It looks like Neal Casal killed himself. If you don't know who Neal is it will only take a cursory search to discover he was a musician who covered a lot of ground. A guitarist who played with a great many bands and a singer/songwriter who wrote some beautiful songs. He was 50 years old. He had just performed at a very large music festival this weekend. He has fans all over the world and yet he decided for his own, personal reasons that it was better if he ceased to be. That the world or at least HIS world was better without him in it.
I'm not a fan of these "repost to show someone is listening" memes that do the round on Facebook. The bottom line is that sometimes it doesn't matter if somebody is listening. The bottom line is that you feel so sad that you can't carry on. That you have nothing more that you can give. You have done all that you can.
We must change our attitude to sadness. We must not put all mental health problems in the same basket. We must learn to recognise the difference in people's suffering. We must appreciate, understand and most of all accept the fact that there are people in this world who are sad. There's no rhyme or reason. There's no logical answer. There is however, the ability to understand and we can help by understanding the person. We can help by recognising and being considerate. We can appreciate and love people and make them aware of it. This doesn't just pertain to those in an extreme mental state but to any other human being. We are a compassionate species and we must make sure that even the most sad, lonely, upset and emotionally troubled are aware of that.
Chin up x
