Ship of Fools: AS: Touched by Suicide

Thread: AS: Touched by Suicide Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by rabcpresbyterian (# 12060) on :

Sorry, not sure is this the best place for this thread ?

I wondered if people would appreciate a place to remember anyone they have lost to suicide.

I don't know if it's appropriate to name names but do what seems right for you.

I'll start...

My father-in-law and my dear friend

[ 01. November 2009, 00:36: Message edited by: Erin ]

Posted by Wiff Waff (# 10424) on :

Thanks, I think this is a good idea.

Shyam was only 14 - his father and his uncle had both committed suicide previously and he missed his dad so much.

He died 17 May 2004.

[Votive]

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :

My cousin and Anglican godfather, Tom.

Some kids from my high school in the university years. Hans and Paul.

[Votive]

Posted by New Yorker (# 9898) on :

One special person who brought much joy and allowed me to see much more of the world than I ever knew. It's been 7 years, 6 months, and 29 days.

Recently, my cousin of whom I have photos showing her holding me as a newborn babe. She took a slower approach to suicide.

Requiescat in pacem! [Votive]

Posted by The Blessed Pangolin (# 13623) on :

My cousin, Billy. Handsome, intelligent, witty, mischievous, kind, and, sadly, ill. [Votive]

Posted by Geneviève (# 9098) on :

Friend in a former parish, and others beloved by friends of mine.

[Votive]

Posted by cattyish (# 7829) on :

A fellow student, trying to get away from what he saw as inevitable failure to "Where the streets have no name." [Votive]

OTOH, an older gentleman who almost succeeded but was saved by a skilled surgeon and a stay in a psychiatric ward, going home as a hopeful and well person. [Votive]

for his life left to live.

And for someone who changed their mind, taking the difficult decision to try living again. God help them do it well. [Votive]

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

A friend, who came to my church, trying to find a career that would work for him but failed the exams.

Jengie

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

The daughter of a friend - I've known her since she was a small toddler, a contemporary of my own sons. She took her own life at the age of 17. [Votive]

Posted by Zwingli (# 4438) on :

For M___ K______, a high school acquaintance of mine, shot dead by police during a violent psychotic episode.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

My cousin almost succeeded seven years ago this month. She wept when she woke up in hospital and realised she was still alive. She spent four months in hospital recovering and is badly scarred and partially disabled for life.
The only way to go from there was up.

Since then she has married a wonderful man and had two beautiful children.

She is my inspiration.

Thanks be to God. [Votive]

Posted by Qupe (# 12388) on :

For S, aged 23, desperately ill with profound schizophrenia. Poor love. Lord look after this vulnerable one, now in your evelasting arms. [Votive]

Posted by Tree Bee (# 4033) on :

I often think of Elizabeth, a school friend suffering with hormonal problems, who used her father's gun to end her life in 1971 when she was 16.
May she rest in peace.

Posted by Dormouse (# 5954) on :

My sister in law who couldn't face becoming a "grumpy old woman" as she dealt with terrible tinnitus.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

For Pete, [Tear]

My GP, who helped me survive being raped. [Votive]

For Anne Louise whose pain was too much to bear [Votive]

For Shane, who was kind and who loved trees. [Votive]

For Julian, bright, quirky and despairing. [Votive]

For Ann, who I hope has now discovered that nothing is unforgivable [Votive]

.

Into Your hands O Lord...

Huia

Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :

[Votive]

We thank you that these people we have known are beyond the reach of darkness and despair, but not beyond the touch and care of your love. The ending of their earthly lives may seem senseless. We cannot fathom the anguish of mind they went through.

Forgive us for those times and ways we failed them. Help us to forgive them for any hurt we feel they have inflicted on us; help us to forgive ourselves for any harm we fear we may have caused them.

Give us grace to be content to release them to you, in the assurance and hope that you will show them the path of life and lead them to walk in your presence in the land of the living.

