Inner Turmoil of Suicide

for the family suicide survivors

I think that part of what fucks up family suicide survivors is this - even if you want to believe that mental illness is a legitimate disease and that major depression is a sickness, therefore, they were legitimately physiologically sick - which I do, trying to get past the whole the only legitimate cause of death is purely physical - not involving the mind. (bullshit), That physiological reasons also affect one’s mental health. Essentially, they’re all intertwined and to attempt to parse them out is crap but something we try to teach in medicine and uphold in western societies.

I see many ways in which mental illness, for example, major depression, culminates and results in a desire to die, to take one’s own life. It leads to suicide, and that whole ‘disease’ is still so heavily stigmatized.

And yet— also —

It’s not so simplistic, so black and white - I struggle with the question of agency in the matter.

Those who died by their own hand or their own means, took the actions upon themselves. God gives us free will; we are not poppets.

Then, is suicide preventable?

I don’t always think so. It’s very challenging to declare someone mentally incompetent. Sure, we can delay it with suicide watches and mandated stays in psychiatric facilities. We can hope that their mental health will improve their medication, therapy, etc. But none of it is guaranteed. And if that person is hell-bent on dying, then that truly is their prerogative, as harsh as it sounds. They can and will make it happen.

Still, the action took place of their own accord.

That is unlike death by cancer, car accidents, heart attacks, aneurysms.

Or, did it?

I guess it boils down to how much we think that the person is still operating in using their own ‘right state of mind’.

Were they acting with entire free will? Or were they clouded by an illness? By evil?

Perhaps.

I guess also -

Is it always insane/madness to want to die? We don’t know if there’s anything else, truly, other than faith. Ceasing of existence can be scary and sound daunting. Still, life, after all, can pretty damn difficult and we covet that numbness, that nothingness when we’re in so much mental pain and anguish.

I’ve certainly wanted to die before, on many many occasions.

And that’s even on its own, without all the many, many ways in which our minds can fuck with us—

There are all sorts of ways for someone’s mental health to be shit, for our brains to truly lie to us - neuro-chemical deficiencies, neurotransmitter problems, microbiome / gut health issues, vagus nerve issues, other genetic factors, conditions/disorders/illnesses, substance abuse disorders, etc, etc.

There’s also a big, big difference between wanting to die and planning and attempting to take one’s own life.

Because, again, I fall into the former category. I know my mother did as well. Whereas my brother and father proceeded into the latter.

I’ve read how there’s a difference in the brain that seems to distinguish or dictate this difference between the likelihood of the impetus for suicide/taking action versus merely suicidal ideation.

If so much is chalked up to differences in brain chemistry, genetics, other factors of chemical dysregulations, intergenerational trauma, etc, that we can not possible entirely understand.

I firmly believe God understands mental illness much more than we ever will or could - this balance between loss of free will with the clouded vision to see before or after a time when this will ever end or be different.

I believe in a compassionate Creator and not one that upholds further stigmatizing ideas that souls of those who die by suicide spend eternity in hell - further agony and trauma for many family suicide survivors.

And yet, still, still—

I still struggle with the whole - was it of free will, was it preventable?

I also believe from my own personal experience that God can take our poor choices and use them for greatness, for beauty and development in this life. But, with suicide, and our limited view of the great beyond, I think we get hung up on the notion that this - what we see here- is it.

I don’t buy that.

But, I’m also only human - with no glimpse into how it all

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

works into the great beyond. So, I guess, like many things, it comes down to a matter of faith.

Suffice it to say, feelings about suicide for family suicide survivors may be very complicated.

I frequently wrestle with the stigma and my own contradictory beliefs and approaches toward the subject of suicide action/prevention/stigmatization.