I'm honored to have friend and NYT's bestselling author Julie Cantrell here this week with a poignant post about her brother's suicide.
Suicide seems to have come to the forefront with the death of Robin Williams but suicide is ever present. Last week was Suicide Awareness Week and I'm willing to do what I can (as a mother, nurse and author) to help raise awareness.
Thank you, Julie, for these words.
Suicide is one ugly word. It’s the kind of word
that swings heavy from lips. The kind that is whispered, and stilted, never
sung.
As an author, I build my life around words. Every
word has worth. Even those words we are not supposed to say.
But suicide is the one word I do not like. I
wish there was no need for such a word in our world. Especially since 1997,
when my teen brother ended his own life two months before his high school
graduation.
It is one thing to be on the other side of suicide,
where you may offer prayer or casseroles or even a hug. It is another thing
entirely to be on the side of the survivor, after a loved one puts a gun to the
head or a rope to the neck or a blade to the vein.
That dark depth of despair is no easy channel to
navigate because unlike every other form of death, this one was intentional.
This one could have been prevented. This one carries immeasurable sting.
The what-ifs and but whys and I wonders
never cease. They haunt all hours, whether moonlit or shine.
And the stares don’t stop either, the constant
conversation that hangs silently between friends — at the grocery store, or in
the church pews, or at the birthday party. No one says it, but they are
thinking… That poor mother, how does she stand it? Or – That poor child,
knowing his father took his own life.
What people on that side of suicide don’t understand
is that we, the survivors left in the wake, are barely keeping our heads above
water. We don’t want pity, or sympathy, or stares. We don’t want whispers, or
questions, or help. We want one thing only. We want our loved ones back.
And there’s one simple way you can give this to us.
Talk about the people we loved and lost. Don’t
dance around us as if their ghost is in the way. Acknowledge the lives they
lived. Recognize the light they once shined. Laugh about the fun you once had
together.
There’s nothing you can tell us — no detail too
small, no memory too harsh — that will hurt us. We crave it all. We are hungry
for any piece of time travel you offer. Bring us back, to that space, when
the one we loved was in the here and now.
Suicide is something most of us struggle to
understand. It is difficult to rationalize the selfish part of such an act. How
could someone not care about the pain they would throw on their loved ones? How
could someone not be strong enough to stay alive?
But here’s the truth: suicide was not the cause
of my brother’s death. Depression was the cause of his death. And
depression is a beast unlike any other. It is an illness we still struggle to cure,
despite all the therapeutic and pharmaceutical intervention available today.
Sometimes, even with all the help in the world, a
person cannot see through the pain. They cannot imagine a better day
ahead. They see only more hurt. And when I say hurt, I mean suffering.
Blood-zapping, brain-numbing, soul-bursting agony.
Imagine this: you wake every day as a prisoner.
You are trapped in a cell with no freedom in your future. You are tortured —
physically, emotionally, psychologically. The anguish never stops. Just when
you think you cannot survive another blow, it comes again. More pain.
You try to ignore the ache. You cannot.
You try to numb the hurt. You cannot. You try to rise above the
pain. You cannot. The brutality persists. And you see no end to it.
If you knew you had to endure only one more round of
abuse, or one more month, or even a year, or longer — If there was an end in
view, you could be strong enough to handle it. You could take whatever is
thrown at you because you want, more than anything else, to live.
You are a sensitive soul and you have so much left
in you to give. You want only to love and be loved. But the cell has you
trapped. You have tried everything. There is no end to the insufferable
situation.
A person with depression becomes suicidal when they
finally give up all hope. When they accept that nothing they do, no matter how
long they survive, no matter how many medications or prayers or therapists they
turn to, the pain will never end.
Can you imagine the pain you would have to be in to
take your own life? Can you imagine the fear of a suicidal person
(regardless of faith), daring to face the unknown because even the possibility
of eternal hellfire or permanent purgatory or absolute absence seems less scary
than another day in this world?
We'll conclude with Part II on Thursday.
************************************************************************
Julie Cantrell is the New
York Times and
USA Today bestselling author of
Into the Free,
which won Christy Awards for Best Debut Novel and for Book of the Year 2013.
Cantrell has served as editor-in-chief of the
Southern
Literary Review and is a recipient of the Mississippi Arts
Commission Literary Fellowship. She and her family live in Mississippi, where
they operate Valley House Farm. Her new novel,
WhenMountains Move, hit shelves
September 1, 2013.
