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Since smoking kills, and people who smoke are doing it to themselves, then smoking IS suicide and thus just by switching to vaping you are against suicide.
Suicide is something most people cannot begin to imagine. Afterall we have a survival instinct. Yet in some there is a chemical imbalance that masks the survival instinct. In some cases to the point where the thought of living is more dreadful than the thought of die-ing.
I like to say "trouble with being dead is it lasts so long". In a younger period I thought only the weak commit suicide. That is until I too had that chemical imbalance. It creeps in so subtley that the person does not understand they aren't normal. All they know is life doesn't seem worth living.
Society too often scoffs at depression as something you just decide to stop doing. We have a small gland in our bodies that when properly mixed chemicals flow in and out makes us enjoy life in one way or another. That gland can become broken. Broken like a bone. If a person breaks a leg bone for example it's often easy to spot due to the obvious bone poking out or an odd shape. Society says "awe, poor fellow has a broken leg". But with depression that break is invisible to the world. Like a broken leg one doesn't just decide to be suddenly healed. It takes time. Often the person does not recognize they are emotionally broken. Worse is that too often folks try to tough it out. Again society plays a role. "Get a hobby", "find a job", stuff like that. And when reaching out to friends or family whose lives are often time constrained, they either don't or won't contemplate the depressed person has a big issue. The depressed person more times than not won't reach out to help groups. "They don't know me", "I'm not crazy", "they wouldn't understand" or other prideful thoughts occur in the mind of the depressed. I know this because I lived it.
Depression can occur for a variety of reasons. When you hear of a rock star committing suicide it is often thought "they had it made". Sometimes adrenaline junkies commit suicide. Like the rock star or athelete who runs non stop on adrenaline a sudden change can 'break' their nervous system by the sudden lack of burning up all those adrenaline chemicals. They get a chemical imbalance. Same with combat vets at times.
A combat vet often times lives in situations where they might get blown to smithereeens any second. Or they see attrocities even Hollyweird can't imagine. Month after month of a flood of adrenaline due to the instinct to survive. Then suddenly the fight or flight instinct is over. The human body does not suddenly go back to a normal rythm in those cases. It takes a while for the hormones to re-adjust. Months, even years.
My deal was situational. Call it a run of bad luck. But months of stress way beyond normal took its toll on my nervous system until one day that straw broke the camel's back. I got lucky and got help. I had good insurance and was able to walk away from the stressful life. I also sought advice once healing had begun and in a few years was ok again. Notice I said years. In a way I got lucky that mental became physical. My nerves shut down and I realized this aint no joke and got professional help.
When Dave Mirra the famous BMX star killed himself I understood why. An adrenaline junky who retired found himself living a life others dream about. Yet his quiet unassuming life as a family man was such a big change from hurling himself 40 feet in the air on a bicycle while doing a double backflip with no feet on the pedals.... and spinning his handle bars... to coming home at 5pm for dinner with the wife and kids all settled-like. Most would "pffft, that guy took the easy way out". He was broken and didn't know it, nor did anybody else.
Soldiers live that. Or did while in combat. One day they were in a country where snipers took out their buddy from 800 yards to being in their den watching Dateline 5 days later. One doesn't decompress that quickly without side affects. Enter PTSD. You can talk to any WW2 vet, Korean vet, or Vietnam vet. If they saw combat they returned home changed. Some did ok, but will tell you it wasn't easy. Others unfortuneatly you read about in the papers or see in the movies.
There was a time when combat was over that soldiers decompressed for a while before returning home. They left the world they knew and went off to war. When war was over they stayed together with their comrads for a while and did things like played baseball. After a period of decompression they returned home.
Think about it this way: if you dive past a certain depth you have to return to the surface in phases or physical problems result. That same rule has to apply for folks who have lived on adrenaline for extended periods. The adrenaline may be caused from hearing their parents constantly argue, from being bullied at school, from surfing 100 foot waves, or being under fire by an enemy. It is rare that someone who has lived a normal peaceful life to suddenly off themselves, but it does happen. In most cases their is an adrenaline factor their somewhere.
Bottom line is if you know someone or know of someone who is recovering from emotional trauma, please be mindful that the person is in a fragile state and needs support. And by all means help where you can.
Another factor I have seen in my life is angst from aging. The remorse of all those woulda-shoulda-coulda thoughts. I've known a few who seemed perfectly ok and you hear "did you hear xxx killed himself last night?".... Most of their peers were caught by complete surprise. "He seemed perfectly normal" they say. But when time passes it becomes known there were issues lurking below the surface. Typically there were extended periods of of an adrenaline rush for whatever reason. Then one day they broke.
