A beautiful defense of suicide by one of my favorite bloggers and virtual friends.
Couldn’t have said it better. Suicide is a tragedy, because it implies that the individual’s suffering was a load too heavy to carry. Since we all have loads to carry, our response to such suffering should be one of sorrow and empathy. Maybe consider what could be done differently to prevent future suicides… not because the SUICIDE itself should be prevented, but the long-term suffering, the living hell, that makes suicide the only plausible solution for peace.
Let us take care of each other while we are alive, no? Rather than remind each other that “others have it worse” let us work together to alleviate each other’s pain? Pain is the great human equalizer. Let us practice a bit more love instead of condescending judgment.
#oktosay
Previous thoughts on suicide:
Recently, someone I greatly admire and probably even love, said to me that when people are suicidal their brain chemistry is basically off, which prevents them from realizing that things will get better. I didn’t want to disappoint her, so I didn’t say that I respectfully disagree. I’ve always thought suicide makes a lot of sense—maybe the most sense. I acknowledge brain chemistry is involved, and am obviously no expert on biology or medicine. But I also believe suicide isn’t necessarily a product of chemical imbalance. I think someone can rationally, and so completely understandably, conclude that suicide is the right option.
Life is a terrible mess. It’s unbearably lonely. It feels like a cruel joke, an insurmountable task, all too often. Nobody prepares you for all the times you’ll want to claw your way out of your skin, only to be met with the intolerable reality that you’re trapped…
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Discovering ratchet 
I think this probably wasn’t the best time for me to read this. We just lost a friend and of course I am sad that he is gone, but more than that I’m sad for all the things he will miss out on; he would have made an amazing father. He had so much love and an imagination that could light up the world, which also probably contributed to his depression. He hid it, he hid it from everyone. The gang tried to connect and he would claim he was busy with another group of friends, while telling the others that he was busy with us. There wasn’t a sign. He adored his family. He adored his friends. And both friends and family adored him.
He was depressed and knowing that makes me terribly sad, the fact that he couldn’t or wouldn’t reach out to anyone also makes me terribly, terribly sad. But at his funeral, looking at the photo of him in his graduation robes holding his degree, big smile on his face, all I could think was that it was all so pointless. Such a horrendous, tragic waste of a wonderful person.
The world is less bright without him in it, unquestionably.
Do I find comfort in knowing that his suffering is over? A small bit maybe, but mostly I just wish he had hung on, reached out, known that even though it feels like forever… it’s not. Everything is temporary, good and bad. It might be a long, gruelling temporary but it is temporary. The people you leave behind miss you, but mostly they miss what never was: making a best man speech at your wedding; seeing you become a parent; the adventures that will never happen now.
I’ll come back to this because I am too emotional to make a point coherently on this subject so I’m not sure I’m being clear. Suicide is so final. I know people say that all the time but I don’t think even I have felt the weight of that as heavily as I did looking at his coffin. No second chances, no hope, no time, no do-overs. The what-ifs and the if-onlys and the whys and the guilt are possibly selfish in some way, but they’re also just… pointless. No outpouring of love, no tears, no broken hearts, no magical thinking make any difference.
I think suicide happens when it feels like the only option. I just don’t think – with suicide and with life in general – that there is ever only one option. I think there are options that haven’t been considered, or have been considered and discarded as impractical or unrealistic, or been considered briefly and discarded as too hard, or too difficult. I think there are options that are considered and dismissed as options that won’t make a difference.
But with every other option, if it doesn’t work out, you can turn back, you can try something else.
With suicide, you remove every single option you had or will ever have again.
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Thank you! ❤
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