The article below is taken from a book I am currently working on, a guide for those who have wounded themselves and lost their way. At the conclusion of each chapter is an “Exercise” for the reader.
Given the recent deaths of designer Kate Spade and celebrity chef and author Anthony Bourdain, both of whom apparently took their own lives, and given that suicides in the United States are on the rise (https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/suicide/), I decided to post the chapter here.
The crude language at the end of the article is intentional. Some of you will understand.
Given the recent deaths of designer Kate Spade and celebrity chef and author Anthony Bourdain, both of whom apparently took their own lives, and given that suicides in the United States are on the rise (https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/suicide/), I decided to post the chapter here.
The crude language at the end of the article is intentional. Some of you will understand.
Hell isn’t other people. Hell is you.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
“Did you really want to die?"
"No one commits suicide because they want to die."
"Then why do they do it?"
"Because they want to stop the pain.”
Tiffanie DeBartolo, How To Kill A Rock Star
Some of you walking through hell have contemplated suicide. Maybe you are thinking of killing yourself even as you read these words.
Don’t do it.
For nearly a year of my life, I considered suicide several times. When you become so ground down by your mistakes, by how you have hurt or offended others, you can reach a point where you think: The world would be better off without me. All I have done is bring pain to people. I can’t go on with such agony and heartache. I’m nothing. Life really isn’t worth living anymore. I’ve lost everything I ever loved.
Yes, it’s true. Suicide—removing your physical self from your circumstances—might seem a relief, even a boon.
Don’t do it.
Don’t do it.
Don’t do it.
Let me explain why.
In this chapter I am addressing only those of you in the deepest pit of despair, you who have so badly wounded others and your self that you feel incapable of doing anything worthwhile. You have hit bottom. A trip to the grocery store, a phone conversation, opening bills, facing those you have betrayed, feeling a failure with your children or spouse, accused of some dreadful crime: these realities can bring you to a despair so ugly, deep, and dark that you can see no way of escape. People speak of clutching at straws, but you can’t find even one straw, a single reason to go on living.
So let’s name some:
1) If you have enemies and you murder your self—the word suicide comes from Latin meaning “to kill the self”—you bring to those who despise you enormous satisfaction. They will take pleasure from your death and celebrate your passing, happily raising a glass to your funeral procession. Don’t give the bastards who hate you a reason to throw a party.
2) Over the years, I have debated with friends whether suicide is an act of bravery or cowardice. Depending on the circumstances, you can make a case for either side. The Church to which I belong teaches its members that to commit suicide is to throw away the gift of life granted by God, yet at the same time we can all think of circumstances, especially in matters of physical health, where death by suicide might be considered a great relief.
After much thought, especially over the last two years, I have come to the conclusion that in most cases suicide is the act of a coward, a man or woman who could not stand up to circumstances and people, and who looked to death as an escape. “In the end,” Albert Camus once noted, “one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.” I agree. Quite often, I think, suicides show a lack of imagination, unable to see the possibility of their lives improving over time. They are filled with such despair, such self-loathing, and such self-pity that they have lost their ability to imagine change and a better tomorrow.
Awaken your imagination. Try to envision some good, however small, in your future.
3) If you have family or friends who love you—even one person—your suicide will leave behind a desolation unimaginable to you. Years ago, I was vaguely acquainted with an attorney who committed suicide on his little girl’s birthday. This man supposedly loved his daughter, but if so, what the hell was he thinking? For the rest of her life--the rest of her life--this man’s daughter will mark her birthday in sadness.
Another example: I once had a friend, an elderly gentlemen, who deceived a number of us about his motives for moving to an assisted living home in a nearby town. Within three weeks of that move, my friend asphyxiated himself. His death left all of us who knew him stunned, condemned forever to contend with the idea that somehow we had failed him.
This will be your legacy if you kill yourself: pain, confusion, regret, and anger.
4) Finally—and I use that word on purpose—death is final. That’s it. There is no evidence you get to revisit the living or attend your own funeral. There are no second acts. Your time on earth is at an end. You’re over, done with, finished, caput, food for worms. No more coffee, no more birdsongs in the morning, no more tearing along the highway with the music up full blast and the wind on your face, no more hearing the laughter of children, no more books, no more burgers or pizza, no more conversations. There may be a heaven, and you may gain admittance there, but the pleasures of heaven will not be those of earth.
Since San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge was built 80 years ago, more than 1500 people have jumped to their deaths from that architectural wonder. 33 of these jumpers are known to have survived. Some of these have since died of natural causes, but 19 of them have recently gone on record as saying that their one thought as they leapt from the bridge was: This is a mistake. I don’t want to die.
Whatever has happened to you, whether you are being sent to prison or spurned by friends, whether you have lost your family from some deceit or murdered another’s reputation and been caught out, whatever has happened, don’t let suicide be an option. When you have thoughts of oblivion (and you can’t be certain of oblivion because for all you know, the life of your soul, your self, on the other side of the river could be a hundred times more painful than the agonies you now suffer), when you have those thoughts of suicide, you need to say just two words:
Fuck suicide.
Ugly, I know. But it’s what you should tell yourself.
Fuck suicide.
And then begin to count your reasons for living.
Exercise: Invite a loved one or a close friend to coffee. As you visit, imagine your heartbreak should that person commit suicide.
An alternative exercise: visit a place you love. It might be a park, a river, a mountaintop, a church. (In my case, it would be the public library in the town where I live.) Try to see this place with new eyes. Take in the details hidden from you by your familiarity. Remind yourself why you feel such deep affection for this particular spot.
Another exercise, particularly if you think you should have never existed: Watch Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. The main character, George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), gets the opportunity to witness what might have occurred in the world had he never seen daylight.
It’s A Wonderful Life teaches one great lesson: you are here for a reason.