Something horrible happened here on Thanksgiving night. I heard about it when I walked into the newsroom on Friday morning. As the day wore on every snippet of new information was more horrific – leaving the crew of veteran reporters and editors in our newsroom shaking their heads.

In nearly 30 years of journalism – much of it as a beat reporter covering crime – I have covered many horrific crimes. This case is among the worst. Frankly, I don’t want to recount the details.

Of the four people and one unborn child executed that night, one haunts me: 6-year-old Makayla Sitton, shot five times, including her head and heart, as she slept in her bed – just hours before her premier as a ballerina in The Nutcracker. Makayla was the only child of beloved local television photojournalist Jim Sitton and his wife Muriel. Jim was trying to break into his daughter’s bedroom window when he heard the shots. Makayla’s mother, Muriel Sitton, who had served the family Thanksgiving dinner earlier, was also there.

They tried to revive their only daughter. The paramedics tried, too. Makayla died. As of Sunday night, Jim Sitton was still wearing the clothes he wore when he held his dying daughter – his left shirt sleeve speckled with blood.

I am a single mom. I have one child – Kealy – and she is the love of my life, the center of my universe and a gift beyond my wildest dreams. Like all parents I have had those horrible thoughts – what if…? Because I am a reporter and have interviewed and listened to the testimony of many parents who have lost their children, I have seen this anguish up close. It scares the hell out of me.

Three years ago, during my last major depression, I admitted that I had tried to kill myself twice before as a teen and was now thinking again killing myself. The only thing stopping me was my daughter. She was my anchor to life. I believed I had no reason to live without her.

“Anything happens to …

As of 12:01 am EST today, the holidays began in my house. Before that time I do now allow anything Christmas in my house – no lights, no lists and no music – especially that chipper Feliz Navidad song the plays over and over and over in my head like some kind of Guantanamo torture technique.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the holidays. I love everything about the holidays. I just hate what the holidays do to me – and I am not talking about my love handles. I get too happy and I cry. I get nostalgic and I cry. I get lonely and I cry. I miss my parents and I cry. I read The Littlest Angel and I cry. I watch those diamond commercials with some guy giving his girlfriend a big honkin’ rock and I sob.

I don’t feel sorry for myself. I simply feel TOO MUCH. There are too many feelings and they are too strong. I get angry at the guy with the Porsche who takes up two parking spaces at the mall so I don’t ding his precious Porsche’s doors. I get annoyed by clerks who can’t  make change. I get anxious about getting my damn Christmas cards mailed. I get very sad because it is just me, my daughter, our dog and her bunny. No aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings or grandparents. Just the four of us.

I have heard it said that mental illness is a threefold disease: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. So if you know someone with a mental illness – and let’s not forget that alcoholism and addictions ARE MENTAL ILLNESSES – watch out for them. Find out what they are doing for Hanukkah or Christmas Eve. If they have no plans, invite them. Make sure they have at least one gift to open. Call them for no reason but to say “hello.” If you see they are isolating and withdrawing, check on them. You can’t imagine how frustrating it is for us. We know this is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. Believe me, we know.

Do what …

Depression is a lot of things: a chemical imbalance, a neurotransmitter malfunction or “a cluster of emotional, physical and behavioral symptoms characterized by sadness, low self esteem, loss of pleasure, and, sometimes, difficulty functioning.” I have even heard depression defined as the denial of God – which is absolutely ludicrous and, simply put, stupid.

If I had to describe what the bottom of my depression feels like, I would say it feels like being trapped in an existence without gratitude. My soul is paralyzed, wanting and knowing that I should be at least grateful for my next breath and heartbeat but unable to muster or even fake that desire. The basic, most primitive instinct of all living organisms – to live – is gone.

Without the ability to feel gratitude, my life – every blink of an eye or growl of my stomach – means nothing. There is no value in living. Hopelessness, despondency, misery and every other depressing adjective in the dictionary surrounds us. There is no where to turn. We are no good to ourselves. We are no good to you.

But we are not ingrates. To be an ingrate you have to be unappreciative and indifferent to what you have been given. That is not us. We desperately want to be appreciative. We really want your hugs, concern, phone calls and prayers to instill in us genuine, life-sustaining gratitude. We hate ourselves for our inability to feel gratitude for all you have given us. It is not your fault. It is no one’s fault. It is depression.

But today my depression is gone. Over. Sayonara. Today – on Thanksgiving Eve – I am going to swaddle myself in gratitude. I am going to write it down. I am going to feel, smell, taste, touch and hear every molecule of gratitude in my life. I am going to do this today so that tomorrow – Thanksgiving – I can wake up in the afterglow of all this gratitude.

I am going to do this today because a single day is not long enough time …

All threee have dates.

Bryan’s date is Oct. 10, 2008. That is the day his father killed himself. Bryan talked about his father today at the annual survivor conference sponsored by the Southeast Florida Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in Fort Lauderdale.

Bryan could not find enough adjectives to describe how wonderul, amazing, fun-loving, hardworking, absolutely hilarious his father was. A mountain biker, successful businessman, skiier, race car driver, a man who seemed to love his life and his life love him back.

“In his note he wrote maybe I lived too good a life,” Bryan said.

Just before Oct. 10, 2008 his father sold his possessions, he stopped doing things that he liked to do, he was in a severe depression and he had a prior suicide attempt in 2001.

“Bryan, you don’t know how bad this depression is,” Bryan recalled his father saying. “In his note he also wrote that it was too late.”

