New Life in Forest Park
For a while in college, I worked part-time as a content editor and web producer for a company called HealthyPlace.com. A large part of my job responsibility was to keep the communities up-to-date. I spent 20 hours or so per week scouring different resources and adding stories and news to the front pages of each community, moderating the journal pages, selected journalers to feature, and at one point I even created a new website to help flesh out (no pun intended) our self-injury community. Looking back, I suppose it wasn’t overly conscientious to call the site “Blood Red” because it could have been a “trigger.” I never really understood that concept. To be honest, I never understood mental illness or why people would flock to websites and communities that centered around them and seemed to sort of promote them. I could open a whole can of worms and write tomes of random narrative here, but I will save that for another time.
I don’t like to approach writing in a structured way at all, but somehow, when an issue is too deep, too personal, or too negative, I find myself staring off blankly, avoiding the computer screen like I’d avoid an uncomfortable relationship oriented conversation. My mind essentially shuts down and I become tired. I don’t know what kind of coping mechanism this is, if it’s one at all. I’d probably achieve better results if I gave myself an outline when I find this happening to me – a tool to get my thoughts back on track.
Last night a friend of mine was rushed to the emergency room because they were talking about suicide, locked themselves in the bathroom with a butcher knife, and proceeded to slash up their arm. This person was treated, held overnight, and released this afternoon. I was understandably upset, saddened, and concerned when I heard this news but I was far from shocked by it. The person in question has been known to ‘cut’ in the past, but this definitely felt like a whole different level. Even if suicide was not actually an intent, anything to this extreme is beyond a cry for help – it is, dear friends (and sister who oh-so-loves Whitman), a Yawp. A big whopping Yawp for help.
It seems to me that suicide, or ‘attempted’ suicide, is the last resort of a person that feels not only depressed but also bored and unequivocally stuck in their lives. Depression alone is not enough. I think the perception that you’ve gotten yourself completely stuck, immovable, wriggling on a pin (line 55) without a means to escape is the worst spot to be in and the most hopeless. After all, we as a human race have only hope, according to the Greek myth of Pandora and her legendary box, at any rate. It’s the only thing that keeps us going. Hope. Without that, there would be no art, no progress, no society, no you, no I. Nothing. If we had no hope we’d have nothing to keep us here, nothing to strive for. We’d probably all choose to opt out of life.
That’s what I think suicide is. It’s someone that’s come to the end of their tether, regardless of whether things could change for the better in an hour or a day or a week, they’ve come, at that moment, to the end of their tether where absolutely no hope remains. They find themselves stuck and wriggling, depressed, bored, and they say, “This is the end. It’s my end.” And if everything goes according to plan, it is.
Life in Your Hand
Personally, I always tell myself that if things are at their absolute worst and I find myself completely depressed and feeling stuck, I’d give life one last try in a place very far away from the society that I know that’s put me in such a predicament. I would fling myself headfirst into a different world, whether it was the countryside of France or the hills of New Zealand or the busy streets of China. Even if that meant dying in a faraway and altogether unfriendly place, at least I would have tried one last time. Essentially, I would run away. Maybe that’s too optimistic or too immature, but it gives me strength in the darkest and most lonely moments.
It’s truly Sad, the world some of us create for ourselves. I wish I could make it better. What else is out there?
Your insights are appreciated and any words of hope, encouragement, or positive ideas I can pass along are encouraged.
