All Endings Aren't Storybook

     There is a widespread feeling among many that suicide is "an escape" or "the coward's way out" or a "final solution to a temporary problem". It irks me a great deal when I used to hear (and now read them all over the Internet - apparently teeming with Doctor's and certified therapists) the many reasons people cast shade upon the idea of someone (literally) taking their life in their hands (as opposed to the figurative ideal of straightening ones life, which is smiled upon). All mental illnesses are not the same, and not all of the mentally ill react to life stressors in the same manner. However, I can tell you for those who suffer many illnesses, suicide brings the hope of closure. Those who pass judgement upon us; telling us to "buck up" and "it gets better" will never understand the feeling of waking up each new day and not knowing what their mind will be up for that day. Or having to think about everything that people take for granted - sleep rhythms, drinking alcohol, even the amount of soda I drink in a day can affect my mood. (As well as my belly) Then you have the medications required to try and manage your illness (never cured), and you start to see a glimpse of the stress that merely being RESPONSIBLE for an illness like these can carry. Add to that the shame many of us feel (on some level) for not being able to control our internal typhoon when it sets upon our shores. Many with mental illness don't like to share it with the world, because people hardly ever understand, and this misunderstanding can lead to emotional crisis being dismissed as "a cry for help" or "a tantrum" and even "an excuse". Imagine a person in a dark place getting their emotional turmoil being dismissed out of hand, and what that must feel like.

     My first suicidal thoughts came at the age of 14, when I was living with a Father who had once abandoned me and a stepmother who psychologically tortured me. I had always been a bit darker than the kids around me, but never to the level of angst I would come to embody in the decades that followed. That night at dinner, I began crying in my spaghetti (not as good a song title as "tear in my beer"..... although "Sobbing in my spaghetti" might catch on) and my Father growled at me to go to my room. A short while later, he came in and asked me what was wrong, and I told him that I hated my life and wished I could die. He told me I was being "melodramatic" and that I needed to "toughen up". This was my first interaction with the snobbishness people handle bipolar with. My first suicide attempt that required hospitalization was at 19, and when faced with what ad happened (not decade yet!), both of my parents took the time to tell me to stop overreacting, and that they had not raised me to be a quitter. Today, I look back and laugh; at the time, it was a devastating introduction to the absolute carelessness people handle mental disease with. It just so happens that, to this day, I am very open about being bipolar with everyone in my world, and there are those (as I have grown) who are much better at respecting my limitations and my liabilities. My shame is not from being bipolar any longer, but from not being able to do more for those who love, support and provide me moments in a life worth living.

     Which brings me back to the beginning: suicide is often a desire for closure: to the sadness; the disappointment of not having the motor to match your desire; the mood swings; the responsibilities of being a person with a disease process and the unwelcome assumptions of the masses who can't see your malady and dismiss you out of hand. Suicide is also not a "cowards" way out; you can never understand how difficult it is to go against your internal programming that helps to keep us all alive. Suicide is a way to just stop the day to day melancholy; a way to stem the tide of despair (or agitation or discomfort or fear) that washes over you each day that your mind is "not quite right". In your darkest hour, when all hope seems lost, it at least provides the tumultuous mind an option to the existence it is currently suffering from. Like many other thoughts, it is harmless in our mind, but becomes something much darker when brought into reality. No one has the right to interpret the level of agony that someone who is brave enough to mention mental distress might be going through. No one ever taunts cancer patients for losing weight, but a tortured mind can be dismissed out of hand as unmotivated. Unwilling to "pick yourself up". Giving up.

     A quitter.

     Yes, I have reached a place in my life where suicide is a long ago lesson, and even my bipolar has gone from raging Cyclops to irritable gnomes, and a large part of that goes to finally gathering a great supporting cast around me. At last, I have a wife who cares and seeks to understand and forgives me my (hopefully) occasional trespasses. A best friend who will talk to me on any level I go down, and whose own battles give him a darker, more direct understanding of how I exist. A great number of close friends and acquaintances at my job that accept and encourage me in my darkest moments. Lastly, I have come to recognize over the course of my life that, without my bipolar and my suffering and my suicide attempts, I wouldn't be who I have become. I wouldn't be the voice others could turn to and feel accepted and understood when they are in pain. I wouldn't be so open to any experience or trying new things, as my bipolar beliefs have opened me up to. I wouldn't comprehend so completely the savage fluctuations of a life, mind and emotions in turmoil. I don't hate my diease, it has made me what I am. I do, however, wish some days that I were able to offer more to my wife and friends. I'm not always up to going out when everyone else is ready. How must my wife feel when I tell her I called out from work again because my mind is not ready for people? Does she truly understand? Is there a small voice in the back of her mind that questions if I just wanted to sleep in? How must my managers take it when I call out, again, for mental unrest? Does society have one iota?

