Depression, Anxiety

[pitrack_1]

Originally Posted by flightstrike

I'll pitch in here as it might provide some help/advice to someone.

About seven months ago, my 25 year old sister took her own life.

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The point of this story is that it's very important that you never ignore a red flag. It could be something so small and almost not worth talking about, but it may very well be a desperate cry for help. Everyone reacts differently, in my sister case, I don't believe pushing her was going to help, it woukdve only aggravated the situation. But for others, a bit of a push for help maybe what they need. You know your family and friends, you know how they react and you need to act accordingly, you may very well save their life.

If you've made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully it wasn't a waste of space on the form.

Thanks.

Flightstrike,

I have only just joined the forum and stumbled on this thread- have only read the tail end of it, i.e. your post.

I am very sorry for your loss and thank-you for sharing. I know how you feel, I have just lost an close in-law this past week in a similar fashion and have been down a similar path myself in the past. The family and my wife are still overseas dealing with the situation and arrangements.

Contrary to yours, there seems to have been no real red flags. To my mind and from the info I have gleaned it was planned and seemingly emotionally hidden.

However I think I had a warning (yellow/orange) flag only a couple of days before, albeit second-hand. Some other signs over time had been making me start to pay attention based on my own personal experiences. Unfortunately events took a final turn before I could call and ask.

Thanks you for your words, they are valuable to me. Your last main paragraph is important but you must be careful to detect a genuine red flag and not an imaginary one, and therein lies the difficulty. It was a cumulation of little things over a few months that was going to make me enquire based on the last one, albeit enquire too late.

Most importantly, you can't blame yourself afterwards for someone else's behaviour.

The heavy lifting for myself, family and friends will begin through support for my wife and the relatives when they return from overseas.