REAL suicide

was witness to the aftermath of a real suicide a week ago.
I feel like i have delt with the experience in a positive way but still can't get the image and sometimes the smell out my mind.

So to all those fasinated with real suicide, it's a somber, surreal experince that i hope not to repeat any time soon.

Anyone else have a violent or graphic experince as of late?

i'm sorry to hear that. It's not an experience i would wish upon anyone.

As part of my job years ago I saw a lot of dead people ... mangled in crashes, murdered, suicides. It has a profound effect, at least at first: The understanding that this human being was walking around alive, in one piece, at a certain point in time, and then at another point in time -- not. As far as I can remember, the first experience is sort of like an extreme case of the feeling when, as a kid, you see your first naked adult. You had sensed there's something pretty shocking, if not grotesque, to be seen and known, but until you actually see it, the knowledge is only in the head.

I've seen in person as well. It's never really bothered me really. Not that I'm callous or anything, but it doesn't really bring me down or freak me out at all.

I have seen a few things over the last few years I wish I hadn’t. One thing is for sure once you smell death (meaning a body that has been laying around for a while) you never forget it.

ohhh the smell

Well yeah. I was referring too StickyRice's comment. I'm an EMT, we see this stuff always.

I don't get it when people say suicide is a really selfish thing. It has to be! What, someone should go on living their life in misery just to keep everyone around them happy? Yes suicide is a terrible, miserable, often gruesome thing and I hope I never have to experience it in my own life.. but if I did, the first thing out of my mouth would NOT be "selfish." If someone close to you, especially a family member is that low, I would think one would make it their job to help that person out in any possible way. We've all had thoughts at some point. Some people just aren't as strong others. Some people have it really bad off. I think it's just as selfish to go and call these people selfish.
And actually, come to think of it, I have dealt with it in my own life. I do wish things would have been different and that that person was still around, but I understand why they did it.

[Edited on May 17, 2005 by Elvgrenink]

[Edited on May 17, 2005 by Elvgrenink]

I'd like to respond to this with my own take on things, having gone through the suicides of three friends, and having perhaps helped to avert a fourth recently. But I don't know what good it would do, especially if it just touches off a shouting match as usually happens on these boards with folks who disagree. I have my opinion, based entirely on what I've witnessed in others and what I've felt when I've had my own dark thoughts. That's probably unlikely to change yours, since your opinion is based on your own experiences.

But i will say that there is a difference between selfishness and self-centeredness. Mostly, folks assign a negative connotation to "self-centered." I worked with a woman whose husband had left her for a crackhead with blonde hair and not much else going for her. it crushed my friend more than any of us really knew. In a moment she can never take back, she drank down a shitload of pills with a bottle of alcohol. And then, I can only imagine that she suddenly thought of her 7 year old son who would be left with no parents (her husband was his step father; his real father made it viciously clear he didn't want the boy years earlier). She called 911, but they arrived too late to revive her.

In that moment where she chose, I don't think she was able to consider the impact her life truly had on anyone else. How there was someone depending on her being around.

These feelings can utterly kill your perspective. Sometimes, people reckon they simply don't matter. And maybe their pain is more significant than any other person's pain on Earth. But depression can be so intense that it clouds the judgment. In my friend's case, liquor added to that effect. Well, in two friends' cases.

Not trying to change your mind, just giving an opinion.

I worked as a medic here in Richmond, VA for about 3 years and in that time I saw quite a bit of death. The violent ones were pretty messy, but as someone stated earlier "I'm an EMT, we see this stuff always."
Still, there were one or two that still haunt me a bit when subjects like this get brought up.
I'm sorry you had to see that. Memories fade and life goes on though.
Try not to dwell on it too much.

I walked in on my best friend in 7th grade as he pulled the trigger and blew his head off all over the wall. Needless to say, i was traumatized.

After that, I worked in a morgue, and we used to get suicides all the time.

What an uplifting thread we have here.

Yes definitely. Every suicide circumstance is different.. but what I always seem to hear or see from the people left behind is that that person was "selfish". Maybe it's just the initial shock/anger..
But depression really is a deep, dark hole that is very difficult for one to see their way out of. There are also many factors that cause depression.
I dunno, I just think that unless you knew exactly what that person felt and was going through, it's kinda fucked up to remember them as selfish.

I know alot of people who've contemplated it.. some seriously.. some less so.
I think the way the phrase selfish has been put into play is because some people dont see the big picture, or arent willing to ride out the storm until things get better. Killing themselves and thus being called selfish.

Personally i wouldnt use that word, apart from certain circumstances where i believe its quite descriptive.
I think we can all agree this isnt the most pleasant of subjects, but it doesnt make it unvalid to talk about if people so wish.

yeah..i'm an EMT
i see death quite a bit
but this was the first suicide...and it was very messy.
this will be one of those haunting ones i think

The Tibetan Book of Natural Liberation Through Understanding in the Between State

I have had to deal with two suicides in my family... one being of my older sister and the other my older brother... I never personaly witnessed my sister commit suicide... but when my brother did I was traumatized because it happened at my own High School... both myself and my brother were both techs for the school drama department... I was a Freshman and he was a Senior... it was at the end of the show on closing night when my Teacher asked me to go check back stage to make sure nobody was in the back so she could lock up... It took about 10mins before my teacher ended up coming in the back room to check up on me when she saw me in shock on the ground with my head between my legs... she said... "Justice whats wronnnn..." she couldnt even get out the g when she looked up to see that my brother had hung himself... doesnt want to witness that ever again and if I could trun back time I would have tried to help my brother the best I could... just I never knew how much "pain" he was in

Yeah some people are just really good at hiding their pain and problems. I tend to do this myself to an extent.
I'm sorry to those of you who have personally witnessed a loved ones death. There's no way I could even fathom how horrible it must be.

I survived a tough time with my relationships, career, and myself all happening at once. It's tough, I couldn't scrape up a happy thought if I wanted to. It's as much a mental imbalance as it is emotional. I chose not to seek help, because I felt I could pull through that dark period, but I wouldn't recommend anyone trying that. Seek help if you're having problems.

i was the lucky one to find my brother after he did it it has changed my life ever since.

I worked in a nursing home for over a year before it finally become my turn to "prepare" a body for the morgue to pick it up. It was a very weird feeling to clean a dead body especially after being in the room the moment the man had died.