Friday, July 25, 2008

Foreclosure turns to suicide

It has all the elements a tragedy - of the how one of life's goals - owning a home - can turn into loss of life and a family torn apart.

My colleague, Kristen, over at b5media where I have my two other health blogs, wrote about a woman in Massachusetts who committed suicide hours before a bank was going to foreclose her home. She felt that there was no other way out.

I'm not going to rant about how idiotic and greedy business practices led to this horrible foreclosure business - but I am very sad about the broken dreams, broken promises, and now - lost lives - that result.

For sure, the people who took the no-cash down loans likely had stars in their eyes. But our society places so much value on owning a home, on owning property, that you almost can't blame people for trying to reach that measure of success. As a result, the world crashed around some of these homeowners. This Massachusetts woman is likely not the only victim, not likely the only person who died over this debacle.

Suicide is so painful to those who survive. I know. I've written it before - my brother committed suicide at the age of 35, over three years ago now. It still hurts terribly. I can only imagine the pain this woman was in and I can only imagine the depths of her despair.

Here is Kristen's post. It's worth reading, I think: Massachusetts Woman Facing Foreclosure Kills Herself — Suicide Note Tells Family to Use the Life Insurance Money to Pay the Mortgage.

Today at Help My Hurt:

You’ve likely seen this headline: Fentanyl Killing People!!
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Today at Womb Within:

ABCs of pregnancy: N is for…
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Sex ed, pregnancy and type 1 diabetes
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News for Today:

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Giving an additional early vaccination may reduce measles outbreaks
Study shows emergency physicians have good first instincts in diagnosing heart attacks

1 comment:

Crabby McSlacker said...

It's a sad situation indeed.

However, I think it points to a larger problem we have in our consumerist culture, especially in the states. I knew a number of people who had plenty of warning that the housing market was in a bubble, and that their interest rates would balloon and they'd be in trouble if prices dropped, but they went ahead anyway. Why did they make such risky purchases? Because they wanted that new house NOW and didn't want to wait until they could really afford it.

I may be wrong but I think previous generations seemed a bit better at saving up for things than we are.