You should. I don't say that because I think that you, in particular, need to but because I believe that ideally everyone should. And if you're depressed, you certainly should. Shop around and make sure you find someone with whom you are comfortable enough to be completely honest.
sorry, no offense meant by my post #48....just couldn't resist myself, but in any case ya'll know i got love for the ronald :grin:
I tried to read the whole thread, but I got bored halfway through. I don't see what makes this a "tragedy." Sure his life sucked and he was clearly mentally imbalanced, no matter what he said to open his letter. But for every person getting uppity about rape victims and how terrible it was that his first memory kept him from being able to go to the bathroom, there are a hundred little girls in a hut somewhere being gang-raped by soldiers alongside their mothers after just having watched those soldiers decapitate their dads and brothers. That's real tragedy. As was said early on, rape and molestation are common in today's society. That doesn't make it hurt any less, but it also doesn't make his case any more special, just because he wrote a letter that was too long to read. Way worse things happen to people all the time, and not all of those people kill themselves. He just couldn't deal with it. It's marginally sad, but if you take any lesson from this, it should be that life sucks all over the place. It's how you deal with it and the lengths you're willing to go to that separate you from others. He decided to leave. More power to him.
should've outed who molested him, theres a reason doctors notify the authorities...who's to say whoever did it wont do it again and whoever the victim is shares the same fate as this guy ultimately.
Gah. I can relate so much. The darkness consumes you and you wish more than anything that you just didn't exist anymore. I have those fantasies (How great would it be if that 18 wheeler just crushed me into a barricade?) more than suicidal impulses now. Sigh. Suicide might be selfish, but some people have earned the right to be selfish.
I'm not writing that, but I did read his letter, and he wrote that specific thing himself. He pondered if he just wasn't strong enough to fight for his life. Gives me another chance to plug A&E Bio Channel's "I Survived", the most compelling no-BS, inspirational reality television I've every seen. I thought of that when I read his line about getting dealt a worse hand in life. In addition to the church and his family failing him, damn it, he has some terrible doctors too. I would have been uber pissed if my therapist spent time reading notes trying to remember me.
I can be completely honest with people I just hate explaining **** to people and I don't like people judging me...meh **** society...I can't change anything cause I will always be on the fringe of things if I want to be whatever me is. Lol I guess I do share some stuff in common with the guy who killed himself. Anyhow, I was writing out a b****y response, but I deleted it and I do honestly want to say thank you for responding and you are right. Now, it's just a matter of me actually following thru on things.
What is your point with this post? That the note isn't sad enough to garner attention? What people consider interesting and tragic about this is the way he was able to articulate his thoughts and feelings so precisely. Also, he is someone who associates considered to be a caring guy who would always lend a helping hand, they were completely unaware of his deep depression. The man was very intelligent, and the saying "ignorance is bliss" holds true. He is someone that was wrapped up in his own mind for 23 years of his life without making an honest connection with anyone. It is easy to say that you would have done different, and maybe you would have. Yes he made a mistake by not telling anyone, but everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately this one was very difficult to overcome and proved to be deadly. When you say "he just couldn't deal with it", you show yourself to be very ignorant of what it takes to overcome a longing for death that stays with you for your entire life.
you repeated use of this mantra in this thread is disturbing. the idea that one would have to have first hand experience on everything they ever form an opinion about is ridiculous. it's frankly beyond ridiculous. this board shouldn't exist if that were the case (i assume you've never been a professional NBA player...for the Rockets?? No, then please don't post your opinions on them ever again....mmmkay??). this being a sad, disturbing suicide, then it holds a special place that one can't discuss unless they've experienced the same things? No. Again, have YOU experienced everything Bill Zeller experienced? No...well than by your logic your opinion on the matter is null and void, so stfu right? Bill Zeller acted cowardly. There's nothing getting around that. There were people who loved and/or cared for him. There were people (and whole professions nonetheless) he took a dump on in his suicide letter. But that's what he thought. And that's what he did - take his life. It's still sad, disheartening, depressing and thought provoking. But still also cowardly - this is where I guess I should add, NO, I HAVE NEVER BEEN RAPED...but my opinion is still valid.
