's A Wonderful Life". At my lowest, most suicidal, I've wondered where my Clarence angel is. One night in my early twenties I got down on my knees and prayed for the entire night until that feeling passed.

All I can tell you is this. Yes there are 7 billion people on the earth right now. There is a reason that you were created. Call it because of G-d, a Higher Power, or just two people having too much to drink on a Saturday night. There is a reason, a mission you have with your life. You don't know it. You probably won't until you are on your death bed.

As bad as things are right now, remember Suicide is not painless. You can take or leave it if you please. It's my hope for all who read this, to please leave it. The only time suicide is painless is in a theme song from one of the best television series ever.

My piece on Kevin is here. 

Miki, the amazing doggie activist.

It’s a doggy weekend here in my neck of the woods. Saturday I spent the entire afternoon with some friends and their fabulous, cute as a button therapy dog, Miki, the Pomeranian.  How cute is he? So cute that I want to adopt a dog! 

Miki was on TV yesterday. National TV. You see, Miki got the ACE award from the AKC (American Kennel Club) in the field of therapy dog. Both Susan and I are friends with Trish Baker, who is “mom” to Miki.

Trish started A.I.R., “Attitudes In Reverse”, an organization that brings awareness of suicide prevention to students. Miki attends A.I.R. awareness events and starts many conversations regarding mental health and suicide prevention.

“He goes everywhere with me,” Baker said. The little dog has helped her through many rough times, including the death of her son. When they wear their green and white AIR t-shirts out and about, people stop to ask about the organization. Baker explains that the white part of the shirt represents hope and the green represents children’s mental illness. Baker said that since children were their main target, they “saw a benefit in having a dog there.”

The award that Miki will be receiving on Saturday afternoon on ABC at 2pm is for ACE, Award of Canine Excellence. He was entered into the Therapy category, which was the largest one with about 200 entries, according to Baker.

After narrowing down all the entries, the judges decided that Miki’s was such a powerful story, it needed to be told.”

Here’s a video of Miki and the other four dogs that got medals in this category.

I defy anyone not to get weepy at viewing Bingo, a service dog that helps his boy with cerebral palsy.

For those who want to get in touch with Miki, you can find him on Facebook under “Miki The Parti-Pomeranian” and “Like” his page. I hope you will. He can also be found under the A.I.R. website.

(Part of this article was on the TWIM blog, February 5, 2012. Picture of Miki was taken by me). 

Irish Lawyers Threaten Blogger Mom

In this world, I cannot think of too many things worse than a parent loosing a child. In the great scheme of life, children outlive parents. It doesn't always work that way, and most parents I have read about never get over the shock of loosing their children, no matter how old their child is.

Somehow it seems worse when the  child, a teenager or young adult, for what ever reason takes their own life. Even my own mother told me she doesn't know how one of my friends stayed alive when her son died. "I would have buried myself with him', she told me.

I understand the pain and sentiment even though I will never have children. You bring them into the world, you fight for them, you love them so much your heart swells with pride as you see  them grow up and become the people you hope you did a good job raising. You love your spouse, yes, but the love of a parent with their child- it's something different, something wonderful, and something I know while it's tangible for me to understand, you never really do understand it until you hold that baby in your arms for the first time.

So when I got a letter the other day about  Leonie Fennell my heart broke. This mother lost her son to suicide last year, a son that she describes on her own blog as

Shane was the nicest, kindest, funniest guy you could meet. He was loved by all his friends and family.. and adored by his younger  siblings . 
He took them out every weekend to the beach and eddie rockets. He babysat for us all the time and even minded them when we went to New York for a weekend. We put him down as guardian to his siblings, and never had to worry about what would happen to them.. because Shane was so reliable.
He had a huge passion for the homeless and often gave his dart fare away and walked home (Trinity to Dalkey). We regularly had christmas dinner late because we had to wait for Shane who was handing out dinners in Dublin.
He told people he didn’t want presents at his 21th ..to make use of the saint vincent de paul box instead as he had everything. 
He was known by his college lecturers as an craoi mhor (the big heart). He had lots of really good friends and always had a job. This is the Shane that we all knew and loved.
 He was working one night in the conradh (the Irish pub on Harcourt street) and this guy came in and tried to hit a girl. He was so upset that someone could hit a girl. We said “why didn’t you box him?” and Shane said that he didn’t do violence and he wasn’t going down to that guys level.  He wasn’t capable of hurting anyone or himself. 

Bob Fiddaman in his blog writes;

Irish lawyers, Brophy Solicitors, have sent a threatening letter to Leonie Fennell, the mother of Shane Clancy, who writes about her son's death and offers opinion as to why he died.

Shane was just 22 when he killed a young man before turning the knife on himself. The subsequent inquest found an open verdict, large traces of the SSRi antidepressant citalopram [Cipramil UK, Celexa US] were found in his system.

