Tom


I Have no elation at all..........i only suffer depressive symptoms.....though the racing thoughts...and bursts of creativity are said to be the other side of my BP....[i actualy thought they were the better half of me, and dont on the whole cause me great concern...........im more productive in that mood] so dont be fooled that BP is UP............DOWN....[mine feels all down]

As to suggesting any treatments ?............exercise.....of mind and body....and plenty of H20........thats my only advice Tom...........

Im sorry that your pain........is so disturbing

David

Hello, Rakeitha and Melody: Thank you both immensely for your posts.

Melody, I do eat well, a full and balanced diet. Too much sugar and salt, no doubt. Sprouts? Your prior message was the first time I ever heard of them. No doubt I could improve things by eating better; the question is, how much better? Yes, I believe in alternative medicine, and did yoga (Hatha) for 6 months or so. I take homeopathic medicine now. It's just that, well, at the end of the day, the thought keeps reappearing: my time has come. I know that people here refer to suicide as the "beast." I would say that taking one's life when the time comes, is not suicide; hence, the beast is either absent altogether or of an entirely different nature.

Rakeitha, you mention Steven Hawking. He is a hero to me -- much as Johnny Weismuller was to all us kids in the polio ward (he had polio and went on to become a world champion swimmer). Such people move the goalposts for everybody else; indeed, they provoke changes OF, not just IN, the game. Yet there is a price to be paid, even in their case: go to http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=577 for another person's view, i.e., his ex-wife.

No, I don't feel bad because I am "old;" I feel old because I feel bad. I looked around for a quote from Hawking on suicide, and couldn't find one. I wonder if anybody has ever bothered to ask him about it: Dave, talk about the elephant in the room -- that one is no elephant, he's a mammoth!

Hi.

Honestly, from what you have written, I gather no one here can talk you out of doing what you are set on doing. I recently put up a thread on an amazing man with no arms and no legs (who also thought of suicide at the age of eight), because he didn't want to be a burden on his family.

That man is now an adult and he travels extensively as a motivational speaker helping THOUSANDS of the disabled and the non-disabled. He even made me laugh when he played music with his little flipper foot. He has SOME sense of humor.

He made the young people in the room, laugh and cry. He explained his way of thinking, his belief system (this is what I think got him to the point where he is today).

He found a purpose for his life. Not a reason for being disabled, but a purpose for his existence.

We all have purpose. Some don't find it until we are older than usual. But I think everyone has a purpose.

We just need to find what that purpose is and what we can do with it.

I wish you well on your journey to whatever you decide is in your best interest.

I can only hope it's to continue to exist, to reach out, to make someone smile, to give someone a compliment.

TO LIVE!!!

As Spock used to say

Live Long and Prosper!!

and yeah, I GREW UP ON STAR TREK!!! And I try to use humor every single day.

lol

Melody

http://tetchua.blogspot.com/2007/12/...ical-view.html

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Hello, Alffe:

First, for a needed laugh, to see the source of your avatar, the singin' dancin' frog, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=I45u...eature=related.
"One Froggy Evening": Nobody who sees that cartoon will ever forget it. It came out in 1955: what a year -- the same year as "Rebel Without A Cause" and "Blackboard Jungle," the two pillars of the youth culture. "How Much is That Doggy in The Window," "Tennessee Waltz," "Shrimp Boats" -- after 1955 American popular music never went back. The same was true for many other things -- for better and for worse. In brief, Alffe, your avatar is on the cutting edge -- which edge I'm not sure, maybe of the absurdity of life.

Your post is WONDERFUL!! Its link is easy to overlook, so look again everybody! http://tetchua.blogspot.com/2007/12/...ical-view.html.

The best comment I ever found about all that was Albert Camus' question to nihilists: if life is meaningless, then how can death be meaningful? (Unfortunately, perhaps, nihilism isn't my problem, but so be it). Elsewhere, Camus says to wouldbe Che Guevaras and others ready to die for an idea: anything worth dying for must also be worth living for. Kirilov, Dostoevsky's nihilist in "The Possessed," makes many unacceptable declarations before killing himself; however, he says one thing with true clarity: free will, such as is manifested in the determination to take one's own life, is what is devine in mankind. Of course, free will can be manifested in many ways, probably as many as there are people.

Again, I thank you for something I'll be going back to -- frequently. Right now, for example

Hello, Melody: Thanks for your latest contribution.

Yes, I watched your post on the man without limbs. Such people make the unimaginable real, actual. He's onto something profound: you can get away with doing things in a funny way which might cause riots if stated in a serious essay.

"I think everybody has a purpose." I do, too. I also think that at 66, my purpose may be behind me -- although right now, as I write these words, I sense another purpose emerging: help people see that taking one's own life and suicide are not necessarily the same thing.

You note, "I gather no one here can talk you out of doing what you are set on doing." I wonder ... is one of the differences between taking one's own life and suicide PRECISELY that in the former, there is indeed nothing you can talk them out of, whereas in the latter -- say a teenager sitting on the ledge of a building -- there is the material there to talk them down? "Talk them out of" implies misplaced emotions, mistaken ideas. Can it be that somebody can take their own life and have well-founded emotions and mature, rational ideas? Is that possible?

Suicide is a "beast" -- I agree with neurotalk members on that point. But what about "taking one's own life" due to an incurable disease and increasing weakness and constant discomfort and/or pain?

Hi.

I absolutely see your point. There is a MAJOR difference between having a terminal painful illness, and a teenager suffering angst and thinking "oh woe is me, she doesn't love me anymore, my life is meaningless" BIG DIFFERENCE.

It brings to mind a very good film by the name of Soylent Green. I don't know if you've heard of it, or seen it but it brings up what a person might be able to do (in a far distant future society), when Euthanasia might be legal.

In the film Edward G. Robinson is a very old, wise man who is helping Charlton Heston discover the secret of WHAT IS SOYLENT GREEN?

But in the film, there is this big building where people can go and take that journey that they are determined to take.

It's probably up on youtube.

The way they explain it is that the elderly or the terminally ill, can walk into a center and they can achieve their goals in a beautiful, peaceful, pain-free manner.

I was always moved by the scene where Charlton Heston arrives just in time to be with Edward G. Robinson as he exits his existence. I remember saying 'I wonder if our world will ever allow this to happen".

Of course, this does not exist at present. Perhaps some other countries have this,but I've never heard of it.

I don't think people who have a religion, well I don't believe ANY religion would condone this kind of ending.

Maybe SOME DAY down the road, this might happen, but in our present society we have pain meds, hospice and whatever we need to do.

Just know, whatever you do decide to do, I wish you God speed.

You sound like a brilliant man who has given this a lot of thought.

What's my purpose in life at the moment? To keep reading posts and continue to learn.

I have learned more since I hit 60 than I EVER learned when I was younger.

I'm like a completely different human being and my brain is like a little sponge and I want to absorb everything.

I'm not religious whatsoever but I am spiritual. I believe in positive energy and not in negative energy.

So keep posting, you have much to teach us.

Melody

Hi Melody

Quote from you

I absolutely see your point. There is a MAJOR difference between having a terminal painful illness, and a teenager suffering angst and thinking "oh woe is me, she doesn't love me anymore, my life is meaningless" BIG DIFFERENCE


Anyone considering taking their life.......... Is in my humble opinion a tragedy ......the above analogy is rather harsh in the way it defines the act/thought of suicide to only be comprehensible by a more mature mind........sadly the act of suicide amongst teenagers is rife in the UK 2003 totalled 5755 .................And i would hesitate to guess quite a few may have been feeling . 'woe is me'

mountains and molehills......................whatever age or gender....creed or colour.....................................whats a huge dilemma to one is a mere drop in the ocean for another............



Please lets all be aware there are many people who read this forum.......and when it comes to SUICIDE...............IT DOES NOT DICRIMINATE ON A PERSONS AGE OR INTELECTUAL BACKGROUND...........It justs lures you just the same

David

in no way said to offend ......just stating an opinion

Thanks David...best we start using the trigger icon...

I agree.................

plus this is a huge subject .................in all of its connotations

hence Tom.................. a change of Avatar is required from elephant to MAMOUTH

David