Suicide - a Permanent Solution to a Temporary Problem

Last Friday night I ran into a girlfriend from way back. We grew up together, actually being neighbors for several years of our lives and then attending school together all the way through high school. A few years after graduation she married a local man and moved to Milwaukee where he worked for a large company. Her younger brother and sister still live here, but her parents both died a number of years ago.


The picture above is of Vicki and me; we had taken dancing lessons together and were getting ready for a recital, so of course my mother had to snap a picture. Vickie is the one on the right.

Vicki and her brother were only two years apart, but her little sister I think, must have been an oops because she showed up 18 years later. By this time both parents were pretty bad alcoholics. Vicki did her best to cope with the situation but when her husband was transferred to Milwaukee she was truly relieved. She came home to visit infrequently over the years because it was more than she could deal with, and finally gave up in frustration and didn't come home at all for many years. I don't believe she even came home for her father's funeral when he passed due to an alcoholic infarction of the brain.

Now we have her brother and sister living around the corner from each other, but brother has thrown his hands up in frustration also. Little Sister, who is currently in her 40s, has been hooked on pain killers for years and years. She has two children but doesn't know who the fathers are, and is currently living with a man who soaks up alcohol like a sponge. Little Sister does her share of consuming also. Several times a year, over the last years, Little Sister has tried to commit suicide by overdosing with drugs. She's spent lots of time in psych wards getting cleaned up and dried out, but to no avail. She even has the audacity to call various people in the community looking for leftover prescription pain pills. I can't believe that people are stupid enough to give them to her knowing her reputation, but she's getting them somewhere.

Last week she had another episode. She had been into the ER due to some kind of an overdose. Her 16 year old daughter was driving her home when she grabbed a bottle out of her purse and swallowed the entire thing down. Well, needless to say she ended up back in the ER, and then in the psych ward again. Vickie was called home because they weren't sure she was going to make it this time, but again, she pulled through.

I called her brother's house this morning to try and connect with Vickie, to take her to lunch or have her out for coffee because it's been forever since we've had a chance to visit. But Brother told me Vickie and her husband left for home yesterday. They had initially planned to be here all week, hoping they could get some legal work done to commit Little Sister so she would have to stay in the hospital or some facility for a period of time - trying to get her some help. But in the State of Minnesota that's illegal. You can't commit anyone. If they are in a facility they are there on their own and can walk out anytime they want. So Vickie had gone home again in frustration, not being able to get any help for her little sister. One of these times this woman is going to be successful in her death wish. How awful life must be to feel that way. And my heart goes out to Vickie and her brother for trying so hard to find a solution and not being able to do so.

Little Sister walked out of the psych ward yesterday and is currently at home. I wonder how long it will be before the First Responders are called to her house again.

ADDENDUM: At Christmas time Little Sister sat down in the middle of the kitchen, doused herself with gasoline and held a lighter, threatening to set herself on fire. Another time she held a pistol to her head. Both of these situations took place on extremely cold nights. The 16 year old daughter ran barefoot to the neighbors to get help and to get herself out of the house. Unfortunately both the 16 year old daughter and the 20-some year old son have also tried several times to commit suicide.

Things Ain't Like They Used To Be - Or Are They?

I was poking around reading various blogs this morning and tuned into one of my many favorites, Kitchen Logic. She’s having kind of a tough time right now with kid issues and wrote about “Getting Your Naughty On.”

Back in the Dark Ages, when Ole and I were growing up, things were pretty different. Big trouble back then would be considered a pretty minor incident in this day and age with all the negative opportunities that kids have today. But then, we grew up in a fairly sheltered area of the world, too, I shouldn’t forget that.

Ole was considered a “hood” back then. Anybody else remember what that term means? The dictionary defines it as short for hoodlum; a street tough. At least HE thought he was a tough guy and hung out with that group of guys – you know – leather jackets with collars up, ducktail hair styles, smoking non-filtered cigarettes, drinking beer out on the country roads on Friday nights, etc. Most of them spent their time standing around on street corners, chewing gum, smoking cigarettes and acting tough.