Irish psychiatrist Patricia Casey was present at the inquest representing and observing for Psychiatry Ireland and to ask questions if the need arose. Casey has come under fire from Fennell on a number of occasions, in particular her relationship with the pharmaceutical industry and fees, grants etc that she has received from them.

Casey was at Shane’s inquest and took issue with some aspects of it, according to Leonie, Casey has publicly stated that there is no evidence to suggest that antidepressants can cause suicide or homicide and she is also a member of psychiatry Ireland  and has worked in association with Lundbeck, the manufacturers of citalopram.

Fiddaman's article continues here. Other  great articles are from Stephany and from  D. Bunker, here,   I will let these pieces speak for themselves.

Just a quick Google of "Celexa, black box" brought up pages of sites stating Celexa has been given a black box rating- something the drug companies in the USA put on pharmaceuticals that can cause people to want to self harm. Here is something from one of the sites:

FDA Issues Proposed Revisions to Celexa Blackbox Warning
In 2009, based on new evidence of suicide and suicidal or dangerous behavior in adults taking antidepressants, the FDA proposed revising the blackbox warning to include the increased risk in patients up through the age of 24. The proposed Celexa warning outlines the age groups that are most at risk for suicide, suicidal thoughts and suicidal behavior according to short-term studies. Those groups most at risk include children, adolescents and young adults ages 24 and younger. The risk decreases beyond age 24. The proposed revision recommends close monitoring while patients are taking Celexa and for those in high risks groups, that the benefit from the drug be closely weighed against the possible risks. The proposed revision also notes that Celexa is not approved for use in pediatric patients. The FDA revision itself can be found online at the FDA website.

 Surely they put these kind of warnings on the same drugs across the pond? If they don't, perhaps it's time.

 I didn't know Shane, but from what his mother wrote about him, he sounds like he was a remarkable young man, and left this earth way before his time. I wish I had met him.
(Picture of Shane used with kind permission by his mother)

Trying to write when it's impossible, a bit more about me

Lately, my writing has been sh*t. I know that, and it upsets me. It seems that since November when my kidneys failed, it's been impossible to write due to illness, and now, impossible to write from depression. And it's not even depression. It's down and out suicidal despair.

I've always been able to write when depressed. I've always been able to function at work- just getting through the day to the best of my ability. Perhaps it's because for the most part I've always had jobs that I was so overqualified for I could do them in my sleep. What kept me going was knowing when I got home I could write for hours on end. It was lovely. I am, by nature, somewhat of a hermit, an introvert. I would be perfectly happy to be stranded on an island with no other human company if I had my books, paper and pens to write with and a cat or two.

Since my kidneys failed, I sleep an average of 18 hours a day. It might be from the kidneys, it might be from depression. Sheer depression, I don't want to wake. I will only get up when the cat runs across my bladder, hitting it hard and reminding me it's time to go to the toilet.

I don't know what I would be able to do if I didn't write. It was the only thing I was ever good at, as a child, I would spend a lot of time alone, I never really bonded with the other children my age. I would make up stories and by the time I was 7 I had started out of the juvenile books to the adult books, starting with authors who started with A and reading everything in the library.

School, other than English classes was hard. Math was the worst. I was expected to do two hours of homework a night by High School, and an hour of clarinet on top of that. When it was done, I had a journal, which was my best friend and I wrote all night long until 11 when the lights were turned off. Then listen to talk radio- back in the day when WOR radio had Jean Shepard, Bob and Ray, and Long John Neville. I didn't sleep, I lived on fumes, and dreamed of the places from the books I would visit when I was 17 and out of school. I've written I was bullied, first from the fact I was one of the youngest girls in my class, and by 8th grade I had a full blown bosom, when the other girls , a lot older were stuffing Kleenex into their bras. I prefered to be alone, and got teased for that. And so on and so on.

I went to college/uni because I didn't want to work, it was the lesser of two evils. And for the first time in my whole entire life, I was happy. Genuinely happy. For now I had professors who actually knew something, not the awful teachers I had who were draft dodgers and had not gotten out Vietnam by teaching would have done something else. By the time I got them , the war was winding down, and for the most part, they stayed with a few more years before leaving to go into the private sector, where they wouldn't be destroying children's dreams by their ignorance and complete inability to impart knowledge to minds that were as soft as sponges and like sponges, trying to absorb it all.

I graduated with honors, and finagled a grad assistantship that paid for my tuition and housing. I taught Sunday School and cleaned houses on the side, and tutored high school kids for the SAT and Achievement tests in the summer. In three years, I had two degrees, I was completely manic at this point, existing on coffee, sleeping three hours a night and taking 12 courses a semester, including summers. I was happy. I didn't know I was like a watch that was wound too tight, going to fast, and about to break.

