Posted by Adam on March 16, 2001, at 18:46:12
In reply to Guns stuff... might be inflamatory, posted by NikkiT2 on March 1, 2001, at 13:27:00
I think it is a common misconception that a gun, or any method of suicide, for that matter, is necessarily "reliable". I can't locate it now, but I once found a very detailed and informative web site devoted to the subject of ending your own life without mishap. Making certain beyond a doubt that you will be successful, and will not wind up, instead, maimed, mutilated and in an extended period of excruciating pain, with a life of physical debilitation to look forward to, is actually very difficult to do. An alarming number of people who try suicide fail, despite doing horrific injury to themselves, with devastating and permanent results to add to their misery (one of the biggest groups of such survivors, I believe, was those with self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head).
This is not to say, of course, that success would not be, in itself, a devastating blow to anyone who knows or cares about you. It is a common misconception among the depressed that there is no one who gives a damn if we live or die, or that those who might will be better off without us in the long run. In the vast majority of cases, that is most untrue.
I had two ideas of my own: One, to drive my car as fast as I could into a concrete barrier, and the second, to wander off into the mountains to watch a winter sunset before freezing to death.
With the latter, I actually set out one day for Franconia Notch, in NH, full backpack and everything, to hike up Mt. Lafayette and watch the sun setting behind the Kinsman Ridge before the cold took me. Then I thought about a man, a doctor, who I had seen on television, a survivor of the terrible accident on Mt. Everest a few years ago. He was a surgeon, I believe. Much of his hands and feet were gone, as well as his nose and other parts of his face. He was horribly disfigured by frostbite, and more than a bit rueful about what he had lost as a professional and as a man for the thrill of adventure. His greatest misgiving was nearly abandoning his family. This was all, of course, after the fact. I imagine before the storm hit, he was thinking about other things. I didn't want to end up like this guy...perhaps rescued before the cold killed me, or perhaps after a change of heart, descending the mountain in agony, my necrotic appendages to be amputated later to leave me even more bereft. I hiked up to the tree line, gazed with emptyness at the cliffs on Canon Mountain, and went back home.
Then there was the car. I got close. I really did. I had it up to about 110, maybe more. The whole damn car shook at that speed. The lines in the road were whipping by way too fast. It wasn't like I thought it would be, racing like a bullet, tracing a graceful arc across the lanes into a widened gap in the median divider, a thick, solid wedge of concrete. This felt out of control. I was already shaking before I hit the accelerator, and now everything was. I was just plain terrified. I could see all kinds of bad things happening...limbs being shorn off, ejection from the drivers seat into the opposite side of the Mass. Pike, only to get run over by a truck or something, blood, guts, glass shards, fire. The car hit some sort of uneven patch in the road, and though I don't think I would have been in danger of losing control, the speed amplified the effect, the suprise of the jolt brought my heart up in my throat...I made a quick jerk one way out of instinct, heard a screech, and jammed on the brakes, the car literally hopping a bit and squealing some more as I went for the shoulder. I rolled to a stop and just lost it. I was in hell. I wanted the world's biggest bomb to just explode underneath me and have it be over. I reversed direction at the next exit, drove home, got on the T, and checked myself in at Mass. General.
This is what suicide is like. It's the worst. Before you even get near this, call your doctor. Go to the hospital. Get a friend or loved one to go with you, if you can. You won't be sorry. If constant ideation and planning goes too far, you may be in for a world of pain, and you need to get help, OK? Thank you for listening.
Adam
P.S. I read just a few months ago in a periodical the tributes of a number of mountain enthusiasts who knew a particular man, one of the Northeast's most avid hikers, who had frozen to death by choice on the very same mountain as I had thought of dying on. I guess he hiked over the ridge to gaze eastward, for what reason I don't know, but the story sent chills down my spine. Some explicit mention of the true nature of his illness, or the absurdity of his actions, was infuriatingly absent, but these were tributes, I suppose, and the writers were focusing on fonder memories. The disappointment, if not obvious grief these people felt at not being able to share their time with this person again was palpable, though. He left a wife who loved the mountains as much as himself, and now must climb without him.
> Recently I have been getting more asnd more suicidal... Not really serious, nit like I'm going to do it right now, but over the past week I''ve been thinking about guns. I'm in the UK, and guns are *really* hard to get here, and I know no-one that even has one. Private owning of hand guns is basically illegal, aqnd it's very hard to get a liscence even for a shot gun. The only hand guns can be used is at shotting ranges. Yes, we obviously still have gun crimes, and people do get shot.. but my point is gun owning is pretty rare.
>
> Anyway, Iw as thinking how if I was in the US I would very likely be dead by now. Getting a gun and shotting myself through my forehead seems so damned easy... What if I could have got a gun at these times. So much easier than the other two simplest ways.
>
> This is just a ramble - sorry!!
>
> Nikki
poster:Adam
thread:4886
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010209/msgs/5137.html