Suicide? Please Stop For A Moment

This story in the NYT about Aaron Swartz has brought into my thoughts a topic I'd really like to leave alone, suicide. I've had my own collision with this and for various reasons I've had to go back to it and I really, really don't want to.  I will do it because I don't want other people to have to know what I know about this.  I'll use words to try to tell you about something that you won't truly understand unless you're a member of the group impacted by a suicide, and honest to god, you really do not want to ever truly understand.

We're the ones you leave behind.  We're the ones who cannot sort it out, we cannot ever know your mind.  We're left with nothing but guesses, what ifs, and whys.  Maybe you think you can leave a note that'll lay it all out, it won't.  I know, for reasons I won't go into, the blackness and despair that put you here and I'll tell you that your best efforts will not explain and fix what it is you're contemplating.  You are going to break some one's heart, you are going to crush them with a weight they cannot fix.  Someone loves you, someone really does care and you are going to do to them what it is you're thinking to escape.  If you could explain yourself, if you could express what is happening you'd be working your way out of it - the results of this act will leave the survivors in the same position.  I'm going to go with the assumption that this isn't your desired end result.

I am very close to the 25th birthday of clean and sober so I have reason to know that comebacks are possible and I do mean comebacks from a bad hopeless appearing place.  There really isn't much good I can say about that person, back then, and not many others held any hope for him - but some, in the face of all evidence, did.  Those people are there and you are not in a good position to see it, any more that I was.  What you see is not what all others see and what you think and feel is not what all others do.  You are proposing to make that decision for them, whether your life counts, and you don't get to.  Your life will count to them whatever you decide and they will have to deal with that.  The people who care don't know that you believe they don't and so you don't know that they do care.  People cannot read your mind   All the science, philosophy, and empathy in the world do not grant anyone the ability to read a mind, and you can't read theirs - either.

I do not propose to judge the morality of suicide, I don't have the right to do that - for anyone other than myself.  I do have the right to talk about the consequence of it and beyond the right I have intimate knowledge.  You can tell me and yourself that my situation is different and that I just don't understand and yes, maybe I do only have bits and pieces but I have enough to tell you that in this state of mind you cannot make an informed judgement about others' depth of caring and love.  I'm just a guy typing on the internets?  Yes,  I am that and I'll tell you that a guy not given to emotional displays is sitting here typing with tears running down his cheeks and swallowing hard.  My boy wrote that he was doing a favor for angry disappointed parents and a world he couldn't function in and I'll tell you that in the face of all that anger and disappointment my heart is broken and what was broken will never, ever heal.  I won't get over it, I'll get by it - I'll keep on because that's what I have to do and what I do, but I'll carry this for my forever.

If you're not dying of some horrid terminal disease, it is not too late to do something about it.  You cannot undo a past, you cannot fix it - but the future is indeterminate, it is not fixed.  I won't say something trite like, "you can be anyone you please," but I will tell you that you are not stuck where you are.  You may not have it at the moment, but hope can be had.

Writing this hurts like hell.  I'm doing this because if I can help save one person from having the knowledge that I have it makes an awful lot of things worth something.  I have this because my son did this and if his doing it helps someone else not do it, then that is something, anyhow.  I don't have much of him now, some photographs and memories, so if this gives something back - I'll have that also, even if I don't know about it.

Please stop for a moment and give someone a chance to show you that it matters, it'll only cost you a few minutes and a little bit of risk; really not much in the face of what you're considering.  Hell, if nothing else - I'm pretty easy to find.  Just take a moment, please.

signed:
Chuck Butcher, Nick's Dad Forever

Suicide - Your Best Thinking Got You Here

I know something about suicide, once as a practicing alcoholic I tried it and failed and I've lost a son to it. I can't make a moral or value judgement on the subject, I have no right to do that and no ability to read minds. What I can tell you is that succeeding is final and partial failure may turn you into something worse than what you were dealing with. I can also tell you that the innocent suffer; those who would help and who do care have a piece of their life torn away from them.

If your goal is to make someone else suffer for your situation, then I have little I can say because I have no understanding of the value system that would lead to that. It seems to me to be the ultimate in selfishness. Now you may believe that no one gives a rat's patoot if you draw breath or not, but that is highly unlikely. It is much more probable that you simply can't see it thanks to your situation.

This gets to the title and it isn't some jokey thing or snark. It is quite literally the truth. If you're seriously contemplating suicide you've gotten there by giving your life some pretty serious consideration. In no way am I minimizing what has gotten you to the point of thinking taking your own life is a good choice. I will state that such a decision ought to be given a bit more thought than what has led you to that point. There is a very serious reason I propose this, your life at any given moment is a culmination of your best thinking and that thought process has led you to reach for a final solution to the difficulties you face. If your thinking is faulty there is no fixing it once it has been acted on.

I do not have much belief in the idea that people are persuaded to a course of action. I've pretty much noted that people do what they do for their own reasons, what you can do is offer new or different information for consideration that might lead to different outcomes. Those other people are looking at things from a different place and perspective and what they have to say might be of value to your decision process. The process of being you may be unique but it is made up of components that others have in common and have dealt with. No matter what your situation is, you are not alone. You are not because this world is so large and so complex that others will have shared experiences with you.

It may seem that absolute finality presents a real relief; there also may be real relief from other courses of action. I cannot tell you with any assurance that you will find that but you surely will not if you just end it all without experiencing the other courses. Regardless of current events, things change. That is the nature of reality; it is not static it is a process of events and thinking. All that is brought to a halt by suicide.

You may have noticed that there are no moral or ethical arguments being presented here. If I have any, they apply to me and that's the end of that. I can tell you that others do have to deal with the fact of suicide and that may be quite difficult to do with any success. Regardless of how you feel or think it is almost a certainty that there are those who care very deeply about you. I am not a professional or therapist and I'm not qualified to do much more than give a damn that someone doesn't waste their life by missing something helpful. That is why you need to talk to someone who doesn't reside in your own head, someone with different thinking. If I turn out to be full of hooey, nothing has been lost by trying what I'm suggesting and a great deal may be gained if I'm right.

Please, see what there is beyond your best thinking.