kindness of strangers
suicide: it’s the silence
Every time somebody private or prominent dies by their hand, there is a rush of resentment, frustration and grief. Responses like this one begin to appear, many of them driven by the feeling I remember… People who care about people point out that those among us who are most sensitive, empathic, engaged, and gifted, who do the most good to humanity, are exactly the ones who most suffer from sadness and grief at the cruel state of things, from informed fear about our future, sometimes from the tendencies to depression and psychological disorders that can make self-murder seem like a life-saving relief. I know these feelings from my own history. I remember the frigid isolation of knowing there was no one I could make myself known to, who would listen and not judge, not dismiss or undermine or cover over or muscle in on my fears. When is our tipping point? How many bears on the ice? How many island nations with intricate shell currencies and hand-carved feathered cultures nowhere replaceable? How many languages, how many artists? How many species of feathered companions improbable, exquisite, helpless and lost? How many species of humans do we hand over to this convention of closedness, given that we each represent a wild, fresh, unknown, exotic, unprecedented breed, a new world of thought and invention and insight, a whole world of humanity written in one daft pinhead. How much diversity are we prepared to throw under the wheels of industrialised life before we wake up and embrace each other? I look into the heart of me, my beloved, my closest friends. Any one of us could have been lost to our own isolated sadness and guttered hope. In my mind these thoughts gather, forming a single phrase: the silence is killing me. How much more vivid bold planet do we junk before we really wonder where we are going to live? How many more sweating, cursing, loving, ridiculous and delicate people do we sacrifice to depression, anxiety, exhaustion, loneliness and plain sadness before we are willing to talk about one another’s pain?
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<3 it's not a question of sacrifice, darling.... each one chooses their individual journey in this place.... when sacrifice is spoken of it is it through the lens of one who sees a particular form of death as such, not because it is so <3
Pardon me, Beth, did you actually read this?
I did xxx
Then I guess I failed to make myself clear. I am not interested in defraying people’s sovereignty. But every one of the suicidal people I’ve been close to has been glad to make a different choice and partially enabled to do so by the openness of their friends to allowing and not judging their suffering. Death wasn’t what they really wanted, just the best option they could reach.
I don’t necessarily think you failed, my beloved friend, what’s understood is in the mind of the reader/listener/seer, not the speaker/writer/creator…..
I’ve been suicidal several times in my life, and shared company with others who were too, including a lover who ended his own life, at different times and to different degrees, and my experience is not what you describe – what I read in your words is an inherent belief that life is better than death, and I don’t know that, no one knows that, as far as I know…… all I do know is that when I’ve desired death it’s been as an end to what has been experienced in the now – a ”now” that has gone on for days, months, years & that has been excruciating…. not a rash decision but one that has resulted in years of wearing down, years of exhaustion of the struggle of life……. was it a better decision? seriously, I’ve no idea…. I have no reference point, it’s impossible to say, it was simply a decision….. if I can come ”back’ and tell you after I die that ”life” was better than ”death” then I’l do so, but, until then it’s a total mystery!
”death wasn’t what they wanted”’ – what is death? we don’t know other than that which we believe it to be, and so the unknown is better than the known, for some…. the assumption of what death means, what it will feel like, be like, is better for some than what they experience in this moment now – and of course all the suicidal people you’ve known have been glad to choose life, the one’s who’ve died can’t express their thoughts/feelings!
Then, I repeat, what you read in my words is not what I meant by them. How can any living person know what death is? I mean: we know our lives. We end them sometimes because the pain is too much. That seems to me more an escaping than a turning towards.
I don’t think any living person can know what death is, equally, I don’t think any living person can know what Life is….. we can but know this one singular experience that each one experiences, this one singular experience among 7 billion other human experiences, among thousands of billions of other life experiences….. mindfuckingblowing…..
Lives are not always ended because the pain is too much, sometimes lives are ended due to boredom, due to physical pain, or oncoming physical pain and the general destruction of the physical body, sometimes from anger, for so many different reasons…..
I’m struggling with this at the moment, so to hear Robin Williams threw it in is really disturbing. i love what you have written. I go dark when I’m dark, and the silence is killing me. I get that, it really spoke to me on my current plane of existence. big love, Cathoel
Jennifer, don’t hurt yourself. Please don’t. The darkness can be so hard to bear. But you are not alone in there. Plenty of other good, thriving, insightful, valuable souls share this experience with you. Be kind and have mercy on yourself. I believe you have purpose here.
Both of you, all of us, have purpose here. We matter to others – we matter to ourselves. You matter to me. So does this website where we are privileged to hear you noising the deadly silence.
Jen, sorry you’re darkened – big love to you!
Cathoel, this post is by far the best comment generated by the current tragedy I’ve seen…thank you so much. <3
we don’t belong to ourselves alone. Our actions have consequences for others, and while its not for anyone to judge harshly a choice to suicide, I think its only sensible to advocate caution. If you don’t suicide today, you can decide to tomorrow, or next week, or next year. But once enacted, suicide can never be undone. Nor can the pain of those left behind.
i wonder…for every suicide there are at least 6 people affected…with the suicide of this famous person Robin Williams….could he ever realize how many people who are suffering from the same stuff he did are just going to see it and say fuck it– there’s someone who had something that worked– i may as well give up? it’s really screwed up all the way around.
this shit is not a joke.
Indeed, it goes to the heart of who we are.
Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you Jamila for reading.