Excuse me while I rant about ignorant people re: mental health.
Depression is an ILLNESS - it's a chemical imbalance in the brain. For some people it's caused by a major life event which sucks out all the endorphins and leaves you depleted. Other people just have lower levels of the "feel good" chemicals to begin with.
People who try or feel like committing suicide don't do it because they want to die. They do it because they want the pain to end and see no other way to make the pain end.
Being depressed does not make you a "freak". And if the depression wins and someone commits suicide it doesn't undo the facts of the persons life before. If they were a good person, a good friend, a caring person, good at their career, a loving family member - that person is still all those things. By choosing the only way they know to end the pain they do not (and in other people's eyes should not) become a "freak". They were a person doing the best they could with the options they felt they had available.
It's because of ignorant people that mental health has such a stigma and it is because of people like these that people like my friend do not seek help and end up dying too soon.
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2 comments:
I am sorry to hear about your friend...She sounds like she may have be bipolar. Was she?
Thank you so much for telling it the way it is!
I am Bipolar and have gone through all of that, except succeeding with the suicide. I hardly ever tell about it to anyone, because it ALWAYS changes the relationship. So I keep it secret and take my meds and see my Doc.
I know if your friend were still alive she would be proud of you for speaking up for her. Besides having Bipolar (if thats what she had) its a very lonely disease and you are terrified of anyone finding out.
I'm so sorry to hear this Jane.
It is all very painful.
We lost a family member to this very problem a few years ago now.
It was devastating to everyone in the family; her husband, her children, and her parents.......not to mention her siblings. I have known two people who have taken their own lives (a co-worker once) and everyone around wishes they could have done more to have helped them.
Depression is devastating.
I'm ever so sorry for your loss.
{{{{{hugs}}}}}
Stacy
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