Like I said, a chemical imbalance is no different than a broken leg except for seeming invisible. But if you know that someone is not themselves lately, please do what you can to help cheer them up or burn up some energy like take them bowling. But also realize that also, like a broken leg it doesn't heal in a couple of days.
Thank you for reading this and hopefully we can help somebody get through a bad time some day. My wife's son was trying to help his best friend only to find out his friend did himself in. Nobody saw it coming. Not even my wife's son who knew him best. And to this day he carries a burden that if he'd only done this or that. Eventually he became depressed too. Through my experience and telling the stories my wife recognized her son was on the verge of doing himself in one bottle of liquor at a time. She got him help and now he councils teenagers in that same situation where self dread leads to suicide in too many cases. He leads a normal life now and still visits his friends grave often. Yet now he is able to see signs on the horizon within himself and others and has the positive experiences of helping a few before it's too late.
I like to say "trouble with being dead is it lasts so long". In a younger period I thought only the weak commit suicide. That is until I too had that chemical imbalance. It creeps in so subtley that the person does not understand they aren't normal. All they know is life doesn't seem worth living.
Society too often scoffs at depression as something you just decide to stop doing. We have a small gland in our bodies that when properly mixed chemicals flow in and out makes us enjoy life in one way or another. That gland can become broken. Broken like a bone. If a person breaks a leg bone for example it's often easy to spot due to the obvious bone poking out or an odd shape. Society says "awe, poor fellow has a broken leg". But with depression that break is invisible to the world. Like a broken leg one doesn't just decide to be suddenly healed. It takes time. Often the person does not recognize they are emotionally broken. Worse is that too often folks try to tough it out. Again society plays a role. "Get a hobby", "find a job", stuff like that. And when reaching out to friends or family whose lives are often time constrained, they either don't or won't contemplate the depressed person has a big issue. The depressed person more times than not won't reach out to help groups. "They don't know me", "I'm not crazy", "they wouldn't understand" or other prideful thoughts occur in the mind of the depressed. I know this because I lived it.
Depression can occur for a variety of reasons. When you hear of a rock star committing suicide it is often thought "they had it made". Sometimes adrenaline junkies commit suicide. Like the rock star or athelete who runs non stop on adrenaline a sudden change can 'break' their nervous system by the sudden lack of burning up all those adrenaline chemicals. They get a chemical imbalance. Same with combat vets at times.
A combat vet often times lives in situations where they might get blown to smithereeens any second. Or they see attrocities even Hollyweird can't imagine. Month after month of a flood of adrenaline due to the instinct to survive. Then suddenly the fight or flight instinct is over. The human body does not suddenly go back to a normal rythm in those cases. It takes a while for the hormones to re-adjust. Months, even years.
My deal was situational. Call it a run of bad luck. But months of stress way beyond normal took its toll on my nervous system until one day that straw broke the camel's back. I got lucky and got help. I had good insurance and was able to walk away from the stressful life. I also sought advice once healing had begun and in a few years was ok again. Notice I said years. In a way I got lucky that mental became physical. My nerves shut down and I realized this aint no joke and got professional help.
When Dave Mirra the famous BMX star killed himself I understood why. An adrenaline junky who retired found himself living a life others dream about. Yet his quiet unassuming life as a family man was such a big change from hurling himself 40 feet in the air on a bicycle while doing a double backflip with no feet on the pedals.... and spinning his handle bars... to coming home at 5pm for dinner with the wife and kids all settled-like. Most would "pffft, that guy took the easy way out". He was broken and didn't know it, nor did anybody else.
Soldiers live that. Or did while in combat. One day they were in a country where snipers took out their buddy from 800 yards to being in their den watching Dateline 5 days later. One doesn't decompress that quickly without side affects. Enter PTSD. You can talk to any WW2 vet, Korean vet, or Vietnam vet. If they saw combat they returned home changed. Some did ok, but will tell you it wasn't easy. Others unfortuneatly you read about in the papers or see in the movies.
There was a time when combat was over that soldiers decompressed for a while before returning home. They left the world they knew and went off to war. When war was over they stayed together with their comrads for a while and did things like played baseball. After a period of decompression they returned home.
Think about it this way: if you dive past a certain depth you have to return to the surface in phases or physical problems result. That same rule has to apply for folks who have lived on adrenaline for extended periods. The adrenaline may be caused from hearing their parents constantly argue, from being bullied at school, from surfing 100 foot waves, or being under fire by an enemy. It is rare that someone who has lived a normal peaceful life to suddenly off themselves, but it does happen. In most cases their is an adrenaline factor their somewhere.
Bottom line is if you know someone or know of someone who is recovering from emotional trauma, please be mindful that the person is in a fragile state and needs support. And by all means help where you can.
