World Suicide Prevention Day

I have had a hard month; that is no secret, but today is a day of remembering for me…last year our family lost 2 people to suicide.  Jasone, my husband’s younger brother, killed himself about a year and a half ago.  And a little over a year ago my uncle shot himself.  This day has great meaning for me, but not just because of them…because of me too.

Many years have passed since I made the decision to live, after much debate in my mind.  I was in the midst of a trip down the road of insanity, and it was winning.  I fought every day to stay on this earth, it was a daily wrestle within my mind and heart.  Until late one night I sat with a knife in my hands and the image I saw was my mother standing over my grave, I never picked up a knife that way again.  I decided in one small moment of clarity that I could never put my mother through that kind of pain, suddenly my selfishness was erased and I remembered my mother.  The fight with insanity trudged on for quite some time, but my desire for death had been erased and replaced with a desire to know why I felt this way.  I wanted to understand myself, and eventually help other’s to understand them as well.  I turned what focus I had toward education and understanding, and becoming a well person.

My trip to getting well was long and extremely painful…there was medication and therapy…there were tears and pain…and then there was discovery and resolution.  I had been beat down by others and I had a disorder that would prove to be life-long.  I had also made decisions in the midst of insanity that I could not take back…decisions that, in combination with other things, would haunt me for years.  I learned to live with the nightmares, and I coped with the difficult times in the ways I was taught.  Eventually I began making progress toward recovery; and now, many years later, I can honestly say I am a well person.  I have my bad days and I still take meds every day, and despite the judgment of others, I would like to say that I am an advocate for the mentally ill.

In the years that I have been dealing with my disorder, I have noticed a growing trend where people think that if you have to take meds then you are weak, and in the church are “not exercising faith”.  There is also the all-encompassing belief that if you are depressed then you must be doing something wrong in your life.  Then there is the knee-jerk reaction that suicide is shameful, that we should be ashamed if someone close to us committed suicide.  All of these things are false and nothing but judgments by the un-educated, un-feeling people of this world.  The reasons why a person choses suicide are their reasons, and if we are going to begin helping people then we have to put our own stupidity aside.  People who are saved from suicide talk about someone who listened, not who talked.

Maybe if Jasone hadn’t isolated himself from everyone who loved him…maybe if he had had someone to talk to…there are so many maybes in that situation that you can’t even begin to count them all.  I know one thing for sure, that his mother misses him terribly.  My heart sank when the policeman handed me the note he left, because I knew what it would do to his mother when she saw it.  As I have seen her stand over his grave I am reminded of what stopped me…I know I made the right choice in staying here to finish my life.  I am grateful to my mother for the principles that she taught me, but most of all I am grateful for her love that she gave freely. 

 

I mourn Jasone, not because I knew him and I miss him, but because it was a life that was lost un-necessarily.  May we all take this time to think of someone other than ourselves, is there someone who could use a listening ear and an understanding heart?  Suicide is preventable, but only if we are paying attention to those around us.  I read a quote recently that was attributed to Mother Teresa that said “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”  I love this because it puts simply that you can’t be helpful to someone if you are judging them.  How about if we all put our judgments aside this week so that we can love people, because I really believe that love is what prevents suicide.  Complete, all-encompassing, un-conditional love…the way that God loves us.  Here’s to love, may we all take it for a spin and watch the miracles that it can produce. 

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