Friday, July 28, 2006
So Much Sadness
In addition to my ongoing concern about the situation in Israel, a situation that looks like it may further involve some of my friends and relatives, I've been struck by the number of sad stories in the press, many of them about single people struggling in their lives.
The other day, I saw this story (hat tip to Canonist). And before I knew it, I got a phone call, talked to a reporter, and voila...a friend got a call from another friend who told him I was "on the cover of the Sun." My friend didn't even grab a copy--and certainly didn't read the story--before calling me to congratulate me on my fame and imminent fortune. Having not read the article, or even having been aware of what the context was, he seemed confused when my response was not "Yippee," but "oh." My heart fell.
To be sure, a writer wants to be acknowledged for her work. But to be clear, there is no fame and fortune to be gained from such a story...only a prevailing sense of sadness and the tragedy of the circumstances.
May Sarah's family know comfort after this senseless tragedy.
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30 comments:
Yes, incredibly sad all around. This is an epidemic right now in and around NOLA & MS as a result of Katrina. Depression kills. It's as simple as that. It needs effective treatment and proper, understanding medical attention. In this day and age it is irredeemably sad that people can not recognize depression for what it is, and that it and all other psychiatric maladies are still stigmatized.
But now we've got to worry about random Arabs coming into JCC's and gunning people down, Hamas style also. I worry that we'll soon see suicide bombers here too. It's hard to contemplate the complete idiocy of such a mad, mad world. Regards, 'VJ'
That's incredible how people quickly write it off as "she was depressed anyway" and completely overlooked, that maybe her bf was stringing her along and then left her leaving her possibly single for life (since in Orthodox circles, she's considered now way over the hill). He stolen her last chance to ever be married and have kids. That's something to be depressed about, don't you folks think? I hate how her very real and sane thoughts are totally dismissed, and she's written off as crazy. Have some understanding and true compassion!
Unfortunately we have to learn from this poor woman. We have to learn to watch our friends and family members for irregularites and signs of depression. We have to stop sweeping depression under the rug. Our communites should be talking about getting help when one needs it. Depression is chemical. Period. One can control the "blues" to a certain extent, but depression needs medical attention. Why is getting help for one's problem seen as such a horrible thing? Shouldn't we be supportive of those who are brave and strong enough to accept when they need help? Whether this be depression, alcoholism, or a drug addiction-pretending there isn't a problem is why unfortunate things such as this happen.
I don't blame her suicide on her breakup. It was the straw that broke the camels back in a mind that wasn't able to think reasonably. But there is a lot of pressure on women about getting married. The bochur shouldn't be blamed by anyone-he may have sensed her emotional insecurity and just imagine how he feels right now! We need to change how we educate women. We need to start supporting programs and voulenteer to teach self-esteem classes for girls and young women. Most of us wish to get married and it can be very difficult to watch our friends get married and have children, but there is no reason that we still can't teach women to feel worthy and proud of themselves-married or not. Perhaps this devastating loss can change the hearts and minds of many who oppose therapy and medication. Let's keep this family in our prayers and keep an eye out for those we know who may need some extra help...
Even in the face of death, people hold onto their delusions. That's astonishing. The was sane enough to hold a job, sane enough to have apartment, friends,dates. But suddenly people say she had "chemical" problem in her brain. There was nothing wrong with her, she just felt VERY hopeless about her future family life (or lack of thereof). What's not to understand? A fat repulsive 30 y o orthodox guy from our office got married to a thin cute 21 y o YU graduate couple weeks ago. If he's a catch, then imagine what this poor "over the hill" 25 y o Sarah must have been feeling, especially as her own younger sister was married. What we need to learn from it is not to stigmatize women based on their marital status and to extend true compassion instead of looking for "chemical" problems and checking everyone sad into therapy.
No therapy needed: eliminate cause of depression (lack of marriage, in this case), and depression will go away on its own.