Another factor I have seen in my life is angst from aging. The remorse of all those woulda-shoulda-coulda thoughts. I've known a few who seemed perfectly ok and you hear "did you hear xxx killed himself last night?".... Most of their peers were caught by complete surprise. "He seemed perfectly normal" they say. But when time passes it becomes known there were issues lurking below the surface. Typically there were extended periods of of an adrenaline rush for whatever reason. Then one day they broke.
Like I said, a chemical imbalance is no different than a broken leg except for seeming invisible. But if you know that someone is not themselves lately, please do what you can to help cheer them up or burn up some energy like take them bowling. But also realize that also, like a broken leg it doesn't heal in a couple of days.
Thank you for reading this and hopefully we can help somebody get through a bad time some day. My wife's son was trying to help his best friend only to find out his friend did himself in. Nobody saw it coming. Not even my wife's son who knew him best. And to this day he carries a burden that if he'd only done this or that. Eventually he became depressed too. Through my experience and telling the stories my wife recognized her son was on the verge of doing himself in one bottle of liquor at a time. She got him help and now he councils teenagers in that same situation where self dread leads to suicide in too many cases. He leads a normal life now and still visits his friends grave often. Yet now he is able to see signs on the horizon within himself and others and has the positive experiences of helping a few before it's too late.
It's hard for people to understand what depression really is or feels like. Part of it is semantics, they assume when they feel depressed over some event for a day or two then return to themselves that folks with clinical depression are the same yet just unable to "snap out of it". One of the worst phrases a clinically depressed person wants to hear. If you could snap out of it you would.
There are also those who are not clinically depressed, and particularly seen among younger folks they don't have the ability to tolerate short term mental pain and react impulsively, ending their young life without any real signs to alert friends and family.
The best we can do is reduce the stigma associated with depression and other mental illnesses and assure there is someone to reach out to who won't judge you for the feelings you experience. There's no easy fix, but the effort has to be made to save so many lives ended too soon.
There are also those who are not clinically depressed, and particularly seen among younger folks they don't have the ability to tolerate short term mental pain and react impulsively, ending their young life without any real signs to alert friends and family.
The best we can do is reduce the stigma associated with depression and other mental illnesses and assure there is someone to reach out to who won't judge you for the feelings you experience. There's no easy fix, but the effort has to be made to save so many lives ended too soon.
I have mixed feelings on the subject. There are people I feel for and others I don't. When it's sickness, bullying or fear I get it. When it is just selfishness or the lack of responsibility, I don't.
I may get hate for saying that but I've buried too many people because of suicide. Worse yet, I've seen and felt what it does to families and has done to my family. I watched my SIL grieve herself to death over her mother's suicide, due to her mother using her as an excuse. I now watch my young niece and nephew grow up without a mom.
Guess that's why I have such a strong hate for medication abuse and the like.
I may get hate for saying that but I've buried too many people because of suicide. Worse yet, I've seen and felt what it does to families and has done to my family. I watched my SIL grieve herself to death over her mother's suicide, due to her mother using her as an excuse. I now watch my young niece and nephew grow up without a mom.
Guess that's why I have such a strong hate for medication abuse and the like.
I’m a bit disturbed by the implicit concept that those you do not feel for do not deserve to live.
It's not about deserving to live, I think "most" have that right, exceptions of course like Hitler and such pure evil. It's more about why should I give or have sympathy for someone who chooses suicide than say going to jail for the crime they commit, or purposely overdose instead of trying sobriety.
My youngest son's mother chose to try to commit suicide than get sober, actually said she'd kill herself before paying child support. Now in context my youngest is permanently (and severely) disabled due to her drug usage. I take care of him full time but it was a long fight just to get custody, she pulled her stunts every time the court would actually begin to make her responsible.
I'm not even going to get into my SIL's situation, that's just too depressing. I just have no sympathy (or little) for self centered people. The ones that say I have the right to do this or that leave me alone, until it all goes to pot, then wants everyone else to fix it. The same that then get made when people won't fix the problems and decide to off themselves and blame others.
I understood your meaning pg.
Some folks take the easy way out. Same as so-called homeless folks who make it so many won't help the sure enough homeless who just need a break.
I gave a real homeless guy $50 once. He used it to buy work boots and a few days later was driving a dump truck (smiling ear to ear) on the construction project I worked at.
Some folks take the easy way out. Same as so-called homeless folks who make it so many won't help the sure enough homeless who just need a break.
I gave a real homeless guy $50 once. He used it to buy work boots and a few days later was driving a dump truck (smiling ear to ear) on the construction project I worked at.
A man came up to me when I was in high school or just out of it, said he was homeless and hitch hiking to his daughter's place a state over. Asked if I could spare any money, told me he was going to be honest, needed a beer and cigarettes. I gave him $10 just because he was honest.
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