I feel very low today. I have been under a great deal of stress which I know is a huge trigger for me to escape...through food, sleep or movies. Yesterday, someone I met through my job and have had very brief contact with, attempted suicide. When we couldn't reach her, I called her daughter who told me what happened. Now, this upset me, probably more than the situation called for.

If you don't know my history, it wouldn't make sense. I have had a lot of experience with suicide since my father, sister and sister-in-law all committed suicide. It has been 35 years, 20 years and 14 years, respectively. You would think that I would have gotten to a point in my life that I wouldn't be so sensitive and most of the time, I'm not. I think this just hit me at the wrong time because I'm not feeling strong lately and it kind of blindsided me. So, I feel very sad for her, her family and sorry for myself. That is really pathetic and I know it is selfish but I really, really don't want to deal with suicide anymore!

I think it is one of the most horrible, selfish acts. It leaves people behind to deal with the aftermath. The blame, pain, guilt, anger, pity, frustration, helplessness and sorrow is so hard. Even when you deal with all that, there's the awful self-pity and why me and feeling like you're a freak for being connected with so many people who commit suicide. The shame of it is so powerful. When I was a teenager and people would ask about my dad in a casual way..."what does your dad do?" "are your mom and dad together?" and so on, I used to like to shock people and say "oh he doesn't do anything since he shot himself in the head" or "no, he shot himself in the head and left my mom to raise us". People felt horrible for bringing it up but they had no way of knowing that it was a "touchy" subject for me. How could they know? I wasn't saying anything that wasn't true but it's like I was inflicting some of my pain on them by the way I said it. Now, I just say "He died when I was young."

This might bring up the question of suicide running in families. I guess there is no way to prove what the truth is but I read an article by a psychiatrist who said that it's not a genetic predisposition to suicide, rather, when someone close to you commits suicide, it opens a possibility in your mind, so when you're faced with a bad situation, most people wouldn't even consider it since it isn't in their list of "what to do when faced with a bad situation", but someone who has that example when faced with a bad situation thinks "well I can always commit suicide". This really makes the most sense to me.

My sister-in-law who was genetically unrelated but was such a close part of our family when my sister died, that she saw that example and when faced with a difficult situation, thought "well Becki did it, so I can too". Even more tragically, a year after she did it, her mother committed suicide. So, it's almost like it's infectious. Reminds me of the MASH theme song..."Suicide is Painless" where it says "cause suicide is painless, it brings on many changes, and I can take or leave it if I please... and you can do the same thing if you choose." (On a side note, I have never understood why that was the theme song for a tv show.)

Here's the thing though, I've been faced with a lot of difficult situations in my life and I would never, ever do that. It had the exact opposite effect on me because I couldn't ever let my mother or daughter or other family members and friends go through the pain.

However, I was feeling bad and out of control when I left work. So, on the way home from work, I stopped at McDonalds for a fish filet and fries and ate it in the car, then when I got home, I acted like I hadn't eaten and had dinner too. Okay, so I needed to get this out because it is really bothering me today and I don't want this to completely derail my efforts to live a healthy life and lose weight. I need to confront bad feelings and let them happen without turning to food. I am recommitting to healthy eating and living a good life.