The Cheese Grates It: Suicide Victims are Not Weak, Selfish, or Cowards

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~

That Thing That Happened Nearly 20 Years Ago

Image purchased from 123rf.com

That Thing That Happened Nearly 20 Years Ago

Trigger warning for talk about sexual assault and self harm.

*************************************

It was the night of October 31 into the morning of November 1 1997.

I made the mistake of taking my ex boyfriend to a halloween party that a co worker was having because I wanted to be open minded and show him that we could "still be friends." He got angry with me when another co-worker and I flirted with each other. I took him out of there so he wouldn't start trouble. I made a lot of stupid decisions that were the product of improperly treated bipolar disorder, including driving while really drunk.

My ex followed me into my apartment. I believed he was gone. I went to bed with all my clothes on. I woke up with my clothes off and him on top of me. I don't know if I actually told him to stop or if that only happened in my head. I remember saying it several times, but I don't know if I ever used my vocal cords. When he was done, he said "well, now we're back together." Interestingly, he never called me again. He must have known that what he did was wrong or at least that I didn't want it.

I did not cry prettily. I didn't cry at all. I was in shock. I was in shock for several days. Then the panic attacks hit, and they kept hitting. I had several panic attacks within every hour I was awake, up until about the fifth hour, then they started to subside.I didn't want to go to sleep again, not ever, but I eventually fell asleep again from sheer exhaustion. This went on for a year. Then, finally, the panic attacks went away. They just went away.

I learned during this time that Xanax knocks me unconscious and then makes me suicidal when I wake up.

I learned that prozac works differently than most SSRI's do in my case. It makes me flat rather than manic, which is what most SSRI's do. I cut my arms to see if I still had any feeling in me. It didn't stop the panic attacks though.

The doctors wanted to medicate me so I wouldn't think about it. Everyone else just wanted me to shut up about it, to sweep it under the rug. I was told "you got over this before, you'll get over it again." (I had been sexually assaulted previously at 18 during my one failed semester at the University of Colorado).

I never told the police, because I was sure that since I'd been drinking I'd be blamed for what happened.

As I told a friend recently, I can go out of the house, no problem, including at night. I can work. I don't think about this incident all the time. And yet, it never leaves me. I sleep with a bunch of pillows surrounding me on a twin bed because subconsciously I feel safer in a small space.

Part of me still feels like what happened is my fault. If I hadn't taken my ex boyfriend to the party, if I hadn't gotten so drunk, if I hadn't flirted with my co-worker, it wouldn't have happened. And then maybe the sick relationship with the predator who took advantage of my vulnerable state, told me I was "the one" and then flaunted other women in front of me and forced me to do things like kiss his feet and watch bestiality porn under the threat that he would withdraw his "love" wouldn't have happened either.

All I know is that being sexually assaulted fucks a person up. How could it not?

Rape isn't funny, not ever. And it is never the victim's fault. It doesn't matter how drunk the victim was or what the victim was wearing. The one at fault is the rapist. End of story.

The act itself probably took 5-10 minutes all told.

Twenty years later, it still feels like a fist gripping my heart when I remember and I feel sick inside and like there is a layer of filth on me that will never, ever wash off. I feel like other people can see it. Even though I don't think about it all the time, it is beneath my skin every moment of every hour of every day for the rest of this life.

~Cie~