Five Finger Death Punch Just Punch Out Hopelessness

Five Finger Death Punch just made me cry again.  Not normally a fan of heavy metal, since I'm old and listen to music from the 70's and 80's, but this group has won me over. 

After "Wrong Side of Heaven" about homeless veterans, I am so glad they are out there trying to do what they can with a great amount of talent and surprisingly tender hearts.  You can't put out videos like theirs if you didn't care about the subject.

Well, it seems as if they've just done it again.  They just made me cry. This time My Memesis is about people falling apart.  At the end of the video is this, “Grief is an irreversible current of sadness when you miss your last opportunity to be there for someone.”

If you've been following the "suicide awareness" folks screaming about 22 a day, it is a safe bet you haven't learned anything.  Nothing has changed and the more people I talk to, the more sick to my stomach I get.

So just getting facts out of the way, since the "awareness" folks don't like them very much here's the truth.

CDC Suicides in America 
"There were 41,149 suicides in 2013 in the United States—a rate of 12.6 per 100,000 is equal to 113 suicides each day or one every 13 minutes."

For veterans, reports from all over the country put veterans committing suicide double the civilian population rate, which means that there are over 26,000 veterans committing suicide in this country every year.  Sorry but if you believed the bull of "22 a day" then you've just missed over 50 more. 

It seems the "awareness" folks were unaware of the fact that the report from the VA stated clearly it was using limited data from just 21 states.

Ok, so now that you know that, what do you do about it? Learn to help them live instead of talking about something you don't have a single clue about. If you don't know, don't talk.  SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND LEARN if you really want to make a difference because if you can't listen to facts then how the hell do you think you're going to be able to sit and listen to someone opening up about the pain they are dealing with?

All they want at that moment is to be able to know they matter enough that someone actually took the time to spend with them and listen to whatever they wanted to share.

Don't look at your watch.  Don't look at your phone to see who did what on Facebook. Look into their face and see their eyes.  Hold their hand.  Give them a hug.  Whatever you do, don't try to fix them.  You're not qualified but you are more than qualified to give them what they need at that exact moment. Be someone to let them know they actually do matter!

Don't judge them.  Don't try to find an answer or come up with some stupid shit you read online like "God only gives us what we can handle" because then you are telling them God did it to them! 

Whatever you did yesterday doesn't matter because you just didn't know any better.  What you do from this point on is in your hands.

The CDC has a link to the most recent reports on suicide across the country. American Foundation for Suicide Prevention so you can get a better idea on anyone facing the choice of this being their last worst day by ending their life or ending the suffering by changing and living.

Five Finger Death Punch Reveal Powerful Video for ‘My Nemesis’
Loudwire.com
By Chad Childers
February 29, 2016

As we’ve seen in recent years, when Five Finger Death Punch make videos, they make sure they use the art form for maximum impact. Whether it be driving home a point about post-traumatic stress disorder for soldiers or delivering a cinematic, movie-like clip for entertainment, Five Finger Death Punch rarely disappoint. So with their new video for “My Nemesis,” you knew the band had something pretty special in store.

The band reunited with director Nick Peterson, who also helmed their “Coming Down” and “Wrong Side of Heaven” videos. In the new clip we see multiple storylines playing out with a teen girl leaving home and hitting the streets to get away from her drug abusing mother, a teen boy exiting his home to escape his abusive father and a man dealing with extreme grief after losing his wife and walking in on his son and his friends using drugs. The three central characters all end up at the beach staring longingly at the ocean as a message appears on the screen. “Grief is an irreversible current of sadness when you miss your last opportunity to be there for someone,” reads the message.
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