Have you ever thought it would better if your life just ended now? If so, you know what I’m talking about. Does it absolutely baffle you that anyone would rather be dead than alive? If so, then please read one of the best things I’ve read about why people kill themselves. This is National Suicide Prevention Week and today is National Suicide Prevention Day. National Suicide Prevention Day is one of those things that seems like a good idea, but what are you supposed to do about it? Do this: read this post.
When I read Therese Borchard’s “What Suicidal Depression Feels Like,” I felt relieved to find that she thinks similarly to how I do about death. Borchard, like me, envies dead people for being finished with life and all its pain. My favorite part of her piece is her quotation of American novelist David Foster Wallace on suicidal depression:
The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable
level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually
jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about
people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a
great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me
standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view;
i.e., the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the
other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough,
falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors.
When life becomes endless pain, no matter how unknown and intimidating death is, death starts to seem like the better option. And life becomes endless pain to people whose brains just don’t function the way the majority do, no matter how hard we try. I maintain that people should be allowed the right to decide when our lives end, but if we can be given a little longer to receive the help we need and think about if we really want to die, that’s probably worth a suicide prevention or two. If this whole suicide thing perplexes and/or irritates you, please read Borchard’s post.
Hi Regina,
I wound up on your site for the first time today after searching out "In Defense of Suicide" and I came across a much older post of yours that I commented on. The, looking around your site, I came across this post. And I have to run right now so I can't go to the link you provided but will later. Meanwhile, you could very well have seen this already but if you haven't, you may find interesting, enjoy, etc..
hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html
Andria – thanks.
Cherise Tricia – you're welcome.
This is rock solid, heartfelt description. Thank you for speaking up and sharing this with us. –~^..^~
Wow, good going, Regina, sending your readers on to that article. I agree. That analogy between jumping from the window or burning from the flames is so very accurate.
Also way cool that it's Suicide Prevention Day. Who knew??? Thanks to you, now we do 🙂