Posted by ST on April 16, 2002, at 21:38:11
In reply to this is long, no answers, nothin, posted by trouble on April 8, 2002, at 3:32:13
The many times I've wanted to kill myself have had a lot to do with financial problems...being a starving artist and all...blah blah blah. How transient, though. I've never had the good fortune to have someone, a therapist - anyone - spell it out for me the way trouble's therapist did. It makes so much sense.
But when I was 24 and already deeply depressed chemically, financial crap put the capper on it all. It was the impetus...it pushed me to the edge. (But never over it)???????????
> Hey all,
>
> Maybe I have tunnel vision, I see one reason people kill themselves, but why am I looking for 1 reason? Why can't there be 2 reasons or 200? Or one reason being the foundation upon which all the other reasons are built?
>
> I believe people kill when they have become alienated, some people kill others, other people kill themselves. This concept of alienation is not much in use in American families, so, obviously there must be something in it people don't want to think about.
> The only definition I ever got of it was when my professor wrote on the blackboard: "ALIEN NATION: when you feel like an alien in your own nation."
>
> He didn't give us the cure, of course. But another word for alienation is etrangememt, so people doing drastic things out of feeling strange and alien tells me the only answer is to get involved, since I don't think for a minute that people are all that strange or alien but I certainly know how totalizing an experience it is to feel that way. And how easy it is to get out of it, when you place yourself into loving hands. When you're honest and trust that the person talking you out of it knows beauty and goodness when s/he sees it, so when s/he says you are loveable, you have to take it on faith, and hope someday you'll see it too.
>
> It seemed like this was happening w/ Sar, she didn't ask for much, but that takes time, I honestly been thinking she's got herself into a good place at last, knows where her next meal is coming from, problems in living are eating her up but problems have solutions usually built in, and some problems manage to take care of themselves.
>
> Of all the truly despairing existential dilemmas of human life I'd have thught financial peoblems would be the last thing on the list. I grew up on relief, there's always welfare, and food stamps,
> churches and charities, and bankruptcy is not a crime, but now that I'm grown up I know personally, how just school loans and a modest mortgage and credit card bills you can't keep up on takes a toll, my hair is grayer since I've been in money trouble, it's devastating to go thru it alone but you don't want to admit to anyone how bad it is. My therapist thinks this is nuts, when I finally called in crises mode and said I'm going under financially, there's no way out but to kill myself, he said money problems are normal, even millionaires file bankruptcy, this isn't that important, the important thing is self-preservation, and I knew instantly that he was right, what was I thinking and remembered Gracie telling Sar that it got so bad she was living in a shack and eating off a hot plate, and look at her now, been there, done that, knows what to do should it happen again, knows she can handle whatever comes next. Empirical proof.
>
> That's why, if the grown ups come on and tell us this board was never meant to be your sole salvation, for some of us it's all we got, and it may not fit the need, but it's better than nothing, and we can rest knowing she went to her death unalone, so I'm wondering if alienation wasn't what made her erase her existence from the face of the earth, could it have been the money problems, can money problems do that to a 24 year old kid?
>
> trouble
poster:ST
thread:21660
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020411/msgs/22202.html