The point of my post is that no matter how well articulated the note is, his experience is nothing new. The same thing happens to people everywhere. It's happening to someone as I type this. People say suicide is ok for Zeller because he had a bad life and left a note, but others who went through the same thing and didn't leave a note might be called cowards here. Why is his situation different simply because he was "intelligent" and composed his thoughts on the matter well? That's my point. He's just another dude who was traumatized and took his own life. Case closed. It happens to people everywhere, and in many cases to a much worse extent. Rape victims in third world countries don't have therapists to help them through trauma, or the money to go to a university where they could conceivably run into people who share their experience and help them through it, opportunities available to Zeller. Poor people just have to deal with it. Those people are tougher than Bill Zeller. If that's an unpopular stance, too bad. Some people can handle trauma, some people fall apart. Bill Zeller fell apart. He chose to personify his trauma as a dark man that followed him around constantly. Instead of attempting to trust people that weren't currently anally raping him, he assumed that all people were gossipy scum, there was no help for him, no one who would understand, etc. His emotional growth was severely stunted. And while it's sad (I guess), it really is nothing new. Really. This kind of stuff happens all the time. We can say all we want that he did see therapists, but the truth is, he didn't see therapists about what eventually caused him to kill himself, only the problems that the root problem was causing. How can that be considered therapy? How can a therapist help you if you never actually tell them what's really bothering you? You're right, I can say I would have done things differently, and that's nothing but conjecture. What I can say for a fact is that other people have gone through much worse and handled it differently, by talking about their problems and not committing suicide. He never developed an honest connection with anyone because he wouldn't let anyone in. It takes strength to trust. Bill Zeller lacked that strength. Or maybe he had it, but his fear was stronger. I don't really know, and honestly, it doesn't matter. He's dead now, that's what he wanted, and it really is better this way. Statistically, child victims of rape go on to rape their own children or other children. Not all, but a lot. I'd rather he punch his own ticket than someday try to pick up my kid at the park. You saying that "He just couldn't deal with it" shows my ignorance of what it takes to overcome a lifelong desire for death is nonsense. What it takes, he couldn't deal with. Simple. I never said it was easy, I just said he couldn't do it. And your use of the word ignorance shows your ignorance of my understanding of suicidal thoughts. But I'm still here, Zeller is not.
His suicide note sort of reads like my life story. I may very well go ahead and edit this post later because it is so personal to me and this is the internet where anything can be tracked down. I think perhaps the only reason I'm going to share it is because I haven't given up yet as much as I've wanted to some days. Warning: Huge huge post in Spoilers with pitiful life story inside. Spoiler I was born and raised in a Catholic family. My dad was a former priest. My mom a former nun. They did not meet each other while devoted to the church at the time. Both left the church on their own terms years before meeting each other. I just wanted to provide some context to how serious they were/are about their faith. At 8 I was molested by a teenager in my neighborhood that threatened to kill me if I told anybody. I thought it made me gay. I was forcefully touched and my life threatened yet I was convinced for years that it made me gay. I never told a soul until maybe a month after my father passed away. Aside from fear of being a disowned 8 year old in my household, I never told anybody about the sexual abuse because around the time it happened, my father became terminally ill with lung cancer. His physician neglected him and kept prescribing him Iron pills because he had developed an Iron deficiency yet never actually performed tests to see why he had had one until six months later when they discovered he had a tumor the size of a grapefruit on his left lung. He was told he had 3 months to live and I knew even then breaking the news about being molested to family could have been a breaking point for him. I remained silent. My oldest sister quit college to drive my father around to doctor visits on the small chance that he would become less terminal with chemo and radiation. He stood at 6'7 and around 240 lbs. He had a real deep voice and you could call him a gentle giant. To this day, he may very well have been the smartest man I've ever met. I watched my father change drastically before my eyes over the next year. He slouched and had sloped shoulders. He lost an incredible amount of weight and especially during the early part of his treatment started to resemble a skeleton. He could not hold down food because of the chemotherapy. My oldest sister would make him 3,000 calorie shakes everyday that would make it easier on his stomach just so he wouldn't completely starve. A year of chemo and radiation went by and doctors were able to shrink the grapefruit down to prune size. He dipped from being 97% terminal to 95%. We struggled to find a surgeon to