“I GETS WEARY AND TIRED OF LIVING…”

Robin William’s suicide changed the post I planned, but the topic is the same.  Tired of  living? I often am, but I don’t know for sure what comes next. For some, and I am guessing Robin was one, it doesn’t matter what comes next; life and pain has worn them out.  Suicide seems the only option.  Which is one reason I  advocate assisted suicide.

Imagine if Robin knew he could have company at his death, hold hands with a loved one and pass on peacefully with the aid of suicide doctor by asking for help dying. That option might have kept him alive.

Then again knowing he could have had a physician at his side might not have worked.  At its worse depression rants against anything but the relief of  death.

Two things keep most suicidal thinkers alive.  The hope things might get better and knowing others care.

As a mental health professional,  I have known many who wanted to die. Those that actually committed suicide were not patients or clients of mine, but personal friends,  Sad to say, I had long lost contact them.

One of those friends taught me a lesson that has helped me deal a bit better with those who do kill themselves. This  friend was in a locked psychiatric ward after having been accidentally discovered trying to kill herself by putting her head in her over an d turning the gas on. Her brothe , thought to be in another town but who had the key to her apartment, unexpectedly went to her apartment. He saved her life, but only temporarily.

After three days on the closed ward, she succeeded in escaping the locks, making it to the roof and jumping to her death. Very often, those truly tired of living  succeed in killing themselves one way or another.

Teen suicides always seem extra painful for me.  Teens often commit suicide without fully appriaciating that death might well mean no awareness of anything.  

A teen can get  trapped into committing suicide by fantasizing  s/he will see how others cared. They imagine watching their funneral and think that they will be around to witness it after their death. Maybe, but I am betting not.

For some teens it is expecting to enjoy a fantasied revenge by seeing the pain caused others.  Tthis kind of thinking is  delusional.

The saddest suicides, howeiver,  as far as I am concerned, are the Plea-for-help attempts  that end with the person dead instead of  being saved.

EMOTIONAL FITNESS THOUGHTS AND TIPS

Personally, I want to live as long as I can talk and take some care of myself. My Living Will states very clearly to pull the plug if I cannot tell whoever is tending me  to do so and there is little or no hope of change.

I do not want my death prolonged and that is the dilemma many face with the severely injured, ill, or elderly. The line between prolonging life and prolonging death is often difficult to determine.

I have thoughts lots about how to “Go peacefully in to that dark night” on my own when I feel like I just cannot go on:Vodka and pot or maybe a long walk on a snowy, snowy night.

As a mental health professional, I have also trained others on assessing and dealing with personal depression or another person’s depression.  Not so easy and particularly hard when a chemical depression is involved.

Here is today’s Emotional fitness tip:  Safety first and always.

Personally reaching the end of your rope and  planning your death? Get professional help and now.  Call a hot line, go to the nearest  emergency room.  The life you save will be your own and because things do change you might find yourself living a better life than you ever imagined possible in days to come.

Worried about someone else’s depression and suicidal threats.  Take all threats seriously. Use this EFTI poster coach to guide you as to the need for immediate action and what to do when you are worried, but an emergency does not exist.

Life is hard and what makes it hardest for some, is the struggle seems never ending.  If you know a mixture of pain and pleasure be grateful.  If the painful times predominate, consider a chemical depression is operating.

Drink and drugs seem to make life a bit more bearable and reach the point when you need them to function even marginally well. That is another sign a chemical depression might be operating.

There is also a type of suicide that comes when one “Has it all.”  Being told you have every thing you need to be happy but still struggling iwth blackness intensifies the despair and the loneliness and increases the risk of suicide. Robin had this extra burden to carry along with his chemical depression.

Finally, some are good at hiding their depression.  We had several foster children who seemed to ooze depression.  One committed suicide long after leaving our care. I was not surprised. However, when another of our foster children made an attempt and we were discussing it with the others then in our care, one said, “You mean it’s not normal to be unhappy all the time and think about killing yourself every day.”

Scared me because he was one of the ones who always seemed  face. After his comment,  I had him take the Beck Depression Inventory.  His score indicated major depression. Until I showed the test results to his probation officer none of us suspected how depressed he was.  The link takes you  to a self-help version of the inventory.

STAY STRONG

We all have our struggles. If they do not include dealing with suicidal depression understanding the blackness others live with becomes a barrier.  Such barriers are common place for we walk only in our own shoes and that is the Curse of Personal Knowledge.