Depression has nothing to do with sanity. I've personally dealt with severe depression-especially when my marriage was falling apart.
In Anon's opinion, the fact that I had a husband should have been enough not to be depressed? I had a husband and two children-a beautiful house, I was a housewife who sat by the pool all summer, had two cars for myself, and traveled all over the world. I guess I had no reason to be depressed, right?
I still managed to put food on the table, take care of my babies, do laundry, visit with friends. I was very capable of putting on a social mask and pretending everything was just pefect.
Feelings of self esteem come from within. I've been working on them for years. Do I believe I will feel ultimately fulfilled when I actually do find that wonderful man? Of course I do! Does that mean that I can't live a happy life right now and enjoy what I do have and thank Hashem every second of every day for just being alive? No. I strive to do these things every day until He decides the path for my life.
Having depression is not insanity. Many people are depressed and function well. The danger is when it gets deep-and when the person has other issues.
What Shiri and Anon wrote is the source of a problem. "Get a husband and all of your problems will go away." For anyone out there reading,it's not true. That frame of mind teaches women to settle for the first guy who comes along-because being married to some schmo is better than being single, right? WRONG. I learned the hard way that marriage doesn't make one happy. Those feeling come from within. A single 30 year old woman is in a much better boat than I'm in. I'm now labeled as divorced-I have two kids that come along with me-and an extra 20 pounds! LOL
I agree with Shiri that we have to stop stigmatizing single women and have compassion. That said, a husband can't make internal hurts and doubts go away. A perfectly sane woman doesn't break up with a man and jump to her death. It just doesn't happen. There was some other issue there to begin with. I've had very difficult breakups in my life-one where I basically stayed in bed for a month. If normal women killed themselves because their bochurs dumped them and they were too old to get married, then there wouldn't be any single girls left on the UWS...
I'm glad someone mentioned that it's perfectly possible to be married & depressed too. We can not compare relative degrees of misery. Each condition in some sense is unique. But a lot of modern life is geared towards the effective suppression and hiding of these problems. It's as if the standard treatment for all issues short of violence is shopping therapy. Plenty of commericials & ads now pick up on this aspect of modern life. Me, I really think the healing power of music is severely under utilized, although this might be a decent cure for the 'blues', it can not treat long standing issues like depression. But yes, even very well situated happily married people can get depressed. It's an illness that touches many often regardless of their station in life. And people can and do find a variety of ingenious means of doing themselves mortal harm, defenestration being only one of the more classical options. Regards, 'VJ'
Years ago, Self Magazine printed a guide to doctors. One psychiatrist on the UWS was listed as specializing in "single women over 30." I was very struck by this -- being a single woman over 30 was considered a pathology!
Sure, this poor girl was despondent, and the breakup was a trigger factor for her suicide. This whole thing is so terribly sad in every way. To be fair, from the boyfriend's viewpoint, she was probably a lousy girlfriend. I have had friends who were seriously depressed, and it was simply horrible to be around them -- they were constantly surrounded by a black cloud and there seemed to be no way I -- or anyone -- could help them. Depression is a serious illness and also hard to treat though, thankfully, less hard than it used to be.
I don't see how it's productive to harp on what this poor girl was thinking, whether she was a good girlfriend or not, whether she was sane or insane or whatever...none of this is relevant or helpful. The family has suffered an intense and unexpected loss, and there is likely to be little comfort. Although I'm still open to discussing this here, especially if it helps someone work through a tough time, let's try to be a little more sensitive to the family and community that suffered this loss.
Thanks for your assistance in this, guys.
You're right Esther. I apologize for my part in distracting from the subject. Let's all keep this family in our prayers. Is there anything set up for tzedekah, or is that inappropriate due to the circumstances?
Thanks, Above Rubies. That's a really good question. I don't know, but if I find anything out, I'll post it here.
I found this on the internet after googling her name:
Memorial contributions preferred to Sarah Adelman Memorial Fund, c/o Young Israel, 8101 Delmar Blvd., 63130.