[Votive]

Posted by Esmeralda (# 582) on :

My brother Stephen. It's nearly 33 years but it doesn't get any easier.

Posted by Rowen (# 1194) on :

My nephew Peter was 19, and had enough of terrible mental health problems... He took his life in 2000.

Posted by Banner Lady (# 10505) on :

For Jeremiah, the same age as my eldest daughter, who is now 27. They celebrated their first birthdays holding hands together as toddlers. Later, when his mother remarried, he took his stepfather's gun and shot himself dead. He was 16.

And for Blair, 17, who never felt at home anywhere. So much promise, so much pain. [Votive]

[ 06. October 2008, 21:24: Message edited by: Banner Lady ]

Posted by Salt (# 13962) on :

For my cousin who suffered from depression and did not want to be the burden to his family like his dad who was an extreme bipolar person and caused the family an immeasureable amount of pain and grief. [Votive]

Posted by Sha_Sha (# 10880) on :

For Michael, who killed himself a year ago this past August. No one had a clue that anything was wrong, not even his wife or his best friend/cousin. He left a wife, a very young baby (2 mos at that time), and a lot of family and friends.

My sister, who has tried to kill herself before and has been hospitalized. She is in a good place right now, but it's been a long road.

Posted by Nicolemrw (# 28) on :

My Uncle Jack attempted suicide quite a few years ago by taking an overdose of his antideppressants. He immediatly regretted it, and fortunetly was able to get help fast enough to survive (though it was a close thing).

Sadly, though he recovered, the future was not kind to him (it was his eldest daughter and her daughter who were my cousins that were murdered later, and he never really recovered from that blow) and I almost think it might have been kinder for him if he had succeeded.

Would have been hell for the rest of the family, though, so I'm glad he didn't.

He finally died of natural causes about two years ago.

Posted by ErinBear (# 13173) on :

In memory of my church friend, Charlie W., who died about 1 1/2 years ago by suicide. I knew Charlie fairly well. We both had chronic severe pain, and were on disability. I talked with him many weeks after church. I felt concerned about him at times, mostly because he seemed to have trouble feeling awkward around people....I couldn't quite put my finger on it, and worried about him being isolated, even though I knew he had friends. When he committed suicide, it was a shock to us all. It was a particular shock to me, in that I was in the hospital at that time for my own severe depression. My friends did not tell me until I was discharged, and it was such hard news. I still feel sad all this time later, and wonder if there was more that we could have done to help Charlie, even while I recognize it was his own choice. sigh.

I hope Charlie is at peace with God now.

Amen. [Votive]

Posted by rabcpresbyterian (# 12060) on :

I thought I would name the people in my OP. Their names are Tom, who never got over losing his wife, and Ben, who couldn't find another way out of the darkness.

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :

Adam [Votive]

I didn't know him well but assumed there would be lots of Sunday morning after-church chats to correct that and it was a shock to realise that there would not be.

He is now at peace.

Posted by rexory (# 4708) on :

[Votive]

My mother. It's 45 years this Christmas. Just occasionally, I really wish she were still here.
[Votive]

for the many suicides whose funerals I've conducted over the last 25 years, from a 9 yo boy whose grandmother had told him the day before, "I wish to God you'd never been born", to the 85 yo man facing charges of sexually abusing his granddaughters (I recently buried his 55 yo son who made the same decision "because life is too hard").
[Votive]

for the various family members and friends who live with the "if only's" and the anger and hurt.

Posted by Scarlet (# 1738) on :

For my mother [Votive]

For Carol, my daughter's sister-in-law [Votive]

Posted by New Yorker (# 9898) on :

I tend to think that suicide is an epidemic here in the US. And it's not talked about. What charitable organizations exist to try to prevent suicide? I am familiary with SPAN (Suicide Prevention Action Network). They're mainly a lobby group in DC working to promote anti-suicide legislation and mental health awareness.

