Suicide victims are victims. They are victims of a disease, victims of society, and victims of themselves.
Suicide doesn’t have a straight path to it. It’s not the inevitability at the end of some road. It’s a chain of options that spring up like phantoms as you’re working your way through life. One minute you’re okay, and then next minute you aren’t. It’s not because of some implicit choice. Circumstance just brings the phantom to you.
Suicide does not present itself for only one type of person or for one type of reason. I’ve spent years amongst misfits, brilliant people who feel the burden sometimes of a world that really likes to pretend to hate them. Poor misfits who, at one point or another, deeply considered leaving the rest of us behind.
In my experience, suicide didn’t present itself in one way. It came to me in moments of utter helpless sadness, complete numbness, and terrible ferocious anger. It came in various packaging and various options.
Yet, for the other misfits and me who were still walking around the world, somehow the timing never was right, the numbness never strong enough, the blade never sharp enough.
There’s a story that says that every year people go to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, and the survivors always say that, mid jump, they realized that there was a simple solution to their problems.
For all its terror, the universe can be merciful.
But Depression is not.
Depression is being at the bottom of a chasm that seems too big to climb out of. Scraping against the sides of the wall, filling fingernails with dirt, starving, trapped and alone. Us, friends and family huddle on the edge of the hole that leads to the light, but the most we can do is call out words of encouragement, screaming our love, our devotion.
Us, those trapped in the chasm, feel everything. Everything is dark. Everything is numb. We are the only ones who can climb the walls and escape.
In depression, though, escape is never permanent because the floor can always fall out from underneath you again. It takes intense beautiful bravery to continue walking through life’s fields, hoping you don’t find yourself suddenly standing on nothing.
Those stuck in the chasm, unable to crawl out, are the victims and deserve the most love and compassion. They are victims because they did not jump in willingly. Something else put them in the dark.
Suicide victims are victims of the darkness, despair, sadness, and loneliness. And like all victims they deserved compassion. They deserve compassion, and they are love by somebody somewhere right now.
Resources for someone considering suicide:
http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/
http://www.advocate.com/health/2014/11/25/new-suicide-hotline-dedicated-trans-people-now-open-calls
http://www.mentalsupportcommunity.net/index.php?/forum/32-urgent-need/
The Parking Brake is On 