Without your knowledge or permission, you have been inducted into a terrible and unique club. It is an exclusive club any one of us would pay untold amounts to have never taken membership in.

You are a survivor of suicide. Your relationship to the person who suicided is of little consequence. Whether your loss involved a husband or wife, son or daughter, father or mother, brother or sister, aunt uncle, or friend or whether you loved or hated the person is inconsequential. If there was an emotional relationship, or bonding, you have to deal with issues surrounding the suicide.

Your dues in this club have been paid for with the suicide. In dealing with this death, you have some specific rights and responsibilities.

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This is a portion of an excellent article from a July 00 issue of the SOS newsletter of Dane County. Mark Mitchell author.


I often post articles from this wonderful resource..it has been a great source of comfort to me over these many years. It is a quarterly publication of the Mental Health Center there.

Hi Alffe,
I misunderstood your title. I thought you meant people who had tried to kill themselves, and survived.

I tried to kill myself in 1997. I was so angry when I was "saved." I was just furious.

But now, well, I am actually happy to be alive. But it took quite a long time to feel happy about it, and not just that I was tolerating what had happened.

Okay, that said, I want to say that I have recently been living through very similar circumstances to those that made me try to take my life... and this time I dealt with the problems much differently.

I believe that the reason I dealt differently with them is that my B12 level is much higher now than it was in 1997.

Depression is just one outcome and symptom of low B12. I believe that depression is a result of the nerve damage from low B12.

In any case, if you know someone who is considering suicide, or talking about it... take a look at their fingernails and see if there are ridges on them... that can be a sign of low B12...

Thanks for the imput Consider This. I'm so glad you failed in your suicide attempt and have learned better coping mechanisms. I will remember that about B12 levels.

I think it is a little confusing...this SOS title but we can all learn from each other. I am a survivor in the sense that I lost a son to suicide and while it practically killed our entire family....we lived thru it.

This is a place to talk about feelings...suicidal, grief, depression. It's a place to dump those thoughts...Pter (BT) used to call it The Garbage Dump.

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that you lost your son, Alffe. that is such a hard thing. (((((((((((Alffe))))))))))

It's not just the coping mechanisms, though. The thing with low B12 is that, at least for me, I had no idea. I just had no idea. I thought it was what was happening to me that was making me want to take my life... and it was, but the things that were happening were causing so much stress that my B12 was being depleted. I had just enormous ridges on my fingernails, that went nearly away when I began having B12 replacement -- but not over night.

Now when my B12 levels are higher, and WAY higher than they say we need at the labs here in the US, so many ideas come to mind, so many ways of handling things. (Even though some of the nerve damage has remained and I continue to have cognitive dysfunction, which was made worse by living in hydrogen sulfide for two or more years.)

What I mean is that it isn't just that I learned new ways to handle the stress, it's that my mind works better now. And, I think it's really important to know that I took ... darn it, I forget the name of the antidepressant, but the very well known one... and it made my B12 deficiency worse, and I had pretty bad side effects. So the antidepressant wasn't good in terms of helping. Though at first it made me feel euphoric. I'm sorry, I'm going on too long.

I just am so sorry to hear about your son. ((((((((Alffe)))))))))

Oh our bodies do talk to us Consider...we just need to pay attention. Some of the so called miracle drugs are dangerous for some of us. I have had trouble sleeping and was put on Ambien which I initially thought was fabulous...sleep 8-9 hrs. straight without moving. One morning I was reaching for the phone, to call the kennel so the dog would be cared for while I was planning to be in the closed garage...running my car. No one was more suprised to find themselves with a PLAN, and every intention of carrying it out. The thing that still amazes me is that I was not depressed at all.

I, of course, told my husband right away and he believed me. I think about that young Kennedy who found himself driving his car under the influence...and he was on Ambien. He said he had no memory of getting in the car and driving.

Drugs effect different people, differently. The idea is to know what "normal for yourself" feels like.

Ok....stove buzzer signaling that the brownies are done!

Oh my gosh, Alffe, that is really scary. Really scary.

I think drugs are so dangerous, and it's so much more dangerous that we (maybe "I" is more accurate) take drugs thinking they are totally safe and the best thing ever because my doctor said to take them.

I am so glad that your husband was there for you.

I was on Ambien for a short while, but I didn't get any sleep with it.

Have you tried ... I forget so much... melatonin? Melatonin works for me quite well as long as my B12 level is pretty high. It's not like Dalmain, which was my most favorite because it totally knocked me out and into deep sleep. (now that I have so much trouble with balance I can't take anything that strong... for fear of falling and doing some horrid damage) But melatonin does help. Really.

((((((((Alffe)))))))))

Bumping up some old threads...

I know I have been glad of your posts Consider This so I am happy you survived. I hope your hard times forge you and do not break you.