How awful. If anything good can come of this tragedy, I hope that it will open a discussion, and that it will inspire others to be aware of the signs of depression. And most of all, I hope it will inspire people to reach out to their loved ones (single, married, whatever -- depression knows no boundaries), and to make sure that their loved ones know that they're not alone.
My friend lives in her building, was friendly with her roommate, and I have met her. To the unkeen eye, she appeared fine. No different than most women you'll meet. But she was clinically depressed. What seemed fine on the outside, had a different story on the inside. A real tragedy.
Depression comes in many forms. At times it is chemical, and needs drug therapy. Sometimes its emotional, and needs pyschotherapy. Either way, it can be treated. That she was single was not "the" reason she killed herself. It was, in her mind, the last straw. The trigger. I know for a fact that she was tired with her job. She was tired with her life in general. She felt that life was meaningless and she had nothing to live for. Being married wouldnt have changed that feeling.
But she could have been saved, if we all knew what to do.
Shiri's comments are very immature and quite scary if that is how other people think. True, the orthodox community has to be sympathetic to singles in their midst. But the community cannot help how any specific single will handle their being single. Going home to your suburban synagoge and being the only adult single in the crowd is not easy. Even for the strongest. But there is a world of difference between getting a bit bluesy at times when your singleness hits you (say when in the suburbs), and feeling that life has nothing to offer you. Shiri, please understand the difference, because it can mean a diference between life and death.
Please know that when someone threatens suicide, they are really willing to live and are actually calling out for help: call 911 immediately!! Someone who truly wants to die doesn't tell anyone, they just go ahead and do it.
Anonymous above is absolutely right. Shiri, youseem very angry beneath the surface, which I can understand, but I don't see how the community is at fault here specifically. I think you also display a weak understanding of the nature of mental health issues in general and clinical ("capital-D") Depression in particular.
AR & VJ are also correct about marrieds being depressed. A good friend of mine is very happily married-- one of the few people I can say that about with pretty absolute certainty-- yet is beset with bouts of depression and anxiety, its twin brother and the other side of the depression coin. he has a demanding job, several kids and drives himself very hard. I've been telling him for a while to ge see someone, take Xanax, whatever will help. He's now beginning to take some steps towards that.
Anon, I can absolutely relate to the "single in the suburbs" phenomenon.
chutzpah and "Nice" Jewish Guy can easily drive any1 to suicide. Kindly keep your analysis of me to your very intellectual selves. Don't know any'1 age here, but I am young enough to vividly remember myself and my (unmarried female jewish) friends at 25, and I can totally see how really sad and hopeless it could bring. Doesn't need to be any "medical" problem -- social problems are bad enough. Kinda reminds me school shootings. After those, every1 talks about increasing security at schools, looking at how bad of a kid shooter was, trying to find "medical" problem with him. And everyone cosistenly overlooks a simple fact, that shooting wouldn't occur on the first place if the shooter weren't beaten and called names and humiliated and bullied in other ways. But you folks keep therapy and Prozac (or whatever is popular nowadays), but hopefully you'd get tired of these pretend solutions and get to the root of the problem. Then there would be less of "sudden" deaths.
Ok-I've got to chime in. Shiri, I understand what you're trying to say about the community needing to be more caring and accepting, so that girls don't feel horrible when they haven't yet started a family. I get it, I really do.
What many people are trying to get across to you is that medication for depression does not make internal feelings or external judgments go away. What it does is allow the person to be rational in a mental/emotional way so that the person is able to work at the source of the problem through therapy-and develop self worth and self esteem so that other peoples judgements don't affect them to the point of suicide.
It's hard to see the good side of life when one feels like crap every day. If the medication allows one to feel somewhat normal until things get better, what's the big deal? Some people can take anti-depressants for a year or two until they are better able to cope with their problems. Others can never stop taking it-just like a diabetic. They are better people when on it, and choose to be the best they can be.
