Suicide - Selfish? Coward? Brave?

Many times I'll read a column in a newspaper soon after a suicide is reported.  The people who I have known killed themselves fall into two categories.  The first being someone who is ill and sees no chance of his/her health getting any better.  In their mind rather than going through any more pain, or bringing any more pain to their family choose to kill themselves.  The 2nd group of people would be those suffering from a serious mental illness.  These people have usually coped with this for quite sometime and at some point just cannot take the pain any longer.


Back to these columns.  Many times what I read is how cowardly the act was.  And  how it was the most selfish thing a person could do.  They focus on the people left behind.  Spouse, parents, children.  And why I feel overwhelming sympathy for anyone who has gone through a situation like this I would ask that these columnists put themselves in the place of the mentally ill before making any judgments.


There are many of us out there who have spent years looking for answers.  Been through any kind of therapy recommended.  Spent years trying various drugs in order to get the symptoms under control.  No one wants to be suicidal.  It's a horrible feeling.  That you feel so much hurt inside yourself that you can no longer go on.  That you finally come to the conclusion that the only way to make the pain go away is to end the pain.  This is not an easy decision to come to.  And as you are coming to it you don't see it as being a selfish decision.  Your sense of what is right and wrong is not the same as others.  You no longer have any common sense.  Your mind is telling you what it thinks you want to hear.  You believe that you are doing others a favor by killing yourself.  They will no longer have to worry about you, take care of you, deal with you.


Coward?  Nope, it takes a lot to actually make that attempt.  When you're doing it, you're looking at it as all or nothing.  It's a life you know you are taking.  And you will be changing the lives of many other people.  It also helps (hurts) that your mind is egging you along, taking you to a place you never knew existed.  One where everything that seems wrong suddenly seems right.  One where everything makes senses even though it doesn't.  There is a sense of peace that comes over you, you are not frightened.


Brave is the person who while feeling all these things can call out for help before it's too late. Many people can't do this.  They aren't treated seriously.  They are told they are looking for attention or that they should just snap out of it.  Or they are told other people have harder lives than you do.  What they don't understand is it's not a matter of if your life is perceived as being better or worse than someone elses.  That's not how it works.  This is a disease in your mind. It's not something you can control and turn on and off whenever you feel like.


It's like any other chronic condition.  It can be controlled.  For many it can only relieve the symptoms for a short time.  Everyone is different.  I can go months keeping the suicidal thoughts in the background.  They are there but they are not controlling me.  Other times they seem to take over pushing all logic aside.