Suicide

Merrium-Webster online

suicide (noun)

sui·cide | \ ˈsü-ə-ˌsīd

Definition of suicide (Entry 1 of 3)
1
a
: the act or an instance of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally
b
: ruin of one’s own interests
political suicide
c
: apoptosis
cell suicide
2
: one that commits or attempts suicide

suicide adjective
Definition of suicide (Entry 2 of 3)
: of or relating to suicide
especially : being or performing a deliberate act resulting in the voluntary death of the person who does it
a suicide mission
a suicide bomber

 

Ok, everybody knows that.

Except it isn’t true.

Yes, that is its definition. It nowhere near encompasses the scope. It is not one thing.

It is not a suicide. It is a chain of events which cannot be altered. It is the revolting torture of everyone who loves you. I know you do not care. The pain is stronger. So what. Too bad. You know that the worst part will subside. You want to end the pain more than you want to end your life. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. Do it again. Shove your face in a pillow and scream. Hate. Hate all you want. Do not choose to act. You are not in any condition to act upon something important. Something that can never be repaired if you have made a mistake.

Don’t act. Reach out.

How can I say this? What is my right? What do I know?

You are right. We are all different. Some things are the same.

I will be 58 in a couple of months. I was diagnosed as having depression in my early teens. My father had told my mother that she was not to take me to see a psychologist. It was a sign of weakness. I would be fine. Pull yourself together. He wasn’t mean. He was born in 1923. Things were different then. He had fought through WWII. He was dealing with it. Except I heard him scream at night.

My mother took me anyway. She was a teacher. She had seen.

Years and years. Decades and decades. Oh, I wanted to die. Eventually, I wanted to kill myself. Sitting out in the middle of a field alone. Gun, overdose?

My body lying out in the field, where my sons might find it. My sons who loved me even though I was unloveable. It would crush them. Why had I done this? Didn’t I love them? Had I ever loved them? What now? What is life? What is there in life?

I am sure that some of you know the questions better than I.

I never tried. They would have known.

Are you seriously incapable of loving someone more than yourself? No one loves you and no one will care? I can guarantee that that is wrong. We all impact other people and there is someone who needs you. There is. There always is. Fine, don’t believe me, but act as though there were someone you would hurt because there really is. An aunt, a friend, a grandmother, another schoolmate who has been trying to hang on, too. Your mom, who carried you in her body as you grew. The person who loved you unconditionally before you were even born. Someone who went through agony so her precious child would exist.

Finally, in my 40’s they gave me some new diagnoses for which they medicated me. I was very lucky in that I had good doctors.

One of these was that I was bi-polar. A step toward stemming the constant flow of the need to die.

I loved someone more than myself. I was willing to do what I had to do. One of the definitions above talks about sacrificing yourself. I did. I sacrificed my happiness. No, more than that. I sacrificed my ability to escape from the horrendous feeling of needing to die. That’s a tough one.

Do it anyway. Be brave. Get help. Try a new doctor. A new med. Do it again. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.

Not just for them. That single moment, not even a blip of time, could be the one that breath that makes it possible to try.

This is not where I planned for this to go at all. I was going to talk about the language we use to talk about one ending one’s life.

Later?