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Monday, August 7, 2017

Suicide Isn't Selfish

Saying suicide is selfish is a victim-blaming statement. And despite people being less taboo about the topic and challenging this line of thinking, it still persists. This is a dangerous line of thinking, but as I'm coming to understand people project their own feelings onto others all the time. Disparaging the suicidal is no different, though it's not something anyone wants to talk about.

People don't like death. That's a pretty commonly held belief. You don't like it. No one likes it. It's the end of life as we know it, and that's scary as hell. We know life and are very familiar with it. Despite suffering, most people generally enjoy life, and even if they didn't, this is what they're used to. We're all used to it. To have that stripped away from you is terrifying. It's not even the state of losing life that always scares people; it's the fact that death is unknown, an uncertainty. And we don't like that.

Humans never like change. I can attest to that. We're used to living in our comfortable ways. Death is not apart of that. Since we obviously can't talk to the dead, we don't know what it's like and we don't know what to prepare ourselves for? What if it's awful? What if you turn into nothingness? If you're religious, you might ask if you'll go to heaven or be doomed to hell. It's a scary thought, and as humans, we don't like to think about it nor talk about it.

I would wager to say, however, that death of a loved one is more devastating than the thought of your own death. And this makes perfect sense. We often value other's lives more than our own, as horrible as that is. Think about how many times you criticize yourself in a way you'd never criticize your friend. You say you're ugly, worthless, stupid, and just not good enough. Now imagine saying that to a friend. Pretty rude, huh? But it's because we live with ourselves that we're okay with that. We think since we are ourselves it's okay to be rude because we're dishing it and taking it. It's all coming from us so it's acceptable.

When someone else is hurt, most of us feel for that person. We imagine how they must feel and that's what makes it hurt. We don't know how it feels, but because of empathy we can't help but wonder. And since we don't know, our imagination goes in all sorts of places. The never-ending trails of what-ifs begin to start, and there's no stopping it unless you choose to consciously make that choice.

I'm not as afraid of death like I used to be. I still dread it sometimes, but I'm not nearly as worried for myself to die as I am for someone else I care about. I can't actually assume how someone feels when they're dead, if they feel anything at all. They could be at peace. They may not be. But my fear of losing someone stems from what I feel. I need that person in my life. You probably feel the same way. In a way, it's not about the person you love or their needs, but your own. And while that sounds selfish, it really isn't. You don't have to be rude to be self-serving. Despite the way we talk to ourselves sometimes, we do actually care about our own wellbeing enough. We have friends to give us moral support, parents to guide us, people to help us feel better about ourselves. That's the give and take we have in relationships, so of course not having that person around anymore is going to hurt.

But I think it can be comforting to think about them for a second. Think about the dead person and how they're feeling. Do you know? We don't. It's like instances where you've been hurt or something similar and someone freaks out. You may be less freaked out than they are. Because of that whole mindset we have, where we go around in circles on how someone's feelings, we sometimes come up with worse scenarios than how they're feeling. As a deeply emphatic person, I've felt this, and I've had to pull myself out of this mindset, because the simple fact is despite my empathy and relating to feelings, I cannot know exactly how they feel because I'm not them. And we can go do the runaround with how death feels all day long, asking people what their thoughts on it are, speak to people who've had near-death experiences.At the end of the day, we'll never truly know how that person feels until we die ourselves. And while that's a bitter pill the swallow, it can put things in perspective.

I think if we start to accept it we will be more sympathetic towards people, and if someone dies from suicide we won't blame them or ourselves, because it was just a situation out of our control.

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