The Hell of Suicide

An essay on what it is really like to be self destructive.

Not long ago I had a discussion with someone on the subject of suicide.  They made a comment that infuriated me, and not long after I heard the same comment from someone else.  Their comment was "suicide is the coward's way out."  This comment was originally made by someone who had a good income, a family and friends and who's response to everything was "it's fahn, it'll be just fahn."

Some time later I heard of a young lady in her twenties who had been diagnosed with brain cancer.  It was inoperable.  She had a fiance and plans for her future, all swept away. As time passed her cancer became so painful she could not endure it any longer and she committed suicide.  A  self professed "christian" condemned her that she was going to burn in hell for not letting God finish the job of killing her, and this same "christian" informed me that God had to torment her to death to maintain the balance between good and evil for his own existence and she interfered with his plans.  I could write a book on what is wrong with that picture, but suffice it to say, this illustrates my first point.

1.

So Many People Lack Any Form of Sympathy

For another's Pain

There is a saying not to judge others till you have walked a mile in their shoes, and there is also a group of men who  have literally walked a mile in high heels to demonstrate their support of women who are the victim's of violence.

I personally have been the victim of abuse and crime, and when I have written and commented on the subject I have found that the average human being has no concept of what another is going through till in some way they have experienced it themselves.  The responses on suicide range from simply needing medication or counseling to "just give yourself a kick in the pants."  I also could, as a crime victim, quote countless cold hearted, even abusive and profane responses, mostly by men, a few by women, toward my circumstances and my responses.

Point being, when one assumes to judge another, as a rule the judgement is completely wrong.  I went to college classes for film making and in acting classes I was able to recall certain memories I had from childhood which brought me to tears and helped me push pain, anger and grief through a character to the extent of having made entire rooms full of people cry or experience what I had experienced.  At one point I had an instructor who was unable to finish the class till pulling herself together.

One of the young students told everyone he would have to figure out how to invoke that level of emotion because he stated that "I've had a good life and I can't relate to where she's coming from."

Among the experiences which have brought women to the edge of suicide is rape.  Rape is a violent, horrible act that leaves physical and emotional scars that you can't imagine if you have not been there.  In my childhood I was given a puppy by a woman who was abused by her husband, West Rivers, who ended up murdering her and going to prison.

I mentioned these experiences in discussions and the responses were "oh well.  S**t happens", "you'll get over it". and one man said "A few women being raped is an acceptable price to pay for making sure no one owns guns pretending to protect themselves  and using that as an excuse."

My point here is not about guns, it is about the overall willful and non willful ignorance of people, who cannot imagine what certain events can do to another.

2.

The Descent Into Darkness

I personally was born into an abusive home, and if you have seen the movie Carrie, you get the idea.  My mother was already mentally unstable and she was topped off by a nice coating of religious over zealousness which made it far worse.

She was physically and emotionally abusive, condemning of everyone, and she isolated her children from the outside world, and turned her sons into "surrogate husbands".

I was personally always considered the "bad child" who's choices were wrong, was always rebelling against God and society, and was subjected to mock interrogations (because of the soon coming end of the world) and hours long study sessions and correctional sessions filled with threats, violence, profanity and being kept in closets and chairs.

I also was bullied in school, and an outcast at church because we were poor and mother was such an odd, smothering person who was not well liked.

I spiraled down, my self image and self esteem crumbled, and at one point I was shoved down a set of stairs, broke an ankle and was forced to walk on it through the rest of the day in incredible pain.  It was set at home, bandaged and eventually healed, but again the point is these things served to break me down from the inside.

I eventually got thrown out of the house and ended up in a rebound relationship with a mate who had two children by other relationships.  These children eventually went into their teens and began to rebel, and my mate championed their rebellion against me, including abandoning me, telling the kids they could ignore me, and supporting them when they also became physically abusive.

There came a time when I found myself walking into a park when the family had disintegrated, alone, broke, unemployed, and finally saying what I had to say, in the event there was an ear in the sky to hear it.

3.

