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Managing Against Tomorrow - Suicide Prevention, Part I

© John McManamy

"Notwithstanding all we have to live for, the brain in crisis has a perverse way of having us think the very opposite."

Depression kills. Simple. Some fifteen percent of us who suffer from major depression will die by our own hand. Many more than that will make the attempt. And many more still will die by "accident" or "slow suicide" through reckless behavior or personal abuse and neglect.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, suicide is the ninth leading cause of death in the US (more than 30,000 a year), well above homicide (at about 20,000 a year). Women will make the most attempts, but men will be by far more successful, by a margin of four to one. In teens and young adults, suicide is the third-leading cause of death, after accidents and homicides, more than all natural diseases combined.

Suicidal depression does not discriminate. It afflicts both the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor. War heroes have been taken down. So have survivors of the Nazi death camps. As have successful business people and artists and mothers and those with everything to live for.

We are talking epidemic numbers. At any given moment, five percent of the general population is suffering from a major depressive episode. Over the course of a lifetime, major depression will strike twenty percent of the population, numbers comparable to cancer and heart disease.

We are talking battlefield odds. Those with major depression have an 85 percent survival rate, but the prospect of finding ourselves in the lucky majority brings us only small relief. The experience has exposed us to our worst vulnerabilities, and deep inside we no longer trust what tomorrow may bring. We may still be walking and breathing, but we have been as close inside death as this side of life permits, and our minds will never let us forget it.

We ponder the fates of the unlucky minority, and sometimes we say a prayer. We contemplate the tortures their brains exposed them to, and know for a fact that no God would ever hold judgement against them. For the time being we are the lucky ones, but tomorrow that may change.

Still, we do have a certain amount of control in managing tomorrow. We who have survived know what we are up against, and can plan accordingly. Following are some common sense guidelines:

IN THE LONG TERM

• Cultivate friends or family members you can call on should you find yourself in crisis. If you have no friends or family you can trust, then seek out a support group, live or on line.

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