From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!allegra!james
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Title: Thanks to Lady Arwen and Enid
Article-I.D.: allegra.973
Posted: Sun Feb 27 15:44:27 1983
Received: Mon Feb 28 00:49:03 1983

I have been reading, with personal interest, the recent suicide
prevention accounts on net.suicide.  A few years ago, while i was
still in college, i had a series of depressing misfortunes, and
eventually decided it would be simplest to just end it all.  I 
knew that friends were always supportive if you told them you 
planned to kill yourself, so, to guarantee success, I didn't
tell anyone.  I wanted to see the few friends I had, though,
so I spent the afternoon in the dorms at school, just enjoying
what company I could get.  No one knew what I was doing.
That evening, I took a bottle of sleeping pills (about 50 pills)
and washed them down with some rum.  Unfortunately (or fortunately,
depending on whether you look at it the right way or not) I was
not used to drinking alcoholic beverages, and I started vomiting
violently.  This, of course, alerted the others in my dorm, and
I was taken to the hospital to recover.

The surprising thing to me, and the thing that still makes me feel
that people who attempt or plan to commit suicide can be helped,
was the number of people that came to see me in the hospital.
They were all very supportive, and told me all the things they
would do to help me, and said thing like "Why didn't you say
you were depressed?".  And although I (naturally) still occasionally
think about suicide, remembering the things my wonderful friends
said helps me pull through.

So, Lady Arwen and Enid, you are to be thanked for helping sad
people.  You *can* make a difference.

				...james