Matthew's Journal

I contemplated taking an overdose once, about 4 years ago, when I had been badly let down by those I had most cause to trust. When it was just me, sitting with a bottle of pills, I don't think anything anyone would have said would have stopped me. It was my own decision not to do it, but instead, to deal with the issues that got me there.

I know I'm down right now, but had I taken those pills then, I would never have met Robin and had the three most wonderful years of my life. Most importantly, my children would have been deprived of the only steadying influence in their lives. When someone is suicidal there has to be a balance in favour of remaining.

A friend of mine with post natal depression killed herself 10 years ago, and I still miss her.

I'm inclined to think this is an extreme example of our general failure to deal well with mental illness.

I think you're right there. Mental illness has a huge stigma attached to it and there are people (including many Christians) who say bloody stupid things about them (especially depressive illnesses). Suicide is not discussed and that can be a vicious circle because pepole don't know what to say/do if someone does tell them of suicidal feelings. For those of us lucky enough not to have experience them, they can be very hard to comprehend. And that means people can say stupid insensitive things because they can't cope. Are there resources available to help people understand such things? I should try the Samaritans website as a starting point I guess. Indeed, they have Information Sheets

I'm inclined to think this is an extreme example of our general failure to deal well with mental illness.

Do you think suicide is invariably a symptom of mental illness then? I have certainly seen that said (although I do not know whether you would say it). It seems to me to be to deny the agency of the suicide. Even if a person was mentally ill and was driven to suicide by their illness, I would say that it was a considerable jump to say that the suicide was symptomatic.

It seems that many people treat it as a choice which no rational person could make, perhaps because it is not a choice that they themselves would ever make. It is a well worn example, but was Brutus not making a rational choice?

I would say myself that a reluctance to talk about suicide is part of a general reluctance to talk about or acknowledge death. I think that extends to the popular reluctance to accept that a rational person could choose death, thereby requiring the assumption that any suicide must have been deranged.

There is of course another question as to whether such a choice can ever be justified. The Church has traditionally taught that it is a mortal sin, and I think a lot of people still carry a residual feeling that suicides are unholy. At the same time, no one wants to say that a dead man was wicked in raising his hand against himself, so they say nothing. The question must be asked whether the Church is correct in this teaching. Certainly, I am not aware of any scripture to that effect (although I do not pretend to a comprehensive knowledge). The reason given is that to destroy God's work is sinful, but it's not clear to me why, on that basis, it is any worse to kill myself than to swat a fly. Nor can I really accept the argument that it is for God to choose the hour of my death, since that involves rather more pre-destination than I can swallow.

Therefore I very seriously doubt that suicide is necessarily and invariably sinful. I have sometimes heard it described as "the coward's way out", implying that the suicide has been unable to face his future like a man. It may well be the case that sometimes people kill themselves rather than trying to solve problems which they really ought to try and solve, but I think that clearly there are some problems which are insuprable, and there is nothing especially manly about continuing the struggle past the point where it has had any effect. I also feel fairly sure that there are some suicides which have nothing to do with escaping one's problems.

It is also said that suicide is invariably selfish. This too I find hard to accept. It seems to me it could only be right if the existence of every person on the planet contributed more good than evil to the existence of all the other people, which is sadly false. Certainly it must be painful for the friends and family of the suicide, but on the other hand it is at least a clean break. It seems to me (although I have no personal experience) that it may well be less painful than watching the other's slow death, for example.

My impression is very much that people have a horror of suicide (which is simply their horror of death) and compels them both to condemn it and (paradoxically) to deny the agency of its subject.

All that seemed sensible thinking to me.

Mmmm, mental illness is generally poorly dealt with.

A couple of minor points:

I think that with depression leading to suicide is that the depression is often the major factor in preventing the sufferer from talking about the problem and getting help. Often just getting as far as admitting that they need help to someone is most of the way to being better.

