[HugoSimon]

Pekka,

i have dealt with an enormous amount of pain in my life. suffering, friends and family suffering, a serious mental disorder, and depression. i have been poor, spit on, laughed at, publically and privately humiliated, and scorned by my so called "peers..."

but never ONCE have i EVER tried to take my own life. i am too proud, sir, to do so... but all the best wishes to your cousin...

[elton]

aahz, yeah I have that same problem. I mean it's not a problem naturally, but.. I really can't relate. Of course my tolerance for pain hasn't been tested like yours have, but I can't even relate to suicidial tendencies. I even get a bit angry that people would do that. Of course the situation has gotten out of the hand if a person really tries to kill themselves, but I still always kind of think why would they try to do that and hurt so many other people.... naturally the situation was out of the hand quite obviously, so there's no reason to blame them for it.

But still, my natural reaction is slight anger, as in why are you so weak, why can't you help yourself, find help, accept help, why do you keep being this weak. It might not be the most humane reaction, but that's what naturally comes to me. Then again I believe in the absolute right for your own body and mind. That is, if you want to kill yourself, you know.. you can. Who are we to say you can't end your life. But that's only philosophical angle to it, I still feel let down by him.

I think it's getting to b a joke of a some kind. THis would be the third person to kill themselves in my immidiate circle, and I don't even know how many in the circle of people I know. 4th? 5th? What the **** is that all about, ALL young males. Well fits the statistical profile.

I can't relate. I can't understand it. I mean I can reason it, but I can't feel it. I understand struggle, but I can't understand struggle getting this big of a hold on your life. Obviously it happens. I guess it's impossible to understand depression unless you've really experienced it so.. maybe it's something I won't understand, the domination of the feeling what it gives you, or the suppression of life.

[vipluka]

And I feel a bit guilty for trying to distance myself from these things in a selfish way. That is, it seems to me, that there's at least one major tragedy within the family once a year. It's nothing but a big pile of inner fighting like the mafia, then this, and just.. it seems to me all I get is bad news once a year that shocks me. Ok, where's the good stuff? Sad things are part of life, a major part, but when it gets to be the ONLY part, I just feel like distancing myself from it.

I'm a bit sensitive to these issues as well, as in they get me down pretty hard. I'm bad at coping with things I can't control. That is, it seems to me I'm doing great, and then there's the rest of the family who are doing bad. You know, it just messes up my .. feng shui. This is a cruel thing to say. Extremely selfish. But I can't help but think, that it would be better if I never hear anything, considering the good parts are things I don't hear either. So why just get bad news? It's like being in the posting list for 'crap news about your life' and that's the only subscription you have.

[newpiknicker]

Pekka,

i can tell this is bothering you. life is hard my friend. i have been delt one of the bullshitiest hands one can be delt with in life. one must man up and take it, like i am doing. i take the pain, and keep on going. yes i stumble, and make an ass out of myself. i have depression and low seratonin myself.... life is not nice to me.

one must be strong. when things get hard for me i tell myself... "MAN UP!" and i do... i will survive and succeed, despite all my shortcomings. and if i can help somebody else, even 1 person, survive as well... then i have TRULY succeeded.
piece

[Flalafuse]

According to this site Lithuania Russia and Belarus do much worse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...tes_by_country

[remstaling]

So many ex-Warsaw pact countries at the top of the list. Why?

Disappointment at how things have turned out?
Lack of a safety net?
Corruption?

[Everwondopedo]

Finns and Scandinavians were never commies unless you consider a big welfare state to be something commie) but they commit suicide quite often.

Arent those countries quite atheistic? maybe the lack of a belief in the afterlife, means having one barrier less, for commiting suicide.

If they thought, suicide is a mortal sin, a smaller number of suicides would happen

[vSzsgifP]

Originally posted by Barnabas
Finns and Scandinavians were never commies unless you consider a big welfare state to be something commie) but they commit suicide quite often. Not really. Sweden has a lower suicide rate than, frex, France or Germany.

