|
A friend tried to kill himself two weeks ago. He took anti depressants and sleeping pills. His roommate found him and got help. They pumped his stomach, and he entered himself into a clinic. Why? What makes someone feel that desperate, that destitute, that hopeless?
How can death be better than life, when you’re not dying? When you’re supposed to be enjoying life, until you die? How can you not know life changes like the seasons, and if you are patient, and work hard, things usually turn around? You can not know because you haven’t experienced that happening, possibly by your own morals and ethics keeping you down. My friend does not think life is worth living. This is his second attempt in twenty three years. The night I took my daughter home from the hospital when she was born, was the first time.
He has kids. They can’t fill whatever void he is searching for. And because they can’t, he may resent them for it. He’s searching, and he can’t find what he’s looking for on this earth, so he figures he might as well leave it. No one else will get hurt. Not his family! What makes us all so different I wonder. When I have felt so desperate, so desolate, so degraded, so alone, I got stronger, and fought back in an intelligent way. Killing myself was never an option. I never gave it a thought. I knew I had to be as brave as I knew how to be when I was down and out, and I had to choose to do the right things for myself, and get back on track.
I don’t know what to say to him anymore. I’ve always tried to get him to see the path of what is right and what is wrong. You don’t steal, you keep your word, don’t expect not to get fired if you don’t go to work, learn how to control your anger and your reactions to things and situations and people. And for God’s sake, stop drinking. I had to stop thirteen years ago. Alcoholism and the "isms" attached, or the bad character defects, need to be seriously dealt with and controlled. The only control is not to do what my friend chose to do, and "only drink on Saturdays." And then it becomes Mondays, too, then Wednesdays, and so on, until you’re worse off than you were before. Until you’re renting a room in someone else’s home, and trying to kill yourself in his spare room. How do you get there?
What choices must you make to bring you to that point? Why does your brain think the way it does to make those choices? Is it lack of parenting? Is it lack of attention and love? Is it Catholic school and the nuns and the often times, humiliation? Is it the friends one keeps? Is it the dominating father? Is it the sympathetic mother? What gets you to the place where you feel death by your own hand, is better than making some changes in your life? I can feel all the pain, I know what that’s about. I can feel the desperation and hopeless feeling of doom, I’ve been there. I can feel the anger at the world and everyone in it for my situation, which I tend to forget, I chose to get into. I can feel the hatred being stronger than the absence of any positive or happy feelings. I can feel the loneliness at being removed from everyone I love. What I don’t feel, is the desire to take a lot of pills and end my life.
I’m not judging his decision in any type of moral or emotional way. I just wish I knew what makes him turn to that solution, instead of more positive ones. He recently broke up with his girlfriend. He was by himself. So what? Women lose their husbands and husbands lose their wives. Life afterwards can be at least doable, and hopefully, happy. My aunt lost her husband, and she lives alone. She is lonely, and she misses him, but she has made a life for herself. She has friends, she goes on vacations, she has my other aunt and her husband, and their family, and she lives her life. Why didn’t she try to kill herself? I wish I could figure it out so I could help my friend. I don’t know what to do anymore, and haven’t for a long time.
Maybe this clinic will be the one he’s supposed to attend to get the type of help he needs. Or, in a matter of time, he’ll be back. Sometimes, there’s just nothing we can do to help the ones we care about. We can’t live their lives for them, and if they don’t take our advice, there really isn’t much more we can say. I wish him the strength he’ll need to get through this ordeal. I’ll pray for him to stay strong and focused and learn what it is he is meant to learn there.
Life doesn’t have to be so bleak, even at it’s bleakest! There’s always a path we can take to get back on track. It may be hard, and lonely, and self sacrificing, but if we do the right things, I believe life is definitely worth enjoying.
|
tweet this!
