Posts tagged suicide

Another shooting? Really? This is really bumming me out. Glad my boys are passed high school, and past college as well. Why is this happening? I guess the most important question is: what can we do to stop it?

Parents, educators, legislators, and all concerned citizens need to come together and work out a plan for every school in America so that our kids can be safe. I grieve for the families who have lost their children through all the senseless violence that’s been occurring more and more frequently over the past few years. I’m enraged that there hasn’t been a plan of action that can be implemented in a flexible way so that each school can find a way to protect its own and so that they can talk to one another and compare notes, so to speak, on the best approaches.

I know people who are experts in disaster mental health and if Mr. Cuomo wishes to ask me I can direct him the right person who can give him a comprehensive plan to make sure our children are safe.

For God sakes let’s make this shooting the last one that ever happens in any one of our schools.

I can be contacted directly by phone: 516-731-7611 or email: mark@markdworkin.com
For more information you can also visit my website: www.markdworkin.com

Sometimes I can be a bit dense. I’ve been very upset about this spate of robberies at pharmacies near my house. At first I thought it was just an issue about addicted people needing to find ways to satisfy their cravings. I also didn’t like the idea that crime seem to be on the rise.

Dense, dense, dense! I also recently wrote about a friend who successfully committed suicide. It broke my heart. She was so depressed, and I had no idea. She also moved far away so we weren’t in touch. And she was just a friend, but a good one.

Part of her suicide was taking an overdose of pills. It never occurred to me that the pain I felt hearing about the robberies was connected to my friend. You see, the robbers were stealing pills. My friend died of taking pills. How could I be so dense?

Obviously I know the answer. As Stuart Smalley said in Saturday Night Live, “denial is not just a river that runs through Egypt.” I think this is the nature of things for all of us. When something so horrendous happens to us we go into a freeze, or traumatized state. Then things in the present that may remind us in any way shape or form about the trauma, will reactivate the painful emotions associated with.

Now I train people in trauma therapy, called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). I’m being pretty compassionate with myself, because I know how these things can go. “We are all more human than otherwise,” said the Great American psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan.

So please take a lesson from a guy who’s been in the mental health field for almost 40 years, has had experience in a lot of therapy, is an international lecturer, and an author. If I could go into denial, anyone can. If you ever find yourself in this kind of a situation please remember even those of us who try to have awareness of higher consciousness can be blind to what’s right in front of us.

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

Namaste:

Mark

About seven months ago the mutual friend let me know that his wife, a friend for many years committed suicide. I’ll spare you the details, and just let you know that I wish I could’ve been there to help. But she moves a few thousand miles away, and we had lost touch, except for maybe an occasional Christmas card. Her death was a great shock to me; it still is.

I keep wondering even after all this time why she didn’t reach out to me. We were good friends, and she used to talk to me when she was upset. Her husband told me that he tried to encourage her to talk to me, or a therapist in their area. She wasn’t open to the idea.

There are some people who will tell you many times have their planning to kill themselves, but they never do. In this case, sadly, my friend did not let anyone know what she was planning. She was meticulous, organized, and thorough. She left nothing to chance. We are all bewildered. I speak to her husband, and some of their family members. We are all in a quandary. She was a great person, would do anything for anyone, at any time. We need more people on this Earth like my friend. Her death has left me impoverished.

Please take what I have to say as some guidelines that you can use to see if a friend or family member is in danger of taking their own lives. Here are some of the guidelines:

Do they have a plan and a timetable?

Have they made a suicide attempt before?

Have a thought about suicide?

Are they sober?

Are they depressed?

Do they engage in risk-taking behaviors? Bar fights? Speeding?

Have they expressed any fatal illness thoughts? For instance “I wish I were dead.”

Have you seen any changes in their behavior?

Have you seen any changes in their mood?

Have they been expressing how life isn’t worth living?

Have you noticed that they’ve been stockpiling pills?

Have you noticed any recent purchases that don’t make too much sense?

These are just a few of the many indicators we can try and look at to predict how intense the person is on ending their lives. But you should know that even being vigilant, may still not get you anywhere. Approximately 4/5 people who think about suicide, usually talk to a friend or family member about it. But then there are some like my friend, whose behavior changed, whose beliefs changed, but you never ever gave any warning that she was about to do what she did.

Remember, if someone has made the commitment to suicide, there is nothing we can do, except to be as vigilant as possible.

All we can do is mourn and grieve. Chastising ourselves about what we could’ve done just doesn’t seem to cut it. I have her picture on the side of a file cabinet with the words, “were things really that bad?” Anyone in my shoes will know just how painful it is to think about. I found that writing a letter to my friend, which I kept to myself obviously, was helpful. Other people find using the creative arts means of expression of the grief is useful.

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

To anyone who is in my shoes, I wish you peace and healing.

A friend of mine just got off the phone with me and told me to go to this You Tube Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=TdkNn3Ei-Lg

The title is “What’s Going On,” and it is heartbreaking. It worth the 4 minutes of your time. If you are a parent like me, you’ll never want to see your child in the pain that this boy is in.

Not everyone is a “Barbie or Ken” doll (am I dating myself? Ask your parents if you don’t get the reference. This video has been seen by over 7,000,000 people.

The boy does not speak. He holds up index cards, and points to places he has cut. He’s also crying.

If you know any children who may be suffering like this boy, talk to their parents (if you are not the one yourself), and get help for your troubled child or teenager.

As a psychotherapist who treats many teenagers who cut, I can tell you that I was surprised how this video got to me. Fortunately my sons are in grad schools, and never had these problems. But too many of our youth are suffering, and either parents ignore or don’t know what to do about it.

Call your local mental health clinic; ask your child’s pediatrician for the names of some excellent child and teenage therapists. But for the love of God please don’t pretend or avoid.

The consequences could be deadly.

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

Watch the video and write what you think about it.