Thoughts on Dealing with this Mortal Coil Before It Can Rightfully Be Shuffled Off

When people talk about suicide, especially suicide caused by long-term depression, you can generally split them up into two camps: 1) Those who say things like "how terrible that death was the only solution he knew to make the pain stop"and "we need people to understand how much they are loved." 2) Those who say things like "this is terrible that anyone should resort to a lazy and cowardly way to end their life" and "how selfish; they don't even think of the people they leave behind."

Now I'm not saying any of those perspectives are right or wrong. They both have a point and are a valid way of looking at suicide. Which is what makes understanding suicide and depression so confusing.

With Monday's celebrity suicide, the word "suicide" seems to be trending as much online as the late celebrity's name. Organizations like TWLOHA say their piece about how you are loved, yes YOU, and everyone should know that, don't end your life, YOU are LOVED. It's a sweet message, and while I respect TWLOHA and its supporters because I know they are doing good and hey, the more love going to those suffering from depression the better, but their words fall, as they often do for me, woefully short. The very tangible love of family and friends can mean nothing when someone is crushed by depression; the kind but bland love of a random stranger will generally mean even less. Individuals use this as a platform to talk about depression, which is wonderful in that it may help in the long fight to de-stigmatize depression (and other mental/emotional issues), but of course doesn't always help those struggling through it.

How should we look at someone who killed themselves? Are they a victim of an untreated illness, or worse, a victim of a system that treats their illness as a passing mood and misguided perspective on life? Are they a beautiful lovely loss to humanity simply by cutting their life short? Are they a strong brave individual who sought to solve their problems on their own? Are they a weak-willed coward who gave up when the going got tough?

And when you choose one of those ways to look at the situation, what does it say about those who don't kill themselves, who resist the urge? That's what always threw me off the most--as an insecure teenager, as an overachieving college student, as a graduate who sometimes can't see hope anywhere--should one be congratulating oneself for not ending one's life, or even harming oneself? Holding the blade to your skin...and only making one small cut and throwing that blade away...is that a small victory? Then doing it again, but this time not breaking skin, and then next time, only looking at the blade before putting it away--is that bravery? Is persisting in living because you're scared of dying a brave choice?

Or, perhaps the bravest of all are those who live with sadnesses and pains but never know the dull horror of sinking into depression. These people are not necessarily living better lives; they are just able to deal with it differently. Does that make them the strongest of all?

When I was a teenager, I couldn't find an answer to those questions. I was too afraid of physical pain to make self-harm a habit. Concluding that there are remarkably few painless and foolproof ways to end life, I convinced myself out of suicide again and again. I knew I was loved by certain people, but it didn't change the feeling I had when I looked in the mirror, when I was alone with my thoughts, or when I was inadequate where I wanted to be successful. I was in a horrible living situation and I was powerless to change it then, but I knew one day it'd *probably* get better. I knew the effect hormonal imbalances can have on one's mental state, especially as a teenager. But none of that was what kept me from destroying myself, either in small ways or that one big way. What kept me from something terrible was simply fear of physical pain. One day I told myself I was a coward for not doing it; another day I told myself I was really quite brave for continuing to tote the weary load.

Things are different for me now, but when life doesn't go well, there's that switch that goes on and my perspective becomes bleak and grey and I can't remember where the exit is. I can barely remember that I wasn't always in this rut. I don't know that it's bravery that keeps me going. I want to say it's cowardice, but that might be some lingering self-contempt.

I can't answer that for myself, so I certainly can't say anything about Robin Williams' suicide. I understand, but I don't understand at all. I think it was a horrible tragedy and maybe there was something that could have prevented his making that choice, but maybe there wasn't. I can't say "he had other options" because when you're stuck in your own head and no option includes getting away from yourself except for suicide...well, it's a struggle. I'm still shocked and saddened, because I loved him as an actor, and I still find his voice so very comforting to listen to. I know this is hardest on his family and friends, and the rest of us, just fans of his work and admirers of his self-presentation and sense of humor, are only feeling a fraction of what they're going through. It's hard to not feel like my sorrow is somehow encroaching and insulting theirs, which is just so much deeper because they knew him personally.

This news came at an interesting time, as I was struggling out of a fog of depression. What drew me out was not the love of my family and friends (though that has been appreciated, and I hate that I seemed like a sad-sack to anyone during those weeks--so sorry to everyone), but reading a rather depressing book, Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country, which was gifted to me by a dear friend. It's one of those novels where the selfish heroine throws herself headlong into a money-grubbing miserable life that leads inevitably to ruin (I haven't finished it yet though, so it may surprise me), and it didn't exactly help the way I was feeling, despite the beautiful writing. But when my favorite character (not the heroine) committed suicide, it took me by surprise and jolted me out of my misery. I didn't want to just end all this, I realized. The pages after the character's suicide are empty of them, with only a few mentions to their name, which is not the way one likes to think of the world being after their death. Rather ironically, it lifted my spirits considerably.

