I can sympathise with your son and can totally understand why he did what he did, its so hard trying to keep it all together sometimes. I have been in some very low places these last few years too and its hard to carry on sometimes, you just want to be normal again! I am hoping 2012 will be better!
My head injury wasn’t anything major, no blood or anything and I didn’t seek medical attention for it at first, I know this is very different to your sons story as his injury was more serious.
Unfortunately I was drunk at the time of my accident – very foolish but it was an accident, I fell and cracked my head on the concrete . . . Literally the next day I felt so strange and have been suffering ever since . . .I have felt ill every day for the last 8 years, this is not an over exaggeration, I have just not felt right. Don’t get me wrong I am able to work and do everything everybody else does but don’t enjoy things as I should as I constantly feel ill etc. My marriage broke up due to me feeling ill and my life turned upside down. For now, to cut a long story short it has taken me 8 years to get a diagnosis, I have spent thousands of pounds trying to find out what was wrong with me but to no avail until September just gone . . . . I think the GPs wanted rid of me and thought it was all in my head. [He goes on to describe the horrendous difficulties he has encountered with his GP, even after getting a diagnosis of hypopituitarism after seeing an endocrinologist privately (low testosterone, low cortisol and no growth hormone). He still has not received treatment.]
The same young man talking about suicide (trying to comfort me about our son):
“A few years ago my sisters boyfriend at that time, dad killed himself, This was like 15 years ago, It was very upsetting but I just couldn’t understand why somebody could do such a thing, not only to themselves but to the people around them that love them so much, it’s the people that they leave behind that suffer isn’t it? and I use to think that it was a really selfish thing to do. Life is amazing I thought why would you want to do it.”
15 years on and believe me, it is not a selfish thing to do what so ever. Sometimes you feel that there is just no way out and taking your own life is the only option. The emotional pain Chris would of been suffering would of been so great, I have a tear in my eye as I write this as I know exactly what kind of emotional pain he would of been in. Before and after my wife left me I had considered it many many times, thinking this would be the final outcome if I didn’t get fixed as I didn’t know how much more of it I could take. Chris will be in peace and rid of his pain, things like this do unfortunately happen to good people!
People say that suicide is a cowardly way out, I use to think this way but I now actually think that it is the other way around. It was Chris’s life, he knew how he felt, I think he actually did a very brave thing. I feel I am a coward for not actually taking my own life, I would be too scared! Honestly the pain somebody can suffer is just horrible, emotionally it’s just pure torment and not very nice. I always think, god if I can just get better then I can turn everything around and be the person i am supposed to be, but it doesn’t help when doctors don’t or can’t help you, they don’t actually care in my opinion and I have honestly seen a different side of life having going through what I have gone through. Yes, I look normal (well fairly normal) and I can do most things but people just cant see what you are going through despite how ever much they care and understand or want to help, like I say its impossible and this is just the way it is.
Postscript: He did eventually get treatment and his life improved greatly. He got married, had a daughter, and leads a normal life though he is still plagued by headaches.