Understanding Suicide Understanding Me
Understanding Suicide Understanding Me
Awhile back I had a dear friend contact me to ask if I heard about the young mans suicide at a nearby towns school. I had not. After asking one time on face book if any one of my friends had heard of any such event. My wall began to fill up with details about his life and his personality. His struggles and even previous attempts to end or erase his existence.
He was described as having dreamy eyes by female classmates when he was younger. He was described as the most polite and well mannered but troubled child one person said they had ever met.
Memories of my own changing years flooded my soul as I thought about it all. I did a school report in what they called then Junior High. And my chosen topic was suicide. I've often asked myself why I chose that topic. Today will be one of the very few times I admit it was on my mind a lot during that period of my life. It wasn't because my home life was unbearable. It wasn't because I had no friends or because my young heart had been broken.
In fact I'm only just now realizing it had almost nothing at all to do with my surroundings. It was something within me. Fear certainly had a part to play. Fear of tomorrow. Fear of never really feeling like I fit in. Even though by all outward appearances I was adjusting as well as the majority of people my age.
There was then and sometimes even now this voice. This relentless cruel and demeaning voice always there to remind me. I'll never be good enough. I will always only get what I deserve and that's why I'll never have anything that lasts. Anything that is true. And truly mine.
I was only given a passing grade for my report on suicide because it was obvious the amount of time and effort I put into it. I was told the topic I chose was wrong for a jr high school project. I had failed again. All of that after listening with blood pumping that we could choose our own topic. Somehow my choice wasn't good enough.
I realize now that my very choice for a topic should have sent off bells and whistles throughout the school that one of their own was thinking thoughts of suicide. But they missed it. They didn't see me at all.
Today I don't know why I chose that topic. But I know that one result of it was the saving of my own life. The understanding I gained by being able to see inside the mind that is tormented by unanswerable questions all starting or ending with why? And the realization that to the troubled mind the ultimate answer to fix the most un fixable things.
Is to end it.
This is the point when discussing suicide where fools love to chime in un researched and selfish insensitive remarks revealing their opinions and the fact that they are a fool.
A wise man knows only what he knows.
And he does not pretend to have already been where he never hopes to go.
People often consider suicide to be a selfish act. Sometimes referring to it as a cowards way out.
I hate that. And I hate anything that tries to simplify something as complex as a human mind that has reached it's breaking point.
The fact is that to the person in the midst of that struggle. It is the most unselfish and heroic thing that they think they could do.
My point is, that it was my understanding of suicide. It's effects and it's consequences that kept me from crossing that line.
After all the details of this young life surfaced and several hours later my dear friend and I talked again. And without saying it I know she was asking about this path I'm on with my poetry. The tributes to loved ones that have died. The heartache and the heartbreak that I see every day sometimes all day long.
And she asked me. Does all the sadness ever get to you? I responded Absolutely.
There are times I struggle beneath its weight. Sometimes I fall. But somehow I manage to get up again and I keep writing and sometimes when I'm lucky I see someones reaction to a poem where all of a sudden they get it. A life changing revelation takes place in that moment in time. And for a minute.
I win.
I know the reason I'm alive is to help other people live.
And to find the fullness in their life that I may or may not ever find for myself. It's no longer about me. Because you see somewhere back there that part of me that wanted so badly just to die.
I let it die. And I moved on but not me as I was. A different me. Weaker in some ways and stronger in others. Less proud but more to be proud of. More easily overwhelmed but less breakable.
And so when you see me on the mountaintop and I'm strutting around acting like I belong there. Please. Just let me have that one moment. Because tomorrow I'll be back with the mountain on top of me. Trying to find another way to save someone from going where I have been and hoping to enrich other peoples lives even if it means I know I'm simply going to be passed up along the way.
My reward is you rising above my highest point. My fee for my services? That you never forget how valuable you are. And that you keep pushing forward and never give up.
If you forget me tomorrow. That's ok. But don't forget the things I said. And don't forget to help someone else along the way.
.
God Bless
Heart Whisperer Ed Hofert @ facebook
Edwin C Hofert
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