Suicide

[icarus_chained]

Yeah. Heavy duty. Look. It's something-stupid-in-the-morning, I haven't slept, and I need to explain this to people. Because it's not what you think, okay? It really isn't. People need to not judge so readily, and I really, really need to explain why.

Not locked in any way, because the more people understand, the better, and it's not like I need protecting. Not here, anyway.

Just listen, okay? Just listen, and don't judge until after.

On Suicide

Right. First things first. To be clear, I have experience of this from a number of angles. I have suffered from two massive breakdowns in my life (and for the record I'm only 21) that lead to my being labelled 'suicidal'. I also have contact through my parents with a search and rescue organisation that deals saddeningly often with river suicides. I have stood on the banks of the river with the families of those who went all the way, and I have stood alone on the banks wondering if I was going to be driven to follow them. So I have had my own limited amount of experience with the issue, from multiple angles. Alright?

The thing is, at least from my experience, I don't think suicide is what a lot of people seem to think it is. And here I'm going largely on comments that have been directed at me personally, and comments that I have seen directed at people like me, and even comments directed at the deceased who took that path. Those last, though, I can forgive mostly because grief breeds anger and other, stranger things, and people who have lost someone are entitled to their grief.

But. To be perfectly clear. Myself, and people like me, we are not 'weak'! My gods, I've heard it so many times. 'Took the coward's way out'. Do you ... do you have even an inkling ... And worse, because some do, have been there, and still say it, and to be honest I have no idea why in those cases, save maybe some strange kind of pride. But. *tears hair*

I'm alive. I'm alive. I have never tried in earnest to be otherwise, because thank the gods both times I got help in time. But I have stood on that riverbank, and looked at the water, and felt so crushed by everything in my life that I have needed, needed to escape, even if death was the only way. But I have never, ever wanted to die.

That's what I don't think people understand. It's not a desire. It's not some happy thought that things'll be better on the other side. Hello! Still human here! Primary instinct to survive, and all that! Death scares the shit out of me, and most sane people (and don't you even start about depression and insanity, don't you dare). Pretty rational fear, all things considered.

What you're thinking, standing there, is not 'I want to die!', it's 'Oh god, oh god, please don't let this be the only way, please don't let this by my last choice, oh gods why won't someone help me! I don't want to die. I never wanted to die. Please, someone! Anyone! Please. Just help me.'

And my gods, do you have any idea how hard it is to write that, to think it again, to remember standing there, thinking that, feeling that crushed, that desolate. *rocks* It's not easy, you idiots! It's not taking the goddamn 'easy way', the coward's way. It's being pushed into a goddamn box until you feel you're only two choices are slow death or quick death, and you want, long, need for there to be another choice, any other choice, but there isn't! There isn't. Unless you're lucky. Unless someone comes to help. And even then, do you know how much of a fight it is?

Especially, especially, when you get labelled 'suicidal'. Like it was something you wanted. When people look at you with a kind of pitying disgust, when they call you weak, when they make you feel ashamed that you were ever driven to that place. Where you get asked questions, by professionals, like 'Do you have thoughts of harming yourself? Do you find those thoughts attractive?' No, you morons! No, I don't ever find them fucking attractive! I find them terrifying and horrifying, and why do I have to think these things, and am I still so close, and you idiot, you're supposed to give me a way out, not ask if I really want one. What, you think I'm here for fun?

Look. In a lot of ways, I am a weak person. Lots of things most people are able to deal with near kill me. Normal things, in a lot of ways. I'm not really cut out for the way the world seems to be run. That's not self-pity, that's just fact. I can't do a lot of things without an incredible amount of effort. If one person can lift a heavy weight, and another can't, then that latter person is physically weaker than the first. If one person can shoulder the weight of daily life, and another can't ...

But I am not weak for trying. I'm not weak for trying over and over again until I've no strength left at all, and I fall down to a place ... to that place. I'm not weak for being driven to that choice. I'm not weak for choosing one way or the other. Okay? There is no easy choice. There is no desire, only need, and whichever way you choose you need goddamn strength to go the distance. One's long, one's short, is the only difference, but when you're starting from absolutely nothing it's not much of a one.

Look, just ... Just don't say it, okay? Don't say those things, because you call someone weak, it's hardly going to help them be strong, and when you're down there or coming out, you need all the damn help and strength you can get, alright? It just ... you weren't there, alright? You weren't in their heads. You didn't feel that pain, that need, that terror, that despair.

And if you did, and you still say those things ... I don't know. I don't know why you'd do that. But I think maybe you need to not hate yourself so much for what you were driven to, back then. You weren't weak either, you know. Just desperate.

And if they were yours, and you lost them, and you don't know why, I understand that you need to blame them, sometimes. I get that. Just know that it might not be true.

Gah. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. Just ... just don't label people, I guess.