Desperation, Not Cowardice

Coming to the point where your life is so filled with pain that you want to end it has nothing to do with being a coward who simply wants to run away.  It is a desperate, horrible means to end pain that is too overwhelming to continue another day.

Suicide is what comes to mind after waking up in the night to nightmares, to walking down the street like a zombie being unable to focus, to no longer caring how you look, losing interest in everything in your life, to feeling alone, abandoned and with nothing left to live for.

It is desperation, a need to stop pain at all costs.

To face death means different things to different people.  To some, death leads to reincarnation, to others heaven or hell, to others it leads to pure blackness and a sleep state with no knowledge, but no more pain, loneliness, or mornings where you burst into sobbing fits of uncontrollable crying where you sob till you can hardly breath.  No one knows what happens after we die, but they have plenty of theories.  What we do know is that what you have now stops.

Suicidal thoughts are like a heavy weight that holds you down and makes you come to a stop.  You can't just "give your self a kick in the pants" and say everything is going to be okay, because as you sit in  a prison of agony, nothing is going to be okay.

A broken relationship, loss of home, physical violence, death in the family, lost jobs, can all lead to depression.  Some people have chemical imbalances which lead also to depression.

Suicide is about pain, unimaginable pain, that either goes for a long time or comes and goes again.  It is not something to be shrugged off, or treated lightly.  It is not something to be used to get attention or sympathy.

To brush someone off as simply a coward is not only a huge insult, it says you have no feeling for another's misery. 

When you encounter someone who has gotten to the point of self destruction, at the very least, you can listen.  Listening does not cost anything.  So what if they cry, curse, or complain.  Everyone does. 

I've heard the argument "think of those worse off than you."  This is a lame cop out which simply says "I don't care, I don't want to hear it, it isn't my problem" and it solves nothing except to add to the situation. 

Until you have been in a situation that has brought you to the point of bursting into  tears almost without stopping yourself, and of disconnecting with everything and everyone and seeing self destruction as the only way to stop the pain tearing you up inside, you cannot know what is going on inside the person who is suffering, but to ridicule them is the worst thing you can do.  

4 Imagine

Imagine if you will being in a car with some tools, among them a rusty old dull saw.  You are driving along when things begin to go wrong.  Maybe your car begins to act up.  You become terrified, and you hold on in panic, continuing to  drive as fear overtakes you.

Then you have an accident.  You find yourself in the wreckage of the car nd your right leg is smashed, crushed into the car.  The pain is beyond imagination and you scream and scream, but no one can hear you.  There is no help.

So you try to  deal with it for a while, and in front of you you see a terrifying vision, that rust saw.  You can't even imagine, the sight of it makes you sick.  

But you scream and scream and no help comes.  Then you realize the only way to end your pain is to saw off your own leg with that saw.  

As the end comes nearer and the pain gnaws, finally you  desperately grab for the saw and inflict collossal damage to stop what is coming.  

Suicide is where your pain, depression, self hate, abuse, fear, is finally so overwhelming that anything no matter how horrible is worth stopping it.

Many suicides hang themselves.  Just imagine if you can, putting a rope or cloth around your throat and choking yourself to death.  Choking is a horrible way to  die, as your lungs scream for air and the pain in your mind is enough to make you endure it.

Looking down the barell of a gun and using a bullet to destroy yourself is also unspeakable unless the pain in your mind and body are so great as to overcome that horror  Can you imagine that?

Suicide is a belief that all hope is lost and there is NO WAY OUT, NO ONE CAN HELP YOU AND NO ONE WANTS TO DEAL WITH THE PAIN YOU ARE IN, AND THEY DO NOT WANT TO HEAR IT BECAUSE it isn't THEIR PROBLEM.  Suicidal people feel alone in our problems, isolated and cut off and many if not all people we address simply don't want to hear it.  I know, I have reached out.

In my case, I have no problem listening to someone else.  They can cry, they can yell, curse, whatever.  It costs me nothing to listen.

Hopefully if you are reading this it will give you a better understanding, and at least prevent you from making things worse for someone who may be going through something you would never want to experience.