finally got to sleep and thankfully only woke up one time until 6am.

Hivemind question: is google.com a valid email address? I thought all google mail was gmail.com.

It's a valid email address for someone who works at Google.

Morning! What a cheery discussion to wake to! :-/

My friend Katherine Lawrence evidently spent months planning -- even scheduling -- her suicide, including buying a gun and taking a shooting course, and keeping this hidden from the folks who saw her on even a daily basis. I think she was so set on this course that she didn't want to have any arguments or intervention. I'm not sure if this constitutes "sane consideration" or craziness that is so warped that it's wrapped around to look like sanity. I just wish her friends had had a chance to argue that she should have tried some other life choices before shooting herself.

Morning! What a cheery discussion to wake to! :-/

Isn't it though!

The one suicide that stands out in my mind was an ex-boyfirend. His family was close to my family. His father died young leaving him in charge of a large family business at a very young age. He overdosed on heroin of all things. He had never done drugs and was clearly a suicide. So sad. He had so much going for him when you looked at his life from the outside. Good looking, rich. Didn't help his pain.

When my father and late husband were nearing the end of their lives I would have assisted them without hesitation to end their pain. They never asked. Mostly I think it is a personal decision.

My own personal beliefs and upbringing make it not an option. To bring in the woo, I have this feeling that karma dictates that suicide is a do-over and you have to learn all the crap you learned in your previous lives all over again. That would suck.

Timelies everyone... I missed yesterday, since I had to have a nine-hour day on my feet sweeping up other people's trash.

Happy (late) Birthday Sean!

Much comfort to Sophia, and hope for speedy meds and less pain.

I had a phase almost eight years ago now where I started to think about suicide. I was never particularly "serious" about it... or rather, I guess I should say that I got out of that phase of my depression rather quickly. At first I didn't want to inflict more pain on my mom and my family, after we had already been through so much. Then I realized that I wouldn't be able to do that to myself.... the few options I had access to at the time were either incredibly public with a low chance of death, or the wrist thing that wigged me out. I was suffering, but I stuck it out, and eventually it got better, and I was glad that I didn't give up.

... I'm not sure when this became an anti-suicide PSA. But I did learn that even the smallest kindness can do so much for a person. I had a few really random instances of kindness during that time, that might seem like nothing to other people, but was HUGE for me. I still tell my best friend, whom I met shortly afterwards, that he probably saved my life, but there were so many others too.

My uncle did the slip-away-where-no-one-will-know version of suicide. We just knew that he'd been feeling low after his business folded, and disappeared, and it took days for anyone to discover him. My reaction to the whole thing was very weird to me - I didn't get upset, or cry or grieve as with other relatives' deaths, it was just like a light switching off.

Though his girlfriend's comments afterwards inspired plenty of anger, and probably courted making his funeral a two-for-the-price-of-one event considering how many grief-stricken people heard them.

He had so much going for him when you looked at his life from the outside. Good looking, rich. Didn't help his pain.

Richard Cory. A poem that resonated with me for a long time. Because my high school class voted me "Most Likely to Succeed," and six months later I'd been (briefly) hospitalized after writing a suicide note.

I don't think it's possible to realize how painful it can be if you haven't been there. There comes a point where the pain just has to stop, and there's no other solution in sight.

How do you distinguish a victim of martyr complex from a "I regret that I have but one life to give" hero? If it's a cause we agree with, they're heroes. Otherwise it's a pathology. I guess that might be why the term makes me twitchy; most human behavior is intended to elicit a response, and usually that intention is hidden.

Semi-randomly: I liked the book "Games People Play" because it didn't really bother about judging behavior; it just described it. Or at least that's what I remember of it. Plus I'm a behaviorist running dog. So I think because of that, I reserve "passive-aggressive" for dynamics where the response (or lack of response) is part of the game. This may be a distinction that only makes sense in my head.

Huh. I'll have to pick Strega's brain sometime - I find this sort of thing fascinating. I'm a big believer in the idea that people very often don't know the real reason they do things, but just rationalize their behavior after the fact.

I think I'll also pick up a copy of "Games People Play."

In a less serious look at suicide, the Queen song "Dont' Try Suicide" has always cracked me up:

Don't try suicide
Nobody's worth it
Don't try suicide
Nobody cares
Don't try suicide
Just gonna hate it
Don't try suicide
Nobody gives a damn

I mean, to tell someone "nobody cares" and "nobody gives a damn" is an odd way to talk someone out of a suicide. And what does "noboby's worth it" mean here? Finally, "Don't try suicide / Just gonna hate it" is damn funny.

How do you distinguish a victim of martyr complex from a "I regret that I have but one life to give" hero? If it's a cause we agree with, they're heroes. Otherwise it's a pathology. I guess that might be why the term makes me twitchy; most human behavior is intended to elicit a response, and usually that intention is hidden.

I think the difference is that someone with a martyr complex never lets you forget that they gave something up for you and that by some weird form of reciprocity, you owe them for being a martyr for you. Whether they actually are giving something up or not, is moot, it feels like they are to them.

A hero type martyr does it out of pure altruism, expecting nothing in return. How many people are honestly capable of being purely altruistic, well, that's another discussion altogether.

I think a key to a martyr complex means that the public has to know how you suffered to do what you actually did. It's not just credit for saving the world, but an appreciation of all you sacrificed to do so.

I've known a couple of attempted suicides. One, I think, wasn't passive aggressive, even though she knew most of her attempts wouldn't work. Somehow, and I can't articulate it, it was just aggressive. The other was pure and simply passive aggression in a whiny "my corpse has to look pretty so he will cry harder at the funeral" way, while never EVER doing anything that would even result in a headache. I have to say, I did remind her that she lived on the tenth floor and that her window opened all the way. It didn't matter. She needed the feedback--being dead would have robbed her of savouring reaction.