Suicide is painless...

 

Sad tonight to read about the apparent suicide of fashion designer, Alexander McQueen. How heartbreaking to believe that there is no way forward, that there is nothing that will end the pain of life but leaving it.

I can empathise with the despair that must be alive in the suicidal person.  Sometimes the most alive part of life can be despair and it takes a lot of awareness of love to keep going. The idea of an end to endless suffering is an attractive one and the belief in the Western world that we are not going to be reincarnated makes this belief even more attractive. No chance of coming back and re-living all the pain.

I don't believe suicide is a choice.  It might appear so to the person determined to end their life in this way and perhaps if you are elderly or suffering from a terminal illness, it might be, but for a young person I think it is the absence of choice that makes suicide possible. Where else can you go if the pain and suffering is unbearable.  What seems like a release is so heartbreaking because it also means the end of aliveness.  No choice at all.

I recognise that I have at times felt in complete despair and horribly sad, and yet I am still here. I'm pleased that I have enough awareness of my self to know that all things, even the ones that seem impossible to bear, do pass.  Life moves on and I am certain I want it to take me along for the rest of the ride.

I also feel so very sad for the family of those who die this way.  Suicide is ultimately a genuinely selfish act - the disregarding of everything in order to end your life.  I can only think that you can be so blinded by pain that you fail to see those around you. I don't mean this in the candy floss coated way of the James Stewart film 'It's a Wonderful Life'.  Angels rarely show up to show you the impact your life has had, especially at your lowest moment, but those who love you are there and continue to be there after you're not. It is something we can lose sight of when life hurts so much.  So sad.

There are advantages to having spent so many years either in therapy, or involved in the world of therapy.  It makes me very conscious of the effect that suicide has on the people left to live with this ultimate decision. It is devastating and even more so since it can't be reversed.  There is no way to shake the person now dead and say. 'wait, you are loved, you will be missed. There has to be another way.'

I am fortunate in my loving family.  When life becomes overwhelming to me I do know that I am loved.  Even when I really do not love myself it is so special to know that others do love me.  I would be missed by quite a few and as long as I feel I would miss them, I know this is not a road I could travel down.  It is final and one way only.

Sometimes I regret that I no longer have this get-out clause from life, just like I don't have the 'choice' to absolve myself of life's responsibilities by going mad. From the outside it looks like the easy way out. I believe the suffering and pain that makes suicide possible is so huge that it can seem like there is no end to it, but to end it all. 

I started this by mentioning Alexander McQueen, a talented young man with seemingly everything to stay alive for.  How lonely and sad his life must have been.  How wonderful I see that my life is and how spectacular that I feel so alive - warts and all!