Who are we? Are we just human? Just "ugly bags of mostly water"? Or is there something more to us? What is it about ourselves that is so wonderfully varied, strange, beautiful, curious and even horrific? Why do we end up hating/fearing the different, instead of being fascinated and wanting to learn more?
I have seen the enemy, and it is US.
Suicide sucks. It hurts more than just the person in pain who couldn't bear it any longer. It acts like a growing thing, a cancer that can slowly expand and engulf those around Victim Zero. It's controversial. We argue over it, debate legalities and religious notions, we despair over it when people with potential, or just people we love, die. The still-living people it hurts are collateral damage in the war within ourselves.
And it makes me weep.
Leelah Alcorn was only seventeen. A young person who was living an oppressive life of rejection by her own family and religion, stifled within the confines of the incredibly negative world-view her parents were trapped in. It trapped Leelah, too, and it eventually killed her.
What goes through my mind whenever I see yet another kid destroyed by the use of religion to justify their parent's bigotries (forgive me, I know it's vulgar, but it still seems right):
Makes so much sense!
More over the orange Requiem swirl.
I've had friends die; some through misadventure, one through murder, many others through illness... and a few through suicide. I never know what to think when any of it happens.
When it comes to ones lost through their own choice, I always end up asking myself, "Did I not care enough?" "How could I not see that they were hurting?" "How did I fail them so badly that they felt they had nowhere to go?"
Then it happened to me. That deep, dark hole that's so incredibly difficult to climb out of for anyone. You know the one: it has all of your fears, failures (some real, some just imagined) and all of your personal demons at the bottom, trying to pull you even deeper. You believe no one truly cares. You feel invisible, a wisp in the wind that no-one can see until you DO something, and sometimes, not even then. That hole just keeps getting deeper--there's no bottom...
Below is some vent art I made when I was in that hole (I draw myself and my hubby as dragons a lot. After all, it's our last name). I've been there more than once. Trust me, it's not exactly a vacation-spot. Leelah was there, too, and your kid, your cousin, a co-worker, your friend, a lover, a parent... you.
What it felt like for me and for many others, too.
As a person who's been through this, as a person who sees far too many people suffer alone, as someone who's lost friends to suicide, if you do nothing else and stop reading here, at least, read this. Please.
Some of the below is taken from a comment I posted on an earlier diary last night and from an older journal I'd posted years ago on another site after a friend had committed suicide, with some editing.
I've seen some unfortunate comments about Leelah and her choice. They've called her misguided (yes), a wasted life (NO), even a "selfish piece of crap" (Are you fucking kidding me?) because she chose suicide by truck on the Interstate, rather than some more demure, hidden-away method. That last particularly offended me--it was such a horrible thing to say about someone who was in so much personal pain they didn't think there was any other way out. It's not at all appropriate to dump on a kid's pain because she didn't sit down and carefully "plan" out her exit in such a way as to avoid hurting/inconveniencing anyone else. "Excuse me, I need to go kill myself. Don't get up on my account, this won't take long."
ARRRGH...FUCK
But, the comment that freaked me out the most, from someone who I would have NEVER expected such a thing from, was also partially right. However, Leelah's action wasn't the selfish thing, and neither was she the selfish one... It's the depression that is selfish, not the person suffering it--I know, I fight it every living day of my life, as I'm sure many people you love in your life do, whether they tell you about it or not.
I can't speak for all people who have depression or any other kind of mental illness, so I'll speak from my own experiences with a problem that runs in my family and through my extended circle of friends like a bad road. I can only try to show you what it means for someone to feel so worthless to the world that they think they should walk away from it all: Depression is not their fault. It's not something they know how to control, but they'll certainly try. It's something that needs very cautious caring and treatment. It's the nature of the illness to make a person withdraw and spiral inward, to listen to that Little Bastard in their skull that insists they're worthless, to start avoiding people or talking to them about their problems, to be afraid... because they're right to be afraid.
Because, depression kills.
They know something's wrong, but they don't know how to tell you. Nothing they can come up with feels right. It's all a jumbled mess and they sometimes come to conclusions that reality actually doesn't bear out. But they don't know that. Or they do, but can't get the words out fast enough to fix whatever their misery made them do this time.
They're afraid of rejection. They're afraid of hurting others or bringing them down. They're afraid they're crazy or weak... but are still mentally screaming in agony because they've learned to believe that no one can help them and they just cannot see a way out. For too many people, the burden is too heavy to bear alone, and that's the biggest problem: we are alone in our minds. So, stuck for solutions, endlessly spinning, desperately trying to find an escape, fearing they won't, they try to bury it, grin and bear it, go on, even though each step is getting harder and harder, heavier and heavier, and the only out that seems to make sense is to remove themselves...