I am not advocating that book as an anti-depressant, obviously. It worked for me (this time). Last time, it was a week doing absolutely nothing in Ohio (thank you, Katie, for taking me out of my fog without even knowing it), and when I was younger it was a combination of changes. There is no one way out of it. Suicide is possibly the worst choice of all, but it's the quickest way out. Love can help, but it might not draw you out. As a Christian, I can't even say that believing in Jesus is a surefire way to happiness, because it ain't easy and many, many Christians are depressed (seriously, the Bible is full of them too!). Being busy can help, especially since depression is mind-numbingly BORING, but you will always have some moment alone to think and be miserable. Doing things for others is definitely something I can advocate, but sometimes it's hard to do that with your soul being pulverized under all the sadness. There are millions of things that can help and that won't help.

Try them. Don't end it. Talk to people. Stop being ashamed, and know that some people will look down on you for depression, but remember that those are not the people that matter most. I don't know if you're brave or a coward, but I know that depression does not automatically mean weakness. You can be strong under pressure. Find your own way out--not necessarily alone or without help, but find what works for you and gets you through each day, and what will maybe eventually heal you.

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Original image found here on Pinterest
Quote is Proverbs 18:14

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We Were All Young (and Hopeless) Once, Weren't We?

Written for Ink Spots writing club prompt #1: What media (books, movies, TV, comics, music, etc.) do you feel had the greatest positive influence on you growing up? With examples.

I don't consider myself a musical person. Not just because I experience similar troubles learning to read music as I do trying to understand mathematical equations (do-re-mi is as deceptively intelligible as addition, but take all that further and solfege and binomials are all a foreign language to me) or that I have a difficult time staying in harmony in choir if I don't have a stronger voice to follow, but also because music is not a big part of my day-to-day life. I have friends who can't go more than a day or two without music, but I can go weeks without realizing it.

This is not to say that I don't love music. I do. I am often committing to choirs (why, when the struggle makes it hard to enjoy it at times, I couldn't say) and I always sing to myself (private concerts while I make breakfast!). I love live shows and can't resist moving in some way to live music (yes, even during hymns as you might know if you've ever been in a nearby pew when I'm at church). Music affects me emotionally and can make me cry, but definitely is less likely to than a book, movie, or show. Yet when I thought about a form of media that had a genuinely positive effect on me, my first thought was of a particular album I received for a Christmas present in 2004.

I think I finally just "got" this cover...the joke is "nuclear family", isn't it?  Huh.

I was 14, and I was going through an awkward pseudo goth-punk phase that involved haunting Hot Topic and actually wearing a mesh-sleeved shirt. This was a tricky phase to go through when your main socialization comes from Christian communities like church or a homeschool group, because it definitely labels you as the oddball (among others who are oddballs in their own way, ironically). I had a burned copy of Good Charlotte's Chronicles of Life & Death album from a friend and had watched the music video of "Predictable" so many times that I still have most of it memorized. I had put The Young & the Hopeless on my Christmas list that year, and I don't remember anything else I got that year--just my older cousin handing me the gift at my uncle's house.

When I opened it, my cousin nodded approvingly. "That's a good album."

I looked up at him--tattooed and pierced--then at the inside cover of the album where the band members were tattooed and pierced and kind of laughed. "Is this what happens when you listen to this music?" I joked to my sister.

But that night, driving home from the Bronx back to New Jersey, I put the CD into my discman (2004, remember?) and gave it a listen. I expected something like the Chronicles album, which was the kind of dark music I was into, but this was something I'd never heard before. I'm not saying Young & the Hopeless was particularly well-crafted or that it was genius in any way. But in that moment, I listened to each song with the disbelief that something like this existed...someone had actually written down and sung about what I was feeling and thinking and what it had seemed like no one else could ever understand.

The gist of the album is in its title--the songs vary in story, but the message is one of fear, anger, and hopelessness, particularly that hopelessness that exists only for the young. It's that hopelessness that well-meaning campaigns like It Gets Better or To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) can't really get at. It's being fully aware that you have so much time for things to get better and that maybe your living situation will indeed get better, but feeling like you can't last even that one year to get to that better place, much less the several years to adulthood and freedom. It's knowing that sure, someone may love you, and maybe many people do, and yeah, people would miss you if you were gone, but you just hate yourself so much that living as you for any length of time is just a sickening thought no matter what.

The chorus of the title track of the album goes like this:

'Cause I'm young and I'm hopeless
I'm lost and I know this
I'm going nowhere fast, that's what they say
I'm troublesome, I'm fallen
I'm angry at my father
It's me against this world and I don't care
I don't care

Listening to those words, while leaning my head against the dark window on the drive home Christmas night, I was suddenly not alone. It was such a relief, I was almost crying, but couldn't because even in the dark, someone else might see. I hadn't known how to voice this, but two punk kids from Maryland had and recorded it. They knew what it meant to be a broken wreck and still be condemned to live and carry on. They knew what it felt like to be spiraling downward and to feel like the whole world was in some plot against you. Most importantly, they knew what it meant to be angry at your father.

