-My Experiences-
Since today is the last day, I want to take a step back from pure facts and share some my experiences where depression and suicide have come up. I have had four major situations where they have come up, today I want to share three of them. Names and other major identifiers have been removed.
The Friend: My first experience with depression came up when I was roughly 14/15. Was on a camping trip with friends when I noticed one friend was sitting by his lonesome while the rest of us were setting up camp. I went up, sat down beside him, and began to talk with him. It came quickly, he talked about how it seemed no one liked him, and he didn't have the will to go on. At the time, the full force of this didn't hit me, but I knew it was bad. I responded by talking with him, showing support, and in the ways that he had made a difference for those around him. After a half-hour (roughly) he perked up and felt better. We went off and everything was well. He became a strong leader and good person. While I did a good thing, I still hate myself for the event. Now, why would I say that? Easy, because I didn't follow through. I should have told one of the adults that was with us, but I didn't. While it didn't affect me then, it affects me more now, because I now realize that if anything did happen, I would feel at fault.
The Listener: During my senior year, a fellow student in my dorm community committed suicide. I did not know the individual, my roommate did. While I felt little connection to the individual, there were many people around me that did. For the most part, all I could do was sit and listen, and often times, for those grieving, that is the best thing to do. Once instance that sticks out to me, was something my roommate said. He mentioned how he had just seen the individual a day prior and that he simply said hello and kept going. He wished that if he knew more, he would have stopped and talked with him more often. Obviously, not much I could have done, but it taught me a few things. It taught me the importance of listening, it also taught me why it is important to check in on everyone, because you might never know.
The Co-Worker: Just about a year ago I had a previous co-worker commit suicide. This was a shock to all of us that knew him. Many of us had talked, hanged out, played games, just had fun conversations with each other. He was a good individual that made an impact on those he worked with. While he did pass on, I did go back and thought of any signs there might have been. For the most part, no, the only slight one I knew off was that he had emptied his Facebook of all friends and "likes." The incident rocked us that knew him and made us keep him on our mind. For some of us, it was the loss of a friend, to others, it was the loss of a close friend, someone who was almost like family. This experience really showed how one can never know he is at risk.
Thank you for listening these past 10 days, I hope you have learned something and will be ever aware of your surroundings. It'll be back to a new topic tomorrow.
No one is alone, be the light you want to see in the world
