Endings...

You all know I'm not big on trigger warnings, but I will make exceptions if I feel they are important. Today's blog is all about suicide. If this is a topic you should not participate in then please back out now. Also the suicide crisis line in the US is 988. You can text or call that number any time, any day and find someone to talk to.

Okay.

I have really complicated ideas around suicide. I've written about it before. I wrote about it when I felt one way, I wrote about it when I felt another. It's been a shifting relationship. 

Part of that is due to religion. You don't really realize how deep those threads go when you first leave a religion. How many of your beliefs are tied to those religious beliefs. How fundamental they are to your foundation. Then something happens and you have to reexamine why you believe something, why it's part of your moral compass. You have to justify why you believe what you do but without the "God says so" piece. 

I was raised that suicide is a sin. It's murder. It's of yourself, but still murder. If you kill yourself you will not go to heaven. And that feeling that suicide was just wrong stuck with me for a very long time. In fact when I first wrote about it, with that attitude in place, a random comment on my blog page was one of the first times I actually started to rethink my position.

I had said that it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem and talked about how awful it was for the surviving family. But someone that I didn't know commented on the blog that maybe it's just a point where you have realized you cannot take the pain anymore and decide that you need to stop it. 

I pushed back against that. I wasn't ready to listen to that point of view. Not yet. But it did stick in my head. Which often happens. It depends on how deeply ingrained an idea is on how long it takes to change a mind. That was the first step. 

The next came with death with dignity laws. Which I am in favor of, and have been forever. However, I didn't think of it as suicide. I would make sure to couch it in terminal illness and extreme pain. But then I started to think, who gets to decide what is extreme pain? And why does it have to be physical? Doesn't mental anguish count? And if you've tried multiple treatments and they've not worked why do I get to say you cannot just stop. 

So it kept worming it's way into my head that I was probably wrong about it. That it was a much more complex issue than I was giving space to. 

A few weeks ago a friend and I were talking about another friend (being vague, I know but it's a sensitive topic for some so I'm trying to respect that). I haven't heard from our mutual friend in awhile but I said I was afraid to go looking. They knew exactly why. There is a good chance one of these days when we check in on them they will no longer be with us. I know it's coming. See, our mutual friend told me that they were going to kill themselves. 

We were having a conversation and they dropped that in there. Along with a "Don't panic, it's not right now" but they wanted to let me know that they had already decided there would be a time where they were done and would go out on their own terms. That there was nothing I, or anyone else, could do to change their minds, and that there was nothing that I, or anyone else, had done to trigger it. It was just what they wanted. 

Wow.

Okay then. 

But is that so bad? I mean, they are a grown ass adult. They've made a decision about their life, and honestly it's more realistic than my decision to live to be 100. Shouldn't I just take it in stride and understand that this is what brings them a level of comfort in their day to day existence? Because I believe that knowing they have an out planned does bring them that level of feeling in control that they want. Who am I to say that they are wrong?

I've also known people who had Depression and end their own lives. I'm never exactly sure how to phrase that now. It used to be we would say they killed themselves. Or they were depressed and killed themselves. But now the understanding is bit broader. Depression is a disease. Different things can help, but Depression itself is just like diabetes or cancer or any other disease. We used to differentiate between physical and mental but more and more studies show how Depression is about brain chemicals and the way synapsis fire. That's physical. Just because we don't see it like we do a tumor doesn't mean it's not a physical disease. But because it's brain based we use mental. Which is also fine, except I think people don't tend to take mental illness as seriously. 

Like they think it's something that doesn't count as much. 

Not everyone, for sure, but enough people that we talk about it in weird ways. We try and blame mental illness for a lot of things that it doesn't cause. We try and explain away criminal behavior as mental illness instead of just a lack of give a fuck about other people. 

So anyway...Depression can end with the person suffering stopping their suffering permanently. The disease kills them. Just like cancer can kill or diabetes can kill or any number of other diseases can kill. Sometimes they don't, sometimes they are controlled with medication or other treatments, sometimes the diseases go into remission but sometimes the person suffering from one of those (and many other) diseases dies. 

But we just get really weird when it's Depression that kills them. 

We don't have those complicated feelings around cancer or other diseases. Even when they are terminal and the person chooses death with dignity. We say that's their choice and we respect that. Mostly. I mean some people fight against it because their religion says it's a sin but you all know how I feel about your religion dictating other people's lives. 

But here is the other place where it gets complicated. 

There are things we can do to reduce suicide rates that we don't do. Trans kids who get support are less likely to kill themselves. Multiple studies have shown this. The same with the other members of the LGBTQIA+ alphabet family. If we stop telling them that they shouldn't live they stop trying to agree with us. And that's what you are doing when you say you can't read a book about a gay couple. Or you can't get gender affirming care. Or you cannot marry the person you love. Or you can just pray your Alphabet Letter away. You are telling them that the way they are, who they are, isn't right and won't ever be right. And if you buy into that bullshit (as kids are wont to do with their parent's bullshit) and you know that praying every night for God to fix you hasn't worked well then often you look at a life of misery and think, yeah, no. 

This is the waste. This is the ruin. This is where I want to prevent as much as I can. I want to embrace people with their differences and let them know that it's okay. They are okay. There is nothing wrong with them. It's the other people who have to believe in a supernatural deity to tell them how to behave as a human. And that even with that they are failing the basic love one another that their deity supposedly told them to do. 

So I'm a little torn. I believe it's your right to do with your life what you choose. Even if that is ending it. I also want you to explore every other possible path that you can before you make that choice. Because it is a permanent one. That's my belief. I don't believe in an afterlife or reincarnation. I believe this is it. 

Which makes it all really complicated. 

So what set me off on this path? 

Yesterday walking down to check the mail I could see a car with its lights on in their garage. Some of the garage doors here have frosted glass panels all the way down. I thought to myself, "I hope you have an electric car, you really shouldn't start your car with the garage door down that's a good way to kill yourself" Then I thought..."what if they are killing themselves?" And I thought should I do something? Like I don't know these people, should I go bang on the garage door? Should I ring their doorbell? Should I call 911? Or should I mind my business? If it's their choice is it my place to stop it? I got my mail and thought, "well you're going to have to decide now" and they had pulled out of the garage while I was around the corner so no decision needed.

But it stuck with me. What should I have done? What would I have done? 

I don't know. I don't know what the right answer is. Part of me thinks, for sure the right answer is always to stop someone. To make sure they don't take that pill, jump from that bridge, start that car. But is it really? Or is that stepping in where I am not wanted, needed or should have a choice in the matter?

I still don't know for sure. 

I think I would have knocked. I was leaning toward knocking, like pretty much decided I would. Because if I am wrong and overstep then they can try again when nosy neighbor isn't around. But if I'm doing the right thing and giving them another thought and they decide to stay and try again maybe it will get better. But if I do nothing then the end is there. And if they could have used one more chance it's too late. 

It's a complicated subject. I have complicated feelings. I think it's absolutely your right to choose to end your life if you want to. But I hope you don't make that choice. I hope you keep going. 

Seriously, 988, any time day or night.