I was going to write a blog about attraction, and how it's so different for so many people...but I can write that tomorrow. Today I want to talk about one of those topics that only seems to get a lot of national attention when a beloved celebrity does it, but that affects millions of lives (and not just the ones who do it). I want to talk about suicide.
Yes, this site has suicide in the name, but in that case in isn't referring to the taking of one's own life. And by naming this site Suicide Girls they are in no way making light of something so deadly serious. This isn't about that.
This is about how one act is like a stone thrown in a still pond: the stone may sink, but the waves that resonate outwards from that brief moment disrupt the pond and it takes a while for things to go back to normal. I've known friends who have done it (the first I knew was a classmate in 7th grade who chose to do it because she got 2 B's on her report card and her parents expected straight A's). And, I myself have came perilously close to doing it.
Now, for those of you whom have never had those kinds of thoughts, it's difficult (it seems) to translate and tell you what is going through your mind at that moment. I've had friends ask, "Why?" but it's hard to describe. It usually isn't just one bad day that does it; no, those kinds of thoughts build up over time, from defeats that you have suffered to feelings of loneliness and despair followed by feelings of just always being "tired". Until one day, it just seems like the world would be better off without you in it, or it just feels like fighting to live isn't worth the problems life can cause. And then begins the planning.
Some suicides are spur of the moment decisions (based on what I said above), but most are planned out. You start by making sure you haven't left anything undone that is important to other people. You start making sure you spend time with friends and family, since you never know if you will see them again. And in your mind, when you do, you're saying goodbye to them (even if those exact words are never uttered). Thankfully, both times I got that way, I was discovered and stopped.
And that's the thing. Some people, even though they are feeling that way, don't know how to express all the hurt and anguish that they are going through, and they secretly want to be discovered (that's the way I was). Others? Those are the ones you read about in the paper or see on the news; the ones where family members and friends are questioned, and all they could say is they "didn't see any signs they were feeling that way". For those ones, they really want to be gone from here, whatever the reason, and so they hide their motives and tracks well, to ensure no one discovers what they are planning.
But just like that stone I mentioned earlier, while it may be gone from view, the ripples spread out. Suicide doesn't just affect those who are gone: it affects family (who wonder what they could have done differently), friends (who wonder if you had been asking for help and they just didn't pick up on it), coworkers; and Gods forbid you have children. The children of suicidal parents are never the same; they will spend the rest of their lives raging against your memory for abandoning them when they needed you, and wishing they could have you back, if only for a day.
Even teenagers who do it scar their parents for life. My daughter when she was a sophomore had a really bad year. She was slacking off, not doing her work, getting C's and D's (when she used to get A's and B's), and suffering from low self-esteem. Her mother and I tried everything to reach her, from talking and cajoling to threatening. One night, after I got mad at her for lying to us about doing her work when in fact she had been hiding it because "she didn't want to ask the teacher for help" (her words), she went up to the bathroom, found a bottle of tylenol in the medicine cabinet, and took a bunch of them. It only took her sitting in her room for a minute, thinking about what she had just did, for her to start sobbing and to go tell her mother (she was at her mom's that night), so I was called and I met them at the ER.
When I got there, I was shaking I was so angry at her. She had never seen me like I was that night. I told her (and this stuck so much that she used it in one of her senior writing projects):
Parents shouldn't have to bury their children. It's not the natural order of things.
Thankfully, they were able to pump her stomach and she suffered no permanent damage, though because it was a suicide attempt she had to spend the next three days locked up in a children's psych hospital. After being away from her family (and among people who really needed the help), she realized that her life wasn't so bad and she turned her life around. Scared straight, as it were.
So if you yourself (or someone you know) is feeling suicidal, thinking the world doesn't need you: it does. Please, reach out and get help. Every state in the US and I believe every country in the world has numbers you can call. You aren't alone, you aren't worthless, your life has meaning. You can beat whatever it is that's weighing you down. Let go of that stone and swim to shore. Those ripples from you getting to safety will calm down much faster than the ones you cause from being gone. Thank you.
