This sucks...


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Any news of cause of death yet? Still lots of questions it seems.

nice97civic said:

Any news of cause of death yet? Still lots of questions it seems.

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Don't know, but in the end, I'm not sure how much it matters. I know people are curious though.

Huge loss to the car scene, was lucky enough to meet him at WCF a few years ago, as everyone said, very humble and friendly.

The 1320 post was edited about 30 minutes after initially posting, the last line originally included: ".....free of the challenges he was facing". Pretty self explanatory.

Yeah...it's sad AF. He was only 43. Check on your peoples.

diambo4life said:

Yeah...it's sad AF. He was only 43. Check on your peoples.

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jdxnc said:

The 1320 post was edited about 30 minutes after initially posting, the last line originally included: ".....free of the challenges he was facing". Pretty self explanatory.

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I saw Cleetus post something referring to that too. We don't know if that's the true story or not, and we may never know. I don't want to add to that speculation, but if that is what truly took him from the world, it would be just another example of success and the appearance of joy not being enough to offset the internal struggles. It would make you wonder what kind of support could have actually made a difference for someone like him. People always suggest supporting those close to you, but what does that look like in actual real world actions? I don't know that enough people really understand that. I know I could use some insights on it - both on how to give meaningful support, and how to receive it/accept it. Because many, if not all of us go through some really dark times.

Again, we don't know for sure if that was it or not.

I certainly was not being intentionally insincere, just genuinely curious and I wholeheartedly agree that cause does not matter at the end of the day.

As for the speculative cause, it's really difficult to support someone if they're dealing with things on their own without sharing. The best we can do without that knowledge is let our friends know that, for no reason at all, we love them and are around if they need someone to vent to, cry at, etc. Knowing there is an outlet could just be the differencemaker.

He took his own life. That's arrived through logical deduction from the events that transpired. The issue is that it's still a stigma to talk about suicide, and all the hush hush when it happens (you old school guys remember about Smithey) just contributes to the mystery of that subject. It's one of the leading causes of death amongst men, especially young men. We guys internalize shit. When we meet our buddies over beer, BBQ we are more interested in knowing what they are doing instead of how they are doing. I mean, think about the last time you talked to your buddy. What did you guys talk about? It needs to change. Women actually talk to each other and find out more about each other's welfare. Suicide rates for men are 4x that of women.

It sucks. There's speculation that he suffered a TBI during the crash in December. A brain injury, however small, can put you in a dark place. I still haven't recovered fully from a concussion a year and a half ago and some things may never return to normal.

As men we never get the due because it’s just normalized what we do in the first world. Roof, food, vehicles, bills, family, friends, emergencies. You just need to make it all work all the time. There is no real thanks making the world go around.

diambo4life said:

I mean, think about the last time you talked to your buddy. What did you guys talk about?

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This just happened a few weeks ago in my circle of friends.
From the front, this was the most happy, joking, full of life 41 y/o dude.
But it was always 'whatcha working on' and never the right question.
The worst way to learn how your buddy is actually doing is the local police scanner FB page on a Friday night.

The internal pain and loneliness can make life feel impossible to bear sometimes. Even for people who appear to be doing great. And you don't want your pain to cause pain for those close to you, or be a burden on them. You don't want to be a negative drain on those around you, so you limit what you share so you don't have people pulling away from you. I know about that. I think more of us have been there than we all realize.

It's difficult to imagine a call from someone close to us, or having the right questions asked in those moments breaking that mental spiral, but who knows maybe it would. Trouble is, being men, we tend to try to solve it for others by giving advice on what that person should be doing... which I know wouldn't help me when I'm in one of those spirals. And of course we don't reach out to others when we need help, or even know how to do it effectively. Never in those moments at least.

Watching the series The Pitt really hits you if you've felt this way. Noah Wyle's character does a pretty good job at depicting someone going through the darkness. Even someone with close friends who notice what you're dealing with and try to support you, it's not always enough. Those of us who don't have a lot of close relationships, who constantly keep things internalized, it can feel impossibly hopeless.

If any of you deal with this, I feel for you. There's others out there who share your struggle. I don't know if there's anything I could do to help personally, but I'm happy to try. I'd like to learn how to be effective at helping.