Tag Archives: Suicide

Re-thinking Suicide and the Difficult Questions It Entails Asking

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With another pair of recent high profile suicides, society on the whole continues to be surprised by these occurrences. I would like to discuss why we should not necessarily be surprised, what it says about a society that continues to deal with suicide, but also its seeming spontaneity, and the current collective attitude towards suicide and suicide ideation, and its affect on making suicide a difficult topic for individuals contemplating it to disclose to others.

During a standup routine a comedian was commenting: “I show up to the therapist’s office for assessment. She asks me if I’ve ever been suicidal. I said, “Are you crazy? What a ridiculous question?!?……. Of course I’ve been suicidal! Have you seen the world out there!?!” Comedy, being the art that it is, allows one to normalize and communicate something that everyone knows or does in a manner that allows it to come to the surface in an approachable and comfortable way. Thus, in looking at the joke, one can see something true to the observation, that, in a world where life, even at it’s best is often bitter sweet, where individuals must struggle to navigate the “real world” and find meaning in it, and where much of culture has become shallow and superficial, reflecting on the option to bypass the struggle by taking one’s life, has a semblance of normal and reasonable reflection to it.

In a world and society where there is so much suffering, so much disparity, so much superficiality, and so much alienation from self and other, does thinking about suicide represent something pathological or is it a normal reaction to being aware of and sensitive to all the suffering in the world and one’s limited ability to change it; perhaps a normal reaction to a society built around false promises associated around consumerism, having more, and “making it; perhaps a normal reaction to feelings of alienation born of a society mired in fear and technological obsession? Suicide ceases to be something so pathological and surprising once we start asking certain questions and considering certain realities.

Instead of suicide representing some pathological and deranged thinking process, suicide and suicidal ideation might demonstrate awareness and sensitivity to the suffering both within and without, an awareness of the much of the struggle of life, and an awareness of one’s ability to choose and have responsibility? Perhaps suicide is the logical conclusion of a life spent around expectations that being rich and successful and famous can leave one fulfilled? Perhaps as a society we are doing a terrible job of instilling a sense of self in our children grounded in self worth that is paramount to a meaningful life? Perhaps we are doing a terrible job of reflecting on what really matters in the end; what really makes life worth living?

An individual commits suicide and people are often surprised, no one could see it coming. The fact that this is so does not point to the mysterious affects of some suicide disease that strikes an individual from out of nowhere, but instead suggests that an individual feels compelled to hide signs of being suicidal because it has been so deeply pathologized, and because, as a society, we have collectively worked at obliterating our awareness and sensitivity to recognizing the signs. It is not that there are no signs; it is that we do not want to see them; we are moving too fast to be capable of slowing down enough to see or feel them, and we have created a cultural of pseudo happiness that finds it nearly impossible to tolerate any negative emotional states and realities.

As culture and society has become conditioned through consumerism to believe in life as this constant party and celebration, there has ceased to be room for recognition of any of life’s negative affect states. This topic is a much larger one that has been elucidated on elsewhere, but its connection to suicide means that it is taboo to feel negative, let alone bring it up within the context of feeling suicidal. No one wants to believe suicide for the reality it is because no one wants to believe that the real world life they have been conditioned to live is any less the party than it is said to be.

In line with this is the fact that thoughts of suicide are tinged with feelings of guilt and shame. In a society where money, fame, and recognition are held up as the ultimate goals, it will be shame inducing for people who have achieved such things to go on to admit that they are not happy despite having them. “What?! How can such and such not be happy? They are rich, successful, and famous!” Many people cannot acknowledge they are suicidal because according to the values of society they have no reason to be disappointed. The same is true of kids and teens in families where they are provided with opportunities in the way of money and good schools, but not the kinds of nurturing and support that leads to the construction of a healthy sense of self worth.

If we hope alleviate the risk of suicide by “raising awareness” then we have to do so in line with asking some difficult questions about the kind of world we live in, the kinds of accomplishments our culture esteems, the kinds of people we are raising our children to be, and the cost of achieving, and we have to be willing to accept some truths about our role in buttressing that world even if it ends up implicating ourselves. And this applies, not just to suicide, but also to any other mental health topic.

