Joe’s Story

Site created on October 18, 2019

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Journal entry by Joe Orawczyk

It’s been a long dark path to reach the light of day. Many uplifting and many challenging experiences were accumulated along this journey. Knowledge is certainly among them. I’ve learned many things. Here are just a few (in no particular order):

 

  • It’s an unrealistic expectation for people suffering from depression to seek help when they have no idea they are afflicted with the illness.

  • You can’t “snap out of” depression any more than you can snap out of cancer.

  • Hypothyroidism increases depression, which increases the risk of suicide.

  • Suicide often runs in the family and doubles your risk. Genetics plays a part, but is not a death sentence.

  • The reason people die by suicide is because it is preferable to the alternative – that being to continue to suffer in the life they currently have.

  • Suicide is not the only path, but is perceived as the best path to be free at a given moment.

  • Suicide is not the cause of death, but merely the final symptom of an oft undetected and undiagnosed mental illness.

  • Depression doesn’t care about your level of education or your status in life. It doesn’t care about your pious faith or benevolence. And it certainly isn’t capable of caring about those who are left behind.

  • Some selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drugs can actually increase your risk of suicide. (Watch the documentary film Letters From Generation RX.)

  • Mental illness is treatable.

  • Feeding the brain proper micronutrients, antioxidants, and minerals can effectively reduce symptoms of depression. (Google EMPowerPlus)

  • Feeding your gut probiotics can help improve brain function. (Google probiotic mental health)

  • Cognitive behavior therapy works to help me understand why I think the way I do.

  • Mantram training helps to calm the spirit and gain control over a runaway thought process. It provides a path to focus and mindfulness too. I wish there were a Tai Chi group near me.

  • For survivors; unless you are a mental health clinician, chances are slim you could have detected, much less diagnosed depression of your friend or loved one.

  • Being lonely sucks. It’s not the lack of intimacy so much as the absence of the human touch in the form of a hug or snuggling on the sofa I miss the most. Being alone can be torturous.

  • We fear the unknown. All we know is life, hence we fear death. A benefit of having attempted suicide is this fear is diminished or extinguished. This enables us to view life and death from a different perspective than most people.

  • Death is as natural as birth. It comes to us all eventually. The trick is not to expedite it.

  • Smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol in excess are forms of socially acceptable suicide.

  • Doctors don’t save lives, they delay the inevitable. And our healthcare industry does so for profit. (Google patient dumping.)

  • Many suicides are mistakenly listed as accidents. (Think Thelma and Louise.)

  • According to the WHO, suicide is the 18th leading cause of death globally. According to the CDC, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. According to the VA, veterans commit suicide at twice the rate of non-veterans.

 

Each of these bullet-points could be a topic for a chapter in a book about mental illness and suicide. 

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