Suicide prevention

[Eamonnca1]

Good article in the Belfast Telegraph about winter depression and how to avoid it:

Why it's a bad idea to start brooding about your ex at this time of year

By Robert McNeill
Friday, 31 December 2010

Halle-flippin'-lujah. The most depressing time of the year is nearly over. If you've felt excluded and horribly alone during the familial triumphalism of the festive season, fear not.

Just hang on a bit longer and see it through. For, after the secondary horror of New Year, it'll all be done.

Depression: sad business, isn't it? My view is that it's largely caused by disappointment.

In particular, the disappointments inherent in growing up take their toll.

You discover that the adults didn't know what they were doing all along. Not just your parents. Employers, policemen, the religious people, authorities of all sorts.

Clueless, the lot of them.

Then there are the cruelties of the world. Far worse than you ever envisaged. Injustices that leave the jaw dangling.

The realisation that the historic prosperity of your society was built on the exploitation of others. I'm not saying beat yourself up about the last one. But, if you're at all sensitive, you're bound to feel queasy at times.

If your family or personal life falls apart into the bargain, then you've got to be a particularly brave soldier.

Tip: use your mind. The mind works through internal dialogue and pictures. When it tells you how awful everything is, and keeps banging on about it, tell it to shaddap.

That kind of dialogue goes round in loops and indicates you've got to take command of the situation in your noggin. It's easily done: you're the boss, remember.

Pictures play a large part too. You envisage your ex with a new partner, or conjure bailiffs at the door, or dwell on images from the past that make you maudlin about the present.

The last sort you might use wisely on occasion.

The others you should shrink to invisibility. Literally, in your mind: shrink them away.

It's the technique advocated by Paul McKenna, and it works. Don't bring harmful images up into your mind. Zap them away. You wouldn't deliberately go and watch a crap movie, would you?

Wonderful thing, the mind. It's like a horse. It'll go wild and trample you if you let it. But you can harness it and go places with it too.

There are other things to do to lift your mood: watch great films on DVD; drink three glasses of nice wine; treat yourself to an occasional chocolate (you can savour them more if you just have two, rather than a whole box); read a PG Wodehouse novel; listen to rousing rock (careful with classical music; true beauty usually has a melancholy aspect).

New research this week claims you can sing your way out of the festive blues. Fat lot of use to me. Normally, I'm too shy to sing even in the privacy of my own home. I tried droning out of respect at a couple of funerals recently, but it just didn't work.

The last time I really made an effort was when the footer team I support won a rare trophy.

Mind you, as we sang the club's anthem ("We're crap and we know we are") I was also fighting back tears. What it takes to move a man, eh?

Of course, these were tears of joy. Not the sort of thing you see during this period of festive totalitarianism and cacophonous commercialism.

If it's got you down, don't give up. You're not alone in your loneliness.

I lost a friend to suicide last year. Nearly lost a relative to it some years ago too. Depression is a serious illness and potentially fatal.  It needs to be taken seriously. If you're of the "Oh get over yourself you miserable s***" school of thought, please refrain from replying to this thread.

[ross4life]

Have a history of depression in my Family so i know first hand what a awful disease it is, one i wouldn't wish on my worst enemy

It's a shame the common joe doesn't understand it instead they have the "pull yourself together man" attitude.

[Bud Wiser]

I used to suffer a bit from that SAD thing, Seasonal Adjustment Dysfunction and could not operate at all in the days when evenings and mornings were dark.  Couldn't wait to get into bed and then could not be got out of it.  Anyway, I was doing this job for a man that had a fair big house with swimming pool and all the luxuries and during a pass through of the kitchen his wife just asked, "would you like a cuppa tae" and the husband was sitting at the end of the table, he being involved in the then construction industry so we started talking and in no time I was telling  him about my affliction.

"It's woeful sez I, sometimes I can't get out of bed in the mornings at all" and then his wife sez, "Only yesterday there was a full page article in the Herald about that SAD thing, some people can't get out of bed until 10 oclock in the morning"  Yer man just lifted his head high enough out of the steak he was chewing on to cut her in two with a look and he sez, "Well you'd be fairly foooking sad if I didn't get out of bed until ten in the morning because you would have fook all"  and I kind of felt better ever since.

[thebigfella]

Good article in the Belfast Telegraph about winter depression and how to avoid it:

Why it's a bad idea to start brooding about your ex at this time of year

By Robert McNeill
Friday, 31 December 2010

Halle-flippin'-lujah. The most depressing time of the year is nearly over. If you've felt excluded and horribly alone during the familial triumphalism of the festive season, fear not.

Just hang on a bit longer and see it through. For, after the secondary horror of New Year, it'll all be done.

Depression: sad business, isn't it? My view is that it's largely caused by disappointment.

In particular, the disappointments inherent in growing up take their toll.

You discover that the adults didn't know what they were doing all along. Not just your parents. Employers, policemen, the religious people, authorities of all sorts.

Clueless, the lot of them.

Then there are the cruelties of the world. Far worse than you ever envisaged. Injustices that leave the jaw dangling.

The realisation that the historic prosperity of your society was built on the exploitation of others. I'm not saying beat yourself up about the last one. But, if you're at all sensitive, you're bound to feel queasy at times.

If your family or personal life falls apart into the bargain, then you've got to be a particularly brave soldier.

Tip: use your mind. The mind works through internal dialogue and pictures. When it tells you how awful everything is, and keeps banging on about it, tell it to shaddap.

