Sunday, December 8, 2019
No time for the dead.
Today I was a little late getting to curling, well that happens when you are partying out all night. Anyway as I was trotting up to the change room, I could still see many people around the tables. Good, I was thinking in my head, I won't look late. When I went in, my skip said, "we are not playing today". Two friends stepped forward and asked if I heard the news? Sadly one team member committed suicide this weekend.
He was the typical shocker of a story, nice guy, friendly, always smiling and joking, not the kind of person you think would do that. Yet we almost always read that positive description of someone who committed suicide. Everyone wanted to sit around and talk about it, not me. I didn't really know him, I'm not allowing myself to be sucked into his drama. Obviously he was hurting inside about something and wouldn't get help. I know this is about mental illness or maybe he received terrible news and couldn't go on... but I feel a little bit of anger when I think of the death and illness that I have seen lately. I told my teammates that I was home late this morning so I would return home. I text another friend to tell him what happened. I told my friend about not staying behind to talk, I said there is plenty of time to be dead there is so little time to be alive.
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7 comments:
Suicide. A permanent solution to something that mostly likely, would have been a temporary issue.
Back when I was in the service, my friend George tried and failed at suicide. I talked to him and discovered he wasn't horribly depressed. He told me he just couldn't see the point in living. He wasn't suffering, his mind just shut things down. He later succeeded. I had an 8mm movie camera on base and he was in some of the movies. My dad edited him out because he thought I'd be depressed by seeing him. I know George would have been upset because he wanted to do the editing himself.
It’s sometimes hard to determine what drives a person to the edge. Like Maddie said, a permanent solution to a temporary problem. But for that individual they see no other way out. They often are unaware of the help available to them, or the effects of their actions on those close to them. It’s a sad situation all around.
this is the second suicide I've read happening this weekend - both were men seemingly doing 'well' but apparently not so.
Speaking just from my experience, sometimes it's not so much that you want to die, it's that you just don't want to exist anymore. It is a subtle difference. Personally, I've come closer to the deed when I haven't been depressed, more like listlessness. I'm also a big chicken and I wouldn't put my family and friend through the trauma of losing such a sparkling personality as mine. Yes, friend is singular :) I'm not heartless, I just automatically detach since childhood.
I understand where some of your anger comes from. Other people in your life are getting sick and dying, and have no say in the matter. People who commit suicide by definition do so out of choice. But there is suffering in both cases.
Suicide is so sad. So, so sad.
Both for the person who commits it and the people who loved them and are left without.
So sad.
xoxo
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