Breaking Point

[madison]

Reddog, I am sorry to hear about your neighbor.  What a tragedy.

mtlouie, I like your advice.  I've been saying, that, too.  Keep priorities - a roof over your head (like I'm one to talk right now, oh well), food, utilities and to h*ll with the credit card companies etc.  Yes, it sucks.  No, it won't kill me.  Sh*t happens and things change.  It is not the end of the world. 

Helplessness and hopelessness are the killers.  Not knowing what to do can make you crazy and stressed.  Having no hope of any of it getting better is horrible.  What does help is to change how you think.  Change your priorities.  Change your expectations. 

Dont' expect pristine white carpet, feel OK with wood that has to be swept clean every day.  Both get walked on.  Don't worry, we all die soon enough.

[ReddDogg]

For those of you who followed this close to home story for me, I will give you a little more detail.

Turns out, he went into his garage, called the police, and told them he was about to kill himself.  I think this was to make sure it was clear that he doing this to himself.  His wife brought his kid over to my house before he pulled the trigger.  She was crying, and my guess without asking was they were having a fight.  that would be a first for them in the 2 years I have known them, but I wasn't about to ask, I just took in the kid to make sure she was save regardless what was going on.  The cops showed up, and he shot himself before they could get in to him.

He put the gun to his temple, but had it at enough of an angle that the bullet came out of his head near the top of the skull.  Not only has he survived for 48 hours, but he is responding to people's voices and answering yes no questions by squeezing hands.  He has even coughed on his own.  A miracle for him to be doing so well considering he shot himself in the temple.  He is in surgery today to try and undo the damage he did.  As of this morning, there is hope he will mostly recover.

I still have no idea why he did it beyond the speculation I shared earlier.  But if he is making this kind of recovery, we will be able to ask him soon enough.

As for his daughter, she is 2 months different than my son.  We are equipped to take care of a toddler, and they get along great.  It isn't even much of an inconvenience at all.  And it helps her mom out tremendously, as she can just concentrate on being there for her husband.  Helping people in your community out is both the sensible and the good Christian thing to do.  Besides, i can only hope someone would help us out if we went through something this traumatic.

I definitely will say this, nothing about this guy gave me any advanced warning that he would do something like this, and even in hindsight I can only guess and still have trouble making sense of why he would do this to his family.  I can understand the feeling of helplessness, but to doom your child to grow up without a father, and to shatter your wife's world, it just doesn't add up to the type of guy he was with his family.  It makes me realize how close to the edge average middle class America is, despite the seemly calm look of the landscape.

[Madnsassy]

Very sad story.  I hope he recovers and reassesses his reasons for wanting to stay alive longer, too.  His family is going to need him to be strong.

Several years ago, I lost everything during a housing bubble/bust in So. Maine.  I was in my early 40's and basically lost everything, plus owed the IRS 90K when the dust settled.  I realized, as I sank into depression -- and the one comforting thought I had almost daily is that I could "off" myself and stop the mental anguish -- that my entire identity was predicated on my career and my sense of "importance" of being the woman Prez of a general contracting company (in retrospect, whoopty-doo  )

At my bankruptcy hearing, my lawyer exclaimed, "hey, now you're free."  I began crying for all I could see in front of my mind's eye was a blank slate.  I felt like I was nothing.  As time went on, I recognized the mental trap I had fallen into (was pretty free of that thinking until the 80's when a lot us 60's kids went for the brass ring) and it was ultimately a freeing experience as I walked around with one lowly key in my pocket, to a dive studio in the Tenderloin district of SF.  I used to walk along humming Janice Joplin's version of "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

I remember the despair though, and it clouds out all reason for a time.  Depression shuts out all light.  But it can be overcome!

Modified to add:  Just read my post above again and it sounds like I'm living on a different planet.     I know that today is a new day and nothing will be the same again, and we've got some huge karmic debt to pay that is hugely overdue as a society.  I was only trying to point out how sad it is that so many of us equate our self-worth to our work and our possessions  -- and how many of us have succumbed to this thinking at some point in our lives, myself included way back then.  I really feel for this man and his family.  It's true, however, that when he succumbed to personal despair, he only made matters much, much worse for himself and for his family.     As 6gunjim said somewhere, it's only a ride -- and a short one at that.

[SabreKai]

Even sadder is the part where he's turned himself into a physical wreck, who most likely will never be able to support his family again, and now they are going to get slammed with a huge medical bill. Even if he is insured, I doubt the insurers will cover it.


Sabre

[girlofcelje]

thats true for sure

[fredd58]

Let's hope he doesn't realize that part too quickly - could send him right over the edge again.

[ReddDogg]

He doesn't have insurance.  This will cause a bankruptcy.  And he is still fighting forh is life.  Signs were good that he would mostly recover.  THe part of his brain affected is his personality part, specifically it is expected he won't have that filter that stops you from saying what you think.  Also, his eyesight might be affected by the pressure.

