The suicidal post

Have you ever thought about suicide; maybe not about self suicide, but just maybe, suicide in general…have you?

Yesterday morning I read an article about a study of suicide (what a good topic to start the day with, eh). Though I was overwhelmed by how this article was written, I am not sure if I totally agree with it. But who am I to judge, since at no time in my life have I ever felt the urge or courage or temptation to commit such an act? Of course, like anybody else, I have my own good and bad days, but I have always felt that to be able to be alive itself, is already a blessing. It would be most ungrateful of me, if I decide to end my life, the extraordinary lucky life that I have had so far. This doesn’t mean I want to live forever, though.

In a section of the article, the author wrote that suicide is a solution to a practical problem. This, I do not agree much with. Because when we face a problem, all we want from others is understanding and tolerance. For example in the case of physical pain, we can all sympathize; feel with someone else’s toothache. We can also share happiness, when we are all happy to the same degree. It is unless when we are unhappy, for each of us is unhappy in our own unique way, and that we can never imagine exactly what another is suffering. Even when two people are experiencing the same situation, feels the same suicidal feelings, both may not completely understand each others grievances.

I was quite surprised when I discovered the author was only 31 years of age. His concluding paragraph was about his own unsuccessful suicidal attempt. He wrote that, as a child, he kept repeating endlessly to himself, ‘I wish I were dead,’ but he cannot tell just why he felt this way. At this time I was almost certain that he is crazy, but I went on to finish reading his article anyway.

His attempt to suicide was by swallowing 44 sleeping pills but was found by his wife just in time to save him. To an outsider, an attempt to suicide will always appear to be a sick joke; but the author’s reaction to his own failure is fascinating and cheers my heart.

He wrote:

“The truth is, in some way, I had died. The over intensity, the tiresome excess of sensitivity and self-consciousness, of arrogance and idealism, which came in adolescence and stayed on beyond their due time, like some visiting bore, had not survived the coma…I was disappointed. Somehow, I felt, death had let me down; I had expected more of it. I had looked for something overwhelming; an experience which would clarify all my confusions. But it turned out to be simply a denial of experience…Months later I began to understand that I had had my answer after all… Once I had accepted that there weren’t ever going to be any answers, even in death, I found to my surprise that I didn’t much care whether I was happy or unhappy; problems and the problem of problems no longer existed. And that in itself is already the beginning of happiness.”

I congratulated him there and then. Very well written.