Something To Make Your Own and Share

I saw this on a Facebook friend's status, and I decided to personalize it. This isn't stuff that I haven't talked about in some capacity before, by the way. Incidentally, Great-Granddad Czarnecki could have (if God willed) lived to be 111 this month (October 24th) had he not committed suicide (Trust me; he has a certain cousin whom is 98 and will, if God wills, be 99 this year. He could easily have had that longevity gene, and only God knows if he did.).

Do me a favor, then, and make the following your own in a Facebook status, note, or something:

Depression is real and relentless. I and others have been on that edge, and I myself ended up in Sheppard Pratt over it in April of 2006 (To hide that is useless, especially when why the Depression was exacerbated affected me to threaten myself.). I'm therefore asking everyone to stop hiding their own Depression or whatever mental illness(es) you have (I also have, e.g., OCD, by the way.).

On the other hand, you can continue to hide it as many in my family have hidden it and did hide it—and let's see how well that works for you. Let me give you a hint: it doesn't work—if, for example, my father's paternal grandfather (Anthony Czarnecki, RIP) and maternal great-granduncles Alexander and Frank Fosko (z"l) could come back, they'd tell you.

So would their father, Istvan Foczko (z"l)—he was in his 50s when he died, had six sons and one daughter, and has never had his cause of death mentioned. Statistically, there is no other possibility that he died in any other way than by suicide—whether 29% of a chance (since two of his seven children committed suicide, and if you round the percentage up) or 66% (since two of his six sons committed suicide) the chance is well above 10%, and even 25%. The average of 29 and 66 is 47.5—so, think about that: almost 50% of a chance that he committed suicide, and the other 50-53% (that he didn't commit suicide, and that he even would have lived past his 50s) may well have happened if he had talked about what he endured. 

Meanwhile, I'm asking everyone to copy and paste this status—and personalize it. If only I was sharing a personal struggle with mental illness, it'd be a damned shame. Besides, you don't know whom you might help if you (in the words of my father's paternal grandmother, z"l) "talk about it" (When she broke down and told my aunt about many things before she died, those were her exact words after 90-plus years of life—"No; no, it's okay: I want to talk about it."). ♥