Of course, no one likes the thought that they were unable to recognize problems and emotional isolation; much easier to pretend the suicide had more to do with some mysterious illness that snuck up on them. This is not true of everyone, and it does not entail blaming, but it does mean acknowledgment. Suicidal thoughts do not point to a medical issue as if they represent the symptoms to some kind of disease. As much as a belief that suicidal thoughts are simply some genetic hiccup or a “chemical imbalance” may relieve one of the pressures of reflecting on existential reality and the environmental factors caught up with it, the truth is that the problem is more human than that, and thus requires, not medical intervention, but human intervention. By that I mean the recognition and acknowledgment by another of one’s thoughts, and feeling states in a world that is difficult for any living thing to navigate, let alone one that is aware of its own existence.

No one wants to ask tough questions about the kind of lifestyle and environment we have bought into. No one wants to consider that a certain mentality they have or passed on to their children could lead to emotional bankruptcy. No one wants to consider such things because it implicates us and dismantles the illusion of reality and a certain belief system we have created. No one wants to believe that someone could kill themselves in this world out of emotional bankruptcy because it means critiquing that world and bursting the comfortable bubble that most of us live in. But we cannot continue to deny certain detrimental aspects of our environment and culture and then rationalize superficial responses that put a nice and pretty gloss over everything while the heart of the issue gets ignored.

 

Suicide And The War Within

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A friend recently asked me what my name means. I confessed I didn’t know and so I looked it up. The name ‘Mark’ derives from the Latin ‘Mart-kos’ which means ‘consecrated to the God Mars,’ the God of war. As a boy I would have been thrilled to know this, finding it completely appropriate, and associating it with a kind of destiny I always felt was mine, to go to war.

Now having gone to Iraq and moved on with my life I am still thrilled to have discovered the meaning of my name, and find it just as appropriate, not because of its association with war of an external kind, or as Clausewitz called it, “War as the continuation of politics by other means,” but because of the way I have come to view war. This is war as something personal, internal, and actually worth fighting; it is the struggle within one’s self to know who one really is. This is war of a different kind, but it is one that I have found no less daunting and difficult. As the philosopher Thales said, “The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself.”

What do I mean by internal war? To fight an internal war means to struggle with all those things that prevent a person from getting to know who they really are and why; to know one’s likes and dislikes, and why; to know one’s character traits, especially the unflattering ones; to know the origin and source of one’s anger, love, hate, joy, jealousy, motivations, and drives; why one chooses to act the way one does in any situation; it means possessing the highest amount of self honesty and self awareness. To know and practice such things means freedom in the truest sense of the word.

To fight an internal war means to struggle with all those feeling that are hard to embrace, feelings which nonetheless do one’s sense of self justice, though they may be associated with either painful memories or unrealistic expectations. How able one is to embrace and healthily express one’s feelings and emotions determines how alive and living one actually is. The failure to do this results not just in a deadened life where one feels alive only when “getting crazy,” “having fun,” or getting “fucked up,” but in an actual death where suicide seems the only answer.

A couple months ago another Marine from my former unit committed suicide. Suicide remains a huge problem for both active duty personnel and veterans alike. Some estimates put suicide among veterans as high as 20 a day. During the final years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars suicide was even the leading cause of death among active serving personnel. Ironically those who have committed suicide were able to walk and patrol through war zones, and yet have lacked the ability to be more open, to speak about, and deal with their problems. It should give serious pause to know that a nation can train its citizens to run fearlessly into battle, and yet fail to make individuals capable of dealing with their inner pain. Sadly, we fight external wars, wars that don’t really matter, in order to avoid the wars we are struggling with inside. This all suggests that there is a dimension to being human that most of us chose not to deal with, a different kind of war we choose not to fight.

Not everyone will join the military and go to war, but almost everyone will find a way to avoid their inner struggles. A distant uncle of mine recently committed suicide around the same time as the Marine from my Battalion. It seems individuals everywhere are vulnerable to seeing suicide as a way out of their troubles. And although physical war may be the most convenient way for tricking one’s self into believing he or she is more strong, confident, and self possessed than they really are, there are many ways to deceive one’s self, and almost everyone will find their own.

Participating in physical war may have its merits, and may test various aspects of one’s self; becoming successful from a monetary and social point of view may bring a sense of fulfillment; constructing an identity around any kind of theme whatsoever, be it becoming a great actor, photographer, scientist, preacher, bodybuilder, etc.; all these may bring a certain degree of satisfaction, but if they do nothing to avail one of his or her inner sufferings, if they fail to bring lasting peace and self knowledge, then they merely represent dead end ways by which individuals seek to displace and avoid their inner struggles, thus preventing the attainment of a kind of interminable pleasure that can only come from embracing the full weight of existence and the freedom it comes with.