Paul lost his partner of 16 years on March 10, 2005 but that was not the worst day of his life. March 11, 2005 was the worst day of his life. That day he called his family, his partner’s family and friends.

“In addition to the stigma of suicide, I was shunned by coworkers because we were a gay couple,” Paul told the audience here in Fort Lauderdale today. “I am not going to deny that he died by suicide or that I loved this man.”

“The more we discuss suicide, the more we say the word “suicide”, the less stigma there will be,” Paul said. “Please say the word “suicide.” It’s a form of death.”

Renae’s son was 25-years-old when he shot himself. That was one year and seven months ago.

“From the day the sheriff came to my door until today, I have not cried,” she said. “It is amazing how the word has moved on and dragged me along. There are some of the longest days and nights but the longest years that have ever been.”

She is mad at the authorities, who treat suicide like a crime: “We are subjected to their accusations and questions. People feel like they have the right to …

There are books on display by the front table here at the annual conference for survivors sponsored by the southeast Florida Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. There are books on grief, why people commit suicide, my new book on my experience with depression, bipolar and alcoholism, along with brochures and newsletters.

“Are there any books for children?” one woman asked during the Q&A.

Yes, a Michael T. Miles, a psychologist who works with children told the crowd: The Fall of Freddie the Leaf
by Leo Buscaglia.

Let me know if you know of other books.

I am spending today with several dozen survivors at a gathering sponsored by the southeast Florida chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. On each table are programs for the event, LifeSavers candy and packets of Kleenex. I want to share with you what I experience here today. I have never been to this annual event before. I am told it will change my life. I believe them.

I found this in the folder on my table.

Survivors Bill of Rights
I have the right to be free of guilt.
I have the right not to feel reponsible for the suicide death.
I have the right to express my feelings and emotions, even if they do not seem acceptable, as long as they do not interfere with the rights of others.
I have the right to have my questions answered honestly by authorities and family members.
I have the right not to be deceived because others feel they can spare me further grief.
I have the right to maintain a sense of hopefulness.
I have the right to peace and dignity.
I have the right to positive feelings about the one I lost through suicide, regardless of events prior to or at the time of the untimely death.
I have the right to retain my individuality and not be judged because of the suicide death.
I have the right to seek counseling and support groups to enable me to explore my feelings honestly to further the acceptance process.
I have the right to reach acceptance.
I have the right to a new beginning.
I have the right to be.

From JoAnn Mecca’s Center for Inner Growth and Wholeness

Today is National Suicide Survivors Day. Survivors are the loved ones who live with anguished – and sometimes angry – hearts. Their lives are consumed with unimaginable sorrow and unanswered questions: What could I have done? How could I have missed this? Why? Why? Why? How do I live with this?

“You don’t,” said a mother whose son killed himself with a gunshot to the head. “You learn to live around it.”

My thoughts today turn to two coworkers – one drank himself to death, the other swallowed a bottle of pills and left behind two young sons. “He’s really cold,” one of the boys told me as we stood beside his father’s casket.

My thoughts today are with another friend who left left behind twin boys – just toddlers – when he closed the garage door and turned the ignition key on his truck. My prayers today are for the widow of German soccer star Robert Enke – whose husband stepped in front of a train two weeks ago. He had depression and was overwhelmed with fear that if his illness became public the baby girl the couple adopted earlier this year would be taken from them – just as their natural daughter was taken from them several years ago when her heart failed.

I will spent today at a local conference of suicide survivors. I doubt I will be able to listen to all of the speakers’ stories. But I will try. Suicide scares me. I have seen a glimpse of the unfathomable grief it leaves behind. Suicide scares me because I know I am capable of it. Twice before I have tried. I know the thoughts. I know the singleness of purpose. I know the pain. I know, I know, I know.

Today I will pray that God gives the survivors serenity, acceptance and absolution from their unnecessary guilt. Even if just for a moment, God, just let them have some peace.

It is naive to believe that people will respond to stressful events in exactly the same way. Actually, it is stupid. Which is why I am slightly ticked off this morning by an opinion piece written by the Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Charles Krauthammer.

In it, Krauthammer, a psychiatrist who has not practiced for decades, slams those of us who believe what he skeptically calls “Secondary Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” “Vicarious Traumatization” or “Compassion Fatigue”. The Army calls it “Provider Fatigue.”

Krauthammer scoffs at recent reports that Dr. Nidal Hasan’s job of listening to the terrible stories of combat-wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan may have contributed to his rampage at Fort Hood: “They suffered. He listened. He snapped.”

“Really? What about the doctors and nurses, the counselors and physical therapists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who every day hear and live with the pain and the suffering of returning soldiers? How many of them then picked up a gun and shot 51 innocents?”

None, which is my point. We each have our own set of personal circumstances. Dr. Hasan is Muslim. He is against the war. He was afraid of being sent to the battlefields he had heard so much about. He was concerned about going into a combat zone where our soldiers were killing enemies who practiced the same religion – Islam. We do not know if Dr. Hasan is mentally ill. News reports do portray him as a zealot and we know that religiosity is a symptom of some mental illnesses.

To say that Dr. Hasan should have the same emotional strength and fortitude as other doctors, nurses, counselors and therapists at Walter Reed Amy Medical Center is to say that if you swim the same workouts as Michael Phelps you should be as fast as Michael Phelps.

Some of us are physically and mentally stronger than others – ergo – we react differently to the same stressor. I am NOT making excuses for Dr. Hasan. But I will defend Secondary PTSD – which Krauthammer snears at: “After all, secondary PTSD, for those who believe in it (you won’t find it in the …