What to do when you don’t understand another’s  pain or find yourself irked by another’s complaints? Practice kindness. You will help yourself as well as the other person. If you like this post share it with another.  That is practicing deliberate kindness and deliverate kindness strengthens more than the also helpful random acts. .

As always, thank you for your support.

Katherine

This post fits in with Today’s Word Press’s DAILY PROMPT:  A Bookish Choice A literary-minded witch gives you a choice: with a flick of the wand, you can become either an obscure novelist whose work will be admired and studied by a select few for decades, or a popular paperback author whose books give pleasure to millions. Which do you choose? Fame and fortune offer little protection against suicide as Robin Williams’ sad death demonstrates.  I’d love some fame and a bit more money, but …..

LINKS OF INTEREST

• A tribute to Robin Williams (aish.com)
• Suicidal risks (suicidepreventionlifeline.org)
• Emotional Intelligence  (en.wikipedia.org)
• Personal Knowledge versus Deep Thinking (projectlearnet.org)
• The EFTI Store (eftistore.com)
• WordPress Daily Prompt  (wordpress.com)

EFTI FREE POSTER COACH OF THE DAY: When to Call 911.

Blues Prevention

Daily Prompt: Singing the Blues We all feel down from time to time. How do you combat the blues? I follow my own Emotional Fitness Program.

If you cannot do these easy Emotional Fitness Exercises, if you engage in harmful behaviors or  if you are planning to kill yourself, see a mental health professional today.

Getting down is not the same as being clinically depressed. Many clinically depressed people don’t understand the difference.

One young woman once said to me, “You mean it isn’t normal to plan on killing myself every day?”

My reply, “No. That is clinical depression. ”

What makes the difference? Two things in her statement tipped me off. And by the way, I am a licensed therapist.  First tip:  She was planning her death.  She knew exactly what she would do and had the pills saved.

Fleeting thoughts of “I can’t take this” or “Wonder what it would feel like to die?” can be a normal part of going through a very tough time. Making plans to end your life is not.

Second tip: The every day bit.  Nothing made her happy, nothing gave her pleasure, she could not envision a happy future.

Important fact: This young woman hid her depression well, seemed happy even to those who knew her well, seemed to have it all.  She was not a patient, but a student who spoke to me after a class and together we went to the Emergency Room. She was not admitted, I didn’t think she would be, but wanted her to hear from others the extent of her struggle. She was placed on medication, referred for treatment. At the end of the semester she thanked me, and said, “My smiles are real now.”

When I directed a Mental Health Crisis Team in NYC before, during, and after 911 I developed a number of check lists to help people understand how a Mental Health Professional decided which label might fit. Here is the one for depression.

You would go for treatment if you broke your leg, your arm, were bleeding badly, or in lots of physical pain. Do the same when your spirit has been broken by a mental illness.

More research based depression check lists are available on-line. I don’t have the funds to get my little check-list research based, but staff, family members and people coping with sadness or depression found it useful. I used my check lists as a psycho-educational tool. I hope this one helps you decide if you need treatment or are coping well enough on your own.

Stay strong

If you are new to the idea of emotional fitness exercises visit this blog page: Easy Emotional Fitness Exercises to get started  improving your emotional intelligence.

Thank you all for all you do to care and share with others. Doing a little matters a lot.

Katherine

You can get The Beat the Blues Poster at the EFTI Store.  It is free for now.

LINKS OF INTEREST

• Depression (nimh.nih.gov)
• Depression (wikipedia.org)
• Word Press Daily Prompt (wordpress.com)

RENAME THAT NASTY FEELING

An Emotional Fitness Training  Name to Tame Exercise to strengthen your Emotional Intelligence so you will better control when bad, mad, or sad feelings. The wrong name increases the hurt of such feelings.

Image by http://www.compassionateinteractions.com/empathychallenge.php

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but re-naming some feelings takes away their thorns.  The mental health professionals try to get you to change your feelings by “re-framing” or “transforming” your thoughts about what is happening. The Narrative Therapists do so by “re-storying.”  Their idea is that much of what hurts our hearts are the stories we tell ourselves about what is happening and how that makes us feel.  Re-storying begins with finding the right name for what we feel.

Here is an example related to self-esteem: “I’m a failure” tells one story; “I failed a test today” tells another; “The Fear of Failure Bug Shutting Down My Brain” tells even a richer story.

Here’s another example related to depression: I’m depressed” versus “Depression is Visiting Me.”

