by minimus 90 Replies latest jw friends
Hi everybody! Haven't posted in quite a while. Been too busy, you know, with life in general.
I knew of a JW who committed suicide recently. It was heartbreaking for all that knew him, to not be able to catch the signs of despair that made him take his life. Nobody saw it coming, and it affected us all so deeply in all congregations around the area. An assumption is that perhaps the meds he was taking for depression had something to do with it. It's so, so, so very sad.
DY
I knew one seventeen year old boy on anti-depressants who killed himself. He seemed fine and then a few weeks later he was dead.
But I thought I'd add a little perspective from knowing someone who tried and, thankfully, failed to kill himself. My son. He was just a boy, not even a teenager. Fortunately his attempt included jumping from a high place and just hoping it was high enough to get the job done. If we hadn't learned about it from friends and teachers, then he would have progressed until he got it right.
I never saw any signs. I knew he didn't have many friends, he's a loner and his best friends had each moved away, but I never saw any signs of depression. I didn't even know a child could seriously want something like this!
I think that if he would have succeeded, I would have never seen the signs. But after he failed and we knew about it, then he seemed to stop pretending, I suppose. He stopped smiling. Stopped laughing. Stopped playing or even fighting with his brother. All the life and joy was gone from his face, and that terrified me. By the time I got him to a therapist, the depression had passed, but she said that it had been a deep depression. Once in that state, he couldn't see a way out - he told us that he didn't think he did anything good to help other people, and he was just sad all the time, and if he was dead, it would all stop.
I know he's a child, but I think the feeling that there is no way out is how many suicides begin. Depression keeps them from seeing or feeling any hope for a new day.
My son is always going to be a sensitive kid, and I'm always going to be afraid of this happening again. But we talk more, so he doesn't close everything up inside, and any normal sadness doesn't have a chance to bloom into depression without us knowing. Right now, he is once again, a laughing, carefree and smart-alecky kid :)
Tammy
my sister and cousin, both in the last few years.
Thank-you for this thread.
purps
My goodness! I am stunned by how many have expressed themselves here.
When a Witness kills him or herself, the overall reaction is "hopefully" they "might" have the resurrection hope. Years ago, suicide= everlasting life.
sadly to many it just means an end to their pain
Yes, my dad about five months ago. He had a lot of mental problems and was da'd. Deep down I always knew that he would kill himself one day, I just didn't want to think about it. Now that he's gone, I constantly think about him and wonder how much my shunning of him contributed to it. I only found out the truth about the truth a few weeks before he did it so I didn't have the opportunity to set things right with him.
tec, your son isn't the only child to want that. Although I've never attempted it myself, I have thought about it. Even as young a five years old, I remember being in my room wondering if anyone would miss me if I offed myself. I truly thought the answer was no. I chickened out of any attempts but I found other ways of hurting myself that no one ever found out about. I'm over that stage now.
4 people. 3 men, 1 woman.
Two in the last 18 months. The letter which was a bullet in their heads was that sh*tty rabbinic letter to the BOE w/regard to pornography.
Terrible that someone would kill themselves over the Society's directives about porn.
only one comes to mind. was an elder at the time, not from my congregation, didn't know him too well. sad because he left behind a whole family.
