This one comes with a warning label and the guaranty that I am not contemplating this as I write. I was raised by someone who used the ‘S’ word weekly from the time I was twelve until the time I walked away forever, sixteen years later. I would later learn that as a victim of molestation, thoughts of suicide are normal, ordinary, and often expected. This is not graphic, but it is (hopefully) thought provoking. There have been periods throughout my life when death was all I could think of, all I wanted. My life is different now and I am very thankful for that. Please consider your own emotional and mental health if you read below the fold.
Since we are all born to end in death, and there is a popular belief that much of our lives are predestined, then isn’t it only a small stretch to say that the manner of our deaths could also be predestined? If you believe in reincarnation (and an education between lifetimes) then perhaps some of the times you die are not about you, but about the people you leave behind.
The vast majority of us want to go peacefully in our sleep, although many will make reference to dying in glory, dying doing what they love (who they love). When faced with simple choices, most of us want an easy, gentle, peaceful death. Slipping into oblivion to whatever we believe awaits us on the other side. Parents want to die before their children, lovers want to die together, we seek order, even in the manner of our death. It should be neat, tidy, controlled, yet it is not. Death is the final act in our love affair with this individual lifetime.
No one wants to be murdered, killed in some horrible accident, run down by a drunk driver. People don’t wish for those deaths, yet they happen every day. Certainly, no one says ‘yes, let me die of a long, debilitating disease.’ I am sure there are a few noble sorts (JJR) who, when faced with war, are comfortable enough to die in battle but they are certainly far and few between. Most of us don’t have that kind of courage and fortitude. It takes a special kind of person to face all your fears and still press onward and forward, knowing certain death is at the end of your charge. We make people differently now than we did two hundred years ago. (I’d speculate that is because in a lot of ways our frontiers are different now, but that’s a separate journal.)
So if our lives may be somewhat predestined and the manner of our deaths also, who is to say that some of us are not predestined to die by our own hand? Many people think about suicide, probably more than you know. Maybe you think about it, but are afraid to discuss it because of what people may think. Many people have never thought of it and find the very discussion of suicide a violation of their ordered world. It is an alien thought in their methodical, tidy life. The subject frightens them like ghost stories frighten children at a campfire. Suicide isn’t one of the ways in which many people understand death (or life). It is easier for some to come to grips with a friend or loved one having been murdered than to have that same friend end their own life. Why?
Is suicide selfish? I suppose that depends on who you ask. If you ask the person who intends to kill themselves, they’ll most likely tell you that they are tired of being a burden, tired of being unhappy, in pain, in sorrow, anguish, fear, despair ~ all of those words that mean life is miserable and difficult for them. For many, they wish to end their own life to seek peace for themselves and their loved ones upon whom they no longer wish to be a burden. So, yes, maybe in that sense it’s selfish. It can also be a surrender. Life, just the act of living here in this plane, is much more difficult for some than others. If you don’t fully understand that concept, then don’t worry, you’re not such a one and you can chalk this up to a weird article by a weird chick. If it makes you angry, please stop reading now. I did warn you ahead of time.
On the other hand, if you do understand, if you do feel difficulty in staying here day after day, year after year, if you hear and feel the weight of everything on you like a mantle made of nettles and boarded up doorways, then you understand that sometimes, that call for peace, that desire to end is virtually overpowering. It is seductive, a whisper that calls pledging peace, comfort, silence from the chaos and damage that it this plane.
It is not our place to judge another’s life and say they should have stuck it out. It is our nature, but it is far from our place. How do you know that you could have survived all of the memories of another? All of the captured hurt, sorrow, pain and anguish that they either couldn’t let go of or couldn’t escape? No one knows the answer to another’s life. We only think we do because it is human nature to try to fix the things that make us uncomfortable. What if there is nothing to be fixed that isn’t just destiny. ‘Let it go’, ‘get over it’ and ‘move on’ are not solutions. They are words. They offer nothing except further validation that something is wrong with you. Think of some of the finest memories you have and then try and comprehend that many souls carry an equal number of nightmarish memories which maintain an internal, eternal, mental war to endlessly overcome their memories of joy.
Yes, if you decide to end your life people will be sad. Some people may be angry at you. Depending on what you believe, you may or may not know. No one wants to leave their loved ones sad and unhappy. But guess what? When you die, unless you die in your nineties, in your sleep (and even then), someone, somewhere is going to be sad you died. It’s the nature of the wheel. Life, death, rebirth.
I have heard many people say that suicide is a coward’s way out. Stare down the barrel of a shotgun and tell me that’s cowardly. I have and I say it takes a different type of strength. It’s a way out. Yes. It’s choosing your end, folding before nature plays you your final hand. Sometimes for some, it’s the decision we have to face virtually every morning we wake and every night before we sleep.
There is a reincarnation theory that before we pass on to the next level of understanding we must die several different times, in several different ways in order to fully grasp our meaning. I’m not sure that we need to die a dozen times violently, but I do wonder if some of us aren’t scheduled at some point to die by our own hand.
Suicide is a real problem, often with no symptoms. If someone you know is talking about suicide, please LISTEN. Don't judge. Listen to them as if it's the last thing they'll ever say to you and then offer honest help from your heart, not your head.
Places to call for help:
1 (800) 273-8255
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Hours: 24 hours, 7 days a week
Languages: English, Spanish
Website: www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org
A couple other websites:
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/...
http://www.helpguide.org/...