Good Charlotte's front men, Joel and Billy Madden, were the products of a broken family, with a dad who had just up and left, leaving them to struggle with poverty and a sense of worthlessness. In their early twenties, they broke into the music business, which was having a punk revival of sorts. I was the product of a shattered family that had been shoddily put back together in 2003 and was limping along, pretending to be okay, when in reality, we were slowly rotting and dying. Nestled in suburbia and deeply religious, we kept up an excellent front. But my father was a disturbed man, steeped in secret sins and living under a narcissistic delusion that he was the wronged hero of some tragic story. As I got older, I understood that abuse doesn't have to be physical, that emotional and verbal abuse is real, that constant threats to your person are not unimportant, and that living in fear is not normal. I look back now and see that all of the worst days were when my mother wasn't home, like the day he grabbed me by the neck and shoved me against a door. It was my fault he did that, I believed; after all, I'd yelled "Don't touch me!" just moments before when he'd tried to grab my arm. Of course, he was only grabbing my arm to keep me from running out of the room after he'd thrown handfuls of CDs at me.

Even while I blamed myself for when situations got really bad, I couldn't shake that anger that built up inside me. But I couldn't voice that anger--after all, my dad was funny and nice and just generally likable. Sure, he wasn't perfect, but the year before when he moved out temporarily, I had learned that yes, no one is perfect, even your parents. It wasn't fair to just always be angry, I felt, but I couldn't get rid of it, nor could I act on it. Hearing a song that just straight up admitted as an aside, "I'm angry at my father," was the closest I could get to a helping hand. It helped steer the anger that I had already turned against myself and begun to translate into self-harm into an avenue that was safer: anger at someone who was cruel to me and to others.

Back then and even now, there were adults who would criticize music like Good Charlotte's for the very reason that album and that song struck me--they were horrified by music that openly expressed anger or hopelessness because they thought it would influence or encourage kids to be angry depressed messes. As an adult now, I can understand that fear, even though it just annoyed me as a kid. Adults know how impressionable kids can be and worry about that. Many well-meaning folks think that maybe positive music would be better for a depressed kid--maybe it will lift them out of that dark place. And that does happen. But there are levels of pain where optimism can't do a lick of good. What's most important in those situations is to accept the situation and its feelings as reality, to recognize that this happens to many people and YES, your situation is better than some, but ALSO worse than others. Anger is a normal human emotion and has its place. Better to recognize that anger than stifle it and pretend it doesn't exist.

"The Young & the Hopeless" tackled the questions that no one I knew was asking:

And if I make it through today
Will tomorrow be the same?
Am I just running in place?
And if I stumble and I fall
Should I get up and carry on?
Will it all just be the same?

The answers to those questions in my life were yes, yes, and more yes. "Tomorrow" was actually worse. It wouldn't get better for another seven years, when my family moved away from my father and I was able to fully cut off all ties to him. He had ceased speaking to me when I was 19, the year I started college, because I didn't open the TV cabinet fully when he yelled at me to do it for him one evening. I ran in place, because I couldn't change my situation for a long time. I got up when I stumbled; I carried on. Even now I'm not free of the past and talking about things that happened leave my hands shaking. This is an improvement; there was a time when I would just start shaking all over and forget how to breathe. I don't hate myself and I don't want to die anymore, but while I'm being honest, I'll admit that when things get hard, my mind still slides quickly to self-disgust and the longing to just end it all.

Ironically, the song's opening verse is the most hopeful:

Hard days made me, hard nights shaped me
I don't know, they somehow saved me
And I know I'm making something
Out of this life they called nothing

This glimpse of hope meant a lot to me back then--maybe all this had meaning. Maybe hard times would make me stronger--being thought of as strong was infinitely important to me--and all of this was FOR something. My life, which felt worthless, could be something good. That little hope of purpose carried me through even as I was hopeless most of the time.

It turned out to be true. If I could go back and change my life (be more open about what was going on, stand up to my father more, hate myself less, etc.), I wouldn't. It did happen the way it happened for a reason. Those experiences broke me, making me at once weaker and stronger than I'd've been without them. Most importantly, it made me capable of being sympathetic to others. When I was a counselor at a high school camp post-high school, I realized that I could relate to the troubled kids. That realization brought me to tears of relief. I could do good with the bad I'd been given. I wasn't worthless; I had purpose. It's why I work in education, and why I have such a hard time answering the question of why I want to work with kids. I usually say something like "Um, I love kids a lot. Of all ages. They're great. Yeah." because explaining it for real takes too long and I doubt it's what most people want to hear about.

Now, to conclude, I will confess that Good Charlotte was new to me, but their message was run-of-the-mill. They weren't the first to voice them, they weren't alone in doing so even at the time, and now I'm sure others are sharing those feelings through music, though the Madden twins themselves eventually sold out and became fame-hungry, money-grubbing, hiphop wannabes.  It was a right time, right place sort of experience. I listen to that song now, and all I feel is a stirring of the residual feelings and some nostalgia. But oh back then. That clutch at my heart, my jaw dropping, the tears coming to my eyes, and the elation of being understood by someone and told that I wasn't alone at all.

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