I just made something of a difficult decision to unfriend someone who has been an online friend for about 12 years. I didn't block this person, I don't hate them, but I really can't be friends with someone who expresses harsh opinions of people who commit suicide and is not willing to attempt to have sympathy for those who have made this desperate decision.
Trigger warning for discussion of suicide and severe trauma
Not everyone is wired exactly the same way. Some people naturally bear up under adversity better than others. Those who can't manage to get through are not bad people.
One of the experiences which caused me PTSD for years was the sight of a young autistic and severely mentally ill man with brain damage who could no longer continue the struggle and who blew the front of his forehead off with a shotgun.
For years not a day went by that I didn't see that image in my mind. I never hated him for it. Most people had no idea the struggles this guy went through. The day came that he couldn't do it anymore.
I had to "flatten" the image and desensitize it so I would stop thinking of it all the time. It's the same thing I had to do with the last time I saw my father. He was a shell of his former self, lying in the bed in the hospice, not breathing and not moving. I was very stoic and didn't cry. I knew I would never see him again in this life when I left the room, but I had to leave. I was a zombie. I dreamed of that image of him and I didn't want to remember him that way, so I had to flatten the image in my mind.
When a person commits suicide, it causes trauma to those left behind. It's fair to be mad at the person. It's not fair to say they were weak or selfish or a coward.
Also, not everyone responds to the "magic pills" in the same way. Some people do very well with antidepressants, but not everyone is wired the same. My son had no response to them at all. For me, they made me manic and psychotic. I had a cousin who tried many medications and didn't respond to any of them. She ended up committing suicide. She was not weak, selfish, or a coward. She was at the end of the line and couldn't go on another day. What she did does not make her a bad person.
There is this tendency to believe that people who live with mood disorders aren't "trying hard enough." In fact, few people try harder to overcome their "stinkin' thinkin'" than people with mood disorders. If it was easy to break out of depression, nobody would be depressed. Who the fuck WANTS to be depressed?
Happy people are not "better" than people who are unable to be happy. I can count on one hand the times I've truly felt happy. I've been giddy, which is not the same as being happy. There is a peace that comes with actual happiness. Giddiness is a form of mania.
My baseline is moderately depressed. Over the past few years, I've realized that doesn't make me a lesser person than someone who is always happy. It is highly unlikely that I will ever become a person who isn't always at least a bit sad. This realization has lessened the suicide ideation to a degree, but the suicide ideation will also always be there. I don't need to "heal" and become a "bright light" to be worthy of respect and good treatment. If you believe in a higher power, maybe us "dark" sorts serve a purpose just as much as the social butterflies. Introspective people have a tendency to be both observant and empathic. That's hardly a bad thing.
If I commit suicide, it probably won't be because of my mood disorder. I can't say I'm friends with my mood disorder, but we've reached an understanding. I won't continually try to eradicate it, and it will quit trying to kill me.
No, if I commit suicide it will be because I am either in an intolerable state of physical pain or because I have developed dementia. If that happens, I will not tell anyone before I do it, I will just do it. No-one will know until after the fact.
I would never say that someone who committed suicide for this (or any other) reason is "weak," "selfish," or a "coward.
If you're a person who can continue on in spite of adversity, great. Maybe that makes you a "better person" in some ways. But it doesn't make people who can't bad people who should be treated with disdain.
A little empathy is in order. Maybe if you can't muster any, you should be questioning why your beliefs about people who are suffering are so harsh.
~The Cheese Hath Grated It~
3 comments:
Having tried it once, suicide that is, I find I cannot either condemn nor condone it. Life is precious, all life. I may be a tragic figure but I take care when I dry my eyes after a shower in case I kill the microscopic lifeforms that live in eyelashes. I also take care when walking trying to avoid stomping on insects. Sometime's it is unavoidable and I feel no guilt as I haven't set out intentionally to kill. If all life is precious then so is your own life. You cannot love another unless you first love yourself.
There are so many reasons why people feel suicidal and I think they all need remembering. Saying out of hand that those who contemplate suicide are weak or selfish or cowardly is just plain stupid and very unhelpful. I do think it right to offer them help. I do think it right to recognise that those peoples own minds have either faced trauma, abuse of cruelty at some stage and those people need help to see that their minds are theirs and not a tool by which wicked people can manipulate thought.
As far as I can see there are several ways, as a generalisation, that the owner of the mind can regain control. This really does depend on how damaged the poor soul has become. The first is by practising mindfulness. The second meditation. The third accepting the fact their mind has been damaged by some outside power, therefore, seek a psychiatrist.
The human mind is very powerful. Once you understand your own mind you will discover how it connects you to everything including yourself and the universe beyond. It is also easily damaged by events, by people or the ego.
No, I don't have it in me to berate those who contemplate or perform suicide. I'd just like them to know there are people who care for them and who don't think anything bad of them.
You're not a tragic figure at all. I can't say I'm terribly careful about the microbes dwelling around my eyelashes and such, but I do try not to step on critters dwelling on the ground. My son and I put spiders outdoors when we encounter them unless it's winter, in which case they get put in the storage closet so the cats don't eat them.
I can understand a person saying they don't get how someone could commit suicide. I made several ultimately half-assed attempts over the years. If I were to do it now, and, as I've stated, it won't be because of my psychiatric issues if I do, I know how to do it. Not likely to happen anytime soon, although I still live with suicide ideation.
One of the things that helped me was actually learning to accept that I don't have to be happy all the time to be worthwhile. I don't have to be this wondrous social butterfly. I need to maintain standards of basic common decency, of course, but I'm not worth less as a human being because I don't like to entertain and I have trouble with housekeeping. I'm not worth less because my baseline is on the dark side of the emotional spectrum rather than the sunny side. I'm not worth less because the "magic pills" don't work for me. I don't have to want to be in a relationship. I don't have to be like other people.
I actually do understand where this fellow gets his point of view, but he was so vehement about it and had been somewhat confrontational towards me for some time, and I have enough respect for myself at this point that I don't feel like I owe it to people to keep them in my life. It's not that everyone has to agree with me on everything. I don't hate this fellow or anything like that. I just can't maintain a friendship with someone who can't muster even a modicum of sympathy for those who, in their worst hour, took drastic action and ended their own lives.
I think you are right. There are always going to be people we simply don't get on with or who take polar positions to ours. Whoever this person is they are wrong. Best to walk away from them.
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