Here is one related to how we name the behavior of others:  “You’re mean” versus “The Mean Part of You Made Me Feel Attacked.”

When a trouble visits us and makes us sad or angry, naming it carefully dilutes its power; as the poetess Starhawk notes: “What we name must answer to us; we can shape it if not control it.”

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TIPS ABOUT NAMING FEELINGS

Tip one: The more carefully a troubled feeling is named, the more you shape it, understand it and control it.

Tip two: A carefully named feeling has a rating attached to its name: “911 Stress” as opposed to “Stressed” or “Boiling Over Anger” as opposed to “Heating up a Bit”  or “Deep Dark Blues” as opposed to “Down In  Dumps A Bit.”

Tip three:  A carefully named feeling also says something about the reasons why it has decided to visit you.  The reasons why vary from situation to situation but often  alert you to patterns of problem feelings or behavior.  Examples:”911 Stress Because No One is Helping Me” or “Heating Up A Bit Because You Keep Interrupting Me.” “Down in the Dumps A Bit Because I just Turned Forty” or  “Runaway Panic Because This is Harder Than I Thought.”

Tip four: Modeling does work. When you start naming your troubled feelings in more helpful ways, you are teaching others to think about properly naming their. This is particularly useful for teaching children to become skilled at naming their feelings.  

 Tip five:  The younger the child, the more you should name what you think they are feeling but in ways that make two important points: (1) Feelings are part of them; (2) feelings come and go which is why Emotional Fitness Training speaks of them as visitor.  Some examples:  Not “You’re  Angry”  but “Anger is Visiting You” or not “You are scared” or “Scared?” but “The Fear Monster has come calling.”

Tip six:  If you try to give someone else’s feelings a name, never insist yours is the right name.  Instead, hope they will object to your name for their feeling.  If that happens, you can ask how they  would name what they are feeling. Doing so shows respect, but also starts the person thinking.  Emotional Intelligence begins in thinking about what you are feeling.

stay strong

As always, most  Emotional Fitness Training tips are  not easy to apply.  Peace on Earth would be a reality if that were true.  However, slowly putting them into practice works.

To put the above tips into practice, think of a feeling that is troubling you and find three separate  rating names for it.  One name should be when it first comes calling, the second for when it is growing strong enough to be bothersome, and the third when it controls you.  Then spend a day or two just applying these names.  When that begins to happen naturally, add something about the reasons why.

Two simpler steps: (1)  add  the word “The” in front of whatever feeling visits you at any moment; (2) add the words “is visiting” to whatever you are feeling at any moment.  “Anger is visiting” or “Sadness has come to call”  Doing so starts the naming habit and makes your brain think about what is going on.

Meanwhile, stay strong by remember what matters, finding time to laugh and play, be with beauty, practice kindness and to say “Thank you” as often as you can.

Be kind to me by liking or sharing this post if you have found it helpful. Thank you for reading this.

Katherine

P.S.  The Daily Prompt asked if you could pause real life and spend some time living with a family anywhere in the world, where would you go?  I would want to gather all my family and all my friends – load them in a big Ocean Liner and travel the world spending time living in all peaceful places.   Which is why I buy at least one lottery ticket a week.

Related articles

• Emotional Intelligence – What is it? (writeopedia.wordpress.com)
• Learn To Question Your Emotions (lifehack.org)
• Becoming a Feeling Detective (Amazon.com)

SHRINKS THINK

No longer Normal or Not.  Now posting on Not so Normal--various common disorders as described by the DSM.  If you have not read the Normal or Not Series, best start with them by clicking here.

The Not so Normal  posts will be taken from the Normal and Pathological Aspects of Adolescence, I taught for many years.  This post deals with depression or one of many Mood Disorders.   Once upon a time the DSM had a diagnosis called “Reactive depression.”  Thought it a very good description of someone dealing with a life blow.  Particularly a major loss.

Before moving on to the material more formal material.  Here is a very interesting post about dealing with one of life’s most traumatic events–dealing with the loss of a child.  A strong reminder to keep culture in mind when applying any label to anyone’s behavior.  Click here to view that post and thank you Mind Hack for that one.

Click here  to read my CUSSW lecture notes called The Moody Blues

Remember all experts are not all wise, don’t know all the answers, often only see part of the elephant in the room.

Read, question, grow.

Please care and help me stay strong,  subscribe to blog and say you like me, but only if you do.  Thank you.