I’ve been thinking about suicide a lot lately. Deep,
ponderings about suffering. Questioning my own deep seated belief that to take
your own life is selfish and weak.
First things first... I’m not suicidal. Not in the
slightest. I have always told myself it’s because I’m not selfish. Or weak.
I’ve spent time in some very dark places in my years but I always pull through.
Because – strong. But I’ve challenged those thoughts recently and I’ve
surprised myself.
My father-in-law died a horrible cancerous death four years
ago. A tumour was discovered in his sinus. Mucosal melanoma. The oncologist
told him his best chance was to remove it and all that surrounded it... which
was half his face. This may give him some more time. More time than the 80
years he had already lived. He was scared to do it and spent many hours
deliberating. Discussing with his loved ones. With his family who all urged him
to do it. “You HAVE to fight” was the message he got loud and clear. “Don’t let
this beat you”. And so, bravely, he decided to go through with the procedure.
He did fight. He fought hard. But he confided in me, not long before he passed
that he wished he had never done it. Because it did beat him and it did not buy
him time and we buried him with half his face missing.
When he died, like the countless others that I know who died
at the hands of a debilitating disease, the people he left behind [us] were
relieved. “Thank goodness his suffering is finally over” “He fought so hard but
the pain was just too much for him” “He was so brave”.
Far too many of us have watched someone we love suffer
intensely before dying. We watch disease ravage them. We watch them change
before our eyes. We remember brighter days when they weren’t sick. When we
could laugh together and have fun. When their body was fit and healthy. When
all hopes and thoughts of the future included them. We watch them waste away
before us as their illness takes hold. As their appetite wanes and their
ability to put on a brave face become less frequent. We watch as the light
dulls in their eyes from medication to help them ease the aching. We watch and
we wait and we empathise because we can’t even imagine the hell they must be
living in. Many of us sit by their bedside and hold their hands and give
comfort as we assure them that we will be ok without them. That they can go.
That they can give up the fight. It’s ok, we say. You have been so strong and
so brave to hang on so long. It’s ok, we say.
But what if their disease is not physical? What if their
illness is mental? What if the excruciating pain they are feeling is all in
their head? Are they not brave too? Is their pain less worthy? Is their
yearning for it to end really so selfish? Do they not deserve dignity too? Why
do we urge our loved ones who suffer from physical pain to let go yet demand the
ones that suffer from emotional pain to hang on?
Have you ever loved anyone who is depressed? And I’m not
talking some bullshit down in the dumps or in a slump or a bit flat or sad. I
mean bona fide, clinically depressed. Someone who is actually unable to
function for weeks, months and even years on end. Someone whose emotional pain
is so intense they are unable to maintain a relationship of any kind so that
they are deeply alone and overwhelmingly lonely. Have you ever loved someone
who is so devastated that they choose to physically harm themselves as a
distraction to their internal suffering? Have you ever watched someone waste
away before your very eyes and pull away from you so profoundly and have
absolutely no way to help them? Have you ever watched someone you love
self-medicate and seemingly prefer to choose poison over their relationship
with you? Have you ever looked at someone you love, survive a suicide attempt
and think “you’re so selfish” or “you’re so weak” or “you’re just doing this
for attention”? Have you ever said to someone you love, who can’t seem to get
their shit together who tells you they’re suffering and tries to explain the
depth of that suffering to “snap out of it”?
As though they have a choice.
I know I’m only one generation shy of “there’s no such thing
as mental illness”. I was brought up on “snap out of it” and “toughen up” and
“there’s nothing wrong with you, you just need to work harder”. Will our next
generation ‘get it’? Will my kids grow up understanding all the different pains
in the world? Will their empathy extend to those whose suffering they don’t
even understand?
Should it?
I think [hope] most of us are well intentioned. That our
insistence that those we love who suffer from depression try harder is because
we believe that’s all it takes. Because those of us who are healthy of mind
can, actually, talk ourselves out of [and into] all sorts of moods and
mindsets. I hope it is our naivety that fills us with the belief that all our
suffering loved ones need is more company/stimulation/money/love to drag them
out of their slump. I hope we are simply well-intentioned and naive because if
we are not, then it is US who are selfish. It is US who are weak. It is US who
need to snap out of it.
My truth is, I believe the fight is worth it for everyone. I
believe life is worth it. I believe that if you have any fight in you then you
should use it to war against any disease you have – physical or mental. I also
believe that wars aren’t won without an army. In my family, when that bastard
cancer is diagnosed [far too many times] we all suit up and stand strong as we
face the enemy. We know that enemy well. We understand it and we hate it. So we
fight. Together. Until the end. Because cancer is ok to have at the dinner
table. It’s ok to have cancer at Christmas lunch. It’s sad, and sometimes
confronting, but it’s there and we accept it – like an uninvited, estranged
relative.
Depression, however, is not welcome at lunch. Or dinner. Or
at picnics. Or even for coffee. Deep-seated, I’d-rather-be-dead-than-face-another-day
depression is not welcome. It’s uncomfortable. It is not understood. It is not
discussed. It is verboten. It is not real.
And so I ask you.
How can anyone possibly amass an army against an enemy that
does not exist?
And how can we possibly look our suffering loved one/s in the
eye and ask them to stay without first trying to understand the pain that makes
them want to leave?
