December Writing Challenge Day 3 (Day 33)

Suicide. 

Geez. What a topic. I like to make light of things but there’s not a light side to this. So I plan to tread carefully, and let me apologize ahead of time if I inadvertently step wrong with my words. I am rarely eloquent. I am always sincere when it comes to something serious.

Suicide will touch most of us at one time or another. I got a little practice while working as a dispatcher. As much as you can, in any case. We had these books, a protocol of questions to ask your caller for pretty much any life or death situation. But the callers always wanted to ask us the questions. And it was always the same: “WHY???” 

The short answer was we didn’t know, and it wasn’t for us to know. The long answer is as follows:

Debt and gambling problems. People think they are worth more dead than they are alive and that their loved ones would be better off without them. So they take matters into their own hands and we’re left holding the pieces.

Pain. I once knew a mighty fine man. When he was younger, he played professional baseball. He hurt his back. He was never the same. Time went by, he became successful at his career. He married and raised children. The pain never left him. So, at the brink of retirement, he took his own life. He chose to go instead of being a burden on his family and an addict in the eyes of strangers as his pain gradually worsened as he got older. 

People make other people suicidal. It ain’t no wonder. People are crazy, and they make other people crazy. And then they take their life. Only the strong survive. You let someone get to you and it affects your life. It takes over your relationships with others and your social or work life and then there you are. Evil lurks everywhere and loves to prey on the helpless. Or what they deem as helpless. Some people won’t cut their ties to these people because they don’t value their own selves as worthy and instead take themselves out of the equation. Look at the person making you miserable. Are they happy? Do they have a solid group of people they call friends? Or have they run everybody off and nobody can stand them? 

Families are probably the most influential when it comes to pushing someone over the edge. Hopefully in other cases, they are the ones to talk them off that ledge. Families put a lot of pressure on you to be a certain way or do specific things that are important to them. They want you to repress your feelings for the sake of saving face and protecting the family. This is breeding ground for passive aggressive disorder and depression. Some parents don’t cope well with divorce, and whoever has the child has the added burden of looking after them while they grieve. I’ve heard stories of children who passed notes under the door to their guardian because they needed help with homework or fixing something to eat but the door was locked so they had to do what they could to get help. I’ve heard of families unable to provide for their children but also unwilling to ask for assistance so the children steal food and hide it where they can–potatoes in the situation I’m aware of. There are parents who want to put their children in a box like a doll and only get them out when it suits them, when they won’t interfere with the rest of their life. Of course, you can’t blame divorce on shitty parenting. Plenty of crappy/absent parents are still married. They think they’re doing it “for the kids”. The kids are meanwhile down the hall, listening to their parents fight and cuss and say all manner of horrible things about each other and maybe even the children. Children don’t ask for this life, they are without fault. There are children whose routine is so upset that they’ll stay with other relatives just to get peace and calm in their upturned lives. This seems to be happening more and more as drug addiction grows. Those memories don’t just vanish when you turn 18. They continue to haunt you and make it hard to believe in true love and commitment. Divorce can warp you at a vulnerable age in your life. You may not have anyone who loves you.  You may get caught in a downward spiral that you’re unable to crawl out of. More people would probably seek therapy if it were more available. You might be able to get it free, but you gotta work or then you’ve got monetary problems. So if you are caught in a life without love, perhaps you think it would be easier to just leave forever. 

Work. There are people in high stress jobs. Dispatchers for one, but I use them as an example all the time, being as how I have first hand experience. Imagine being on the phone with someone, and you’ve done everything you can possibly do, and they die before help gets there. They might have died anyway, but you didn’t save them. What if you had pushed the button sooner for paramedics? Was there a shorter route? I worked with a few worriers, and they were sometimes haunted at nighttime with whether they sent an ambulance to a caller, or a fire truck to this address. You can’t second guess yourself. What about psychiatrists, listening to someone else’s problems day in and day out? It would wear you down. Don’t forget about farmers. You may see them as laid back, easygoing but they are at the mercy of the Lord and the weather. Investors. What if they put your retirement in the wrong funds? What if the stock market crashes again? What if, what if, what if?? Surgeons. Is there anything harder? Your job is to save lives and do no harm but when someone dies on your table during a routine procedure and you have to answer for it. And there may not be a logical answer. Small business owners. The livelihood of many depend on them. Just making a living is so hard for so many. And if you work all the time, you feel you’re neglecting other areas of your life and there you are…doing your best but feeling inadequate and like there is no hope in sight. And so you sink.

I feel that Facebook is sometimes a catalyst. People see what they want to see, read what they want to read, and interpret it the way they think best fits their views. Narcissists, most especially, are the guilty ones. Facebook feeds the attention seeking addiction. People see other people getting more attention, looking perfect and gorgeous in all the beauty filtered selfies, think they aren’t worthy, and things degrade from there. If you’re constantly getting butthurt on there about some trivial injustice or some stupid trolls on public posts, maybe you need to unplug and get your priorities straight. Or unfriend or unfollow. 

Terminal illness. These are perhaps the most dignified deaths, and understandable to my eyes. I would not want to suffer and if I had a way to ease into eternity, I’m all for it. But many people don’t believe in this unnatural passing and unable to comprehend how anyone could be so selfish.

Church and God and the guilt. We all struggle. Other Christians and atheists alike will make you doubt your faith because you’re unable to live perfectly like Jesus. Well, you only have to do your best. If you’re defeated, that’s just life. It doesn’t mean you’re any less in God’s eyes, no matter what people say about you in or out of church.

Medicines and hormones. To combat mental or physical illness, doctors may prescribe a multitude of medications. These medicines may not agree with your constitution, or each other, and you may be too sick to know it or get help. You think the solution is suicide, and perfectly reasonable.

Depression and Post Traumatic Stress. Think of what our military saw that was widely accepted as the norm. How do they go on? And we think WE have problems? No wonder they can’t sleep at night. I can see wanting to just stop the visions that are on constant replay. 

As a writer, I struggle. People generally love for me to write about them. (Some of these people are egotistical. You can spot them by the overdramatic comments and posts. They’re the ones who check into hospitals and don’t say why.) Sometimes I’m not even aware I was writing about anybody in particular, I’m just telling a story! The narcissistic among us do not to be portrayed in the slightest bad lighting, even in the pretext as a joke. Thankfully, I have thick skin and have no qualms about cutting destructive, toxic people from my life. It would take an impossible to imagine amount of stuff to make me contemplate suicide. The attention seekers desire conflict at every turn and live to torment and guilt. It’s best to ignore completely. And if you can’t do that, or if that’s not working then you have to just move on without them at all. And it won’t be much of a loss if they’ve brought you much strife. I couldn’t stop writing if I had to. Even if no one was reading. I won’t apologize for putting my self preservation ahead of your inflated ego, dramatization, and exaggeration. 

Don’t take the “easy” way out. You gotta fight for the right to live. As I said before, only the strong survive. Surround yourself with people who make you happy, and make you better.