New York Today: Suicide Resources in the City

Suicide is becoming a very big issue today. Is very hard to ask for help because in their mind they are hopeless already. I think that through reading this article, I've learned that the suicide rate has been increasing. It is very hard to help someone when they are depressed but in NY there are organizations that could be potentially helpful to the people who needs help. I think is our responsibility to help the people who are struggling with life and have the ideas of suicide. This is a very serious issue and we need to pay attention to the people around us and see if they need the help.

As a suicide-loss survivor, I wrote The Story of The Bear for my children when they were young. The story helped me open a difficult conversation about their grandfather's suicide, the details of which had been headlined in the media. For more information, the book's website is www.storyofthebear.com.

[Short form of earlier comment written this morning that did not appear. What is going on? I thought the Times "needed" my views.] It's all very well to talk about removing lethal methods, but people often use ordinary objects or none at all to kill themselves. I've known four people who committed suicide. Two hanged themselves, one jumped off a building, the last deliberately overdosed on antidepressants. I read these service pieces but they don't really help.

The real crime of suicide is that so many have to do it through ugly, sometimes messy methods like hanging, walking in front of a train, jumping from a high building/bridge, etc. If YOU decide that you do not want to live in this world any longer, that should be your choice and yours alone to make. This decision is ultimately yours to make regardless of how others among family or friends may feel that THEY should have a say in your choice. Imagine if there were suicide medical services where you could go to end your life. Some counseling would be provided to ensure that this was not an impulse decision. Then the staff would help you end your life cleanly, after say, a 2/3-day waiting period. I think this is available to a degree in Switzerland. You could even choose to donate your body organs to science or for others to take advantage of, thus gaining something valuable from your passing.

We are a remarkably unresourced city, state and nation. Our psychiatrists release suicidal teens to their parents and then prescribe psychotropics on an outpatient basis without telling parents. Our cops cannot stop a suicidal teen even if they are tracking that teen on ‘find-my-phone’ for hours before the teen dies. For adult victims, they simply and suddenly expire with no sign of trouble. Another missing piece is that the FDA has no approved method of determining SKA2 methylation. When the SKA2 (spindle and kinetochore-associated complex subunit 2) gene malfunctions, stress-induced cortisol (fight or flight) floods the brain and is not neutralized by the SKA2 gene when the stressor is gone. The victim’s face turns to stone, and then commence the behaviors as described of Bourdain (skipping meals, for example). We survivors of these suicidal family members always hope that a solution can be found. This Times article points us in the right direction and I pray future suicides can be prevented. See also this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26324104

An “inherit racism?” As Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote in “South Pacific” seventy years ago, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” The world the Post should have used is inherent, while a Times editor could have easily corrected the mistake or quoted the Post and added [sic].

SUN-RUNNING Come summer with its blazing sun, I make for relief from the heat And rush with all possible speed For the shady side of the street. But once the simmer season's done And the cold is hard to abide, My feet take instant, constant flight To the blessed sunny side.

With the suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, it was a very sad week. What is sadder is that society's ills are brought to the fore with celebrity deaths and within a week or so, poof...they're gone. When Philip Hoffman died, it was heroin. When Tom Petty and Prince died, it was opioids. In a couple of days, "what's that with Avenatti?

Maybe these suggestions will help some people, but I can tell you from personal experience that depressives are masters at putting on the "Game Face," of presenting one's self in a positive way. And most people buy it. When asked how a depressive person is in a usual way, no one wants to hear, "I'm just fine now after spending two weeks on a locked mental ward." People just want to here, "fine." So that is what they get. I have made several suicide attempts; I am not very good at it and have to perfect my methods. I wouldn't even share my suicidal thoughts with my psychiatrist so you think I would share them with a friend? The person who successfully kills themselves would appear to be the last person to consider doing so. Why is it that people who live in abject poverty don't commit suicide when their lives seem so bleak? Why does someone such as Anthony Bourdain who appears to have everything kill himself? Unless you have experience that total aloneness, the sense of feeling as if you are out in space tethered by that small tube to the mother space ship mall

Suicide is horrible, and is often an aggressive act meant to hurt those around you. I cannot imagine how I would feel is someone in my family felt so despondent and sad that they took their own life. However, it is now also dangerous to acquaintances and even strangers. Folks who take their own life now sometimes also take the life of those around them. Students gun down the teachers and fellow students that they feel contributed to their unhappiness. Others also end the lives of concert goers, night club attendees etc. Many who are suicidal now decide not to go alone, not to go quietly and gently into the night. if we did not already have an immediate reason to try to understand and prevent, we now have added incentive. That fellow wanting to end his life also wants you to go with him.