Unfortunately, there is still a stigma in our society about dating/marrying someone who takes medication. The person can't control a chemical imbalance, or extrenuating issues that may have happened in his/her life. It's important to stop judging someone who takes meds as crazy. There's a huge difference between depression and say, schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder.
Whoa, Shiri.... didn't take you too long to bust out the flamethrower, did it? No anger issues with you, eh? (You even look angry in your photo.)What's with the "nice" in my name in quotes? Anyone who disagrees with you isn't nice anymore? I am nice. Right, Rubies?
Listen, Shiri. Unless you have professional training in the field, all you have is your own opinion.I have a professional degree that requires me to recognize clinical depression. What happened to this girl is sad, tragic, sure. And I'm sure community and social pressures were a factor. But we're all subject to social and community pressures, and most people don't take an airwalk off the 8th floor. This girl was unable to cope with the pressure and decompensated. Medication, talk therapy, etc. could have pulled her back from the brink in time to start getting her to be able to cope.
You should dial back your vitriol a bit. The fact that there are admittedly social problems in the community doesn't also mean that Sara didn't also have her own psychosocial difficulties. No one's happy about either situation. I think you owe both Chutzpah and myself an apology for your insult.
Yep, NJG is nice. And qualified to give an actual diagnosis...
A central feature of the sensation of depression is the feeling of hopelessness and despair, the feeling of no movement towards any goal, the feeling of the impossibility of reaching any goal. And the cause of depression is exactly that: absence of movement towards a goal. When the neshama, the soul, senses that life is sliding by and no meaningful progress is taking place, no real development is occurring, there is a sense of stagnation, of despair. Happiness is the response of the neshama to its journey through life, the response of the neshama to its own development, its own growth and achievement. And depression is the response of the neshama to stagnation, to a situation of motionlessness and the absence of achievement.
Your neshama knows that it is here to grow, to develop. That journey is the essence of life. So when your neshama senses that the journey has come to a halt, that life is sliding by and your are going nowhere, you will become depressed. The journey is life itself, every step on that journey is essential and priceless (you cannot get to your destination unless you walk the entire road that leads there), and therefore when time is passing but the journey is not progressing the neshama feels the cold hand of death. Depression is no less than a minor experience of death itself; that is exactly why it is so painful.
A depressed person may not know that this is the cause of the problem, but the soul knows. It is weeping, crying out to be allowed to move on, to move actively and urgently to its destination, and it is being obstructed. It is being held back from the most urgent and important task that there is, the task of building itself and its eternity in a race against time. If it fails to build itself now it will exist forever incomplete, deeply lacking. That would be disastrous, painful beyond description. So the response of the soul is feeling of deep pain, of life and its opportunity lost. And it is possibly the deepest pain there is.
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I didn't write it -- r.Akiva Tatz did.
So, chemical imbalances have nothing to do with cause or cure of depression. It's not "organic" disorder.
You know, Shiri, what you have to say would have actually been fine, except that you put it in absolutes. If only you had said, "chemical imbalances may have nothing to do with cause or cure of depression. It's not always "organic" disorder.", I could have areed with you. But I guess it's your way or the highway, eh?
Shiri, go study neuroscience youself (at least R. Tatz has). Until then, anything you say regarding chemical imbalances or organic neurochemical disorders is just your own unqualified, personal opinion (and we all know opinions are the one other thing that everyone has).
You know, I try to keep a passive view on discussions here and let them develop organically; I'm all for healthy and rigorous discussion. But I beg of you, be civil, or your comments will be deleted. So consider what you're saying before you hit that "publish" button...
Thanks for your compliance.
--The Management
Sorry.. strike that last sentence. (After all, I am supposed to be 'nice'.) But I stand by the content of my comment.