But he got a new infection in the brain this week, so who knows if he will survive.

Seeing the aftermath, I can't believe he is putting his wife through this.  And while his kid isn't really aware of just what is going on, someday it is going to emotionally hurt her beyond belief, and no matter how good a presence I try to be in her life or any other man tries to be in her life as a father figure, she will be emotionally scarred badly when she comes to grips with what he did.

I hope he recovers enough to be a good man the rest of his life to his family, but I can't help buy think that he is such a dumbass and isn't worthy of his own family.

[booklvr777]

I am so sorry to hear about this tragic situation--it's just horrible.  I will be keeping that family in my prayers. 
I had a tragic event in my own life,  27 years ago this month, when my 3-year-old son died of a sudden illness.  Since then, I have had great clarity on what's important in life and what isn't.  Not to sweat the small stuff, or most of the big stuff either, go with the flow, etc.  Life is too short, enjoy it while you can, and don't get caught up in the material world cuz it's all pretty much meaningless.

[ReddDogg]

sorry to hear about your loss.  One of those little inescapable facts about life, you can't get out of it alive.  Sometimes that fact can hurt deep, but you have to just enjoy it while you can because everything has an end.

[honeydee]

I used to walk along humming Janice Joplin's version of "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

So weird you should say that, I heard that song the other day in the car and ever since I can't get that one line out of my head.  It just seems appropriate since we decided to look into bankruptcy.

ReddDogg, I am so sorry you are dealing with this.  That poor family.

[Xenopus]

I had a roommate and dear friend whose father had committed suicide (over a failed car dealership). I think she mainly blamed her mother, to whom she wouldn't speak. It can't but we a horrible psychological burden. She was pretty much a mess.

There is a thread about the Depression somewhere in which somebody's aunt said her memory of the Depression, from an upscale Chicago neighborhood, was gunfire in a nearby park as white collar men who could no longer support their families blew their brains out.

[cygnus]

There is a thread about the Depression somewhere in which somebody's aunt said her memory of the Depression, from an upscale Chicago neighborhood, was gunfire in a nearby park as white collar men who could no longer support their families blew their brains out.

Yet, if those men had had the courage to ask their families which they would rather have - no father/husband, or one who was there but wasn't able to support them due to circumstances at least partly beyond their control, I'm sure I know what nearly all of them would have said.   Too much pride is a killer. 

[Xenopus]

There is a thread about the Depression somewhere in which somebody's aunt said her memory of the Depression, from an upscale Chicago neighborhood, was gunfire in a nearby park as white collar men who could no longer support their families blew their brains out.

Yet, if those men had had the courage to ask their families which they would rather have - no father/husband, or one who was there but wasn't able to support them due to circumstances at least partly beyond their control, I'm sure I know what nearly all of them would have said.   Too much pride is a killer. 

Oh, no kidding. My own father stuck to a job he hated until he died of a heart attack at age 60 because he didn't feel he could subject my mother to his lower income as a cabinet builder, which he would much have preferred.

[dc62]

There is so much despair out there right now, it's palpable.  I can feel it.  And while I must add that I think suicide is incredibly selfish for someone in his family situation, I'm not as ready to assign all of the blame to him, or anyone that's done a similar thing. 

Asking people in this society to ignore the fact that the entire system we live under makes economic failure, or even misfortune, something akin to the scarlet letter, it's no wonder we hear stories like this.  People who fail economically are ostracized; the jobless are called lazy; benefits proffered to those unfortunate souls to help them live with some semblance of dignity are derided as hand-outs; bad business decisions by billionaires are rewarded with bailouts, but bad decisions (or medical catastrophes) among the people that do most of the living and working in this country are viewed as evidence of stupidity and failure.  Bankruptcy can prevent a person from getting a job, but those CEO's and CFO's that preside over the failure of a company have no problem lining up another 10 figure salary. 

To this point, those who've felt this sense of detachment banishment from society have lashed out mostly against themselves, their families, and occasionally, their workplace.  We will have reached a turning point when the number of people feeling isolated begin turning their anger outward, which is what TPTB fear most.  That's why we'll continue to hear both sides spin these arguments that try and place blame for our condition on some convenient scapegoat.  Illegal immigrants, minority populations, atheists, terrorists, the Chinese, unwed mothers, welfare moms, liberals, conservatives, democrats, republicans.  I have little hope that they will fail.

[Xenopus]

To this point, those who've felt this sense of detachment banishment from society have lashed out mostly against themselves, their families, and occasionally, their workplace.  We will have reached a turning point when the number of people feeling isolated begin turning their anger outward, which is what TPTB fear most.  That's why we'll continue to hear both sides spin these arguments that try and place blame for our condition on some convenient scapegoat.  Illegal immigrants, minority populations, atheists, terrorists, the Chinese, unwed mothers, welfare moms, liberals, conservatives, democrats, republicans.  I have little hope that they will fail.

Yes. I entirely agree.