I broke during the time I was defending my thesis. I was going for a MA in English Lit, and when it came time to submit a thesis, I handed in three names to the department for them to pick. Joyce, Tennyson and Dickens. Joyce, was pooh poohed, wasted on a MA and should be saved for a PhD.  As for the latter two, I did love them to bits, but they were- well, everyone does them. Why not an American writer? Because I don't like them, other than Salinger, it's the Brits that speak to me. American writers prior to 1950 for the most part bored me.

It was then my advisor gave me a very bad piece of advice. Try Raymond Carver, he suggested, handing me a copy of "Cathedral". He's writing now and there's hardly any lit crit on him.

I picked Carver. For those in school - never do a thesis on a living author. Wait til they are dead, at least a couple of decades. While I did fall in love with Carver's writing, it wasn't the time to be doing him. It became the thesis from hell. By sheer stubbornness I stayed with it,  while part of me begged to go to the English Dept and ask for a "safer" author, like Dickens or Hardy.

And so it went. Last semester, filling out applications for PhD schools,  where I stated flat out I wanted to study Joyce; writing a thesis from Heck, and finishing a stage in my life. Then the s**t hit the fan. The guy I was dating dumped me. He was my first boyfriend, it was the first time my heart was broken. The exams were all passed, orals, writtens, foreign language requirement. Just the thesis was still not quite right. Never worry, I still had two more weeks before it was due. Then the impossible, something I am not comfortable writing about, but I was raped one night going to my car from teaching a class- to this day, it's like something out of Faulkner to me, and I why I will never wear the color pink, and a mini skirt.

And like a watch, that is overwound, the springs exploded. I was almost 23. I handed in the thesis, went back to the apartment I shared knowing the roomate would be gone all weekend. A bottle of vodka, mixed with orange juice and pills. Note left on the night table.
Woke up by the police on Monday when I missed class, brought to hospital, in a semi coma, stomach pumped, and then six weeks in hospital, where I heard for the first time I was "manic-depressive".

Since then I've seen 28 different shrinks, and been on over 40 different drugs. I've been in hospital 5 times. I've not had a good shrink, I am jealous of those who have had. Mine have destroyed me, first telling me I couldn't go on for a PhD, I should take a year off. Of course, I never went back. It would be too stressful, you cannot do it. I was told I would never have a full life, I would never accomplish anything, I've peaked. My parents were advised to put me in a state hospital because I would never be able to hold down a job, or do anything with my life. I was put on med after med after med, which side effects made me go from a slender 105 lbs to an obese 220.

This is one of the reasons I started blogging. I noticed there was a plethora of blogs by twenty somethings, and they all were so different than I was twenty years earlier. The diagnosis of "manic depression" in 1986 was a Scarlet Letter, it was a cancer, it was a death sentence. In 2006 I noticed it was just a label to them, attitudes had changed, and it wasn't talked about in hush hush tones like it was when I was diagnosed. Things had changed for the better. I don't want people to forget what it was like.

My ex once told me I could write about mania and despair better than anyone else he knew. I wanted someone, who did not suffer from this, to understand it. Maybe they had a sister, a wife, a mother, a co-worker, who was bipolar, and wanted to understand it. And that's what I did. Or tried to. Maybe I should have stayed with this. I look on my blog roll, and the other blogs I read, and there really aren't any by anyone over 50. Or even 45. I wish there were more writers out there in that age bracket. Maybe they are like me, ashamed of the label. Had their  original dreams destroyed and had to rebuild with new ones.

Or maybe they just don't make it to 50. This is a fear of mine. Maybe they are like me, body worn out by decades of drug use, P-docs who only prescribe drugs and don't care about the side effects and still tell patients to quit meds cold turkey and go on to another drug. People who are psychiatrists, who became psychiatrists because they couldn't pass to become surgeons.

Which leads me to the present. I'm on disability, I long to be off to work again. My body is too broken right now I would have to work from home.  In the last few years, I am both anemic and borderline leukemia from side effects.  (Only a blonde would have blood cells that cannot figure out which way to go). My kidneys failed, and my bladder still isn't working right.  I haven't been manic in about three years, a few bits of hypomania, but nothing proper mania. Just depressed. Constantly depressed, with the last three months suicidal existential anguish.

And the only two things keeping me alive, not going into that good night that I wish I could- are this- this blog and my cat.

I am grateful to whomever took the time to read this, and I want to tell you, you aren't alone.

Remembering My Friend Kevin, Who Would Have been 31 Today

I wrote this piece three years ago when my friend Kevin died. Today he would have been 31. I miss him terribly, and wanted to share this with my readers and friends. Peace to you Kevin, where ever you are.