Posted by philip99a (# 13799) on :

A member of the choir at my last church. He and I had buddied up on a parish piligrimage to the Holy Land two years earlier. He was an Electrical Engineer but when the big national project he was employed on was cancelled, he saw no future. He was a very shy guy and he just never talked about it until the careful explanatory note he left behind. I do wonder, if he'd been able to open up to someone, perhaps he'd still be alive.

Posted by chiltern_hundred (# 13659) on :

Miles, a talented young man with an Oxford degree, who put himself under a train back in the early 80s. Nobody could figure out why.

Clive, who got up one day in the late 80s to set off to work, but never got there. Instead, he drove to the top of a multi-storey car park and threw himself off. He had had a history of drink problems and depression, but had seemed perfectly OK.

Simon, an altar server and former cathedral chorister, who hanged himself last year for no evident reason.

I miss them all still.

Requiescant in pace.

Posted by rabcpresbyterian (# 12060) on :

quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
I tend to think that suicide is an epidemic here in the US. And it's not talked about. What charitable organizations exist to try to prevent suicide? I am familiary with SPAN (Suicide Prevention Action Network). They're mainly a lobby group in DC working to promote anti-suicide legislation and mental health awareness.

I'll try to find out the names of two US speakers
I heard at an Irish conference.

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :

if we want to move a conversation on suicide epidemics and how they're handled to purgatory, I'll chip into the discussion as I can.

friends:
Wasillie, Tim, Robbie, Tina, Randy, Chad, Alan, Alexi, Nikita, Little Pete; Jenny who was my best friend when we were little; Dale, Clarence. and a few more who's names have escaped me.

and family - my cousins Shepard and Annie, and my grandmother Carolyn.

mostly [Votive]

for those left behind who still hurt. Suicide is an inherently selfish choice.

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :

Please do. as comet suggested, keep the discussion of suicide prevention and help to Purgatory.

PeteC
AS Host

Posted by guinness girl (# 4391) on :

[Votive]

Ben, my schoolmate at 14. You seemed so full of joy.

[Votive]

Matt, a regular at my pub who I knew well - I wish I'd known how you felt, though I know I couldn't have made a difference.

[Votive]

Jane, my ex-workmate. So many people loved you so much.

Posted by Ronist (# 5343) on :

For A

"I'm not(expletive)depressed. Something's gone wrong in my brain."

She hanged herself.

Posted by The Man With No Name (# 10858) on :

My beautiful friend J. In two weeks it will have been six months. I still can't stop crying.

[Votive]

Posted by Pants (# 999) on :

November 22 is evidently National Survivors of Suicide Day

Posted by Earwig (# 12057) on :

For Amy. [Votive]

Posted by Hilda of Whitby (# 7341) on :

For Bonnie [Votive]

For my mother's father, whom I never met [Votive]

Posted by lily pad (# 11456) on :

For Linda a daughter, mother, sister and aunt who cried out for help and died anyway [Votive]

For Kathryn a teen who beat cancer twice and decided she would be forgiven for wanting to be with God [Votive]

For David S. who was tortured to live between two worlds [Votive]

For David B. who didn't get the message that she forgave him and couldn't live anymore [Votive]

For the many others who couldn't face growing up [Votive]

Posted by Wiff Waff (# 10424) on :

There is an elderly woman here in the village who is a bit of a nuisance to everybody but is generally looked out for and tolerated. She had two sons and two daughters, all of whom have died by their own hand long before I moved here.

Frankly I'm not surprised that she displays some strange behaviour.

Posted by Roseofsharon (# 9657) on :

For my grandmother - 50 years ago.

For all those who have to deal with the aftermath of suicide, or a failed attempt.

[Votive]

Posted by Alban (# 9047) on :

My cousin Anna, 23 years old, a couple of years back.

Posted by Teeny (# 14007) on :

For Stewart, a troubled soul, and the nearest I ever had to a close friend.

I still miss him 5 years on

[']

Posted by Wesley J (# 6075) on :

[Votive]

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