I called my boyfriend tonight, because I was missing him and wanted to talk. By which, I mean I wanted him to talk to me. He doesn't ask a lot of questions, but my questions that he chooses to answer, he does at length. And colorfully.
Well, tonight, I started the conversation (ie prompted his monologue) on the nature of darkness. See, to me, darkness is comforting. Its where I can hide, where my emotions can't be read on my face. Which I am learning is an important way that I unconsciously communicate. But he took it in the direction of depression. Fine. He had interesting things to say on the matter. But then he took an even more extreme tangent.
He told me about one of his best friends, a marine and police officer, a trouble maker and mischievous joker. A community serviceman and a loyal companion. And when he got in a fight with his wife in Vegas, he went downstairs to have a drink. It mixed badly with a medication he was on, and he spiraled into a depressive state. He sent a text to his brother, a suicide note, and shot himself. But he didn't die. He immediately started screaming "I don't want to die", "I didn't mean to", etc. He died 90 minutes later in the hospital, far from friends and family.
My boyfriend was choking up while telling me this story, but I couldn't help being angry at him. The more obvious surface emotion was, I want to be there for you. And there was an underlying reason. It hurt me. I was bothered by this, what was obviously an accidental suicide. Of course, it was no one's fault that being pregnant turned his wife into a royal bitch, so on that account he couldn't have avoided that particular stress in his life. And if he forgot that he wasn't supposed to drink after taking that medication, that's no one's fault either. Then it gets complicated. He was not in his right mind. He had enough gravity to contact a person that he knew loved him. But instead of talking to his brother, he sent a suicide note. In this moment, in a drug-induced state, he felt like he had no other choice than to kill himself. I can say plenty of "it could have been different"s, but it wasn't. And that's the point. Everything that was happening to him could have only led to that conclusion. To this suicide that even he didn't want.
This death is more tragic than others. Because there was support for him, and in truth, he didn't want to die. My boyfriend described him as the last person he thought would do this, and I believe that he was the last person who would, except for that moment, a drugged-up exception to the rest of his life.
Which is why that it cannot be used as an argument for why a person should not kill themselves. Some people, in right mind, for months and years on end without relent, do feel trapped. They do try other ways to escape the situation, and their anger, their sadness, their hurt, follows them anyway. These people feel unloved, like the people they would leave behind are not worth living for. And that's different.
My boyfriend argued that he wouldn't want anyone to go through what he went through with his friend's death, and that's why he wouldn't kill himself. Well, except that my boyfriend contemplated suicide as a cogent human. And I believe that, if as a cogent human, you believe that your pain is so great, that you need to leave, regardless of the consequences to your loved ones, then that is your right. You don't owe it to anyone to stick around, to make their lives a little more sound while you claw and scrape your way through your own. Anyone that is worth sticking around for, will make your life worth living. It can't be only one way.
My boyfriend called his friend when he himself was contemplating suicide. They talked about it. And my boyfriend is still alive today because of friends like that who were worth it enough to him to stay for, that he didn't want to hurt, and the fact that their hurt would be greater than his, tells me that his depression was surmountable. Having friends that love you can and should make all the other problems matter less. It just should. Because when all else turns to shit, you get down to the bare basics of the purpose of living; to enjoy it. And you do that with friends.
I don't know how I pulled through it. I think I just held on to the hope and reality that my situation was very specific and very temporary, and that there was a timer on it; I just had to survive long enough to get out. There were some days that I was so frustrated, so out of control of my own life, that I would sit and think seriously about it for hours. I thought about the people I would leave behind, and to be honest, none of them mattered enough to me to stick around for. They didn't make my life worth living, so why should I live for them?
By the grace of God I walk the Earth today. My life was not as bad as others. That doesn't mean I didn't feel real, deep, pain.
And that's another thing. True, I have been lucky enough that all of my at-risk friends survived. Some went into rehab, others got into relationships that picked them up, and one girl had a baby. But just because none of my friends completed suicide doesn't mean that I can't identify with the pain that goes with that. Despite expectations, I can understand that desperation of loss, the confusion, the anger. Just because I haven't been face to face with death in that manner, does not mean that I can't see through your eyes. So try to see through my eyes. Yes, I didn't go through that, but I went through things, things that were real to me and hurt me. The relative inseverity of the cause is no reason to discount my feelings.
There are some people who have seen terrible things, and are angry at those who self-describe as going through tough times without having had the same terrible experiences. I am angry at those judgmental fucks. To have felt that pain, you must know that it doesn't take that much of a loss to sweep your feet out from under you. Presumably, if you been to those dark places, you've been where they are now, and you know that while whatever they're going through is not as nearly as bad as it could be, it is painful, and it does disrupt your life. To such individuals, their tough times are tough, to them, and that needs to be respected. True, it is helpful to them to have perspective, to realize that their lives are no so difficult and that there is no reason life can't get better. But their lack of perspective should not open them up to bullying and ridicule, in light of their pain. Pain is real, and pain is painful to the one experiencing it, no matter what the cause. Put this in context of the recent infamy of Amanda Todd, and all of the harshness that has come with that, and perhaps you'll understand my anger.
Yes, many people think that what happened to this girl was her own fault, and that what happened wasn't bad enough to merit taking her own life. But what I see is a lack of effort to see it through her eyes, to understand her perspective, how she experienced her pain. And, especially, she had no one to talk to. I understand why Amanda killed herself.
But that young man had people to talk to, people who loved him deeply and would not stigmatize him for having thoughts of suicide. And so its harder for me to internalize that. If I were to be honest with myself, its hard for me to forgive him. I didn't have to meet him to love him, to miss him, to grieve for him. Or to be angry at him for leaving us behind.
PS
I don't know where to stick this but it needs to be said. Given, times are tough, its hard to get enough employment to keep yourself afloat, let alone support a family. When my boyfriend described how they drank to his memory, that's when I started crying. This man, in order to have enough money, took on twenty hour shifts and kept himself awake by chain-drinking Monster energy drinks and shocking himself with a stun gun. And that's when I got angry, that's when I saw the early warning signs that even now, years after his death, my boyfriend doesn't seem to have detected as a problem. A young man with other issues in his life, staying up for 20 hours, maintaining that with chemicals, shocking himself? That should have been the red flag. And when I heard it, I knew, or at least I hoped, I would have called it, that the warning sign would be caught and this guy could have gotten help before it got out of control. Even if he didn't see it as self-harm, there's multiple ways to look at this and see it as Bad. First off, he's making severe changes to his brain chemistry with chronic substance abuse and staying awake too long, along with shocking himself. Second, if you reflect on your own life, and you see that you have to do things like this just to keep a roof over your head and food on your table, how would that make you feel? I would feel angry, desperate, trapped, uncared for, that others could see this going on and not say "hey, this is not okay. You need to be good to yourself." Like my government had abandoned me and my friends didn't care. And maybe that's completely wrong, maybe this guy was a thrill-seeker and found a 20 hour shift to be a good excuse to mess with energy drinks and stun guns. But looking at what happened after, I can't help but draw a connection. I can't help but take it from my perspective. And that's the very same fault that I judge others for. Deja vu.
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