Monday night. It was past 11 o'clock, I was just watching the news, trying to wind down before I go to sleep. The phone rang. I would never get the phone after ten, but I noticed on caller ID that it was my friend G- and it must have been bad for him to call that late at night.

I picked up the phone. "Susan", he said, his voice choking with tears and sobs. "You better sit down, it's bad. It's really bad".

G's father has been ill for quite some time, so I sat back down on the couch, expecting him to tell me his dad passed. But no.. This was worse. Far worse. "Susan, um, when was the last time you spoke to Kevin?" 

" A few months ago" I assured him. G- continued. "Kevin died on Sunday morning". 

My mind couldn't grasp this. I was waiting for "April Fool", but G- was too upset. "He suicided on the Princeton Junction train". 

I started to cry. 

We talked for a half hour, deciding in a few small moments of clarity, who we needed to call. I was told to call N- a friend of ours, S- another friend, and my ex, John. And then our support group. Between calls made over the next 36 hours, I cried buckets, and tried in my own way to deal with this. And tried to understand what Kevin, the most alive person I have ever met in my entire life, could wind up at the train station on a moonlit Sunday morning. 



Mercer County, New Jersey is home to the state's capital Trenton. Years ago it was quite upscale, when the Roeblings lived there. It also contains the town of Princeton, where the university is located. It's a beautiful sleepy suburban town, comprising of the university, the Advanced Institute, set up for Albert Einstein, the Theological Institute, Westminster Choir College, and many large companies, including ETS, Squibb, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton Plasma, and many more.

And then there is the hospital. As hospitals go, Princeton is on the small side, it's claim to fame is that the singer Mary Chapin Carpenter was born there, and it served as the back drop on the current TV series "House". 

It was at this hospital where I and my ex husband first met Kevin Greim. He came into our support group, wearing a backwards baseball cap, leather jacket and jeans. What I noticed immediately about him, was his smile. It wasn't a perfect smile, but it lit up the room. He had one of those rare personalities, all magnetic; people just gravitated towards him. You couldn't help but like Kevin, he had this amazing aura around him, and a lust for life. 

Kevin was like a sponge. He wanted to learn everything, and as time went on, he contributed more and more to our meetings, eventually bringing his wife Jamie to our group. She too, made valuable contributions. What I recall most, is after the meetings, going to the Starbucks or Panera's on Nassau Street after our meetings. Kevin would talk to John, I would sit at a table and talk to Jamie. And just talk girl talk. About our weddings, the dresses we wore and how we felt. Our cats. When Kevin found out I loved cats ,he told me about one of his cats, six toed like one of Hemingway's. 

John and Kevin developed a kind of relationship, each seeing each other more as a friend, but also as a mentor. Sort of like Leopold Bloom and Stephen Daedelus. We would meet Kevin at Panera's for lunch and they would talk. Kevin would order a coffee, too proud to say he couldn't afford lunch that day. Of course, we would always treat. 

What people don't realize about Kevin is that he had so much love in his heart for other people. When his friend N- had car troubles and needed to purchase a car- he took her too his old car dealership and helped her purchase a beauty. He loved facilitating in our group, and helping other people when he worked at CSP. He was always there for his friend G. He was always there for me when my marriage ended. He gave freely of his time, offering and ear and never asked for anything in return, only to learn, more about human nature. 

And maybe that is what ultimately lead him on the last few hours of his short life to the Princeton Junction train station. His heart gave out. 

I understand the lure of the train. Back in 2001, at my most suicidal, I too went to the same train station, parked my car in the same parking lot, left my handbag and a note on the windshield, saying simply ":I am sorry". Locked the car, put the keys in my jeans pocket, and walked down the tunnel up to the train tracks. And waited for the train. 

About an hour later, I could see the headlight in the distance. I could hear the noise. It would have been so easy to jump down, and sit on the tracks. But then I looked up at the stars and strand of moon and changed my mind. Kevin didn't. I don't know in the last milliseconds if he stared at the headlight and said a silent prayer. i don't know if he looked at the full moon. We never will know. What I do know is so many of us, had we been there with him, would have pushed him out of harm's way quickly- and done the ultimate sacrifice so he might live. 

No one will forget how he loved to talk about his family, his wife, his animals. The glee he had one night when he was showing off a new ipod his brother had bought for him. How he would go to Taco Bell, order 10 tacos and eat 7 at one sitting. 

Between Sunday, September 14, and Monday September 15, Mercer County. New Jersey had two suicides. One was a 46 year old man who jumped off the overpass by Quaker Bridge Mall on to Route 1, in a perfect swan dive. And the other one was my friend Kevin.

My friend Kevin. Where ever you are now, may you find the peace you were looking for. I am truly blessed that for four years, I knew him. He will be missed by his mother, father, brother and wife Jamie, said the obituary. What it left out is all the other people Kevin touched in his 28 years on this planet. 

