Can you handle a little secret?

                            

            The topic I am about to tackle is sanctioned as taboo. We don’t normally bring this up in a conversation and some would prefer to stay away from it. This endeavor doesn’t choose its victim, it doesn’t care about what social stratification are you from; if you caught this it leaves you no choice but to deal with it and suffer from it. To proceed further, I would like to introduce the topic with the following fact:

“According to the World Health Organization, somebody commits suicide every 40 seconds.”

            Suicide is defined as an act of self-destruction with a clear intent (whether consciously or unconsciously motivated) of ending one’s life. Some are repelled by this topic as this violates our primal sense of self-preservation, that is, it defies our instinct to live. Second reason is it violates genuine love for oneself and one’s families and friends. The last reason is that (I don’t really want to add this but anyway) suicide defies the love we owe from God. I found this excerpt from the internet and it goes like this:

         ”The Catechism asserts, ‘Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of’”

            Four types of insanity are associated with suicide. The first one is maniacal suicide; this is when an individual kills himself because he is hallucinating or delirious. The second is obsessive suicide; it is when you are preoccupied with the idea of death and that you just could not get it out of your mind thus act it. The third type is the impulsive or automatic suicide, where in it occurs on the spur-of-the-moment with no definitive explanation. The last one, which we are going to explore, is melancholy suicide; it is a suicide as a result of extreme depression and sadness.

            From the perspective of others, suicide is unethical and immoral. Take a look at this:

         “The way he saw it, depression was a lack of faith. He felt it was a consequence of a choice that I had made not to trust. Later that day, someone challenged him; he then took it back, saying that there are certain cases where that may not be true. It didn’t matter though. Not to me, at least. I could feel the guilt and shame eating away at me constantly for the next few days. It was my fault that I was depressed. I was selfish. I didn’t have faith. I was a bad person…  Instead of encouraging me to have faith, it causes me to doubt my identity and myself. Am I not allowed to be a faithful Christian and struggle with depression? Am I somehow a bad Christian for allowing my anxiety to influence some of my choices?”

           Religion I think is an important institution where in it serves as a repertoire of moral grounds and beliefs for everyone. If we are constantly dismissing these people as “bad” or “unethical” just at least understand what they have been through that made them do it. We have the freedom to exercise our free will, most of these people know the consequences they have to face, and yet they still do it. I don’t think people mourn for them, the people who are left behind are actually mourning for themselves, because that person is already dead and he cannot experience suffering. (please let’s not talk about hell, that is not my point) 

            How could a person possibly understand what they went through considering that they took the undesirable path to end their life? Do you know what made them do that? Have you even experienced their suffering? If not, please… don’t condemn these people.

         Someone who has experienced depression knows how it feels like to be stripped off of emotions. Depression is not something that is just there, it’s not like a sickness that will stop once when you overcome it. It’s more like a madness, its slowly taking the sanity out of you and numbing the hell out of you. (Pardon the word) Being depressed couples being indifferent. It is as if you are a zombie and that you’re very reluctant to do anything, not even to eat brains. The thought of feeling pain follows self-harm, one form of this is by lacerating the wrist, until it arouses so much unstable emotions that can lead to suicide. The “stripped off of emotions” is not really that kind of not feeling anything it’s more like being numb from all of the adversities and mental disorder that a depressed person have. Being sad is different from being sad and depressed. There is a big margin that separates the two. To end this article, I want to share these excerpt to you that came from the group called To Write Love on Her Arms, the mental illness that it was talking about is depression since it is also described as a mental disorder, and it goes like this:

“It didn’t matter that he was funny. It didn’t matter that he was charismatic or that his laughter could electrify the most frigid room in a matter of seconds. It didn’t matter that his family was as wonderful and supportive as humanly possible or that he lived in a beautiful house. And it sure as hell didn’t matter that he had a nice pool. Though I, like the rest of the world, mourn the loss of the wonderful, energetic, kind, and hilarious Robin Williams, his death proves what I have already learned the hard way: Mental illness knows no bounds.

It doesn’t care about fame, fortune, or family. It doesn’t care about personality. It doesn’t even care about the way a person can light up everything – everyone – they touch.

Mental illness tries to steal that light, to extinguish it altogether.

And we, as a society, have turned our backs to it as it stealthily moves through the crowd, extinguishing flames one by one. We can hear the hiss, smell the smoke.

But we dismiss it.

“Get out of bed already.”

“Everyone has problems – deal with it.”

“Just live life normally, and it will go away.”

“You’re not even trying to be happy.”

“Don’t be so selfish.”

Hiss.

It’s time that we start having honest conversations about mental illness. It’s time we realize that not everyone experiences the world the same way, that a smile or a joke doesn’t always mean someone is OK.

It’s time that we saw mental illness for what it really is. It’s an illness, a terrible sickness of the same caliber as any physical illness, that can claim anyone – a famous comedian, a talented actor, a son. My friend.

It is only then can we start approaching how to treat those struggling with mental health in a new way. It is only then that we can go after that terrible thing dimming the lights in our world, one flame at a time.”