Leelah didn't really want to die, or hurt anyone. SHE WANTED THE PAIN TO STOP. SHE WANTED SOMEONE TO UNDERSTAND HER PAIN AND WHO SHE WAS, AS A PERSON. She truly believed she had NO CHOICES LEFT.
But, instead, she had to continually fight for her right to be who she was against a set of foolish parents who's beliefs in their imaginary friend in the sky trumped anything their child might have wanted or needed, no matter that they actually thought they were "doing the right thing". Leelah faced the same frakked up situation so many others get stuck with: too often encountering insensitive, but well-meaning, jerks who love to give out their "advice" on how to be happy: "move on, put the past behind you, pull out of it, walk it off, think positive, listen to God, take this pill..." Or they send them to charlatans who hide their ignorance, bigotries and inadequacies behind a Bronze Age belief that should have died as soon as Humanity landed on the bloody moon, or even earlier.
Well, it's a "positive" that those tactics have been proven to only make things worse.
I've been suicidal a number of times, and the ONLY reason I never got so far as to actually DO it was because I was supremely LUCKY to be stubborn enough to recognize that I actually didn't want to die so much to have incontrovertible proof that someone gave a shit about me as a human being. Like Leelah, I had next to no support network (in hindsight, I probably did, but I had no way of seeing it, then). Like Leelah, I had idiots for parents who's only concerns when it came to my behaviour was how it made them look to other people.
Leelah's folks seemed to have had not one thought that maybe their kid was just herself: a girl in a boy's body, that there was nothing wrong with that at all, or that she still needed and deserved love, respect, caring and a safe place to be herself.
Instead, because they couldn't look into themselves or past their self-righteous prejudices deeply enough, Leelah's folks tried to squeeze her into a box she didn't fit, didn't want to fit and shouldn't ever have been forced to fit, and now the only box left for that poor girl is under six feet of soil.
Leelah posted this to her Tumblr account and seeing it made me cry:
Never clip the wings of those meant to fly.
I feel for the driver of the truck Leelah stepped in front of, I really do. I weep that s/he has to now live with what happened on their otherwise ordinary workday. They'll have nightmares for years, I'm sure, and therapy sessions for PTSD, which, at this point, is probably inevitable for that poor soul. It's true; what happened because of Leelah's faulty choice
is terrible and a tragedy.
But, to choose to cheapen the driver's pain by shitting all over Leelah's is definitely not the way to go.
Some of you already know some of my story, or at least bits of it, but I lived through a fuckton of abuse growing up. From parents, peers, even strangers on the street. After I left home at sixteen, the abuse didn't actually stop--I was now doing it to myself by telling myself I was a worthless human being, that I was stupid, fat, ugly and so on. I didn't know I was doing this. Depression didn't take long to start fucking with me--I think the first signs actually hit me between the ages of ten and twelve years old, though I didn't know what it really was. I didn't know why I was so unhappy--I just thought it was caused by the disappointment at having no friends and being constantly bullied at school and at home.
Long story short, I found myself standing on a bridge in the rain (it's always raining, isn't it? Such a cliché), looking at the fast-flowing river during a severe flood year--the "Flood of the Century"--and thinking no one would miss me if I climbed over the railing and went for a little swim. That was the first time I ever actually thought of killing myself. I was lucky--I still had it in me to ask for help.
But, the real problem, one I didn't realize until almost too late: those first suicidal thoughts can make it easier to go there again, over and over. I have had other "moments" since that night in 1997 where the ugly thoughts made a showing. I don't talk about them, much. They're rather embarrassing, actually.
Pain can be survived, no matter what it is. I was able to get help only because of my stubborn refusal to give up. Suicide was entirely counter to that, and so Stubborn and Suicide fought it out in my head: Suicide lost. Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky. They're too deep into their pain, they've come to believe that it's all there is, that it'll never end...
There is a new hotline for transgendered people who are experiencing difficulties: Trans Lifeline can be reached at 877-565-8860
For LGBT youth (ages 24 and younger) contemplating suicide, the Trevor Project Lifeline can be reached at 1-866-7386.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 can also be reached 24 hours a day by people of all ages and identities.
About pain:
A three-year-old slashes open his palm on a piece of glass in the playground: to him, it's the end of the world. He's terrified at all the blood and how much it fucking hurts. He'll remember that pain probably all his life.
A woman is brutally raped: to her, it's the end of the world. She's terrified of the person hurting her and how much it fucking hurts. She'll probably remember it the rest of her life.