Bless you Kevin.

Suicide Prevention Day, In Memoriam

September 10 is World Wide Suicide Prevention Day. Anyone who has read my blog knows I have attempted five times. It is by sheer serendipity that I am here, each method I picked was very lethal and it's just a matter of luck I was found in time or miscalculated horribly.

I've known and lost many friends to suicide, the two that haunt me is my friend Kevin who I have dedicated this blog to, and Kenny Baker, who I never had the honor to meet, but I feel I know through his wonderful mom and dad.

Both of these men died at the same place and both of them were far to young to die. Both of them suffered from terrible bouts of depression, yet were so alive they did so much living in their 26 and 18 years respectively. And both left huge holes in the hearts of those that loved them.

If you are suicidal, try to see if you can talk to someone. Be with someone.
Or call   1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Ahenodia and the Last of the Yankees

The strep still lingers, days after the penicillin is over. I went out one day for some food, waited on line behind a kid with a cough, and the next thing I know, sore throat again. Doctor gives me another round of antibiotics, but the heat is over 100 most days and I cannot sleep. I cannot eat. Is it from the heat or something else? My white blood count is still wonky. I have a "date" with the oncologist for a biopsy after my birthday. No way am I getting it done before. 

I fear something else. I put an ad up on Facebook today, I really have anhedonia because I just stopped caring about everyone and everything. But it's more. Something I haven't written about yet- or told anyone about. Because no one would understand. Since June I may have lost two more friends to suicide and I just don't feel anything, I cannot cry, I just can't. I just want to sleep. If I can sleep.  The air conditioner works in fits and spurts, a blast of cold air and then luke warm for hours. How do people on the other coast live without AC? I don't know. Hot flashes from the lithium- but then mom says it must be change of life- but I don't have any symptoms of change of life. So I don't know.

I just know this. There have been several times I could not write in my life time. From grammar school on, I chose to read and write to "escape" and was always jotting down things in my Composition books, or on my old typewriter. If I could not write, it never went on for more than a day or two. But I cannot write. I don't want to write. I just lay on the couch, trying to watch TV and I don't know. Contemplate the universe through my navel?

No. It simple if you think about it. It's too hot to cry. If I was to cry, steam would come out of my eyes. Of the two deaths  I have experienced since June 1, one - I am cool with that. If that make sense.  It was a reader who was in stage four of a very nasty cancer, and was in a lot of pain. He didn't have long left- and it was more like euthanasia than suicide. The second one was a friend of mine- someone I knew quite well in real life and helped fix up the look of the blog and did some handyman things around my apartment for me last year. This is the one I cannot talk about. I tried to talk to one or two people in real life - but they have their own full plates. People don't like to talk about this. I tried to save him. He was un-savable, but he was a friend to me one night when i was suicidal. He may or may not be dead. But he is missing in action. No one has heard from him in over two months, and he always said he would go somewhere in the wilderness like Jack London and just die so no one would find him. I have heard from the grape vine that other people have not heard from him on his cell phone or land line either, and his FB page has not been updated since early June. I pray he is alive somewhere and will trying to find his way home. But I fear the worst, because our last few conversations, he was so depressed, I am so scared.

Which brings me full circle to my dad. (Yes, I know my writing today is poor. Please throw tomatoes at my Apple. But no apples). Last week both George Steinbrenner and Bob Sheppard died, from the Yankees. The names don't mean anything if you aren't a Yankee fan- well Steinbrenner might if you were a fan of "Seinfeld" perhaps. It goes in threes. Who is next. My dad thinks it will be him. He grew up in Yankee stadium, Dodgers stadium, worshipping such greats as DiMaggio and Gerhig. But I don't think so, I don't think the deaths will go in threes, it's just a pattern that is obvious to the viewer but that doesn't make it so.

I feel dead inside. Not being able to write, is this what men lament about when they beg their docs for little blue pills? I feel sterile and impotent. No little blue pills can save me. I have to save me from myself. At one time in my life my raison d' etre were the cat and this blog. Now I find myself annoyed with kitty and in peril of letting this blog die. This isn't me. I have to, yes I have to save me from myself.

(I accidentally deleted this earlier. Blonde moment. Sorry.)

April may not be the cruellest month, but today was the cruellest day

Of all the pieces I have ever written this is the one I don't want to write. Over the weekend my father got sick. He was rushed to the hospital early this morning, and after some tests, a CAT scan and some other tests, he is resting comfortably and will be in hospital for a few days. For a little while, we thought it was touch and go.

On a younger person, they would have had tests, been hydrated and sent home. On an elderly person, they stay in to make sure all systems are go. He is in some discomfort but he will be ok.

