So with the deaths of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade this week I am really conflicted.
As someone with clinical depression and dysthymia, I know that depression lies. I know it does not discriminate between color, race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc. I know it's abysmal.
I have had three members of my family commit suicide (four if you count believing my mother passively committed suicide but that is another story), one in my home while I was sleeping across the hall. Granted the three were family by marriage and I wasn't particularly close to any but my stepfather (the one in my home) but nonetheless each had an effect on me, my stepfather being the one that affected me the most, obviously. Each time I reflected upon the deep, dark hopelessness the person must have felt and that filled me with so much sadness for them. And each time I was angry at them for the toll they took on the hearts around them and the aftermath they left in their wake. But I still understood.
I have never been suicidal but I have felt so hopeless I prayed to die. I have wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. I have asked God to take me. Those times, though, as horrible as I felt, and I don't have the words to express how horrible it was, I cannot imagine what it must feel like to actually want to take the steps to end your own life. I am glad I don't know that feeling. I'm glad I have never been so far into the abyss to contemplate it, much less carry it out because what I felt was monstrous and I don't want to feel any worse. I'm glad there are those people out there who cannot relate at all, who have never been even where I was. I ache for those have ever felt it whether they carried it out, got help, or powered through it until things got better.
But I'm also angry at people like Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade who had outstanding talent and seemingly the world in their hands. Who seemingly did not have to worry about money, though maybe they did. I don't know what was going on in their lives. I just know there are people in the world struggling that don't have the resources Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade had who keep on going. I feel like those two needed to count their blessings because I can see from outside they at least had two.
But who am I to judge? Honestly, Heather. Hop off the high horse because depression lies!
I know that depression lies. I know depression is a lying, manipulative, evil, and insidious demon. I know this. I understand any mental illness is those things, though I can only speak from experience on depression. And I know that mental illness is an ILLNESS. We wouldn't be angry at people who took their own lives because of physical illnesses that they couldn't overcome so why would we be angry at those who couldn't overcome their mental illness?
Thus the conflict.
I am practicing compassion. I am trying to be enlightened enough to see past what they had going well for them and understanding there is a lot in their lives that I didn't know about. And don't need to know about to find compassion for them, truth be told. Because I KNOW that if they went to that measure, it was really, really bad for them.
Suicide is so hard and ugly all the way around.
As someone with clinical depression and dysthymia, I know that depression lies. I know it does not discriminate between color, race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc. I know it's abysmal.
I have had three members of my family commit suicide (four if you count believing my mother passively committed suicide but that is another story), one in my home while I was sleeping across the hall. Granted the three were family by marriage and I wasn't particularly close to any but my stepfather (the one in my home) but nonetheless each had an effect on me, my stepfather being the one that affected me the most, obviously. Each time I reflected upon the deep, dark hopelessness the person must have felt and that filled me with so much sadness for them. And each time I was angry at them for the toll they took on the hearts around them and the aftermath they left in their wake. But I still understood.
I have never been suicidal but I have felt so hopeless I prayed to die. I have wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. I have asked God to take me. Those times, though, as horrible as I felt, and I don't have the words to express how horrible it was, I cannot imagine what it must feel like to actually want to take the steps to end your own life. I am glad I don't know that feeling. I'm glad I have never been so far into the abyss to contemplate it, much less carry it out because what I felt was monstrous and I don't want to feel any worse. I'm glad there are those people out there who cannot relate at all, who have never been even where I was. I ache for those have ever felt it whether they carried it out, got help, or powered through it until things got better.
But I'm also angry at people like Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade who had outstanding talent and seemingly the world in their hands. Who seemingly did not have to worry about money, though maybe they did. I don't know what was going on in their lives. I just know there are people in the world struggling that don't have the resources Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade had who keep on going. I feel like those two needed to count their blessings because I can see from outside they at least had two.
But who am I to judge? Honestly, Heather. Hop off the high horse because depression lies!
I know that depression lies. I know depression is a lying, manipulative, evil, and insidious demon. I know this. I understand any mental illness is those things, though I can only speak from experience on depression. And I know that mental illness is an ILLNESS. We wouldn't be angry at people who took their own lives because of physical illnesses that they couldn't overcome so why would we be angry at those who couldn't overcome their mental illness?
Thus the conflict.
I am practicing compassion. I am trying to be enlightened enough to see past what they had going well for them and understanding there is a lot in their lives that I didn't know about. And don't need to know about to find compassion for them, truth be told. Because I KNOW that if they went to that measure, it was really, really bad for them.
Suicide is so hard and ugly all the way around.
Comments
Post a Comment