That kind of dialogue goes round in loops and indicates you've got to take command of the situation in your noggin. It's easily done: you're the boss, remember.

Pictures play a large part too. You envisage your ex with a new partner, or conjure bailiffs at the door, or dwell on images from the past that make you maudlin about the present.

The last sort you might use wisely on occasion.

The others you should shrink to invisibility. Literally, in your mind: shrink them away.

It's the technique advocated by Paul McKenna, and it works. Don't bring harmful images up into your mind. Zap them away. You wouldn't deliberately go and watch a crap movie, would you?

Wonderful thing, the mind. It's like a horse. It'll go wild and trample you if you let it. But you can harness it and go places with it too.

There are other things to do to lift your mood: watch great films on DVD; drink three glasses of nice wine; treat yourself to an occasional chocolate (you can savour them more if you just have two, rather than a whole box); read a PG Wodehouse novel; listen to rousing rock (careful with classical music; true beauty usually has a melancholy aspect).

New research this week claims you can sing your way out of the festive blues. Fat lot of use to me. Normally, I'm too shy to sing even in the privacy of my own home. I tried droning out of respect at a couple of funerals recently, but it just didn't work.

The last time I really made an effort was when the footer team I support won a rare trophy.

Mind you, as we sang the club's anthem ("We're crap and we know we are") I was also fighting back tears. What it takes to move a man, eh?

Of course, these were tears of joy. Not the sort of thing you see during this period of festive totalitarianism and cacophonous commercialism.

If it's got you down, don't give up. You're not alone in your loneliness.

I lost a friend to suicide last year. Nearly lost a relative to it some years ago too. Depression is a serious illness and potentially fatal.  It needs to be taken seriously. If you're of the "Oh get over yourself you miserable s***" school of thought, please refrain from replying to this thread.

Interesting, you start a topic on a discussion board but ask people with an opinion you don't agree with to refrain from replying 

[seafoid]

"Depression: sad business, isn't it? My view is that it's largely caused by disappointment"

That doesn't seem to tally with medical opinion. 
On the other hand it is good to see a paper like the BT taking on this subject.

[thebigfella]

Judging by the dispare and anxiety on the Liverpool thread I know what could prevent a few; a dismissal in Liverpool this weekend.

[ross4life]

"Depression: sad business, isn't it? My view is that it's largely caused by disappointment"

That doesn't seem to tally with medical opinion. 
On the other hand it is good to see a paper like the BT taking on this subject.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain if they won the lottery it wouldn't change their mood.

[Minder]

"Depression: sad business, isn't it? My view is that it's largely caused by disappointment"

That doesn't seem to tally with medical opinion. 
On the other hand it is good to see a paper like the BT taking on this subject.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain if they won the lottery it wouldn't change their mood.

It would make being miserable more enjoyable though..........

[ross4life]

"Depression: sad business, isn't it? My view is that it's largely caused by disappointment"

That doesn't seem to tally with medical opinion. 
On the other hand it is good to see a paper like the BT taking on this subject.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain if they won the lottery it wouldn't change their mood.

It would make being miserable more enjoyable though..........

Clearly you never lived with one that had depression.

[Minder]

"Depression: sad business, isn't it? My view is that it's largely caused by disappointment"

That doesn't seem to tally with medical opinion. 
On the other hand it is good to see a paper like the BT taking on this subject.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain if they won the lottery it wouldn't change their mood.

It would make being miserable more enjoyable though..........

Clearly you never lived with one that had depression.

Have you ever lived with someone with depression that won the lottery?

[ross4life]

"Depression: sad business, isn't it? My view is that it's largely caused by disappointment"

That doesn't seem to tally with medical opinion. 
On the other hand it is good to see a paper like the BT taking on this subject.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain if they won the lottery it wouldn't change their mood.

It would make being miserable more enjoyable though..........

Clearly you never lived with one that had depression.

Have you ever lived with someone with depression that won the lottery?

No but i know plenty of rich people with depression.

[Minder]

"Depression: sad business, isn't it? My view is that it's largely caused by disappointment"

That doesn't seem to tally with medical opinion. 
On the other hand it is good to see a paper like the BT taking on this subject.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain if they won the lottery it wouldn't change their mood.

It would make being miserable more enjoyable though..........

Clearly you never lived with one that had depression.

Have you ever lived with someone with depression that won the lottery?

No but i know plenty of rich people with depression.

Can you see the connection?

[ross4life]

"Depression: sad business, isn't it? My view is that it's largely caused by disappointment"

That doesn't seem to tally with medical opinion. 
On the other hand it is good to see a paper like the BT taking on this subject.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain if they won the lottery it wouldn't change their mood.

It would make being miserable more enjoyable though..........

Clearly you never lived with one that had depression.

Have you ever lived with someone with depression that won the lottery?

No but i know plenty of rich people with depression.

Can you see the connection?

Winning lottery/been rich doesn't make their depression more enjoyable

Can you see my point?

[The Watcher Pat]

Didn't Neil Lennon have depression and he was pretty rich and successful, relatively speaking it can happen to anyone. I have 2 friends who comitted suicide. They were both depressed but wouldn't have known.. Hid it from their friends and family! Very misunderstood disease.

[ross4life]

Neil is young so he would get more highs than lows, from my experience the older you get the worse depression gets

Many different types of depression you can be born with it, post child birth for mothers, marriage break downs, death of a close family member & abused as a child can also trigger it