Not so for one of my favorite readers, Jenn. I won't use her last name, suffice to say she lived on the West coast, and was always astute in her comments, and wrote the most marvelous emails to me on the side. She was a suicide survivor, and like me, was physically hurt from one of her attempt and took some time to heal. My last email from her was on April 1, when she was worried about my own struggles with the proverbial black dog, and how I was doing everything in my own personal power not to go into that good night.

About an hour ago I got a phone call and an email from two separate people telling me that Jenn gave into the Black Dog this weekend and left this sphere. I don't know any thing more than that, and won't until I get a promised letter from her. I do know this, she was so depressed that a friend of hers came up from the Mid-West to visit so she wouldn't be alone, and she had her cats, and had just gotten back together with her boyfriend.

I don't condemn her. I understand what it was it's like to be at that point and want to jump. Maybe she wanted to succeed or maybe she didn't. A. Alvarez in his seminal work " The Savage God" makes a salient point that the Sylvia Plath he knew didn't want to suicide when she did, it was a cry for help to Ted Hughes she wanted him back and she was homesick and over-whelmed with two small children. Alvarez is convinced Plath misjudged the gas by comparing UK gas to US gas and makes a convincing argument that Plath simply miscalculated the gas equation.

Maybe that is what happened to my friend. I just hope that where ever she is now she is at peace.

Shantih, Shantih, Shantih.

For D- I hope this will help and give you peace

Recently D, a reader, stumbled on this blog and asked the following question,

Hi Susan,

My brother commtted suicide last month. IT was today a month ago that we buried him. We used to talk about suicide becasue we have so much of it the family. He had a lot of life blows all at once, and I really thought he was getting better. What I believe is that he had a 'fuck it' day and could not ride it out. Of course no one knew he had purchased 2 guns at Christmas, not even his best friend. He and I talked everyday and he never told me. I read your posts and I know you struggle with this issue, as I do also, and now it feels so close to me like riding the rim of a black hole. Has anyone in your family ever committed suicide ?>

I spent almost two weeks trying to write an answer to this. Document after document put into Word, and deleted. Words not knowing what to say, and then not feeling they were good enough. What do you say to a woman who's world has turned upside down by the untimely death of a family member? "I am sorry", just doesn't cut it, and "I understand, doesn't seem to be enough.

D I don't know what to tell you. So let me try my best to answer your questions, and I hope I can help you and you can find some solace in my answers.

You asked if anyone in my family has committed suicide. Yes and no. I was adopted when I was about seven or eight months old. So the people I consider my family, are my family but not my biological family. In that family, no suicides. But in my biological family, yes. Yes, and Yes, Lets see if this makes sense.

I know little to nothing about my biological mother and nothing about my biological father. I can piece together some recessive genes from either birth parent, blonde hair, blue eyes, second toe longer than pinkie toe, unable to curl tongue, negative blood type. I didn't find out til several years ago that my birth mother's family had a strange and horrid family tree. According to the social worker who interviewed her and her parents, and who's files I saw with the names redacted, every male on one side of the family was an alcoholic and most of the females were too. (I got those genes). But what shook me to my core was the fact that my would be great grandparents, cousins, great aunts and uncles- most of them were described as "schizophrenic" which was the term they were using to lump both manic depressives and schizophrenics back in the 40s, 50s and 60s, and the majority of them either died from alcoholism or suicide or (sit down for this one) lobotomies. I swear I am not making this up. Several of my third, fourth cousins and great aunts and uncles had lobotomies done in the 50s and 60s. My birth mother had a grandparent who had a lobotomy and one who suicided. I probably escaped this by being born when I did, since they no longer do lobotomies and getting sober when I did.

I still suffer from suicidal ideation. For the last two weeks I have been walking that tightrope again, wanting to jump off, and the only thing tethering me to Earth is my mother and my cat. I live in fear of my mother finding my body, and knowing if anything should happen to me, no one will love my cat as much as I do. But there are so many days, so many of them when I cannot get out of bed, feel there is no purpose for my life and just pray and wish for a heart attack so I can die.

I have had friends who have died by their own hands, my friend Chris died that way and I strongly feel he was a suicide, and I have dedicated my blog to the memory of my friend Kevin who died. I know there are several followers who have started blogs in memory of friends and family members they have lost. Some outstanding bloggers are Christa, and Will. Wendy has a blog in memory of her son. I also know of several others who have lost family members to suicide but don't write about it,

I found it helpful to volunteer at a suicide prevention center, it grounds me, and takes me out of my bad place to help others and try to get them out of their bad place too. I've suffered from suicidal ideation since I was four, made three attempts, two which should have and could have been lethal. To this day, I don't know why they failed. Maybe it wasn't my time. Maybe I was meant to stay around and write this blog entry. I don't know.

