14yr old shoots himself in the face and survives (suicide)

[Fluidic Kimbo]

I just saw this for the first time today:



This 14yr old kid's friends posted something on an internet service (so-called 'social media'), he was ashamed he'd let his parents down, and so he took his parents' shot gun and shot himself in the face.

His mother found him with a severe facial wound, and called an ambulance. He had a few life-saving surgeries and now he's continuing with his life.

[Test Monsterone]

I can’t believe he survived that. Other than the facial injury, he seems perfectly fine. No speech issues or mobility issues. The kid is in great shape. I hope he stays the course and doesn’t fall into that hole again.

[Fluidic Kimbo]

I can’t believe he survived that. Other than the facial injury, he seems perfectly fine. No speech issues or mobility issues. The kid is in great shape. I hope he stays the course and doesn’t fall into that hole again.

It's pretty mad alright; a shotgun typically blows a person's head right open. But not so much as a speech impediment nor memory loss.

When I see stories like this, there's a thought that always comes into my mind:
If I was this 14yr old kid who is now an 18yr old young adult, I'd look in the mirror at my disfigured appearance and think to myself "I could be where I am now today but with an intact face if I hadn't done what I did".

In that YouTube video he looks happy and healthy, he obviously has found some sort of footing in life. I think I would have great difficulty continuing my life with a disfigured face. Maybe I'm vain.

I suppose one thing he has going for him is that he probably has women falling all over him now after sharing his story publicly (YouTube, local TV stations). And the woman he ends up will probably have the right values -- although that isn't a guarantee!

[Test Monsterone]

Yes, that's what I thought of as well... It would be very difficult to think that way. I'm not sure if women are falling all over him because of his disfigured face, but he probably is getting a lot of attention. Hopefully he finds a good woman, like you said.


This kind of thing reminds me of many similar stories of people having to face death to rediscover life. There was a kid who jumped off of the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco (a bridge many people commit suicide from each year). The majority of people die, but this kid somehow lived. He said the last thing he thought of as he was falling was how much he regretted jumping. In the video, he seemed to have changed his life around and is grateful to be alive. It's really a change of perspective that needs to happen. There are people starving in the world who are fighting to survive each day and would give anything to be in any one of our shoes on this forum. Yet, many of us (I know I'm guilty of this), fall into spells of depression and suicidal ideation.

If you haven't seen the movie "Everest," it's a great movie based on the disastrous 1996 Everest expedition. One of the men climbing that day was Beck Weathers, a cardiologist from Texas. In the movie he was left for dead and basically had to walk down on his own with frozen hands and face. He was left for dead twice and still managed to survive. He and another guy were the first to get rescued at a record altitude by helicopter. The helicopter could barely manage to float at that altitude.

Well, I was intrigued by his story, so I bought his book (Left for Dead - again, highly recommended). In it he talks about his constant struggles with depression before his "accident" on Everest. He had climbed many mountains trying to find his happiness. He felt he had to put himself in these highly dangerous situations in order to feel alive, and when he was home, he would fall into great spells of depression that were ruining his relationships/marriage. He said the experience on Everest changed his life and made him realize all he had and how precious it was. He started loving his wife and children more than ever before and basically became a changed man. All with two hands and a nose missing. They managed to grow a nose on his forehead and attach it to where his nose used to be. He has some sort of hook device on another hand... but... the man is alive and very happy to be here.

I feel like we have all some great unhappiness in us that motivates us to do what we do in life. Some paths are immediately destructive, some take longer to unwind.

[Fluidic Kimbo]

This kind of thing reminds me of many similar stories of people having to face death to rediscover life.
<snip>
It's really a change of perspective that needs to happen.

Your second point has been worded a few different ways in a few different cultures and by a few different philosophers. For example Eckhart Tolle would say "The problem is not the problem, your attitude to the problem is the problem". When I was in rehab they would say "You look at life through the lens of your past experiences".

This idea of holding your own personal lens up to everything you see is all about perspective and perception.

I think that 99% of cases of unhappiness are simply a person disallowing themselves to be happy (i.e. they have revoked their own licence to be happy). The solution in these cases is Step 1: Give yourself a break, and Step 2: Re-issue your license. Be happy.

I enjoy flying around the world going to German saunas and Spanish beaches and Italian tourist hostels. I can do all this on two legs with an intact face. It would be a big blow to my identity and sense of who I am if I couldn't walk or if my face got mangled.

I think all sane people realise that there are worse things than death, and that euthanasia should be freely available to people whose life is a living hell. I think the biggest difference between people who kill themselves and people who hang on for dear life, is how low a standard of living they're willing to accept. Of course too there is their internal emotional state which is for the most part unobservable by others.

I reckon that kids' parents put blanks in the shotgun. The injury to his face looks like it could have been done by a blank fired at point blank. A real shotgun blast would have looked like a desert eagle 50 cal exploding a water mellon, his head would no longer have been a head.

[Honkey_Kong]

They say suicide is a permanent fix for temporary problems. Whatever problems somebody is going through might seem like the end of the world to them then, but with a little help and time, it can all get sorted out. They'll never get a chance to see things get resolved when they take "the coward's way out."

[wango]

As I’ve seen far too much of teen suicide, I take it tremendously serious, sincerely. However, from one of my favorite shows ever “Preacher” it’s arseface who just like the young man above attempted suicide with a shot-gun and lived . . . .

[Fluidic Kimbo]