Please include Samaritans as an option for help. 24 hour confidential help. 212-673-3000 You don't have to be in NY to call. http://samaritansnyc.org/24-hour-crisis-hotline/

My mom has kidded me that I could find the bright side of a pile of manure, so: Strange as it seems to see this column, while nothing ever felt as bleak for me as the main story, Daniel McDermon (the reporter of the sugar park article featured in “And Finally”) had unexpectedly written me an encouraging email when the economy and unemployment had gotten me way down. (*) Tune of “Sugar, Sugar” (about the refinery turned into a park; the Archies’ sweet hit) Sugar, I’m hungry, hungry This is a candy park But they say it’s good for you. Hungry But it’s meshuga Sugar inspired a park But it’s really good for you. While they built this park They showed how sweet a park could be (Made the plan and saw it through) Kids can play by signs evoking the refinery (Calories get burned here, too) Sugar, Nu, hungry, hungry? We’ll bring some carrot sticks Bring along a kid or two. (*) If anyone's wondering: He’d let me know it really was the “real” Holland Taylor answering my verse comment about her great Broadway show "Ann" at the Beaumont. Somehow, Daniel's email made a difference!

I am 64 years old. I have had an inordinate amount of people close to me die. I am not including my birth family, of which all (unfortunately) passed away between 1999 and 2010 in this order: my father, my brother, my sister and my mother. Most of my friends I grew up with are dead, primarily due to almost all of us being addicts or alcoholics. Fortunately, I have been in recovery for almost all of the past 32 years. I am very fortunate. As far as suicide, I have lost numerous friends (some very close) and acquaintances who have taken their own lives, in many different ways. The "why" question is a hard one to answer. In my experience, getting people to talk about their feelings is the best way to help them avoid hurting or killing themselves. I know it sounds simple, but I find this to be true. I am not a professional social worker, counselor or doctor. I am a professional addict, with many years of participation in therapy.

Yoiks, forgot to add the other bit of bad news: That Adam Harvey, a newcomer to Windsor Terrace, not only trespassed into his neighbor's backyard with an arborist and sawed off a number of long, healthy tree limbs, but also went into her backyard, drilled multipole holes into the tree trunk, and filled them with an herbicide. The heretofore healthy tree is now losing leaves. But hey, Mr. Harvey wanted more light for his new solar panels. Earlier, he had tried to get other neighbors to agree that the tree was dead and needed felling. They shooed him away. A man who will pour poison into a tree might very well do something equally unpleasant to the soup he serves in his restaurant if he gets into a snit.

As far too often, bad news. That's all we need, a segment of crowded beaches reserved for women who will not mingle with others -- indeed, a growing demographic, antithetical to a democratic, secular society. My religious grandmother, an immigrant from Greece, donned her fairly long, black bathing costume, did her cross, and dunked herself at the beach, and continued to do so every summer until she broke her hip and shortly thereafter died. I remember that bathing costume. My grandmother did not demand special treatment. And instead of dealing with parents who cannot or, just as likely, will not prepare their children for elementary school and doing the work that hardworking teachers assign them, our politicians, Mr. de Blasio foremost among them, are inveighing against a test that treats everyone alike. There are black kids who pass the test and attend these rigorous high schools. I think the trick will be to get more black kids to pass the test, not do away with the test. But then, you have a Board of Education that can't recognize a ceiling painted in the days when an American president and most Americans recognized the need for better roads, scenic trails, strong public buildings, and -- yes -- art. The Board of Education can't even preserve the first Brooklyn schoolhouse, now rotting inside Erasmus Hall High School's courtyard. You think it worries about kids? No, only how to pander to parents who expect teachers to do their work for them.

Interesting question to ask. How many psychiatrists in the metropolitan area actually accept insurance that was mandated by the ACA ? The results of this question will stun the public.

Regarding new NYC parks....unfortunately these parks are luxury developer “amenities” which directly benefit the developer and increasingly affluent residents, young educated new residents (though our taxes subsidize). In the meantime, NYC public parks in lower income areas deteriorate....And no new parks.

In 2010 we lost 5 friends to suicide. Older (70’s), younger (20’s & 30’s), middle aged (40’s/50’s). Stressed, bi-polar, seemingly happy, and very unhappy. All were a shock. All were saddening. Every story is heartbreaking, saddening, & confusing. No single thread, no connecting reason. I read a statistic that over 90 people die each day by gunfire, over 50 of these are self inflicted. Surely an epidemic, with no clear way to spot or understand the symptoms. What is written in this article are symptoms of stress. But how do we ever spot those at or close to the breaking point? And what of those that refuse to talk with a therapist or seek any help?