I've linked to a number of obituaries of Chris Lightfoot since his death. The only one that got near to dealing with suicide was Radio 4's - though it only got as far as talking about depression and didn't use the S word. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/lastword.shtml

I think the taboo is too strong.

If I'm telling someone about someone else I know attempts to commit suicide I feel guilty in a way I wouldn't if I was talking about them say breaking an arm or trying to hitchhike in a dangerous land (or something else non-criminal but seen as not good your imagination is probably better).

Its not like one can say to someone - look I think I may be close to thinking about commiting suicide please help me without being nervous they'll be told don't be silly, or of course you are okay. And it takes very little time to go from that to the obvious next stage if circumstances conspire.

I am so relieved. I saw a post entitled "Suicide" and a "cut for distressing content" and I thought you were going to say you were contemplating suicide. I sat through a meeting trying to think of things to post to talk you out of it, and I'm so glad they turned out to be unnecessary.

In my experience, the link between mental illness and suicide is extremely pronounced. But this may just be within our culture. And it may be what we describe as mental illness. I think our definitions are flawed. I’m shocked to learn that suicide is such a high cause of death - but now I look at those I have lost and others I know of, suicide features very highly and I had never ever looked at it that way before.

Is suicide as a form of protest a from of mental illness?

When | first started working at Oxfam and heard about the impact of the wall in Israel and the full reality regarding the living conditions in Palestine, I almost, and I say *almost* very very cautiously, could understand why someone would be driven to such despair that they felt the only way they could do something would be to blow themselves up. (My understanding rather falls away at the idea of blowing other people up in the process).

Is despair a form of mental illness? Or is it a normal response to appalling circumstances?

I’ve seen it be cumulative: the sister of my friend L--, after being left by her husband, took an overdose and then went an hid herself under a hedgerow 5 miles away from her home. It took three days for police to find her - and I wonder if she wanted people to think that she had just disappeared. She left behind 4 small girls. Two months later L-- heard that her eldest son, an army officer, had shot himself. Unbelievably, 6 months after that, we heard that another of L--’s sons had killed himself - exhaust piped back into the car. Quite understandably, L-- had a protracted break down, and I remember a lot of us at the time wondered if she would do the same. It was horrifying watching a family implode like that.

M--, a teacher and a friend at the church I used to go to, hung herself, leaving behind her husband and 3 kids. She had been depressed for a long time, following the death of her mother.

How do we judge exactly what appalling circumstances are? Our culture, our beliefs must contribute to what we consider appalling.

My sister’s best friend, A--, hung himself when he was 22. All his friends knew a possible reason and his family didn’t. A-- was gay and a Christian. He had never breathed a word to his family or his church. At the funeral wake those of us who knew him well had to listen to his father constantly questioning why. The thing that mystified all of us, was that A-- had seemed very happy shortly before the event. I’ve since been told that this can often happen when someone has make the decision to commit suicide.

I worry a lot about my stepfather. He has bipolar, and he has tried to take his own life on at least two occasions. When his mood plummets, we know the signs now, and he has been hospitalised on a couple of occasions in the last 5 years when things were looking pretty grim. At the moment he is doing fine. It is always there in the background though. A constant presence.

Why is it so hard to talk about these things? You wanted to post this behind a cut. I almost posted this anonymously. As people have already mentioned, there seems to be a stigma attached to all of this. As I said, I worry about my stepfather. But I don’t often talk about the fact that when my mum rings up and tells me he’s gone down, my stomach knots up and doesn’t unknot until we know he’s mending again. One doesn’t talk about stuff like that - does one?

alitalf included in his comment above, “I reckon that normally the person who commits suicide is in hell immediately beforehand.”

That is very insightful. I think it must be largely the case. Another way to describe it would be to say that the person who commits suicide is in pain. Appalling overwhelming pain, a pain for which there is no morphine, no relief. A pain that continues day by day by hour by minute. At times like that suicide must surely seem like the only pain killer available.