What a Shameful Way to Go (Warning: Graphic)

I  have never understood the stigma of suicide. Yes, I know. That life is the most precious gift that god can give you. That to take such a gift for granted is the most heinous of crimes. That surely they didn't mean to do it and if only someone had known, they could have stopped it. I have had SEVEN persons I loved and cared about choose that route. And each time, it was all hush, don't talk about it. No one wants to discuss.

It's always said---They COMMITTED suicide. 

com·mit- carry out or perpetrate (a mistake, a crime or immoral act)

 Even the word- commit. A mistake. A crime. An immoral act. 

 Lets look up the word immoral. 

im·mor·al -  not conforming to accepted standards of morality. Unethical, bad, morally wrong, wrongful, wicked, evil, foul, unprincipled, unscrupulous, dishonorable

Wow. Evil, wicked, foul. Unprincipled and unscrupulous. Why isn't someone committed death when they die? How come the world commit and immoral need be attached to suicide?

Is it because they should have known better? They should have made a different choice? Should have changed the path they were walking along? Thought of their family? Their loved ones?

Okay, I'll play.
 
How is suicide any more committed to dying than that idiot that is driving 120mph down a road in a car and slamming into a pole? Surely, they knew that could result in death. I mean, who doesn't know that? Was the driver immoral in doing that? No. His family will gather and say what a damn tragedy it was. How sad that that pole just happened to be on that curve. People will put flowers and crosses where this tragedy occurred. No one says they were foul. Or evil. Or even dishonorable. Just...such a 
tragedy.

trag·e·dy  - an event causing great suffering, destruction, and distress, such as a serious accident, crime, or natural catastrophe

 Lets try this one..maybe it can help me understand. 

What about the drug addict that is committed to their fix? Did they honestly not know that when they shoved that needle in their vein, snorted that powder up their nose, or ingested some poison that they wouldn't die? No, its such a sad social statement. Did they not know that drugs can kill them? That it can destroy their lives? No, its just so sad. 

No, didn't help a bit. Still don't understand. 

Social media will have post after post about the TRAGEDY of their deaths. But not ONCE will it be said they COMMITTED DEATH. Their own. Maybe even others. 


No, only suicide has that whole COMMITMENT caveat attached. As if no other form of death had a choice. Or a decision. All other forms of self-destruction are given an excuse. A get out of IMMORALITY judgement card. 

Tonight, I got informed that someone who had been dealt so many blows that mirror my own, domestic violence and depression from it all, committed suicide. This is someone who recently was raped by two strangers and was having the hardest time dealing with it. I knew she was struggling and I tried to be there for her. I couldn't help by wonder if that seed was planted in her head as I shared my life with her. Yeah, I know...no need playing the guilt game. But this makes another person I have loved or cared about that has taken their life. It was after all, their own life to take. 

As I sat her listening to her sister tell me how the family plans on dealing, I became more and more angry.

No ceremony. No funeral. No memorial. Just a cremation and her ashes sprinkled on the river. They wanted no obituary, no death notice, nothing. She left me a letter they said. They were dropping it in the mail. I thanked them and the call was done. They were ashamed and even after she had died, they wanted to just toss her away like her life because of how she ended it...didn't matter. Like she didn't matter. Only the way she chose to die.

I admit, and I've said it before. I've considered suicide. When the depression gets so bad, so overwhelming that I think my family would be better off or for that matter, be no different if I was gone. I can't say what's stopped me from doing it. I can't say I won't consider it again. It's a day to day thing that I face, I handle and I wake up and do it all over again. 

I find it so hard to believe that in this day and age when we are cloning things, granting marriage to all human kind, have a marvel mapping out Mars or finding cures for diseases that we can still stigmatize suicide. 

How is suicide ANY different than dying from any disease. How is killing oneself different than someone drinking themselves to death? Or ODing on pain meds at the end of a lifetime of suffering choosing to go out their way.

Or...dying from cancer. 

Because that's what suicide is a by-product of. An illness. Suicide is the end result of extreme, soul eating depression. Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain and therefore--a disease. It's not a bad day or a shitty mood. It's a  CHEMICAL IMBALANCE OF THE BRAIN. And no amount of "get over it" or "come on, cheer up" is going to fix it. There are drugs (thank god) that can help a person battle it. The disease can just become so crippling that there is no way out. 

I'm so tired of why didn't the family know. No one really WANTS to commit suicide. Bullshit. Sometimes the person suffering from the end stages--which is what I am calling it from now, the end stages--of depression doesn't say a word. And the family has adjusted to the presence of the disease for so long they no longer see the signs. Or they don't want to. 

Nothing angers me more than when someone says "why didn't they think of their loved ones?" Seriously?

Someone who is in the end stage isn't thinking about ANYONE. Not themselves and most likely not anyone else. When you get that bad, you just don't care about anything. You become so numb and so defeated that you just KNOW the world, your family is going to be SO FUCKING GLAD YOU ARE GONE. Including you.

You're tired of the constant gnawing in your gut from being so sad. You hate that you don't enjoy food, books, movies or even sex. It's all a mindless trudging through existence and not seeing a single grain of purpose in the doing so.

And you're tired. So damn tired that walking to bed to wallow and hope to sleep until everything is all better like everyone says it will be....tomorrow. Knowing damn well that tomorrow the pain, the agony and the overwhelming sense of grief for your lost self it just going to be more. 

So you tell me...if you have to feel that way EVERY DAY. When you can't sleep or all you do is sleep...that you wouldn't consider a release? A desperate escape from the heavy rock that has become your emotions? Don't lie...you would. 

So you do it...

And suddenly your family is shamed. Your friends don't know how to handle it. And if you weren't successful? They look at you like you came from the dead and they aren't exactly sure if that was good thing. If you succeed? 

Well, at least its over.

Did you know that some funeral homes and cemeteries refuse to have services or have the bodies of a suicide death be buried with the "god fearing" people? It's true. I had to go through it personally. Did you know that all the friends you had before you lost your loved one to suicide just never really want to be friends anymore? Like, they'll become infected... Like you're a carrier of that dark shame and they may catch it. Or even worse...have to deal with it. It's a taboo...don't remind them.

Suicide is immoral after-all. No one wants to have that stamped on their souls. 

Oh yeah, suicide souls don't go to heaven either. Nope. Since they did the worse crime in god's eyes, they go to hell. Funny, they thought they were hell before they did the deed. Ask me why I no longer believe in modern religion...read the line before this one, it's not hard to figure out.

When are we going to just STOP blaming the person that committed suicide? JUST FUCKING STOP DOING IT. 

They were suffering and they were SICK. There is NO CHEMO. THERE IS NO MIRACLE PILL OR CURE FOR THEM TO HOPE FOR. They can take their meds, see their shrinks and HOPE THE MONSTER THAT IS EATING AWAY AT THEIR SOUL WILL JUST STAY AT BAY.  DEPRESSION NEVER GOES A WAY. THERE IS NO CURE, THERE IS NO REMISSION.

Tomorrow is never a good day to someone with severe depression.  It's just a BETTER day than the one before. It's like having a deadly, gnawing monster under your bed and you know, once you lay down, that monster might slither over your feet, slide under the covers and choke you until you can't breathe. You can only pray that tomorrow....

will be better than today. But you FEAR it's just going to be worse.

If I could ABOLISH the term "committed suicide" I would find the world a somewhat more hopeful place where we don't judge someone who was ill, hurting and pain. We'd find it JUST as much as  a tragedy as any other way. And just as much of a sadness rather than a shame. 

Wouldn't that be a world that gave a chance to those of us with our monsters at bay. 

One can hope, right?