I do know that I am glad that somehow you found my blog, and you popped by. I hoped I helped you. I know it sounds silly, but the last two weeks when I was at my lowest, I kept thinking of you, and kept on going because of you.

A letter for D, from a mother who lost a son to suicide

To D- if she should find my blog again,

This came from a reader of mine who lost a son to suicide, and wrote this letter for her children. She thought it would give you comfort on the loss of your brother during this time..

Susan,

I started writing you something and this is what happened. If you want to use it to write something, you can, you can edit it anyway you want, or your can just post it as it is....

When I attempted to write an essay for you on siblings of suicide, I found that I knew NOTHING about siblings of suicide. I am a parent of suicide, I have four children who are sibilings of suicide and I thought I was some expert... This is what I ended up with instead - a letter to my children about the suicide of their brother:

To K, M, E and D (no names to protect their privacy);

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine who writes a blog on her life, her cat, mental illness, the use of pharmaceutical drugs in the treatment of mental illness, feeling suicidal, about friends that she lost through suicide, had a woman who's brother died by suicide write her for some help. She was finding difficulty in finding the words to write. I told her I would help out and write something for her to use. When I did write it - I wrote what I knew, from the perspective of a parent. When I was finished, I realized that this would probably not do the young woman any good, because she was not a parent but a young woman who lost her brother. I personally don't have the experience of being a woman who lost her brother.

I attempted to rewrite the essay as a sibling, and did some research. What I found has completely changed the way that I look at my life, and Caleb's life, Dad's life and YOUR life. What I found has humbled me considerably, has made me understand that I owe you all not only an apology but my gratitude to surviving as you have, for you have wandered in a wilderness your parents did not imagine. You have been delegated to the position of forgotten mourners.

In our society (and this is no excuse for my not seeing your pain) children are considered to be resilient, we don't recognize the uniqueness of the sibling bond, we forget about the importance of siblings as our own siblings are have grown into their own lives, moved away or we moved away many years ago. I wondered if when people stopped you after Caleb's death, they asked how Dad and I were doing, did they think to ask how YOU were doing?

Did anyone acknowledge your pain or your grief?

I did write the essay (although I ended up not sending it to my friend) - I wrote it from how I imagined you would have felt. I didn't know the depth or the truth of your feelings - anger, hurt, pain, love or the impact of what you have lost these last 6 years as your parents have grieved for the son they lost. I know that Dad has been much more connected to you during this time, and has tried to do what he could to help you recover. I can only speak for myself. I may have gotten it completely wrong, and I'm very sorry for that. At some time when you feel like you want to, I will let you read what I wrote, and hopefully, you can help me understand what you really felt or still feel. Hopefully we can help each out finally recover from the tsunami that shook our family to it's very foundation, sent us all flying in different directions and essential stole your mother from you.

I can understand if you feel you don't need this, but I know that it is very important to my finding my way home, and I can only hope that you will find it in your hearts to help me.

Aunt Suzi knew something when she sent us books just days after Caleb's death. She sent me "My son, my son" by Iris Bolton and she sent you "Do they have bad days in heaven? surviving the suicide loss of a sibling" by Michelle Linn-Gust. I can not remember if I passed it on!!! I think M saw it, and maybe read it. In hindsight, I did try to address your pain, but insisting everyone go to at least one counseling session. I have a feeling that this was not really helpful, what we should have done was some family counseling so we could have talked and heard each other - but instead I disappeared in to my pain, and Dad disappeared into his work. My hope is that in the very least, you were able to rely on each other, to talk to each other and find some way forward, and my hope is that it isn't too late to do the same together.

I love you all,

Mom

Where I found some information:

www.michellelinngust.com

www.familysuicidegrief.com Rocky Roads: The Journey of Families through Suicide Grief

www.siblingsurvivors.com

Please take the study and help research, you each have a unique view that can help others who experience the loss of a sibling -

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/survivorstudy

For those who have lost a sibling to suicide - this is what I can bring to you - something Michelle Linn-Gust has written extensively about:

People forget the importance of siblings in our lives.

- It's the longest relationship we'll every have in our lives. We are typically only a few years apart in age. We usually know them longer than our parents, spouses and children.

- We witness more life events and life changes with our siblings than anyone else.

- We share a sense of family, belonging and culture.

- Time spent together in our early years is greater than with our parents.

- They teach us how to function in society and communicate with others.

- Through the life span, losing our siblings to suicide sets up complicated grief. Typically, siblings will carry this loss through a large portion of life. We might want a way to memorialize the sibling. If we had a difficult relationship with the sibling, there might be unresolved issues we will never find closure for. We might be angry and jealous of our parents and the attention given to them as we are pushed aside. We might be angry at our sibling for being complicit in what we feel as the loss of our parents during their grief. We experience anger that our sibling is not there for important life events, like graduations, marriages, and the births of our children.

