News alert: SB 1070
From: Professor Wollheim
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2011 5:14 PM Please note that the Idaho Legislature is now contemplating enactment of SB 1070, which would charge anyone "assisting a suicide" with a felony violation punishable by ten years' imprisonment. This could include medical professionals who prescribe pain-relieving medicine to a terminal patient who dies as a result of the dosage. Charges might be brought by any number of parties, including family members but also outside agencies such as religious organizations opposed to "physician assisted suicide." Personal editorial comment: in a state which devotes so few resources to suicide prevention, why is the legislature devoting its energies to this matter? ... Dr. W.
[emphasis added]
And, in case anyone out there's thinkin' about it, look here for the resources that are available, make it 'til morning, and remember you are loved. If you're feelin' suicidal you don't believe me, and maybe you're right, maybe nobody loves you and you're a worthless piece o' shit, but what if you're wrong? Odds are very good that you are and lots of people love you or even just one person does, which is more than nobody. The hopelessness you feel right now will end; that's as inevitable as and due to the facts of time and change. On the other hand, whatever you may think you know about death is questionable until you actually get there. Heaven may not exist, limbo and hell are nothin' to look forward to, and oblivion is pointless. What have you proven, or fixed, or changed, in any of those endings? Nothing, except that you couldn't cut it here on Earth surrounded by the circumstances of your life, and that you didn't give a rat's ass about the people who cared about you.
Okay, that was mean. You were 'overwhelmed by daily stresses,' let's say, and, 'the love people gave you wasn't enough'; that's far more diplomatic, but six o' one, half-dozen of the other, and ya know what, I'd rather you get mad at me, furious, for telling you that opting out is as much of a loser choice for anyone who has any other option as any other choice you could possibly ever have made, are making, or will ever make, than let you sit there and wallow in that useless self-pity. I don't care who you are, you may have been the worst human ever. You can be the person you want to be if you're willing to do what it takes. If you won't, it's on you. If you choose to deal with that by 'ending it all' - and how willing are you to bet that death is the end, of life, of suffering, of pain, of any of what you're running away from? - do you really expect the people left behind to spend their lives wallowing in the 'wouldashouldacouldas', or do you expect them to get on with their lives best they can, and when you see them do that, will you hate them for it or be glad they're able?
For me those are the questions that make the difference between 'right' suicide and 'wrong', just like in anything else. If your intention is to stop your pain and there's no other way to do that, and you truly believe, having discussed the matter with them openly and honestly, that the hardship you cause those who care for and about you is greater than the benefit you bring them, I can't fault you on your choice. I believe that in the vast majority of cases the people around you would rather help you if you would be helped than miss you, but if you're convinced otherwise in every fiber of your being, if you can go calmly and feel right about it, I can't pretend I know better than you. However, if your intention is to make people aware of your pain without having to face their pity, humble yourself. You'll find that pity from others is far less painful than the self-pity you're living in now unless you insist upon feeling tainted by it, and you're being a jackass trying to inflict pain without feeling it. Buck up. I realize that in America we're living in a society in which independence is stressed to a fault, but swallow that pride and be a man, or a woman, or whatever you could be if you weren't busy being a child. And laugh. Even if the only thing you can laugh at right now is an image of a knife protruding from my forehead 'cause you're so freakin' pissed off (and isn't that better than the nothingness you were feeling a minute ago? :)), laugh. It's not just some trippy-hippie-dippie bullshit: Laughter changes your chemistry in positive ways, and feeling better physically always helps us feel better mentally whether we like it or not. It's a lot of work to be suicidal. It takes effort to get to a point where one can choose to end one's own life, and even when done on the spur of the moment it's rarely a decision made lightly or on a whim. When it is it's more accurately called an 'accident', as a truly intentional taking of one's life requires a state of mind not easily arrived at that drives one toward dangerous activity, overtly or covertly; it's not something that happens because a person foolishly overreaches their limits in an action designed to garner attention without finishing the job. A person seeking attention is not suicidal, as a suicidal person would in no way benefit from attention if their action is successful. There is no upside to suicide unless one truly believes there's 'another side' on which life is grand and glorious and easy. Carrying the action through successfully (rather than as a failed cry for help resulting accidentally in death) requires coming to believe, so deeply that a person can overcome their own desire to survive, that that person's presence in the world is not worthwhile, or worse, wholly negative.
That's why, I think, it happens at all, is that it's impossible for most people in most states of mind to fathom true hopelessness, true self-loathing, so even when it's clear that a person is in that frame of mind it's disbelieved until they've actually done it. There are plenty of people you'd think wouldn't like themselves at all who seem to traipse through the world blissfully unaware of the chaos and destruction they leave in their wake, or worse, people who create those things willfully and still find themselves not only worthy of life but often as more worthy than most, so it's hard to believe unless you've been there that people who are basically decent in their hearts, who are doing the best they're able, and whom we love, can see themselves as worthless. At the same time, when one's in a frame of mind in which they do see themselves that way it's hard for them to believe that anyone else feels differently, so when those feelings close in the person feeling that way will close themselves and stop communicating except to seek out more hurt, to fuel the fire of anger and self-hatred that has to be stoked to burn hot and deep enough to burn out the spirit, and to make it (seem) desirable to that person to be over and done to such a degree that the drive toward life is consumed and snuffed out. There are other alternatives, and in nearly every case, those alternatives are better. What feels like an eternity today will seem like a blip tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, but no matter how long it takes that day will come, if you'll let it. Please let it.
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