[HonestSean]

I hope your cousin gets well soon.

[nancywind]

I sometimes think that people who do this are kind of selfish, because it hurts everyone around that person so much, but then again, aren't we selfish as well? We have the same motive, and we aren't the ones in that situation.. so I think there's selfishness in everyone. When someone does it, it's not necessarily because they want to hurt other people, maybe that's something that has kept them from not doing it for a long time and then it just got to be too much.

It's just the realization that 20 something people close to you, you can erase them like that. Because you know them, it makes you think... you've known them for so long, that it's weird. And then they're violently gone by their own hand. Is there going to be another one? Why are these people offing themselves around you and why are you so lucky to not have the same problems? I guess there are no definitive answers, I guess that's just how life goes. What really gets to you sometimes is that you really can't forget. Many things reminds you of it, even when you have success, you'd wish to share it with people and you know you can't share it with some of the guys anymore. So they become alive in your memory both in bad and good times.

[induffike]

That is just because hedonism dominates our culture so heavily. I have thought about making a thread on the subject.

Jon Miller

[asharbiq]

Originally posted by Ecthy
Tell me one person that is halfway successful in life that does not follow their own "selfish" interest.

The very concept of "selfish" is hypocritical and absolutely anachronistic. adam smith FTW!

[GohJHM9k]

Aivo, exactly. That's maybe the most difficult transition to make in here in your young adult life. It's the one with many evil loops like no school? -> no job -> no place for your own -> no money. THen what do you do? YOu wait a year for the other round of application time. Many people just live that cycle for some years. Some end up losing faith, some makes it in.

It's vicious and you can find yourself totally trapped. Many of us have been in it, and we all know someone who is currently in it. I don't know but I think it's a combination of the whole system, as in the whole educational system to that point basically tries to mold you into a candidate for those other schools. You don't actually learn that much useful stuff, where you could just move on yourself easily. So as the system launches people into that direction, and some are struggling to make past this transition, they're left out. I mean OK so you've done your previous schooling, so now what? You are in the age of moving out and everything, and you have nothing to hold on to, you have nothing to do. It's risky business.

I figure support networks can't offer much more than they do now, I think the whole setting could be expanded, that people could be opened up to more options than to go to University etc.

Most people don't even know what they want to do, the educational system to that point is not interested in what you want, or more importantly, they're not interested in you finding out what you want to do. So there's no realization of the self for many.

Many of these young adults, they simply have never had support finding out the options they have, so when they don't go the 'normal route', some of them figure they have no options. They figure they can't get a decent job ever, so they can't make any money either. They know the wages that crap jobs pay, that's barely to support yourself, barely. You can pay your rent, buy food, but that's it.

That's a real dream killer for a young person who up to that point was always in this route that they didn't have to think about, because 'it's what we all do'. I'm all for opening up other routes as well. I'm especially interested in opening up opportunities for young enterpretenueraers. That is, figure out what you want to do, don't think about money or anything, just what you want to do. Then, if there's no normal route for that place, why not try employing yourself? Of course, that is a question of money and there's not much capital in here. No risk investors, no capital venturists. And the state is poor at supporting these kinds of dreams.

Oh well. Also, it's kind of difficult for my cousin, he is like this music-savant, extremely gifted with music. He can play many instruments well, he can play jazz with drums, guitar etc. in professional level. He is just that good. Like a freak. I don't know why or how he has given that up, I know for a fact that he has played in places at such a young age that it is not exactly normal, so unusually talented at that. So how did he give that up? I don't know, but I guess he doesn't want to do it. It's too bad, I think that was his super talent that kind of leeched his other opportunities along the way as maybe he didn't explore anything else so much growing up. So leave that, and you've got nothing, and you realize it and it hits you ****ing hard. Then the illusion becomes so real, that there's nothing in this for you anymore and this is it.