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In thinking about how to raise my sons, this affected me profoundly (Warning: suicide)


Halcyon
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I didn't read it all, but I read the end. I hate suicide, I hate cancer, and I hate addiction. So many whys about life and about death. So many why me when so many other people seem to be doing okay. My son has been questioning everything since he could talk. Maybe that's good, good that I tell him often that I don't have all the answers and that's okay. Ds has a pencil cup on his desk that reads "The important thing is not to stop questioning." - Einstein. Maybe that's part of it, never think you have the answer to life and everything, never think you have all the questions. If you do, and somehow you feel shuffled out of the equation, it's easier to think you know the "easy" way out.

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I pray often about this. I have worried about depression with my kids even when it isn't there. I know it can be real and I know people who have family who have committed suicide.

 

I hope my boys know I not only love them but that they are a success to me even if they aren't what the world deems "successful."

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Wow, that was a heart-wrenching article. I see a few similar personality traits in my own son, minus the mental illness the young man was struggling with. But it does remind me that the line between certain personality traits (over-the-top ambition, perfectionism, etc.) within a healthy lifestyle and a subtle mental illness can be fuzzy.

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Oh boy, my hard boiled eggs were forgotten and waaaay over cooked. Darn that was lunch! The article sucked me in. It was insightful yet left me wondering so much. Growing up, my best friend's older sister was on a similar path. I can't remember all the particulars as I wasn't focused on them or her specifically at the time. But her star was shining bright, somehow studying medicine and like 5 different languages. Then it all came crashing down when she tried to commit suicide. It was then determined she was bi-polar. Life has been a bumpy and emotional ride for her family since then.

 

Just a note on one of the reader comments (I forget which one); I had a mentor in the early days at work and one of the most important things she drilled into my head was, "What is normal? Normal is someone you don't know very well." At first it seems such a silly comment. But after hearing it over and over applied to different situations it starts to open up how you perceive everyone and every situation and how you cannot apply your own value and judgement standards. It's very hard to take yourself and everything that you represent out of other's situations to truly see it as they see it.

 

Thanks for sharing.

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I'm reading The Price of Privilege right now. I saw all sorts of parallels in that article. Highly recommend.

 

 

I've never heard of this book. Can you tell us more about it?

 

I'm reading Martin Seligman's book "The Optimistic Child." It sounds like Anthony was a pessimist and succumbed to the whole idea of "optimists are uncool and pessimists and cynics are cool" mentality that Seligman says became popular in the 1960s. The part about him discussing philiosphy in Italy is what made me think that perhaps he thought people with superior IQs, such as him, were "true" intellectuals if they endlessly discussed how miserable life is, etc.

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His story made me think of something I read about gifted kids. How when they are young and have some achievable goals in mind they do great. But then after achieving them they think that what they accomplished was just "luck" and that they don't deserve it. And then adulthood is looming which has no set "program" to do and accomplish, and they worry about how they were "just lucky" would be found out.

 

It sounds like in this guy's case he had a hard time handling making life-or-death decisions for patients. If he suffered from what I just described, he probably had a very "real" worry that his history of "luck" would make him inadvertently kill someone.

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His story made me think of something I read about gifted kids. How when they are young and have some achievable goals in mind they do great. But then after achieving them they think that what they accomplished was just "luck" and that they don't deserve it. And then adulthood is looming which has no set "program" to do and accomplish, and they worry about how they were "just lucky" would be found out.

 

This would go along with what Seligman describes in his book. Pessimists tend to think good things happened to them because they got lucky, while optimists see it as a result of their hard work and/or talent. Pessimists see life as "happening to them" and out of their control, therefore they easily fall into learned helplessness. Optimists see themselves as being in control and having the power to make changes when they are unhappy about things.

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I can't read it right now. My dd's friend committed suicide two yrs. ago. He was a bright, sweet 15 yr. old. My dd has really had trouble with his death this past month, and I'm trying to figure out how to help her. His family has fallen apart - parents are now divorced. This is the saddest, most tragic thing I've experienced. Why is life so hard for some people? It makes me want to go outside and scream.

