Altenatively: Here, Have Some Sticks
Wow. I just found out that a person I was acquainted with committed suicide a few days ago. We weren't good friend, only met the once. He was a talented musician and a very likable fellow, and I'm sorry we won't have a chance to make some good craic together. Whatever drove him to it, I hope he left it behind and finds himself welcomed with warmth and fellowship on the other side.
Suicide isn't about the wanting or needing to die, it's about NOT wanting to keep on living without hope or happiness, about NOT wanting to continue on down a seemingly endless dark and dreary path, about NOT seeing anything else, any other way to escape.
People who are there, they look around and see a world they can't touch, can't be part of, can't even fathom.
We feel alien, alone, unwanted, abandoned and we want it to stop. Our bodies and souls ache and we just want it to stop. We are blinded by the noise and shadow and silence and all of it, everything, and we just want it to stop. We see others slip free and we wonder why we keep on slogging down the path carrying our loads of stones, the weight is unbearable, and we just want it to stop.
Some of us have tried counseling, meditation, medication, unlawful substances, primal screaming, sex, dangerous hobbies, prayer, pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps, getting over it, just ignoring it, faith healers, hula dancing, and every other thing that has supposedly cured anyone else, ever, and it hasn't worked. We have a malady, a very real physical malady attacking our psyche, and we fight with it every day. Every. Day.
Remember that scene in the first Lethal Weapon movie where Gibson's character tells Glover's character that every day he has to wake up and think of a reason not to do it, every single day? Yup.
It's contagious, too - one goes and others see it as an answer and they go, and more see it, and more, and before you know it a half-dozen people have slipped loose from life and left a wake of sorrow, confusion, anger, and envy behind them.
And death doesn't solve anything, but the dead don't care because, well, they're dead.
Now, listen up - I get it. I do. I've been there. Often. I know...I do...and if it's what you really want there's nothing in the world can stop you but if you think, even for the briefest moment, that maybe you'd like to try one more time to find a way to keep on THIS side of the veil and maybe could use someone to talk to, get in touch...with me, with a hotline, with a friend, with a stranger at the bus station. Reach out. It's weird, I know, but people DO care. You can't see it or feel it or understand it because you're wrapped in a thick bubble of psychological ick that distorts everything you experience (I know this because I'm in that bubble, too), but it's true, they care. We care. I care. You matter.
Some resources (sticks, if you will):
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1 (800) 273-8255 or www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org
IM Alive: 1-800-442-4673 or www.hopeline.com
A list of hotlines by state with a link to international resources: http://www.suicide.org/suicide-hotlines.html
Another list of international resources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
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1 comment:
As always, well said. I hope I never run out of sticks. Are the children your sticks?
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