     About society: why has mental illness always been so hard to accept? In a world where so many are standing with their hand out to the Government to make things better politically, why is it not imperative to sure the plight of the mentally ill that we all can (in some way) relate to? Why is it that race and sex and religion and acceptance are on every debate, yet no one can find the time, means and money to build facilities or monitor people with illness? Where I live right now, I have a young lady who was recently diagnosed with bipolar, but cannot find hep because there aren't enough outlets for her to learn how to work through this life changing experience? The local papers cry out for not harassing drug dealers or getting homeless off the streets, but the only mention of mental illness comes when discussing drug addicts and those inhabiting skid row? Just because I have made it as far as I have in life (I.e. I share a home and have a job while going to school), that solute lay does not leave me not wanting at times - wanting for a voice to say it's going to be okay. Yet my struggle to find light behind the dark shade of despair isn't a sexy enough topic - it doesn't get people mad enough to go and vote their allegiance to a cause. The mentally ill are taught that we are bastardized children that God must have used subpar parts in creating, and that our problems are ours alone to bear. We have come a long way since we were getting holes frilled in our heads to release the demons, but giving me a medication that effectively lobotomies an individual isn't a whole lot better.

     Will it ever change?

Can I Sell Them the Brooklyn Bridge?

     What has happened to the society we once lived in here in America? When did everyone become so victimized that they couldn't be bothered to understand that life is tough; people are harsh; and being unusual draws negative attention? It is so disappointing to see one day after another of news feeds that cry out for social change that is not only not realistic - it's downright criminal. I can't understand where LOGIC has gone to die it's lonely, apathetic death.

      So a poor young man here in California recently took his life after continual bullying. There are so many things wrong in this story - here is a young man who was into fashion and cheerleading - not the most masculine things - and encouraged by his parents to be open with it. How could these parents not understand that kids who are all growing up and discovering their place in the world would find the behaviors of their son as very odd. The unusual kids are always singled out and attacked. Growing up, I was always a head taller than everyone else and I was teased unmercilessly for being TALL. My first girlfriend was rather busty at 9 years old and SHE was teased by boys without pity - for a physical trait that we all grew up to desire! Generations of children have teased and tortured and terrorized one another; but these latest generations have suddenlybeen decried by parents for these behaviors. Have parents forgotten what it was like to be a kid? Expecting children to stop bullying is a fool's folly. In the internet age, ADULTS are picking on one another - rioting in the streets and calling out other's they don't particularly care for. This isn't wonderland, people. Do I defend bullying? No. That said, show me a way to monitor children constantly. Show me a way to keep them from being teased in social media (minus keeping them off it altogether - so they can be teased about that). Any time a child dies - by their own hand or someone else's - it is a terrible tragedy. Parents have to prepare their children for REALITY, and hope for better with their children in their dealings with other kids. But to expect that your child is going to stand out in such stark contrast and not prepare them for the ensuing onslaught is insane - children don't know how be resilient unless we teach them. Children don't know this won't last forever unless we tell them. However, children will be bullied at some point; no matter what. The smart kid, the pretty girl, the tall kid, the jock, the cheerleader. Everyone has something that will put them in another child's crosshairs. There is certainly a point where kids go "too far". Just like adults, those childrens exaggerated actions should be noticed and dealt with harshly. We will never have a community of kids who sing "Cumbaya" and appreciate the differences between them.

       How can we? We as adults can't even manage it with experience.

       For proof, look no further than the "create a story" that Ferguson, New York and so many other sensational stories that have become reasons for ignorance and civil unrest. Is there any basis for people to be upset about the actions that have happened in these different situations? Sure, any time another human being dies, there is a reason to be upset. Then you spread out your vision - looking to all the variables around the situation. Criminals not obeying the law and THEN discounting a police order. That never works out well for anyone. The law of the land is still to be followed until it is overthrown and there is a new law for everyone to follow. You don't get to selectively choose what you will and will not follow. There is no argument in that. Is it a reaspn to die? No. It does cuse a situation to escalate and become something where a mistake or overreaction can cost you dearly. If you don't start something, there won't be anything! Then we have the court of public opinion getting stirred up before there is ANY knowledge. Officers were convicted and the people were victimized before a grand jury had seen the first item from the prosecution. Thus, it began. Outrage on the news; destruction on the streets - destroying the very communities they live in - for what? Who were they hurting? Looting and stealing..... seems like an appropriate response to being upset to these individuals. These events became nothing more than a money grab and a possibility of being on the news for many of these hooligans. Of course, the justice system did what it was set up to do and the evidence went against the notion that so many had held ( and a number of "eyewitnesses" had lied about) and everything got kicked up another level. Now we have "protests" from coast to coast - excuses for disrupting Interstates (none of the motorists had anything to do with this) and more looting and pillaging. It would seem that none of these "protesters" have anything to do; and mob mentality is better than no mentality at all. All of these supposed "sympathizers", and not ONE of them considered raising funds for greiving families or accepting that justice HAS been served. Man on the street knows all. DOn't get me wrong, I know the legal system in this nation can be suspect and downright irritating; but these acts of wonton violence and anarchy take away from the cause and make everyone involved in these situations seem like a roving pack of pirates. I would even go so far as to say they are attempting to BULLY the nation into seeing it their way. But the civilized don't, and never will. Right or wrong - Justice has spoken. The uneven hand of being irate over African American male deaths (only outrage when a white person does it; but racial violence is an EPIDEMIC in the streets) offers no purpose other than to disrupt and cause people in the very community they were "saving" to suffer.

