Reply #16: Your shrink is very astute.

[southerngirlwriter]

I have lost 6 (yes, you read that correctly) people to whom I was VERY close to suicide. I am in a support group that includes 5 people (including me) who have had serious suicidal ideation in their lives.

When you absolutely decide to kill yourself, it gives you energy and peace. Your problems are over. There's an end in sight. And yet, suicide is a difficult thing to carry out. It takes careful planning to make sure that, for example, your kids don't find your dead body, or that you do it someplace where public health workers will have to clean up the mess, rather than your family, or to put your affairs in order, or what have you.

When people who have made the decision to kill themselves go on antidepressants, it gives them, usually, just enough energy to do all of the above.

When people who don't want to kill themselves, but feel drawn to the conclusion that it's the only relief in sight, are put on antidepressants, it usually gives them the energy to take action in the direction they have decided to go -- the direction of living.

Before anyone flames me, yes, I know that 10 people is not a large enough group to draw "scientific" conclusions. But I am telling you that I know suicidal people. I've been one. I found my cousin's body after he blew his brains out when we were 13. I read his diary after we buried him. The only man I've ever considered marrying killed himself less than a year ago.

My conclusion are based on real experience, not what I've read on some trial lawyer's web site.