The first thing I want to tell you about suicide is that you don't have to be crazy to think about it
or, for that matter, even to try it. Suicide is a solution. No matter what anyone tells you, suicide
does solve problems, at least your problems. And if you succeed, it solves them once and for all.
As you have no doubt already figured out, once you are dead nothing can hurt you anymore.
Once you are dead you are beyond feeling bad. Once you are dead you can't possibly care what
happens anymore. Whatever pain you are in, it will end just as soon as you stop breathing. Since
there is no point in kidding each other right here in the beginning, I won't argue with you that
suicide doesn't work. It does. Or at least it seems to.
Before this time in your life, my guess is that when you heard people say they felt like killing themselves, you thought they were crazy. Now, if you are in that same place, maybe you can see how they felt. For whatever reasons people think it, most of them will say you are crazy for thinking about suicide. Or, if you kill yourself, they will say you must have been crazy to have done it.
But the truth is that most people who kill themselves are not mentally ill, at least in the way we think of people who are “out of their minds.” Yes, people who are psychotic sometimes kill themselves, but most people who die by suicide are people just like you and me; people who, for reasons I hope you will explore with me, have decided that life is just not worth living anymore.
The great majority of people who attempt or complete a suicide are so sad or hopeless or angry that they simply can't stand life anymore. Or they have been dealt such a terrible blow by life that they are overwhelmed and can see no other way to end the feelings of loss, stop the suffering and regain control over their future. But they are not crazy. And, most likely, neither are you.
One of the things that happens when you begin to think about suicide as a way out is that you begin to feel better, sometimes a little better, sometimes a lot better. After all, when you've been stuck with a problem for which there seems to be no answer, finally finding one is a great relief. You might ask, "How can this be?"
Because we humans are capable of imagining doing things we have never done or being in places we have never been, we are all capable of imagining what it might be like to be dead, or at least what it might be like not to be alive. Only man is capable of imagining his own death. We can play our death out like a role in a movie. We can close our eyes and see ourselves lying lifeless in a casket. Whether we will admit it or not, just about all of us at some time or another, have imagined what it would be like to be dead.
So for now, for this moment between us, I'd like to put the suicide decision on the shelf and ask you to stay with me and let's take a journey together. As you can guess, I'm not writing this blog to hurry anyone along. Rather, I'm writing this blog to help you examine suicide in some detail and maybe in some ways that haven't yet occurred to you
Before this time in your life, my guess is that when you heard people say they felt like killing themselves, you thought they were crazy. Now, if you are in that same place, maybe you can see how they felt. For whatever reasons people think it, most of them will say you are crazy for thinking about suicide. Or, if you kill yourself, they will say you must have been crazy to have done it.
But the truth is that most people who kill themselves are not mentally ill, at least in the way we think of people who are “out of their minds.” Yes, people who are psychotic sometimes kill themselves, but most people who die by suicide are people just like you and me; people who, for reasons I hope you will explore with me, have decided that life is just not worth living anymore.
The great majority of people who attempt or complete a suicide are so sad or hopeless or angry that they simply can't stand life anymore. Or they have been dealt such a terrible blow by life that they are overwhelmed and can see no other way to end the feelings of loss, stop the suffering and regain control over their future. But they are not crazy. And, most likely, neither are you.
One of the things that happens when you begin to think about suicide as a way out is that you begin to feel better, sometimes a little better, sometimes a lot better. After all, when you've been stuck with a problem for which there seems to be no answer, finally finding one is a great relief. You might ask, "How can this be?"
Because we humans are capable of imagining doing things we have never done or being in places we have never been, we are all capable of imagining what it might be like to be dead, or at least what it might be like not to be alive. Only man is capable of imagining his own death. We can play our death out like a role in a movie. We can close our eyes and see ourselves lying lifeless in a casket. Whether we will admit it or not, just about all of us at some time or another, have imagined what it would be like to be dead.
So for now, for this moment between us, I'd like to put the suicide decision on the shelf and ask you to stay with me and let's take a journey together. As you can guess, I'm not writing this blog to hurry anyone along. Rather, I'm writing this blog to help you examine suicide in some detail and maybe in some ways that haven't yet occurred to you
