[Blessings2You]

I just can't think of a title for this thread. It's concerning suicide, but I didn't want to title it something that would indicate I was having suicidal thoughts. But I WAS thinking about suicide.

There was a BOL (be on the lookout) in our area for a "potentially suicidal" individual. I immediately prayed for the person and others involved. And then I got to thinking.

Is it just me, or do you think that there is something worse in today's culture, as if anything could be "worse" than suicide. There has always been loneliness and depression and guilt, of course, and there have always been those who have been driven to make that irrevocable and sad choice.

But it seems to me that "back in the day", a hopeless soul would go out behind the barn, or close the bedroom door, and take his/her life. Now it seems that person wants to kill a few people first.

Is it because there is so much more anger now in addition to the hopelessness? Or has this always been so and we just know about it because of the speed and universality of news reporting?

Sorry to bring up this unhappy subject, but it is really troubling me.

[AfterMyNap]

Whenever we've had one of those tragedies, I think about it too, B2. Our society has seen an exponential growth of this inordinate sense of entitlement in the past 40-50 years and it's my opinion that these rogue gunmen find some convoluted sense of justice in their crimes. It's almost as if they carry an air of superiority that entitles them to mete out this "justice" within their own, singular power.

I hate to admit it, but this behavior, to me, is "Mansonesque".

[weegot5kiz]

i have talked about this with my mom a few times she leans towards the media coverage angel of it that we hear more of these cases now then we did when she was younger,

I dont exactly agree, I think there has been a negative change in the karma of humans and the desire to live and the care for others, to the point that they just dont care if they drag others down with themselves

something about what you say amn and the superiority thing too, like I will show you or see i meant what I said, type of mentality, its disturbing and down right heart breaking every time you hear one of these stories.
why?
lack of family morals religious morals?

insensitive due to tv and movies and now video games?
honestly i dont know, other than i tend to not watch news for this reason its too sad always something bad

as for things being so bad that these whackos are in despair I dont know,

at least i am not a 12th century feudal serf mud crested to my cloths and body, ticks and fleas and lices on me, no change of cloths, barely surviving, work for naught, give all to feudal lord, and every once in a while when i need protection i am allowed inside the castle for protection.

yet have to squeak out an existence for me and dare i do it have a family? toilets what are those conviences tp meds working tools cooking tools cleaning tools boots yeah right try some cloth wrapped around your feet and sewn together with some sinew, I think our lives are easier, i think its more the certain ones are just egotistical and feel they are due this or have this right for some reason

definitely something about this superiority complex I would agree on that

this is something my wife and i and my mom and i have touched on, on a number of occasions, and never seem to have an answer

[tkrik]

Maybe loss of compassion for others? I see this all the time. We are in the me generation, which I hope will end soon.

I also think that we are in a much faster society than ever before. Psychologically we are not fully prepared for it. Things go on that are against our basic nature and many can't handle that.

Media, tv, etc. has a huge influence on peoples lives. I think it distorts their reality some. I just had a discussion about this with DDs as they were watching The Bachelor. The behavior of those girls on the show is such an embarrassment to our country. Imagine being from India or some other place and watching that. Young girls see this behavior on TV and think that is how they should behave.

The constant bombardment of negative information is having a horrible affect on many.

I agree we hear more about it due to the speed of communication.

[Erin524]

I think a lot of people seem to have some sense of entitlement. They think the world "owes" them something.

When that putz went into the Von Maur store at the mall last December (I'm in Omaha), and shot up the place and killed 8 people plus himself, he seemed to be one of those that thought he was better than the people he killed. (He's quoted as saying in a letter he wrote before he died that he was going to "take some pieces of s*** with him". So, he apparently chose to shoot up one of the most upscale stores in Omaha.

I'll never understand why he didnt take his step-father's AK-47 out into a cornfield to kill himself nice and peacefully, or why he didnt do a swan dive off the Missouri river bridge so that he could peacefully wash up on the side of one of the riverboat casinos on the Iowa side of the river.

I think a lot of the spree killers like the kid here in Omaha (I refuse to say his name) and the kid at Virginia Tech, all seem to want to be famous, and they'll do anything to be famous including killing themselves to get their "fame".

If the stupid media would stop constantly talking about these guys and basically glorifying the killings, maybe they'd stop or at least not happen so often.

The interesting thing about the kid here in Omaha, was that the Omaha newspaper and some of the news channels were doing special stories about Charlie Starkweather (spree killer who shot his way thru Nebraska into Wyoming back in the late 1950s) I dont think the local paper ever finished their special on Starkweather after the putz at the mall shot up the place.

