I’ve been thinking about the topic of suicide and mental
illness in general for the last couple of weeks since my heart was broken by an
article I read about a cute young girl who committed suicide and left a final
message on you tube. I know this is a very, very sensitive subject, and
honestly I don’t want to get into the details of suicide so much but rather
reflect on the battle that many are losing to very serious illnesses.
I heard a quote once that I loved. I tried to Google and
find out who said it to no avail. It said something like this, “Suicide is what
it says on the death certificate of someone who died from depression.”
How many times in our lives do we notch it up to something
else, weakness of mind or character, or a great sin to be damned to hell. I can
only speak for my own experience. I’ve been to the depths of depressive Hell
and I’ve looked the devil in the face. I’ve felt darkness engulf me and blind me
from reality. It was my reality. To someone in that state you can’t just say
snap out of it, change the paradigm, see what you have going for you in life. Sometimes that just makes you feel even worse because you know you should want
to be happy but you can’t muster an scintilla of strength. I’ve been there. I’ve
spent days and months and the better part of some years of my life near and in
that place. Those days were just as real as the days I live today. I will not
try to rationalize away the pain of that darkness nor take away from the truth
of despair that can be overwhelming in the mind of a sufferer of such. It is
deep, dark pain and to hell with the person who thinks otherwise and or tries
to tell someone that it isn’t real. I’d like to see how that person reacts when
they are thrown in a cold, ice covered lake with no hole for air, gasping for
relief and the gaping jaws of death open after them. That is what it feels
like. It is a terrible place to be and hard place to keep one’s mind and wit
about them. Please, don’t stop reading now. I fear you might not see the point,
and hope that there is and the truth I must declare.
You see, as dark and horrible as this illness is there is a
media attention and spotlight on it that is very concerning to me. A war is
being waged for the minds of the world on mental illness. I believe there is a
large majority that is ever being reduced that is largely ignorant to the
difficulties of mental illness. I can say this confidently because I was a part
of that group until I started to have my own problems. These are the people
that think just counting your blessings, changing your paradigm or “picking
yourself up by the bootstraps” is an adequate remedy to the mentally ill. I
cannot fault the majority of these people, because they haven’t been personally
exposed to instances to give them understanding otherwise. Though these are all
helpful solutions to dealing with the majority of life’s difficulties they do
not take into consideration any neurological issues that, I’ve personally found,
cannot be solved by any of the above.
These people, along with everyone else, are being brought to
the attention of mental illness. It is widely spoken of and publicized in all
areas of our life. Companies, schools and religions are all coming to
understand this illness is real and a growing epidemic in our world. Much of
this is to be applauded, I suppose if I was born a generation before I wouldn’t
have the confidence to raise my voice in bringing awareness and so we are
making strides in the right direction.
The problem is that among the rise in awareness and shock at
suicide rates and psychiatric medication distribution rates and all of the
other aspects of mental illness, there is this increased sympathy and
publication without very much advocacy on behalf of the mentally ill. I hear
about how sad it is that someone committed suicide. I hear that someone with an
illness has gone and done something terrible and I hear concern over the need
for increased screening of the mentally ill to obtain guns or other things. You
know what I don’t hear? I don’t hear the mentally ill, or those who advocate on
their behalf standing up and shouting that we are people all around you who can
function and add to society. We are people working to support ourselves and our
families. We are students pursuing a future. We are people fighting a battle
and winning it.
The girl I was reading about had a quote on her Facebook or
somewhere that I wanted to share that reaffirms the attitude society is reinforcing
because those who suffer and endure are not speaking out:
Doug Stanhope: "Life is like a movie, if you've sat
through more than half of it and its sucked every second so far, it probably
isn't gonna get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. None should
blame you for walking out early."
I call BS on this. (I’d let out some expletives but most of
the people reading this wouldn’t appreciate it.) When I read this it pissed me
off so much I can’t even communicate the frustration that filled my heart. This
is complete garbage. Life is nothing like a movie. There is no predestined
script for our life written out by some script writer or vengeful God. There is
a God and He gave each of us agency- the ability to choose. All of us have
an opportunity to make choices every single day of our life. We can’t control
much of what happens to us or even sometimes how we feel, but we always have a
choice to what we do with it. That is the truth. If our life sucks every day we
live, we can decide to change what we do to reinforce those feelings or not to
reinforce those feelings. Remember I’ve been to Hell and back, so I’m not
getting on a pedestal and saying it’s easy. What I’m saying is this, the path
out of Hell is one step at a time. The path out of depression is taken one step
at a time. I don’t fault anyone who forgets that and takes their life. What I
hate to see though, is for someone to think there isn’t hope when there is.
They don’t see it because our society makes people with mental illness out to
be gun wielding lunatics. How do you think that is processed by a mentally ill
individual who sees a similar diagnoses as a killer in themselves, even if they
don’t have homicidal tendencies? The media makes the mentally ill out to be incompetent
and incapable. That is their prerogative. However, if those who have mental
illness don’t stand up on the roof tops and show what they are capable of and
the kind loving people they are despite having these grave difficulties then
everyone loses. Everyone.
I have dark days still. I have times where I lose the plot
and want to throw in the towel. I need support just like anyone else. Do you
know who gives me the most strength in life in a way even my loving wife can’t?
It’s the person whose arm is full of scars just like mine and who says there is
hope. We’re both holding on to the same rope and we’re climbing our way up it.
The truth is most people with mental illness learn to cope
with it. The first 3-5 years are horrible but it gets better. You learn your limitations,
you learn that you can’t compare your life to your friends or families. You’ll
be a downer at times and people won’t enjoy it and there’s nothing you can do
about it, except accept it. It is an illness but it isn’t a character flaw. So
what if you can’t have a family or kids or the life you dreamed of. It’ll suck
until you learn to realize that and make the most of what you have. There is
still so much to live for other than lost dreams and life expectations. If a
dream is lost, start forming a new, more realistic one.
I guess in all this is the point that I wish I could have
sat with that young girl face to face. I wish I could have put my arm around
her and just hugged her. I wish I could have said that thing or two about being
in the darkness that would make her know I knew exactly where she was. Most of
all, I wish I could sit there and tell her of how I came from that same place
to a place of so much peace, joy and happiness that I never imagined was
possible.
I’ve written a script with the help of God and loved ones. I’ve
chosen to see that the ending of my story has not been written and what started
as a bad movie can end a story of triumph. I will write another ending. I will
write one that doesn’t talk about happily ever away from difficulty, but happiness
far greater. I will write of finding joy and happiness while the tempest rages
around and in me. There is such a joy and it is worth holding on for. There are
darker days before the light comes but it will come and it can encompass the
mentally ill so fully that we can hold on to the true perspective even in
troubling times.
My name is Aaron, I have Bipolar I Disorder and I choose to
live every day, along with many others, as a witness that death is not the
answer and life is worth living. We will beat these illnesses hand and hand. Please, come write a better ending with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment