On failure, love, and suicide

Before I start writing a post about suicide at midnight I will first tell you that I have never felt suicidal. And with that disclaimer hopefully putting everyone at ease (at least as much at ease as you can be while thinking about suicide) here are some of the things I've read and thought about lately on the topic.

A couple months ago the CDC released a report about how the suicide rate in the US rose 2.4% and is now the highest it's been in more than 25 years. I read that this means that about every 12 minutes someone in the US ends their own life.

Something I read recently: 

from historian and poet Jennifer Michael Hecht, author of Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It, recently published by Yale University Press:

‘When I was getting my PHD in history at Columbia I knew two other poets in the English department.  One of them took her life in 2007, and the other one wrote the posthumous afterword to her book, saying how shocked and upset she was by this. Then, about a year and a half later, she did it too,’ Hecht says.

‘This was profoundly upsetting for me ... in the book, I mention that I was going through some dark times too. When I feel dark, my brain offers suicide as a solution, and even when I’m not feeling terrible that thought comes to mind. I’ve now talked to so many people that I think that more than half of people have that suggestion come to their mind.’

Amid the rhetoric about personal choice, Hecht says it’s important to remember the impact suicide has on not just close family and friends, but even more casual acquaintances. She says that by staying alive despite suicidal feelings, many people are performing a community service.

‘Crying and useless, sitting at the end of your bed is way better than death. It’s a million times better than death. If you feel like a burden, you need to know that your suicide would be a much bigger burden.’

In families where there’s been a suicide, it takes two generations for the rate of suicide to go down.

‘That means that if you want your unborn niece to make it through her dark night of the soul, you have to make it through yours,’ says Hecht.

‘There has to be at least some voice of gratitude in the culture, and I don’t mind starting—thank you, if you’re staying alive for other people, you’re my hero. I know how hard it is, and I am grateful.’

While Hecht says efforts to remove stigmatisation from suicide are laudable, she argues that they can also minimise the reality that suicide is an act.

No Hemlock Rock (Don’t Kill Yourself)

By Jennifer Michael Hecht

Don't kill yourself. Don't kill yourself.

Don't. Eat a donut, be a blown nut.

That is, if you're going to kill yourself,

stand on a street corner rhyming

seizure with Indonesia, and wreck it with

racket. Allow medical terms.

Rave and fail. Be an absurd living ghost,

if necessary, but don't kill yourself.

Let your friends know that something has

passed, or be glad they've guessed.

But don't kill yourself. If you stay, but are

bat crazy you will batter their hearts

in blooming scores of anguish; but kill

yourself, and hundreds of other people die.

Poison yourself, it poisons the well;

shoot yourself, it cracks the bio-dome.

I will give badges to everyone who's figured

this out about suicide, and hence

refused it. I am grateful. Stay. Thank

you for staying. Please stay. You

are my hero for staying. I know

about it, and am grateful you stay.

Eat a donut. Rhyme opus with lotus.

Rope is bogus, psychosis. Stay.

Hocus Pocus. Hocus Pocus.

Dare not to kill yourself. I won't either.

****

from: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/5963960

Reading that woman's thoughts reminded me of a song I heard recently and of something I read in M. Scott Peck's, The Road Less Traveled: 

“Life is complex. Each one of us must make his own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no easy answers. The right road for one is the wrong road for another…The journey of life is not brightly lit, and it has no road signs. It is a rocky path through the wilderness.” 

"On Your Porch"

I was on your porch, the smoke sank into my skin.
So I came inside to be with you.
And we talked all night,
about everything we could imagine.

'Cause come the morning I'll be gone
and as our eyes start to close
I turn to you and I let you know that I Love You

Well my dad was sick,
and my mom she cared for him.
Her love it nursed him back to life.
And me, I ran. I couldn't even look at him
for fear I'd have to say goodbye.

And as I start to leave
he grabs me by the shoulder and he tells me:
"Whats left to lose? You've done enough.
And if you fail well then you fail but not to us.
'Cause these last three years, I know they've been hard.
But now its time to get out of the desert and into the sun;
even if its alone."

So now here I sit, in a hotel off of Sunset;
my thoughts bounce off of Sam's guitar.
And that's the way its been,
ever since we were kids but now,
now we've got Something to prove.
And I, I can see their eyes,
but tell me something, can they see mine?

'Cause whats left to lose?
I've done enough.
And if I fail well then I fail but i gave it a shot.
And these last three years, I know they've been hard.
But now its time to get out of the desert and into the sun;
even if its alone.

Even if it's alone

I was on your porch last night, the smoke it sank into my skin.

****

Those words from the father to his child, "Well if you fail well then you fail but not to us", that is just exactly what I am hoping to instill in my children's hearts, and in my own in the process. This truth that life is complex and that it is not possible to ever fail completely just as it is not possible to ever love completely. The truth that thinking in black and white about love and failure is dangerous because both are only colored in shades of gray for everyone, always.

Which sounds kind of non-offensive when spoken of in generalities, but turns out to often be super sucky when faced day in and day out in a thousand different ways. When my kids figure this out I will tell them that I think Friedrich Nietzsche was on to something when he said,

"We have art in order not to die of the truth."

But in the meantime I will just keep doing things like telling them how much their homemade gifts and crayon drawings mean to me, taking them out in nature whenever I can, and keep saying yes when they ask me to turn up the music and dance with them. 

Turns out 'Cause what's left to lose?' is actually a pretty inspiring sentiment.