The “S” word (Suicide)

Suicide.  There, I’ve said it.  You can try it to.  Trust me, it won’t kill you.  Nor will it kill the person with whom you associate it.  It’s just a word.  It has no special powers beyond the specific definition it encapsulates.  We hender acceptance of the disease when we use euphemisms such as “ended it all,” “gave up,” and (my personnal favorite) “took the cowards way out.”
The same goes for “depression,” “bi-polar,” “manic depression,” “suicidal,” “attempted suicide,” “mental health hospital,” etc.  These do not need to be exchanged for “feeling down,” “moody,” “mercurial” (although, that word is kind of cool), etc.

When we give the word special power to turn down eyes and stifle conversation, we give up on communication in the most direct and honest way.  No one ever says “heart disease” with a whisper and an anxious look around the room.  Consequently, we can talk openly about heart disease without fear of killing the party or being crossed off next year’s Christmas list.  Heart disease has been normalized as has tuberculosis, broken bones, and cancer.  Indeed, even spinal meningitis doesn’t carry the social stigma associated with “depression” and “suicide.”  Let’s say the words, let’s talk about the problem, let’s discuss the social and emotional implications, let’s get it out of the closet.

Altogether now:

“Suicide” it’s not such an evil word.
“Suicide” not the worst thing I’ve ever heard.
“Suicide” can kill you like a heart attack.
“Suicide” ignore it, but it’s coming back.

“Depression” it’s just another bad disease.
“Depression” say it over till you say it with ease.
“Depression” will get you if you don’t take care.
“Depression” it’s treatable, so don’t dispair.

Keep singing this until the words roll off your tongue.  The next person who calls to check on me had better say, “Hey, I heard you were suicidal.  How’s that going?  Have you found a good doctor yet?”  Well, for now I’ll settle for “Wow, suicide.  Man, that’s tough.  So … how about them Bears?!”

Paying Attention

I was upset last night—very upset.  On my way to the bathroom, I slipped a martini glass under a spare shirt.  I didn’t ultimately do anything with it, but when I put the glass down on the way home, my friends just assumed I stole it from the club for fun.  The truth is I had fully intended to never come out of that bathroom again, not with my blood anyway.

This morning, my friends thought it incredibly funny that I stole a glass from the club.  I was thinking to myself, “I wouldn’t have stolen it if I had remembered that I already had a knife in my pocket.”

Watch your suicidal friends very closely.  If they do something odd or inexplicable, it’s probably time to put on your thinking caps to figure out if there is any way the action could be a precursor to suicide.  Odds are pretty good that there is a “method in their madness.”

With Full Intent

In Cherished79’s excellent account of one of her suicide attempts (http://cherished79.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/suicide-the-taboo-word/), she told us her thoughts after an aborted suicide attempt: “I am berating myself. You are such a loser, can’t even get this right, why did you have to call [9-1-1], back to square one again, you had the chance, you blew it, another disappointment, a huge loser.” I thought very nearly the same thing after each of my failed or aborted suicide attempts. Not so much failure on the intervened attempts, but definitely a certain sense of loss; someone stole what was mine and now I’m trapped in hell.

“Why did I call 9-1-1?” Waking up in the hospital with charcoal stains all over my clothes, tubes sticking into me and wires of various kinds stuck to my skin, the only thing I could do was shake my head and curse myself for being such a coward. Not a coward for attempting to OD, but a coward for calling for help. TDHP will invariably say, “See, that proves the `suicide attempt’ was just a cry for help.” No, it doesn’t! It only proves that in a moment of weakness during a long night of empowerment, I failed myself. Alternatively, it was a last moment of clarity in a long night of despair. Poe-tay-toe, poe-tah-toe.

The lesson hear is that people who try to kill themselves, really do want to kill themselves. It is incredibly embarassing when they don’t succeed. So please don’t pour salt on the wound by being angry with us or, even worse, belittling us. Afterwards,we may honestly say we are relieved to still be alive, but we are just as honest when we say we wanted to die. Don’t belittle the patient in your life by saying they didn’t really try to kill themselves, that it was just a cry for help.

“F&*% you! I’ll show you it wasn’t just a cry for help just as soon as I get out of here! And next time, I’m going to do it right.”

Seductive Suicide

In Cherished79’s excellent account of one of her suicide attempts (http://cherished79.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/suicide-the-taboo-word/), she mentioned how seductive suicidal ideation is. I cannot agree more with her on this point.

I don’t think TDHP (those damn healthy people) fully appreciate the degree to which suicide is not only a real solution, but indeed a very seductive solution to those of us who have been in pain for so long, to those for whom “tomorrow” is a four-letter word. “Yeah, and then I have to go through it all again tomorrow….”

I have often thought of my suicidality as something of an addiction. I use it as a coping mechanism for hopelessness and impotence–-a bad one, of course (right?), but one that is there no matter the circumstance. “I may not have a bright future and I may not have the power to feel better or to change this or that asshole, but I do have power over whether or not I will continue to suffer through it all.”

Recovering alcoholics often say, “One drink is too many, 100 is not enough.” It is the same with my addiction to merciful death. If I entertain the thought for even one moment, it grabs me and holds my attention until I’m walking through the door, keys in hand, intending to drive … well, let’s just say “not into the sunset.” I don’t have the luxury of thinking to myself something so meaningless as, “If I have to listen to him complain one more time, I’m going to kill myself!” As harmless as this one thought is to TDHP, it is one thought too many for me.

Fooling TDHP

In Cherished79’s excellent account of one of her suicide attempt (http://cherished79.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/suicide-the-taboo-word/), she described how she was planning to kill herself in the hospital, left the hospital, went home and executed her plan. That means her doctor and the ward staff was confident that she was no longer a danger to herself. I am sure that healthy people have no idea how often suicidal people lie about their feelings, and just how easy it is to do it.

I have given this some thought. Are we so good at covering up our intentions? Perhaps, but could it just as well be that in everyone’s need to avoid confronting the reality of our situation, they optimistically choose to believe we are much better than the facts support? I think on a day to day basis, this is probably the more likely scenario. Lesson: try to observe your suicidal loved ones as objectively as you can if you want to really be there for them.

As for doctors, I think we do put on our game faces and in doing so, we can seem healthy enough to leave, if indeed not completely healthy. And, how do we accomplish such a feat? Practice. As with anything, projecting a personna of compitence and stability is only a matter of practice. The truth is most of us (suicidal folk) have been suicidal for so long prior to acting on it, that we have a lot of practice in covering up how we feel. This goes back to my first point because we must have been bad at it in the beginning. It is only through apathy or wishful thinking that those around us did not pick up on it before we gained the experience required to fool the best.

Or, maybe we are just born thespians. BTW, I am in no danger of harming myself anymore….