Suicidal Ideation and Other Thoughts

photo of North Pole (NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory)

What if you get suicidal thoughts without taking CHANTIX? The advertisements for the drug always warn about possible side effects including such ideations, but the problem is, if you are entertaining such dark notions and there is nothing to come off of which will bring you back to your normally optimistic state, then you've definitely got a real problem. It’s actually comforting and nice to know that there's a cause for the kind of hopeless feelings that make you want to jump off a cliff. Other things that may create suicidal thoughts are the choice of candidates in the current election, the state of your marriage or relationship, the state of your career or bank account, dismissive treatment even from people who you feel are beneath you and the possibility that Kim Jong-un could invent an ICBM with the capability of delivering warheads to targets in the United States--or arm ISIS with such weapons. Predictions about the melting of the North Pole and the consequent global effects on el Nino and the Gulf Stream may also make you want to put an end to it all. But after all these problems are solved, you're still not taking Chantix and you still are suffering from bad thoughts then you have come up against the kind of brick wall that may actually make you want to take your own life.

The Berenstain Bears Have a Nervous Breakdown

Remember The Berenstain Bears series that once delighted or may still continue to delight your children or grandchildren. The Berenstains are the Emily Posts of early childhood with titles like The Berenstain Bears Learn About Strangers, The  Berenstain Bears Show Some Respect, The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV, The Berenstain Bears Get In a Fight, The Berenstain Bears and a New Baby, The Berenstain Bears Go to School, The Berenstain Bears’ Bedtime Battle and The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners. But we live in a tell all culture where childhood is no longer an innocent place. It never was, of course, according to Freud whose concept of childhood sexuality still continues to perplex, irritate and enrage those who believe that man’s fall occurs  after puberty. These Berenstain Bears volumes are mild jeremiads meant to protect our little ones from the potholes of early development and it’s surprising there isn’t The Berenstain Bears Stick Their Finger in a Wall Socket or The Berenstain Bears Stick Their Knife in the Toaster (with a cover illustration of a Berenstain Bear getting electrocuted). But what if we let all the talk about equality titrate down to the little ones? What if we included them in the conversation by producing volumes like The Berenstain Bears Deal With Suicidal Ideation (cover illustration showing a bear standing on the ledge of a window that has no protective bars) or The Berenstain Bears Have a Nervous Breakdown (which shows that not very farflung notion of a Berenstain Bear receiving an SSRI and then trying to jump off the same window ledge). Or how about getting down and dirty with The Berenstain Bears Face the Realities of Erectile Dysfunction (who says you can’t teach pre-pubescent bears about Viagra), The Berenstain Bears and Menopause and The Berenstain Bears Read Up on BPH (benign prostatic hypertrophy) under the theory that it’s never to early to think about anything.

An Army of Depressives

Civilian Conservation Corps (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)

What are the virtues of treating suicidal ideation and depression by killing oneself with exercise. Firstly, you become strong. If you haven’t noticed, there are whole cadres of depressed people walking the streets who all look like Popeye due to their huge bulging biceps. If more depressed people glom onto the notion that they can release endorphins and change their lives by undertaking death defying workouts and involving themselves in extreme sports like climbing Everest, surfing kahunas produced by hurricanes and entering MMA competitions, then the world might not be better, but will certainly be a different place. It almost axiomatic that anyone who has built their body into an impregnable fortress is protecting themselves from things that are usually imagined. However, the net result for society is the creation of an army of warriors who have at least partially overcome a debilitating condition. On the most basic level, these soldiers of misfortune can serve as a power of example to those who are suffering from similar problems and ideally can also serve as potential guides. Therapy is usually ineffective in the face of clinical depression. Drugs of the illegal kind like opiates result in addiction and prescription drugs  reduce some sufferers (albeit not all) to semi-vegetative states. But exercise can do for the depressive what the CCC did for the legions of poverty stricken Americans during the real Depression. Buff depressives with six packs and sci-fi level aerobic capacities will defend our cities against thieves and terrorists while helping to rebuild the infrastructures of decaying cities like Detroit.