Umm is it too late to note however respectfully that what Shiri wrote above about mental illness is ill informed clap trap that would be commonly laughed at by everyone but in the 19th century, from whence it came? Really. Cheers, 'VJ'
"Nice", I may not have lots of (psychobabble) education, but I was there myself (suicidal). I know exactly how it feels, with all intensity. Well, maybe not all, otherwise I wouldn't be typing this. Cocain would help to relieve pain at the moment, here you're right. But even in my overwhelemed state of mind, I didn't go for it. I knew it would only make it worse. What helped was mostly some internal adaptable force and friends (who didn't feel sorry for me, but just tried to help 1 little chore or conversation at a time). There are very few people who are wired wrongly from the very beginning. Perhaps for them medication would be called for. Normally, however, chemistry has nothing to do with causes, and medication has nothing to do with solutions to the problem. Life is not all pleasure, you can't be always happy, depression is a natural response to wrong situations. It is a hint, that something in life must be changed. Why not listen to it and make appropriate changes instead of killing the messenger?
Shiri,
I'm going to try and put this as respectfully as possible, so there are no misunderstandings. Firstly, I am sorry that you went through wwhatevr you did, and it is wonderful that you persevered.
You are wrong; I say this not to be disrespectful or argumentative-- it's just fact. There are in fact quite a large number of people who descend into depression who have otherwise good marriages, careers, childhoods, etc and have no specific reasin to despair. Likewise, there are many many people who have endured jaw-droppingly painful life events who remain upbeat. Once again, you paint things as black or white; very few things are black and white. Certainly painful life circumstances can lead to depression; no one's arguing that. You, however, refuse to even acknowledge that there are neurochemical causes for depression. that bear no relationship to one's experiences. You betray your bias when you say things like, "(psychobabble) education".
I have learned that it is pointless to try and convince people of things they have already made up their minds about. So, Shiri, I wish you a pleasant journey through this life.
(How was thet, Esther?)
"Nice": you're gradually forcing yourself to sound nicer, even to me. Must be super-difficult. I admire your effort. :) Regarding your points: I guess will agree to disagree. If I understood right, you're advocating antidepressants to alleviate/remove legit consequences of wrong choices/situations.
There are in fact quite a large number of people who descend into depression who have otherwise good marriages, careers, childhoods, etc and have no specific reasin to despair.
But they do, NJG! It may not be a rational or relevant-sounding reason to you. They may not even recognize it themselves, leave alone tell others. I found out that one of my co-worker's marriage was a sham -- that made me very depressed for several days. I wasn't his best friend, I didn't even know his wife. It has zero effect on my own life. But somehow some way it resonated with something in me.
Likewise, there are many many people who have endured jaw-droppingly painful life events who remain upbeat.
Once again, you don't know all variables. Ex: Suicide bombers' mothers are happy and proud. To most normal people, that would be tragedy, if child dies, especially in such way.
chutzpah: I don't know if you really expect any meaningful response from me; if you do, then drop assumption that I may be schizophrenic or alike. then you'd be welcome to e-mail me (click on my screen name for profile).
Look at Durer's "Melancolia". This person is deeply thinking, low energy level, thoughtful, isolated. I'd say, he's developing his life/character, needs to be monitored maybe. You'd say he's depressed and needs medications to boost his energy level and "happiness" ASAP.
Shiri, I'm not going to get drawn into a debate with you, especially when you begin (again) with a backhanded compliment like "forcing [my]self to sound nicer.... must be super-difficult" . And you did not understand me correctly, and I'm not going to go through it again. You are obviously convinced of the utter righteousness of your convictions, and I have neither the time or the inclination to make you see beyond them.. I have learned this is futile. You remind me of someone I met who was convinced that microwaving food irradiates it and depletes it of nutrients, or that cell phones cause brain tumors, or that it's bad to take any medicine for anything. It's not worth the effort. So good luck.
OK, guys. Even assuming that Shiri was being playful and friendly in her comment to NJG, I think this discussion is done. Sorry...new topics to come, which I'm sure you will address with sensitivity and respect.
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