No one every gets over a death, it becomes a part of us and we take it with us throughout life.

The links above may be helpful in connecting with others who know what we are experiencing, or we might find getting involved in suicide prevention, or making memorial websites for our siblings help us in our grief. There are many possibilities and each of us will come up with what we want to do when we are ready. Grief and mourning take time - there is not timeline, each will have their own journey, but be assured it does get softer, color will return to our lives and we will find some ways to continue on, continuing to love and remember our sibling for the remainder of our life.

One Of The Best Pieces I Have Ever Seen On This Subject-Depression's Latest Victims

One of the best pieces I have seen lately on Depression. From Salon Magazine. With Thanks.

Depression's latest victim: Marie Osmond's son

Eighteen-year-old Michael Blosil may have leapt to his own death, but the real killer was his disease
By Mary Elizabeth Williams

Mar. 01, 2010 |

When Marie Osmond's 18-year-old son Michael Blosil leapt from his Los Angeles apartment building to his death Friday night, it was the grim end to a life that had been marked with severe bouts of depression -- and according to some friends, at least one prior suicide attempt.

Blosil's sudden death comes a few days after the body of "Growing Pains" actor Andrew Koenig was found in Canada after taking his own life, and just weeks after the suicide of designer Alexander McQueen. McQueen had allegedly been grieving the death of his friend Isabella Blow three years before -- also by suicide -- and had become further depressed after the recent death of his mother.

Yet despite the seeming ubiquity of depression -- the trio of high-profile suicides, the round-the-clock deluge of television and magazine ads for Abilify, Effexor and other motivationally named medications -- depression still gets relatively short shrift in the pantheon of severe, life-threatening conditions.

As the details of Blosil's suicide emerged Monday morning, in among the sympathetic public comments were confused and downright angry responses as well. "This kid was given everything besides love and encouragement; he was given medical help and intervention, and it still wasn't good enough for him. How could he be so selfish as to cause so much pain on those who loved and cared for him the most?" wrote one commenter on CBS. "I raised two sons myself and have to wonder if a child takes their own life, how can it be that the parent has done their job well?" added another. And on CNN, a woman who wrote that her husband had killed himself years before called suicide "an incredibly selfish act."

It's the "act" part that's such a sticking point for a lot of people. You can't help getting cancer. You can, so the thinking goes, not jump out of a building or hang yourself in a closet. And that, in a nutshell, is the bitch of depression -- it isn't just how it makes people feel, it's what it makes them do. There may be overwhelming evidence that it's an illness not simply of the mind and mood but literally of the brain, but it wears the guise of the world's crappiest mood. A friend jokes, "You say 'depressed,' people hear 'sad.' Sad? I want to kill myself. So we're not going to the movies."

That's how it goes with depressed people, why it makes their behavior so inscrutable. Depressed people will cancel plans at the last minute and give distracted, one-word answers when you try to make conversation. They will miss their deadlines. They will offer you no solace on your own worst days. They will confound and frustrate the hell out of you. They will break your heart.

In his suicide note, Michael Blosil allegedly wrote that he felt he had "no friends and could never fit in." That's the sneaky, cruel nature of the disease – it isolates its victims, it cuts them off from companionship and support. As Kurt Cobain wrote in his own suicide note, "Why don't you just enjoy it? I don't know."

On a bright afternoon last August, I got a call from an unrecognized phone number. When the voice on the other end said, "This is Ali's mother," I knew right away. Ali had struggled with severe, "treatment resistant" depression the whole 16 years I'd known her. She'd been in and out of hospitals, sometimes for months at a time. She'd tried a dozen different drug combinations. "She took her life," was all her mother said.

Ali was kind and whip smart and funny and a royal pain in the ass a lot of the time. She would often call after she'd gotten out of the hospital, full of hope and trying so hard just to be normal, just to be able to get out for a cup of coffee. And then time would go by and she'd disappear again. This time she managed to make herself disappear for good.

Six months later, I'm still mad at her for leaving. But I hope that near the end she found a kind of peace, the peace you feel when you stop struggling against the tide and just let it carry you out. That's what I would feel if she'd had any other fatal illness, because I know that's really what she had. Not all suicides are depression-related, of course. And not all depressed people kill themselves -- fortunately, many can, with therapy or medication or both, control it. But Ali died of the same thing that's eating away at approximately 21 million Americans right now, the thing that killed Alexander McQueen and Andrew Koenig and now Michael Blosil. They didn't take their lives because they were selfish. They did it because they succumbed to a selfish disease – one that wanted them all to itself.

If you are depressed, or suicidal, I have references and places to call on my blogroll, under " Suicide Isn't Painless". Please know, You aren't alone.