[Koala77]

If the stupid media would stop constantly talking about these guys and basically glorifying the killings, maybe they'd stop or at least not happen so often.

I have to agree with you Erin. I guess it probably wouldn't make the killings suddenly stop or bring back those poor people who died so senselessly, but by not giving these creeps their 3 minutes of fame, maybe some other moron might think twice before doing the same thing.

You can hope anyway.

[Erin524]

I never thought something like that could happen here...until last December, even tho I do remember it happening here once before, back in the 1970s. Some jerk went into a night club not too far from the house I grew up in, and shot up the place. Think he only killed one person, and it was major news when it happened, but we didnt have instant cable news back then. So, I doubt it was even a blip in the national news back then.

In December when the putz shot up the mall, I didnt hear about it on local news. I heard it on the cable news (Fox)

It was all we saw for days (months actually!), and they're still talking about it here a few times a week. I dont have a problem with them talking about the victims, (they're doing a fundraiser this week for the woman who had nearly died from her wounds) But, I wish they'd stop talking about him and doing special reports about what probably caused him to go completely freaking nuts.

[weegot5kiz]

yeah i agree erin this glorifying it for months on end with media coverage is counterproductive

and it serves no purpose yes it needs a report but this over and over type of media blitzing is hideous

[MooseasaurusRex]

I've always seen it as the individual can find no other solution to end the pain they are in. With that sudden realization of power to take thier own life, why not lash out and hurt others as well?

You become almost God-like.
At least that's what the perpertrator sees.

Who lives, who dies? The individual's mind is blank except for that singular purpose.


I have been there. And that's all I want to say about it.

[Carolina]

My brother has a very close friend that was tormented endlessly in junior and senior high school.

The ridicule was endless - all morning and all afternoon. During class, in the hallways, during study hours...lunches were torture. Did I mention the bus rides also?

His life was a living nightmare. This started when he was 13 years old and it followed him until the end of his senior year.

He had no school social life. He could not attend dances, plays, rallies, football or basketball games, track events...NOTHING! He even feared attending his own high school graduation. So he stayed home. There could not have been anyone more glad to celebrate that day for he got to leave the he11hole of his despair. Yet, it could not attend.

Would you like to know what was so different about him? What he did to set off his tormentors? Certainly, they had to be some valid basis for their actions, right? Children from well-to-do families do not act like this. Neither do the athletes. Nor the honor roll students. Even the bottom-of-the-barrel students of the high school scene do not act like this.

Not unless, of course, they had good reason, right?

It was his last name. Six years of torture and life made into a living hell over a last name. His last name. There was nothing wrong with his name. No more ethic or different than anyone else. But they made it that way. They took the first syllable of his name and made it into any form of ridicule they could.

Let's pretend his last name was "Zamboni". Anything bad was like a "zamboni".....that movie was as bad as a "zamboni"... the jerk at the rival high school was acting like a "zam"..... oh, come on, don't act like a "zam" - you don't want to be a "zam" do you.....it was soooooo "zam"... It was used as a noun, pronoun, verb, direct object, indirect object, adjective....and in the crueliest way possible.

And on and on and on, it went. Whispered in hallways, yelled out during lunches and study halls and even the classrooms. Five years of a living nighmare. This not only followed him among his own classmates but become so perverse that over the years, kids in elementary and junior high school would be using "zam" to describe something derogatory. They had no idea where that term originated. It's origin had long since been forgotten. Except to my brother's friend.

No one would talk to him. He was shunned. My brother did the best he could to stick up for him but because they were never in the same school at the same time, it did little good.

He got through this by raiding his father's liquor cabinet every morning before school and crying himself to sleep every evening; feigning illness; becoming truant......and living through his father religiously beating him because of this behavior.

Many, many years later when news of Columbine spred, my brother told me that "Zam" confessed to him that he had thought of doing the same thing many times to his torturers and to himself. He relayed that he could certainly understand what drove some people to do what they did and that he does not know how he ever made it through without acting out the same way.

So, let's blame the victim or worse yet, play innocent and pretend we have no reason to know why they acted as they did.

Or worse yet, pass judgment on people who have considered suicide by calling them cowards when those thoughts have never entered their heads. How could anyone possibly relate if they have not felt the same?

Do I condone or excuse this behavior? Certainly not. And perhaps some do it for no other reason than their twisted version of glory. I don't know why. But I thank God every day that my brother's friend was strong enough not to do this. Forever more he would have been thought of the same way and there would not have been a bigger misconception.

My brother's friend is a good person. One of the finest people you could ever meet. He has become very successful. And he had to move out of state to be able to do it. His adopted state is the better for having him. But he carries scars; very deep scars.