"Cowardly, Selfish"

[TygrBright]

Last edited Tue Aug 12, 2014, 06:11 PM - Edit history (1)

(Trigger warning: I will be discussing suicidal thoughts.)

Right here on DU, someone explained it: Suicide is an inherently selfish act -and in that one, there's the implication of cowardice, as well. ("never allows for resolution of issues for that person or others around them".)

And someone else here on DU noted that the Guardian's science blogger is wrong about it not being selfish.

I acquit folks writing such stuff here on DU of malice. I don't think they intend to hurt, denigrate, or perpetuate stigma.

But such a monumental lack of understanding and unwillingness to even nod in the direction of empathy is part of a problem for me today.

For me, and many others who suffer from chronic brain disorders-- particularly depressive disorders-- Mr. Williams' widely-reported and -discussed suicide is like having a scab ripped open. It exposes, suddenly and searingly the pain of a wound I am dedicated to healing.

I totally understand Mr. Williams' coping mechanism of humor although I've never been bright or desperate or creative or witty enough to use it successfully myself. But, damn, do I ever do a topnotch impression of "normal." Pulled-together, organized, thoughtful, pleasant, blah-blah-blah... on the rare occasions I have to acknowledge my disease to comparative strangers they are utterly gobsmacked-- they never imagined.

But under the mask I wear, just like under Mr. Williams' more flamboyant, beloved mask, and under masks worn by so many of my fellow-sufferers, the jerkbrain is still trying to kill me.

It's powerful, insidious, and effective. It's nearly succeeded a couple of times. What stopped me wasn't any altruistic impulse or sudden access of courage. Something closer to Divine intervention, maybe.

Be that as it may, here's what I was doing, those times when I decided not to continue breathing:

I was ending pain. I was ending weariness. A seemingly-endless weariness that offered no hope nor joy nor light nor love, nor even real pain or desire or strong feeling of any kind other than desperate, overwhelming gray numbness.

And I knew, because my jerkbrain told me so, that my misery was a drag on everyone else, too. People had to pretend to be nice to me. They had to consider my feelings, even though, lets face it, it had to be a terrible effort for them. Because being around me had to be an awful downer for them. How could it not be? Being around me is a terrible downer for ME. The voice of my jerkbrain tells me:

They would be so much better off without me.

Without my pain intruding on them.

Without my ugliness, my awkward attempts at humor, my fumbling and pathetic attempts to be "one of the gang"-- the human race, that is. Really, much better to leave them to get on with the living that seemed to work pretty well for them, and not have to try and fit such an un-fit-able object as myself into their lives.

And it would be a two-fer! In addition to giving others the gift of not having me around anymore, I'd be done. The effort of rolling the god-damned boulder of existence up the rocky, dusty, acid slope of life would be over.

The jerkbrain comforts me: You never belonged here, anyway.

It unrolls before the long history of rejection, bullying, every pain and every disconnection from the rest of you smooth apes. I am not of the tribe, clearly. I was a mistake.

Each breath continues the mistake of my existence and existence is a wearing, dragging agony of tiredness and numbness and tunnel vision into an endless future of more of the same.

This is not "selfishness." It is an act of altruism to allow the rest of you to continue without having to deal with my pain.

This is not "cowardice," it's just the last erg of energy leached from a weary existence, acknowledged.

Oblivion looks sweet, and beautiful, and NOTHING, a consummation devoutly to be wished, indeed.

If you were the wretched thing I am, you would do this, too. And yes, it may jolt you for a while, temporarily, that I chose this last act of controlling my destiny by ending it, but you will get over the jolt, and the shadow my existence, that interfered with your joy, that will be gone and the sun will shine fully upon you.

I don't pretend to speak for others who have been to that gateway, neither those who have turned back, nor those who stepped through. Nor is that voice "me."

That voice is my jerkbrain, my disease, the thing inside my head that wants me dead.

I choose not to let it win, each day, twenty-four hours at a time. Because twenty-four hours is all I can manage, even with medication that does help, even with a Program that functions as a lifeline, even with the love of friends, family, and dearest soulmate.

THIS twenty-four hours, I choose to keep the jerkbrain from winning.

Not from altruism, not from courage, but because I have given up. I am no longer fighting, I am no longer trying to control it, I have given that control over to a Power Greater than myself, and that Power gives me each twenty-four hours as a precious gift.

So when discussion like today's rips the scab off, I want to share a little of this experience for you, for others, because understanding of WHY suicide happens is so very necessary to helping us KEEP it from happening.

Saying it's about being "selfish" or "cowardly" does not help. It does not make me feel challenged to prove you wrong, or to 'buck up' or to stop being what I am-- a person with a chronic brain disorder. I have no control over that, and your ignorance and lack of understanding does nothing but convince me that the gap between my reality and yours is so wide and unbridgeable I might as well not even try. It gives the jerkbrain one more tool to use against me.

Please think about that, before making assertions about that of which you obviously know nothing.

firmly,
Bright