suicide

I decided to write about it. A dear friend’s dear friend did it two weeks ago on the anniversary of the day that her father did it. A dear friend’s brother did it almost two years ago. I told my dad once that I wanted to do it.

“No you don’t,” he said. Yes I did and sometimes still do.

I think he did sometimes, too.

Want to die. Or at least didn’t want to live anymore.

Suicide. Such a mystery and a horror and how could you do it when you know what it will do to those you love? That’s what keeps most of us depressives from doing it, but then we’re still in our right minds enough to be able to still feel that compassion over our own pain.

I don’t pretend to know why people do it but I know they must be mad, insane. I also know that their families shouldn’t blame themselves and almost invariably do. I think that a person who really intends to do it feels a freedom in making the decision that can make them seem to be doing better. I’ve read where, statistically, if one person in a family does it, it raises the chance of other family members doing so--maybe because it takes it out of the realm of the impossible.

I’ve often thought of it as cowardly, but that’s too severe a judgment. Having experienced maybe even half the pain that these people experienced, relief of an instant kind does seem attractive. Having pulled myself out of the hole with the help of very amazing professionals and caring family and friends several times, I understand how someone could be tired of taking the slog again.

But when there is a whisper of blue sky in the gloom, I am inspired to keep trying.

Life is hard as granite. We don’t even a little bit understand brain chemistry, or how to learn and appreciate who we are and what we have, to twist and tease out the very difficult and painful things that we need to expose to the open air in order to live with a clean soul. But I’ve had enough help to know that not talking about something, not expressing my true feelings, is more dangerous than taking the chance of living out loud.

So. I’ve thought about it. Have you?