Our graduating class was 478 students, so it wasn’t exactly small. The year we graduated from high school was the first year I ever heard anything about drugs being used or sold; marijuana to be exact. Drinking beer and smoking seemed to be the worst offense. Although we had one guy who would get high on Vicks inhalers. He’d cut the end off and suck on the wick from inside the inhaler. Boy, would he get goofy, but for some reason he was never able to convince anyone else to do that.

Legal drinking age at that time in South Dakota was 18 while it was 21 in both North Dakota and Minnesota. Ole had a buddy who drove a Corvette Sting Ray (rich kid) who would make a weekly trip down to South Dakota, buy a bunch of beer, bring it back and sell it to his buddies for their Friday night parties. Now that guy is a well-known pediatric heart surgeon in the southwest.

I have to say the rest of Ole’s “hood” buddies all turned out okay with the exception of two. One turned out to be a successful restaurant owner, another owns his own body shop, another has retired from an upper level position with Northwest Airlines. And Ole wore a 3-piece suit for 30+ years and was able to retire at 55. Unfortunately one of the guys served in the infantry in Viet Nam and has suffered from PTSD ever since he returned 35 years ago. He has never married and has great difficulty holding any kind of a job. The other also served in Viet Nam and became an airplane mechanic when he got out of the service. A number of years later he divorced his wife of 20+ years and married a trophy wife. We haven’t heard of him or from him for many years.

Referencing Ole and his 3-piece suit days – to look at him now you’d never guess that was his background. Now I can’t get him out of his blue jeans and flannel shirts, and he’s even got an earring and tattoos. I guess he’s going back to his rebellious “hood” days.

Ole never got caught doing any of the things that “hoods” do – but I can’t say that for some of his buddies. One night one of the guys had a flat tire and no money to get it fixed or buy a new one. So they went to the After Hours Tire Shop (car parked on the street) and got one there. When Ole and buddy Junior found out the plan for the night they decided not to participate. Lucky for them they didn’t because that night the cops just happened by and the guys got hauled into the police station. They got their hands slapped and their parents were called to come get them. Having to have your parents come get you from the police station was worse punishment than having to spend the night in jail.

One of our major sources of entertainment back then was dragging Broadway. Have you ever watched American Graffiti? We truly lived it. The evening was spent driving up and down Broadway seeing who was there and who could be the "coolest." It was a great way to meet guys, arrange to meet them in some parking lot somewhere, then hop in the car with them and ride up and down Broadway in their car. Back then air conditioning was an option that not everyone had in their car. I remember being with a bunch of girls in a car without air in the summertime. Instead of dragging Broadway with the windows down we kept them rolled up so everyone would think we had AC in the car - being "cool" even without AC.

We had a dress code in school that was strictly enforced and this was public school. Girls could not wear jeans or slacks to school. The principal would walk the halls and if he saw a girl with a skirt that he thought was too short he would make her get down on her knees. If the skirt didn’t touch the floor she would be sent home to change. And of course no girl would have thought of having any cleavage showing let alone wearing a short top that exposed her mid section. Guys could not wear blue jeans and all pants had to have belt loops and they had to wear a belt. None of this letting the pants hang down around the hips thing. No t-shirts – had to be a collared shirt of some sort – and no logos on the shirts. Quite a change from today when kids run around with those big baggy pants hanging way down their hips and they look like they’ve dropped a load in them! Now I’m all for fashion, and being with it and all, but that’s just a bit too much for me.

So hang in there, K-Lo. Thing 1 will be fine once he gets through this rebellious stage.

By the way, Ole still says he’s mean, evil, bad, nasty and rotten, and besides that, he’s not a nice guy. Yeah – only in HIS imagination. He’s really such a big marshmallow, it’s pathetic.