      I had kept quiet on this because I didn't want to give the Ferguson situation any more publicity than it has already gotten. However, every day in the news is just another story of how people are "victimized" and had no ability to do anything to better their situation. As soon as you feel helpless; you're right. We as a nation have become a chorus of apologists who never look to the initiation of an event; only the aftermath. Bad things happen to good people every day; this is a fact. That is not what these events are. In one case; it was the horrifying story of an innocent kid being left to fend for himself in a hostile world. Parents that refused to use their experience to keep this kid from the untold horrors of childhood that so many of us endured. In another, you have criminals pressing a bad situation into a Deadly one. Untill we, as a nation, can hold those who start the process accountable; there will never be TRUE justice for any of us.

 

Venture to the "Dark Side"...

For a blog with "Suicidal" in the title, I haven't made any statement on the subject. Suicide is one of those taboo subjects that is always mentioned in hushed tones and hits many people at a subconscious level. I have always felt that the reason people have this reaction is that suicide takes away man's belief of "a bigger picture". It puts control solely on the individual and now gives us full control of all our future failings (we all tend to take credit for our successes). Suicide is a subject that creates a wide range of emotions based on your exposure to the event. First, let me explain my "expertise", and why this is an important topic for me. I am Bipolar (Manic-Depressive)...... this statement does NOT define me; but it does put me in a unique place when it comes to certain actions that many people have a "taught" opinion about - as opposed to the learned opinion that comes from "experience". Contrary to most people's idea of those of us with bipolar (and other "mental disorders) - I have many hobbies/ interests; a large number of friends that I socialize with regularly; I go out for fun often; I'm married and I rarely sit on a phone or behind a computer for long periods. All that said; I have attempted suicide on multiple occasions throughout my life - Leaping from a moving vehicle; overdose. Needless to say; I've been unsuccessful. :) I have contemplated suicide at many other times in my life (not always when things are bad - my mental state is such that even the best times can lead to thoughts of suicide); not generally acting on these impulses. The general idea on suicide is that "people use it to avoid bad times". Invalidating that point is simple - unless you understand the mindset of the individual, you are ignorant enough to feel it's "an escape". Certainly; there are people who are DRIVEN by bad circumstances to feel no other option; but for me (and many like me) it's not that simple. For me its a mood thing - even the best life is turned around by my "mental process" to be a feeling of failure and a belief that the world is better off without me. I'm not "escaping"; I'm doing the next logical thing for everyone around me. Which leads to my next idea I have found on suicide..... It's not ALWAYS a bad thought. Stay with me for a minute. There are times in life when we are ALL backed into a corner and feel no way out of a predicament.... which is usually when "normal" people fall into a depression themselves.... but what do you do when you're ALREADY depressed? Where do you go from there? For me; suicide is a reminder that there is ALWAYS another option. As morbid as this sounds; suicide can actually lift me OUT of a depression by reminding me I don't absolutely have to follow what appears to be the only path. Usually this is enough to bring me out of my funk; but sometimes the next step into the "endgame" seems the best option. However, when this becomes a real, tangible thought - as human beings we will often turn to those closest to us to have a "listening board" to try and work through our feelings - the guilt; the horror; the relief; the finite feeling of potential closure. Which leads to another of my biggest pet peeves of people in general.... People will often tell someone with suicidal thoughts that the very idea of suicide is "selfish". This logic makes my blood boil; and I have counter argued this point even in my moments of great despair. The truth of it is that the people who share this sentiment are the selfish ones. By employing a guilt trip because YOU want to keep me around - to entertain you; to assuage your guilt of not being able to "save me"; or for some religious reasoning - you are being ultimately selfish and at that moment you aren't even TRYING to listen to me and experience this moment I am going through. You are merely running through your rolodex of what is acceptable and trying to "save" me from what I feel right now. Hypocrisy. Those feeling suicide are often at their LEAST selfish - consider how totally void one feels as a human being in order to toy with the idea of ending their existence. We often feel that we are a burden - to people; to friends; to family; to life; to God. Then you turn to your family/ your friends and they in turn insult you. The real way to handle this situation is to have the suicidal person PLAN for the future - show them that they aren't a burden. Alternatively; people let their initial shock and judgement of the act to cloud their reactions. So who's selfish here? I'm certain that I will have more to say on this and many other topics (otherwise, why have a blog? :]), but I did want to address these in the initial run of this blog. If there are any people who are suicidal and stumble on this blog - you can always comment or email me. I have been there and I will not judge or try to sway you - I know first hand that sometimes you just want someone to listen. If you are the loved one of a person who has these thoughts (or completed the cycle); I am also open to discussing this if you have an open mind. Finally, don't judge what you don't understand - in a world of "political correctness" there are still some things people refuse to accept - that just because you can't SEE my difference doesn't make it any less meaningful.