Victims

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/

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

https://www.imalive.org

http://letsrecovertogether.tumblr.com

See, I can write a legend

In the early times things were different. The Earth was young and handsome, with great blue oceans and green green trees. Creatures dotted his surface, the only planet with anything living in the entire solar system.

It was for these reasons that the Earth grew vain, and ignored the other planets, his brother Mars and sister Venus. He floated alone in space flaunting his colors made by water and trees.

The only one to venture near him was the moon. Moon was a quiet plain soul, desperately in love with Earth. Earth enjoyed Moon’s company and allowed her to stay with him, but for the most of the days he ignored her. Her beauty was not appealing enough to catch his attention.

But Moon remained in love with Earth, despite his ignoring her. She grew so attached to Earth, she became a part of his magnificent surface, buried underneath his oceans, hoping to one day be noticed by him.

It was another, though, who caught Earth’s attention. She was far away from Earth. She shone with a light and energy like nothing Earth had ever seen. She was gorgeous and brilliant. She was Sun, untouchable and untamable, uncontested as the most fantastic being in the system.

Earth became engrossed in his love for sun. But it was a love that could never be. Sun was too great for a small being like Earth, even one as lovely. So, Earth was left to forever orbit sun, never allowed to get nearer, but never able to leave.

Heartbroken, Moon flung herself away from Earth. Embarrassed and broken, she became cold and gray. But, her love for Earth persisted, and she never left his side. As Earth was forever to circle the sun, so too was moon forever forced to circle Earth.

It has remained this way in the many years since. It is only on special days, when the moon and sun are just so, that Moon is able to block Sun and for a few minutes, be the sole recipient of Earth’s attention and love.

A Father Needs No Introduction

A father needs no introduction

A father teaches you how to brush your teeth
He tries to make getting ready for bed exciting
Really, he’s so tired that he doesn’t care when you don’t spit into the sink

A father holds you because you’re scared
Wraps you up in his big warm embrace protecting you from monsters
And only after the fifth time you come downstairs
Does he loose his temper slightly
When he explains the shapes you see at night are merely a toy on the floor

A father coaches your softball team
Since maybe the other coaches didn’t want you
He tells you to stop playing with the grass out in the field
But all the other girls love him, and it makes you proud

A father teaches you how to manage your finances
He teaches you about CDs and ATM cards
He helps you invest your money in Disney stock
And smiles when you know everything in economics class before it’s taught

A father buys you gifts
Even though he just finished lecturing you about how not to waste your money
He buys you something he thinks you’ll like
Even though you haven’t watched Sleeping Beauty since you were four

A father helps you with your math homework
Inadvertently, teaching you algebra
Because he thinks the way your teacher taught it is stupid

A father gives you advice about boys
Then threatens to scare them if they ever come over

A father dances with you at the father daughter dance
Gently giving advice because you’re not very good at partner dancing

A father teaches you about life wordlessly
Through his stares and his grumbles
Through the movement of his eyes and his smiles
You trust his judgments about the people around him

A father is the one you call when your car breaks down on the side of the road
Because you’re scared
And cars are whipping past you on the freeway
You know he’ll be there soon

A father is the one you easily see your kids climbing all over
With their smiling little faces sitting in his lap
And he’ll spoil them
You’ll kid about being jealous

A father comes to your plays
Even though he really doesn’t get Shakespeare
And he can’t understand the guy with the beard

A father let’s you go
He doesn’t cry (as much) when you go off to college
And makes jabs about how the house is cleaner without you
Really, he misses you
But, he believes in you enough to know you’re not coming back

A father needs no introduction
Anyone that does isn’t a father
Any man who has to repeat his position is not a father
No genetic connection
Nor place of birth
Can be what a real father is

A real father who lets your crying self keep him up late at night
Who takes you to Disneyland when you feel alone
Who sits up late watching movies with you
A man who needs no introduction