remove the remaining cancer on his lung because almost all of them feared he would die on the table. We did finally find one though and the surgery was a success. They had to saw open his rib cage and pry open his torso. They removed his entire left lung, the skin around his heart and some of his vocal chords since the cancer had spread to those areas. Over 200+ staples later and he was sent on the road to recovery. I was happy at the time to see him alive but even then he was not the same man I idolized as a kid. He was already older in his 50s, but all the treatment aged him rapidly to the point where I could very well have passed as a grandchild of his. His once deep voice sounded almost robotic and feminine. And despite the success of the surgery my family did not know whether it would just give him 6 months or 6 extra years on this earth. My family would remain optimistic and think my father would be like John Wayne who underwent the same surgery and lived another six years after the fact. My father did just that. I moved from Houston to Austin with my parents because the air in Houston was so bad and the house in Houston was two stories with my parents bedroom being on the second floor. It would take my father an hour to walk up the stairs to get his bed in Houston and the banister to the stairs would shake the whole time as he struggled to go up. We moved to a one story house in Austin instead. He needed an oxygen tank with him everywhere and I'll never forget the oxygen machine that was so noisy that he needed to keep by his bed, that he would turn on every night. Not only could it be heard in every part of the house, but the machine may as well have been a furnace. I did not have to see the teenager that molested me in my neighborhood anymore having moved in Austin. I was relieved by that but still did not have the heart to tell anybody about my secret because I thought I was gay from being molested. I had been going to Catholic schools all my life that I felt echoed the same ant-gay rhetoric that encouraged me to remain silent. Everyday I thought my dad was going to die during those six years. I almost wanted him to because he suffered so much and I felt guilty over that. I was 15 when he did. It tore me up, but at the same time I was glad to see his suffering had ended. A month after the funeral I told my mom about the molestation. I insisted that I did not need therapy and that I would be fine. Big mistake. There's one thing that haunted me when I was sexually abused. I was always paranoid when it was going to happen next. I felt like somehow my soul was exposed for everyone to see my insecurities and how f-ucked up I felt inside. My friends in school did not know about. Everyone just assumed I was sad over losing my dad which I was. It was a cover up to what was really eating at me. That said, the paranoia about the next attack is like some sick predatory sense sexual predators smell on victims. Because it happened again. This time it was worse. I was raped at 15. I never told anyone about it and I carried that burden with me wells into my 20s until I told my wife who I'm now in the process of divorcing. I dropped out of high school at St. Michael's Academy at 16 on the first day of my junior year. My grades dropped in my Sophomore year there and I thought attending a public school my junior year would be easier for me instead. I went to Bowie High School for a month then to an accelerated charter school that would have allowed me to graduate in six months if I was motivated enough. I was not. On the days I skipped school, I would drive to Mansfield Dam and contemplate jumping over there. The fear of going to hell for committing suicide or worse yet somehow surviving the fall only to become a vegetable in a hospital were the only things that prevented me from taking action. When I dropped out, I was forced to go through Art Therapy at my local church. It was not helpful. I was forced to take anti-depressants. None worked. They made me feel worse and I ballooned up to 260 lbs. At 18 I decided not to be a drop out and that I would try to live my life void of anti-depressants. I dropped over 100 lbs. between 18 and 19. I got my GED around the same I would have graduated high school anyways and started attending classes at ACC and got a job working for a State Rep at the Capitol. I lost the friends I had in high school (except for one girl who was my best friend dating back to Middle School I had kept in touch with) and forgot how to socialize around people though. I still was paranoid of being assaulted and felt an incredible awkwardness around girls that liked me, much like Bill Zeller. I had only kissed a girl once and intimacy always felt so awkward for me. I ended things before they could advance any further because I felt like somehow it forced me to expose my big secrets that were eating at me inside. At 20 I had a mental breakdown which prompted my psychiatrist to think I was Bipolar. My breakdown happened over the one friend I had dating back to Middle School. I felt comfortable around her. I trusted her. I almost trusted her enough to tell her about the stuff I had gone through. I confessed that I loved her. It was not reciprocated like I had hoped. She viewed me more as a brother and I viewed the relationship we had as though it was uneven and I cut off contact with her for years. I was asking her to accept a burden she wasn't even aware of and decided it would be best if I was just alone. Instead of taking a cocktail mix of anti-depressants I was now a guinea pig