The one line I get sick of hearing over and over again when people are discussing suicide is this: Suicide is SO selfish.
Give me a break. People that say things like that are speaking from a pedestal of ignorance. Try this on: Why should one person (Let's name him Barney) who is in a constant state of chaos (Bipolar Disorder, perhaps?), ever miserable, ever in pain both mental and physical, ever doomed to not knowing who he is going to be when he wakes up, ever exhausted from having to live the life everyone else lives PLUS that extra second-by-second battle inside of himself multiplied by faulty thought processes to the power of lacking coping methods ad infinitum....why should he have to stick around if his life is 90% shit, 5% good, and 5% in the bathroom as a CONSTANT THAT CANNOT BE CHANGED, just so the many, many people in his life don't have to feel a few years of mourning? Just about every day for this guy is pure torture and hell that only others with his "affliction" can POSSIBLY understand, but oh...He should stick around and deal with ANOTHER 30-50 years of it so that we don't have to feel any discomfort. It's bullshit. Life isn't for everyone. I certainly don't promote suicide, but I am sure as HELL not going to judge and deign to know another human's pain. Everybody is different. Nobody is better than anyone else. Every single situation in life will be perceived differently from person to person, even if in only 1 tiny, minute detail, but it will be different. Who are any of you to judge what is a selfish act and what is not?
It is so sad and hurtful when someone commits suicide. We wish there was something we could have done. We tell ourselves that there WAS something we could do, but we failed to see it, and now it's too late. No. We of the Suicidal Ideations Club plan it that way. We know we are the only ones that can help ourselves. Unfortunately, sometimes it ends up being suicide that is decided upon as our medication of choice. We are some of the BEST actors and actresses you will ever meet. We are happy, funny, life of the party, laid back, confident, etc...or so you think. Then you are surprised when we finally throw in the towel. It is unexpected of us. An hour in any one of our minds would be sufficient for you to understand what pain ails us. Then you would not judge. No longer would you puke phrases like, "Just look at the brightside!" and "Pick yourself up by your bootstraps!" or "Have you tried just focusing on good things and letting go of the bad?"
I know those kinds of things are well intentioned. You want to be helpful. Good on you for trying where others would rather ignore. Seriously. But you are unknowingly hurting us. It may not make sense to you, but we just CAN NOT look at that invisible Bright Side. We can't see it. And you telling us to look at it further enforces our self hatred and depression. We are failures for being unable to see this light. We are not 'normal'. We are 'flawed'. It is such a disgusting circle of pain. There is SO much to Bipolar Disorder and Depression that people don't know or understand. That is okay. Mental Health is STILL not looked at as a true practice. The proof for that is the terrible restrictions that Health Insurance companies place on Mental Health Benefits as compared to 'normal' office visits and the like.
I am sort of rambling. There is just so much to it that needs to be said that I keep jumping from subject to subject without finishing a single thought. How about this: If you have someone in your life that has Depression or Bipolar Disorder I or II and you TRULY care about them, do them a favor. Get a book from the library, Barnes and Noble, etc.. that is especially written for friends and family of the sufferer. And make sure to get the correct book for the correct 'disease'. If you have a bipolar son, get a bipolar book. Bipolar Disorder and Depression are two very different 'illnesses' with only a few similarities (That's my own opinion, just like the rest of this blog). But, if your son is bipolar, ALSO pick up that depression book as it has great info in it that is also helpful to know and understand. That is the one thing anyone has EVER been able to do for me that I didn't need to do for myself. My mother took the initiative to learn about this problem. She even says, she doesn't fully understand because she doesn't have Bipolar, but at least now she knows what she can do and say (or NOT do and say) and how she can (can't) do and say it to make it easier for me to work on fixing myself. She now knows that my behaviours that seemed odd or wrong before are just part of the 'disease' and that helps make it tolerable for her. In turn, I don't have to feel guilty or stupid in front of her anymore when the bad things DO happen. Like she says, "Zach, it's just part of who you are!"
I went nowhere fast with this harried blog. Forgive me if I was offensive to anyone, I realize I started this blog in a bit of a rough mood. I am sorry. I have very strong feelings about others passing judgement about things of which they know nothing. But they just don't KNOW and that isn't their fault. I guess if people like us were to help others (people with open minds) understand in a more patient (unlike my blog, haha) fashion, this kind of thing would happen less. And seriously, pick up a book or two if you know a 'sufferer'. They will appreciate it more than you know. And it will be fun to pick out all the characteristics that your loved one has that are described in the book.
One last thing. People with these 'diseases' KNOW that there are TERRIBLE things going on in this world. Things that make our pithy troubles seems like small potatoes. It's true! There are people that have body parts chopped off one-by-one just because they were born into the 'wrong' tribe. Ridiculous, HORRIBLE things happen in this world that absolutely stun me to no end. How can one human do such a terrible thing to another human? I know my small stack of troubles will never measure up to the mountains of strife, grief, and hopelessness that plague this planet. We don't think the world revolves around us and that our life is worse than ANYONE else's. We are just wired incorrectly in the head. We are tired and exhausted from the mental battle (The one that NOBODY else can see, thus they think it can't exist) we fight every minute. You wouldn't tell a Paranoid Schizophrenic to "look at the bright side" or a person with terminal cancer to "just push through it and stop focusing on the bad stuff". It truly is a very similar situation. OUR symptoms are just on the inside where you can't see the sickness and the toll it takes, whereas with cancer it is fully visible.
I don't know. Just give my incomplete points and ideas a bit of open-minded thought. That's all I ask. Feel free to berate and belittle me, now! :) J/K. Thanks for reading this chaotic drivel.
