Been in your boat my dear and my comments where a expression of humor not an attack on you or any other sufferer, my own wrapped sense of humor was what i was expressing i find a good laugh is the best medicine for me.

No more “love thy neighbour” and “feed the poor and oppressed” the neoliberal experiment has been an illusion of liberty while reinstating the law of the jungle.

Our ancestors built walls to keep monsters at bay, and now like naive children we think there is no such thing as evil. The malaise is spiritual and the answer is God. We need to return to Him and restore the mana of the Tangata Whenua who were largely a peaceful Christian people when the NZ government began slaughtering them and taking their land and their future.

https://www.huiacomehome.co.nz/book

As a retd. NZ registered nurse (psychiatric & general, with other relevant qualifications) I have striven to help those who were suicidal AND I’ve myself been suicidal 3 times – each time with “good reason” – like knowing I could possibly go blind & thereby not be able to work as a nurse; knowing that there’s no cure for Multiple Sclerosis – caused by mercury in vaccinations I had to have so as to become a NZRN; having a “friend” whom I helped with oppressive legal challenges, who stole more than $200,000 dollars from me – practically all that I had & acquired by selling my home; (long story, that has caused me to never trust another “man”;), I can assure Rickoshay & like “thinkers” that I’ve never known a “quitter” & I am certainly not one. Rather, I’m a survivor & I think there are many thousands of us.

Lots of us live close to the brink too much of our time. Some of us have fewer coping strategies than do others. My major strategy is to live as much as possible with an “attitude of gratitude” & to say “thank you” to the universe as often as I can. I also swallow lots of B vitamins – real cure for depression – unlike the toxic, poisonous chemicals called “antidepressives” by ignorant, allopathic “doctors” who prescribe them.

Some find it impossible to walk even one step in another’s shoes & possibly Rickoshay is such a one.

Here’s why:

The current lifestyle of most people living in NZ is dependent on the importation of huge amounts of petroleum.

However, conventional extraction is in terminal decline and the global supply of oil is currently being propped up by short-term strategies such as fracking to extract ‘tight oil’. Fracking wells have extraordinarily high depletion rates -as high as 80% within 2 years of drilling!

This is extreme short-termism, and the long-term implications are obvious.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-25/what-if-there-isnt-enough-energy-going-forward

Politicians always put energy depletion into the ‘too hard basket’ (along with environmental degradation). Yet the longer NZ remains locked into the petroleum economy, the worse health of the nation and harder the fall will be when the crunch finally does come.

I don’t recognize nations as anything other than geographical states that serve the interests of the ruling classes. Those ruling classes couldn’t care less about the working masses, whether they live or die, as long as they die working to make the bosses’ profits.

Working people have no nation because their interests are global. To oppose worker migrants, whose countries have been destroyed by capitalism, from contaminating your own national culture, is to side with ruling class national chauvinism, as a means of dividing and ruling the working class globally.

Only a working class united internationally can dispense with capitalism and build a society which allows humans to escape alienation and survive in harmony with nature.

Jesus Dave that’s bleak albeit very perceptive.
No east fix there, what do we take from that? It’s ok to not be able to fix the worlds problems on our own?
Love the one you’re with?

Narrative always follows statistics. Want to jump ahead and forcast the future? Then you kind of have to ask what drove an almost doubling of suicide rates. Just focusing on technicals is next to useless. So from the top in the legislative arena in the previous year to 2016 we saw massive cuts to social programs and hours worked, the number of workers went up but the hours worked atayed the same. At the bottom righting wallets meant low end consumers had to make tough choices between food and shelter. So because there’s been a change of government and a change in how economic indicators is gathered in the last year. Do I think these prevailing economic winds will continue under the current government, probably not. Do I think we’ll see an easing of suicide rates dropping off to management levels over the next 10 years, probably. Do I think the turning economic winds will sustain and grow the economy, yes, probably.

This country lacks something. The tough rugby players, the disciplined cricket players, the finger nail biting race horse and betting enthusiasts, the ‘hard working’ Kiwi, the bla, bla, bla so idealised average ‘Kiwi Battler’ and his and her society may be SICK at the core.

A people and country need a heart, a spirit, some time to let go, to let steam off, to be passionate and emotional, but here in NZ Inc, that is hard to find. Often it is only happening when laced with alcohol or other drugs. At least they need lots of adrenalin, to ‘function’, it seems.

At least such poor countries like in Latin America have their carnival, their catholic condoned time of the flesh and foolishness, I note there is NO such tradition here.

There is not even much of a new years celebration, except getting drunk and tumbling somehow into the new year.

Can people show emotions, without being embarrassed, can people share a space where they are allowed to be foolish for a moment, can people be human for a change?

It seems in NZ Inc it is all designed to simply fit the norm and to ‘function’, or else you are classed as being a ‘failure’ or drop out, and thus not up to it.

Something is wrong with the ‘culture’ here, I am sure Maori and Pasifika have some outlets, but for most, it is not there, a grim society of stereotyped battlers and achievers and people forced to fit into the mold or bugger off. Sad really.

Did you look at the link?

‘New Zealand’s suicide rate – the number of suicides per 100,000 population – is at the highest level since the statistics were first recorded in 2007 and has increased for the fourth year in a row.’

‘The suicide rate per 100,000 people was 13.67, up from 12.64 the previous year.’

‘There was a spike in suicides in Auckland
Provisional suicide deaths per 100,000 people, years to June’