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I can't read it right now. My dd's friend committed suicide two yrs. ago. He was a bright, sweet 15 yr. old. My dd has really had trouble with his death this past month, and I'm trying to figure out how to help her. His family has fallen apart - parents are now divorced. This is the saddest, most tragic thing I've experienced. Why is life so hard for some people? It makes me want to go outside and scream.

 

 

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

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I've never heard of this book. Can you tell us more about it?

 

I'm reading Martin Seligman's book "The Optimistic Child." It sounds like Anthony was a pessimist and succumbed to the whole idea of "optimists are uncool and pessimists and cynics are cool" mentality that Seligman says became popular in the 1960s. The part about him discussing philiosphy in Italy is what made me think that perhaps he thought people with superior IQs, such as him, were "true" intellectuals if they endlessly discussed how miserable life is, etc.

http://www.amazon.co...d/dp/006059585X

 

From Scientific American

 

Wandering among suburban estates, sports clubs and prep schools are overlooked children of a perplexed generation. Their lives overflow with abundance and praise, yet ironically, the mask of apparent health and success may hide a gloomy world of emptiness, anxiety and anger. Strangely, argues Madeline Levine, a clinical psychologist practicing in Marin County, California, the nation’s latest group of at-risk kids comes from affluent, well-educated families. Despite advantages, these children experience disproportionately high rates of clinical depression, substance abuse, anxiety, eating disorders and self-destructive (even self-mutilating) behaviors, according to various studies. Based on criteria from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Levine says these children "are exhibiting epidemic rates of emotional problems beginning in junior high school and accelerating throughout adolescence." One may brush off these youngsters as overindulged products of wealthy, narcissistic parents. But Levine says many of these kids are really ill. They suffer from a weak sense of self, often struggling to fill inner emptiness with objects and praise. Too often they know something is wrong and grope desperately for help yet fail to escape a downward spiral. Could it be, Levine wonders, that privilege, high expectations, competitive pressure and parental overinvolvement yield toxic rather than protective effects? Levine explores such issues as social isolation, the fine line between parental underinvolvement and overindulgence, and the perverse role of money and material goods in creating false promises of fulfillment. Yearning for outward approval, adolescents are particularly vulnerable to the delusion that wealth causes happiness. In many cases, a rude awakening occurs only after many years of anxiety and depression. Levine’s writing is surprisingly reflective and interesting. A constructive therapist, she offers practical guidelines and parenting strategies for those struggling with troubled teens. The advice is useful to any parent of any income level and includes ways to foster healthy autonomy, impulse control and sense of self. Levine emphasizes the importance of discipline, monitoring and limit setting as ways to encourage kids to construct healthy "inner" homes. More important, parents must "stand on their own two feet" before expecting their children to stand on theirs—noting that many parents scold their children for social behaviors that they themselves cannot manage, such as substance abuse and lack of self-discipline or self-assertion. Parents must strive to get their own inner homes in order before they can expect kids to straighten out theirs.

 

I picked this up because the author is from my county and I wanted to hear her perspective on what I see every single day. So far, it's SPOT ON.

 

ETA: I should say spot on in the sense that I see the same things she sees. However, I believe there's a Gospel identity component that she obviously misses.

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Your topic is titled In thinking about how to raise my sons...

Is there anything in the article that made you think you are doing/something that will effect a better outcome for them?

This guy's family kept mentioning his illness, kept recognizing that there were things that were wrong with his thinking, behavior and way of living.

Should they have tried harder to intervene? To help him to get the help? How strange it is that his family is into psychiatry, and there he was...in need.

 

...Hold on, but not tight, let go, but not too quickly.

I think people don't allow their children to experience age appropriate situations, behaviors; or rather, tend to treat children like they are adults in child bodies. Expect too much, push too hard, don't allow time for nothing to happen, excel in all things. True, some people are born to excel, it seems to be in their destiny.