to see if a cocktail mix of BP meds would in fact help. They did not except for a combination of two that just made me stoned. I liked being stoned. It felt good. It did not make me productive or help me get back into the real world, but stoned was awesome. During this period I shot back up in weight to a whopping 240 lbs. For 3 years I hid myself from the outside world until I met my ex-wife online. I was 23 then. I liked to write and I wrote on a journal social network site. She loved my writing and we connected from there. She was going through struggles of her own and she was the first person I ever completely confessed all my secrets to. She did not stop talking to me like I thought she would. On the contrary, she sympathized greatly and believed in me and my writing enough to mail me a huge book with contact information to thousands of Publishers I should send my work to. We got to know more about each other. She was Canadian. I changed my phone plan to have unlimited talk time to Canada and from there we sort of developed our relationship. I started losing weight again. I started seeing a real therapist and I got off the BP meds that did nothing for me but make me stoned. I discovered I'm not BP. I've just gone through a series of really unfortunate and f-ucked up situations that I did not handle properly for almost a decade and a half. Therapy was incredibly helpful and finally connecting with someone albeit at a great distance was very welcome. I met my ex on Valentine's week of 2008 in Vancouver. I was scheduled to stay one week. Ended up staying two. She visited three times over the course of a year and a half and we decided to get married. It was not an easy relationship, but my ex, who maybe I give too much credit to with me finally giving life a real chance again, but we pulled through together despite the distance. When she moved to Austin, thats when things went down hill. For those wondering why I'm getting a divorce, here's the thread. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=193884&page=1&pp=20 I gave that woman everything. Stuff I never shared with anybody yet oddly enough am sharing freely in this post and may very well delete. I'm 27 now and am trying to move on. Our one year anniversary would have just passed and man is it ever so difficult. I've no real friends to speak of right now. I always get told I'm such a nice approachable guy, yet it seems like all I make are acquaintances. Much like Bill, I took up exercising to try and look and feel better. It has not helped in hopes of making friends or connections. Still do group therapy and again everyone there thinks I'm a great guy yet its against the rules to actually hang out with them. I've overcome a lot and become a better person for it. I'm learning to appreciate loneliness, but that doesn't mean I have to like it all the time. I'm definitely well adjusted despite the essay written above. I've signed up for Meetups, am registered for school and working at a new place now. Never actually gone to a bar before and I'm definitely more of an introvert trying to get out, move on, and forget about this looming divorce. It ain't easy going it alone and man is it tough to make friends. I dunno why I'm typing this and man did I unknowingly type a lot. EDIT: Just to clarify why I wrote this. I don't know how horrible his experiences are in relation to mine. I know there are people out there that have suffered far worse tragedy than I and have become quite successful and well adjusted. His pains are his own and I do not judge whether he made the right decision or not for I never walked in his shoes. In my own though, I can say I relate a lot and haven't given up hope, although it is sometimes tempting. That is all.
London's Burning: Thanks for sharing that. That took great bravery and strength. You say you're in group therapy but not that you see a therapist one on one. If you don't, try to find one that you can trust. It might not only save your life but also even give you a chance at happiness and a relatively normal life. Sharing a story like yours is not only brave; it is generous. I hope it helps others in pain to do the same, whether privately in therapy or in whatever way they need to in order to begin to heal. Much love to you.
I have a personal therapist and have used the licensed college counselors at ACC as well. I do group therapy for now because it happens to be more effective for me right now. FWIW I don't hold the same animosity Bill has towards religion. I've been an off and on practicing Catholic and have found happiness living a Secular and Catholic lifestyle. Whatever works for people and brings them happiness I always say.
Also: To anyone here who is suffering from any form of depression, anxiety or trauma, I cannot recommend the following book strongly enough: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon. This book can save lives.
Hang in there and feel free to email me, especially if you ever reach the point of feeling you have no one with whom to talk. Thanks again for sharing.
L-Burning. Thank you for sharing, and there are a lot of people that are good folks and could help, if you are still in Austin and want to watch a Rox game, and grab a beer, then let me know. I also want to say that none of what happened to you was your fault, that is important to remember. DD
London'sBurning, thanks for sharing something so deep and personal. I read every bit of it and I hope, in some way, it can help someone out there who is going through or has gone through a similar experience.
