My morbid fascination

I have a morbid fascination with MyDeathSpace.com. I visit this site about once a week or so to see what new profiles have been added and to read the stories behind them.

I guess I'm fascinated by this new ritual that's been added to our culture. Mourning the death of a loved one is now a public affair and it can go on for years. People who have passed on are now frozen in time indefinitely and friends and family can stop by to pay their respects without ever having to leave their computer. It's truly a bizarre cultural development.

The news is all sad. I don't think there's anyone on there whose death is not tragic whether it was from illness, car accident, crime, overdose, or intentional suicide.

The suicides are the most riveting stories of all. Most of the pages visited don't feature the dark goth, emo, multi-colored hair and piercings most people might expect. The pages of those dead by their own hand often show happy looking, smiling individuals in photos with friends and family members. The depression that's driving them to take their own life is hidden in there somewhere like a dark malignant tumor.

The notes left from family and friends in memoriam show the depth of the loss, the guilt, the sorrow, and most importantly, the lack of recognition that anything was seriously wrong.

Every time I think progress is being made in raising people's understanding of depression and mental illness, I see one of these pages and realize the vast majority of people still don't have a clue.

The article I read today had to be the worst example of this I've ever seen. A young man, age 26, from Michigan killed himself on October 5, 2007. He left his suicide note on his blog. It read, in part, "I tried to cry out for help but my cries went un-answered."

People posted comments in response to the blog asking the young man to call them, but no one, apparently, picked up the phone to call HIM, or to call his family, or to call 911. They read his note saying good-bye, asking people to take care of his dog, and responded via blog comments rather than trying to make a personal contact.

His sister also commented on his blog after his death and she said, in part, "I talked to him a week before he did it and he tried to get me to do a murder suicide thing with him and he sent me a picture of him with a gun in his mouth but he said he wouldn't do it because it would hurt everyone to bad. I was going to call the police and have him taken away to get some help but I thought if he wasn't serious he would never forgive me.

Was it normal for him to send her pictures of himself with a gun in his mouth that she might think he was joking?!

It can be a tough call, I know, to decide when to intervene in someone else's life. People don't want to overreact, don't want to intrude, don't want to push away the very person they're trying to help. But I don't think it can be emphasized enough - better to be wrong on the side of playing it safe and taking all suicide threats seriously than to be wrong on the side of dismissing them and losing a loved one.

Act. Intervene. Be nosy. Call. Ask questions. Help each other, love each other, save each other.