 

And, yeah, what she posted :iagree:

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ETA: I should say spot on in the sense that I see the same things she sees. However, I believe there's a Gospel identity component that she obviously misses.

 

 

In which way? Are you saying they lack a spiritual connection? (Sorry if my question is rough around the edges - I can't seem to find the right words).

 

 

 

What struck me about the article most was that the brother who wrote it went away to boarding school at 14 when his brother was 5 and they basically never saw each other again. Even with the sister, they corresponding from Summer Camp.

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I've been very depressed myself. And yes, I thought about killing myself. To the point that I obsessed over it. I didn't even attempt to though. Most people probably don't, but I imagine most people have thought about killing themselves at one point or another. What pushes someone over that wee bit of edge, I'll never know. And no, I didn't have some awesome support system or lots of people to talk to or anything like that.

 

Yup. Sadly, I agree. I've also wondered about the edge. Why some go over and some don't. Why I didn't. It wasn't because anything/anyone helped me. Maybe I just changed my mind.

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In which way? Are you saying they lack a spiritual connection? (Sorry if my question is rough around the edges - I can't seem to find the right words).

 

 

 

What struck me about the article most was that the brother who wrote it went away to boarding school at 14 when his brother was 5 and they basically never saw each other again. Even with the sister, they corresponding from Summer Camp.

 

Meaning the author is writing from a completely secular point of view. IMHO, that's an incomplete view of what and who a person is. By Gospel identity I mean understanding who Christ is, and who you are in light of that. I knew the author wasn't going to write from a Christian perspective, so I'm not bothered by it. I think it's important to understand the secular viewpoint on mental health.

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The price of privilege is a good book and like the Pp said, it has a lot of points that came across in this article. Hindsight is 2020 and sometimes it is easy to say maybe some things could have been done but I just hope we are never in these kinds of situations. It is such a shame and such a waste.

My dd1 also struggles with some perfectionism and I have to keep telling her, it is ok to fail but I only hope she is able to internalize it.

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In which way? Are you saying they lack a spiritual connection? (Sorry if my question is rough around the edges - I can't seem to find the right words).

 

 

 

What struck me about the article most was that the brother who wrote it went away to boarding school at 14 when his brother was 5 and they basically never saw each other again. Even with the sister, they corresponding from Summer Camp.

 

 

:iagree: with the bolded. While this article drew me in, I was not profoundly affected by it because I have experienced suicide in my immediate family and I found what I perceived to be the author's elitism distracting. I feel bad. I want to get something more, but I see families of a certain societal status on this trajectory and I wonder, what were you thinking :confused: .

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:iagree: with the bolded. While this article drew me in, I was not profoundly affected by it because I have experienced suicide in my immediate family and I found what I perceived to be the author's elitism distracting. I feel bad. I want to get something more, but I see families of a certain societal status on this trajectory and I wonder, what were you thinking :confused: .

 

 

 

And I agree with this!

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Meaning the author is writing from a completely secular point of view. IMHO, that's an incomplete view of what and who a person is. By Gospel identity I mean understanding who Christ is, and who you are in light of that. I knew the author wasn't going to write from a Christian perspective, so I'm not bothered by it. I think it's important to understand the secular viewpoint on mental health.

 

 

 

Thank you for helping me understand. :)

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The "elitism" that Sparrow noticed was what I think actually caused his family to disregard the warning signs. They were so comfortable and self-congratulatory in their chosen way of life that they didn't see that Anthony's obsessive traits were becoming more and more odd, that he was depressed, and that he was indifferent to what life held for him after medical school. They were focused on his successes.

 

Even the article itself is a little strange -- it keep spiraling around, gives a timeline that is completely out of order, and offers unimportant details (do we really need two paragraphs describing exactly what their family home looks like?). If Anthony's family life was as disjointed as this article, it's no wonder that his problems were completely missed.

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