Saturday, November 03, 2012

are you kidding me ??

A very dear friend of mine in Ontario recently lost his wife. 
I sent him an email “Don’t want to be insensitive but can I ask what happened?  Had she been ill?”
He responded with “Yes she had, a lot worse than we knew.  She had a lot of pain, and made the decision to stop it and not have the family suffer as well, and took her own life.  She is a peace, no pain, and probably telling God how to run his gardens.  It is a positive thing.”
I emailed a mutual friend to ensure she was aware of what was going on and told her “What I heard was she was very ill and took her own life”.
She responded with “No she was not that ill.  She had some aches and pains – shit that comes with old age.  However, the main issue was depression.
As someone that has battled depression for more than half my life, this is kind of a hot button for me.  I know all too well the mental and physical pain associated with depression.  I have been fortunate to have good mental health professionals when fighting depression or I could have very well taken the same path as my friend’s wife. 
It blows my mind that this quite intelligent friend would say “she was not that ill” about a person that suffered from depression bad enough to take her own life.  It is the year 2012; I thought people had realized that depression is a serious mental illness, not a personal choice. Trust me there is not a person in the world that would deliberately make the choice to suffer with depression! 
RIP J

5 comments:

  1. I presume depression is something that can be cured or kept off at bay if the environment is good and conducive.

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    1. I don't think depression is ever cured it is just controlled. If a person is prone to depression the environment does not matter.

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    2. A few years ago, I went through a bad spout of depression and the only thing besides meds that helped, WAS removing myself from the negative environment that I was in. So, I guess it would depend on the individual, the degree of depression and the 'kind' of depression that someone is experiencing. Think about it for a second. If the people in your household or others that you interact with are happy and content, aren't you more likely to be happy yourself? If you are going to work everyday to fight a losing battle and deal with negative hardships of reality, it is only a matter of time before your job starts to bring you down too. Sometimes, when we make even the smallest change in our environment constructively, it does not necessarily cure us of depression, but allows us to see things in a different perspective and break free of the binds that tie us down to negativity. Maintaining a healthy environment, both at work and at the home front is the foundation of all good relationships and a stable foundation to healthy living... both in mind and spirit.

      I know for me, had I not been removed from the environment that I was in, no amount of meds or counselling would have done me any good.

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  2. Very sorry to hear about your friend. It's easy to judge others when you can 'see' the wounds they possess but when it comes to depression, the wounds are inside and unless the person speaks up or shows a lasting pattern of depression symptoms, it's really hard for someone to intervene.

    May she rest in peace.

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  3. Thank you for coming to visit my blog and becoming a follower. I suffer from depression too but I keep on going!

    Beth

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