Suicide Awareness and Metal Health For Men In Prison

Do we really pay close attention to the people's emotions around us?

Do we believe people should mind their own business? Bible studies are expected in prison. A group of men will meet at a designated time and place each week. The guy who facilitates the Bible Study will usually bring coffee, cookies, or other snacks. In prison, we call these snakes "tables pleasures." When you want to start a conversation about the Bible with a stranger in prison, open a pack of cookies and offer him a cookie. It works every time. Prisoners at Bible Study will go over the scriptures and expound on what God's word says and how it relates to their personal lives.

“Let me tell you a story of what happens when we, mind our own business”

How could a man who faithfully attend Bible Study, and no one noticed any changes in his emotions that led him to commit suicide.

Minding Our Own Business

I remember hearing about a Christian brother from a bible study who committed suicide. I do not remember his name, but his last day touched me in many ways. It happened unexpectedly. From what I know, he received the usual phone call from his family. No one knows the detail of the phone conversation. He hung up the phone angrily, walked to his cubicle, sat on his bunk, and ripped up pictures and personal letters. No one said a word to him. They were "minding their own business." According to inmates in the area, in the early morning hours, he ran and jumped over the balcony two stories high to his death on the concert floor below. How could a man who faithfully attended Bible Study and no one notice any changes in his emotions that led him to suicide?

We live in a fulling-driven culture that celebrates the open expression of intense emotions. However, there is the mindset of "minding your own business," or " we will say he knows he can always come and talk to me if he has a problem." Yet the tasks of handling extreme emotions, like suicide intervention or prevention --are often difficult and confusing especially when it involves those we love (let alone people we hardly know). Unchecked emotional extremes have the power to dominate our lives and the lives of those around us, bringing unwanted loss of control, vulnerability, and patterns of self-destruction.

An enormous amount of money is spent on prescription and illegal drugs that alter or control one's feelings. The prevailing psychiatric and psychological motels proposed subconscious conflicts, environmental influences, neurochemical imbalances, or tragic disease as the alleged root cause of extreme emotions. However, these theories have not been proven definitively nor provided a cure. The unwanted feeling seems to wreak havoc in our lives. The feeling may start as small as a spark, but unchecked can feed suicidal thoughts or become a contagion that consumes the entirety of your life.

You Got G.A.M.E