A youth, transgendered, gay, bi, a person of colour, a member of a minority faith, or just a stubbornly individualistic person is harassed, bullied or actively beaten on in school or at home. They grow up unable to make friends, maintain healthy relationships or even find a job, stuck with feeling they're utterly alone... To them, it's the end of their world. They're terrified of a world that continually insists that they are worthless as human beings and don't deserve to live, let alone be happy, and of how much that fucking hurts. If they manage to get away from that situation, it will still likely haunt them the rest of their life.
Pain is pain. No one's pain is more or less than another's. Some pains we can shrug off, sure--I can shrug off a second-degree scald to my hand so I didn't drop the hot soup that caused it (it was my only food that day, and I preferred the blisters I later got to being hungry). But, when it comes to traumatic things--someone watching a friend die in front of them, being attacked, being raped--pain... is pain.
There is no "hierarchy of pain" where one sort of trauma is greater than another. Pain is pain, and how we deal with it is as individual as the events that spawned it. Your pain isn't less than mine. It's just different, because it happened to you, and not to me. That is the ONLY real difference. To make comparisons of pain is to make judgements about people and to really say one person is weaker than the other because such-and-such pain was "minor" to you.
Selfish and sneering attitudes like that have no place in discussions of suicide. No one should have to obey demands to justify their pain in order to have it deemed "worthy" enough to want to escape from it! What we should really be doing is finding out how we can help this person survive their pain so they don't have to feel they've been trapped into a corner where they cannot escape.
If you are in that especially dark territory of suicidal thoughts, I suggest this: use anything you can to get through another day to give yourself the room and the opportunity for something new to happen. Tomorrow might be different. Suicide is not a relief of pain--you can't feel relief if you're dead! When you leave room for options, you have more tools to work with. Make a point of finding more options, even if it's just gritting your teeth on it for another day. Talk to a friend, a teacher, a priest, your coach, a counsellor. Write about it. Draw it--it doesn't matter if you're not the next Leonardo Da Vinci. If you're into music or play an instrument, rip into a riff and put your hurt into the notes or drumbeats. Take something ugly and make art out of it. Remember the things you used to enjoy. Make a point of going through them as often as you can stand it.
Guilt has no place in this. Period. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is being a douche-nozzle, and I would suggest that you stop listening to them and get away from them, right now. People like that are as confused as you are, possibly even hurting as much, I don't know. But, if you're thinking of suicide in more than an academic way, being around folks who are essentially toxic is a bad idea.
Killing yourself removes all options, and that means you lose everything. You will be depriving yourself of all future chances, you will miss all of those future opportunities, friends, loves and joys. Why? Because you hurt now, and that pain has tricked you into thinking that the hurt is all there is and that it will never end. It is a LIE. Remember that you hate being lied to! You are "guilty" of nothing more than being in pain--and that is nothing to be ashamed of.
"Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem."
A list of warning-signs to look out for: in yourself, or in those you care about.
Know that someone understands, doesn't judge you, nor thinks you're weak, worthless, or small for not being able to fight them off. It was never your fault. Please don't tell yourself that it was. Lay any blame where it deserves to be: at the feet of the person or illness that hurt you. You've survived this long--that means you're stronger than you think.
Know that you will eventually meet someone who knows that real love doesn't exploit, doesn't rape, doesn't confuse fear with respect, doesn't beat on you, drive your friends away or keep you from seeing them, or tell lies about you, or keep you imprisoned, doesn't use religion as an excuse to abuse you, isn't jealous, isn't controlling and isn't demanding that you be less than who you truly are.
Love is trust. Love is sharing that trust. Love is beautiful. Love is being able to find beauty, even in a mud-hole. Love is compassion and sympathy. Love is truth. Love is being able to kiss your lover when you awaken, despite morning-breath that could kill a Tauntaun. Love is being able let go when things don't work out. Love is being willing to be vulnerable: trust again. Love is knowing that s/he will be there when you need them, and even if they can't physically be there, that they're still thinking of you. Love is fun. Love has no fear. Love gives you power. Love can change your world into something better. Love breaks down walls. Love sees age as beauty, no matter how run down you think you actually look. Love destroys an abusers' power. Love can say "I'm sorry" and mean it. Love grows, even in the darkest places. Love is a painkiller. Love can end, but the memories it leaves behind are always worth treasuring. Love is what saves your soul, not god.
Love is meeting another soul and being able to say "I understand".
Rest In Peace, Leelah Alcorn. I wish I could have been one of the ones to love you when you so desperately needed it. Guess I'll just have to make do with loving you after the fact.
9:59 PM PT: Jan 1st, 9:57 P.M Pacific Standard: Thank you so much to whoever posted this to Transactions! You humble this relatively-new writer with your regard! Thank you!