Overcoming The Viscous Circle Of Suicide & Grief: Let’s Save Ourselves!
This article is a message to people who are grieving, who are contemplating suicide or have been a victim of it incoherently. To those who are going through different levels of depression, suicidal tendency & losing loved ones, know that you're not alone.
There’s a rather ignorant misconception that suicide happens to the weak, that people take their lives because they’re cowards. Suicide isn’t as simple as overcoming your fear to die, but it’s rather just the fact that you’re more afraid to live than you are to die.
Being fearful of death with the agony of living- the constant blabbering inside the mind and the nerve wrecking pain in different parts of the body- they all act like a catapult pulling you back- the more you are drawn back, the faster you'll reach to the conclusion of suicide.
Contradictorily, it becomes a basic instinct for survival.
The Only Way To Triumph Grief Is By Experiencing It: There's No Shortcut!
Memories that were once the happiest moments will turn to cripple you. Moreover, it will manipulate them as you’re trying so hard, not to forget & concurrently, to not remember — and suddenly, you either find yourself remembering everything or vaguely remembering anything.
Subsequently, the person you lost will turn into a fiction of your imagination. Most of all, everything in this world will start to resemble a part of them.
Five Stages Of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression & Acceptance (Photo: Wattsupwiththat.com)
In those eternal-seeming moments of disbelief and despair, in those ‘five stages of grief,’ you find your thoughts and emotions scattered all around you:
The first mistake is assuming that it’s a state; Second is that it’s a sequential process; Third is that once you get through one ‘stage’, you’re left with only four to deal with.
However, that is far from the truth as that very stage will continue repeating itself. Until you overcome the whole hierarchy of that dismay, you’ll find yourself stuck in a vicious circle.
You'll Find Yourself In Despair-- Either Because Of Overwhelming Emotions Or Lack Of It
Then there’s another factor necessitate to take into account: sympathy. Everyone will be sympathetic to your lost without feeling sorry for your struggle; instead of acting towards helping you, they’ll always try to push you back into the dark pit that you just climbed up from rather than pulling you forward.
But don’t give up. No matter how much pain you feel or feel nothing at all, don’t surrender — Carry on enduring the struggle if you’re submerging in relentless anguish however if you’re apathetic, be patient and continue to live on like a dead man.
Saving Yourself: Contemplating suicide is understandable but committing it is incomprehensible (Photo Credits: Geckoandfly.com)
If you belong in the first category of overwhelming agony, know that you’re nearer to moving on and forward than the furthest distance you feel like you are from it. But if you belong on the latter one of detachment and desolation — where there’s a black hole inside you sucking every bit of life, emotions, and meaning from you — then the unshackled thought and despairing wish to end your suffering must have crossed your mind at least once.
Fortuitously, that’s where the silver lining lies for you: You’re still alive, living and breathing, reading this. Do you know why?
When you belong in that unavailing phase, you see no point in doing anything; not because you don’t want to but because from that perspective, everything is rendered worthless-- both life and death.
But Remember, Tragedy Creates More Than It Destroys!
Now onto the finale, accepting what’s been done is done or just admitting defeat and moving on from that whole tragedy. It’s not simple; it’s almost impossible to do — almost!
But I will let you in on a secret: Tragedy, Trauma, and grief, they destroy you indeed, but they create more than they destroy: All these stages, all those different emotions and experiences, all those perspective, and so much more you gained.
The biggest mistake you can make is to use the rope that helped you climb up to hang yourself
Although the loss will always weigh infinite times more than that, it will leave you a better man, a man capable of becoming a savior, inspirer, lover, and human, that is, if you stop fighting it and let it. Instead of all the self-hatred and self-blame, turn the 'should’ve' and 'could’ve' into 'I shall,' 'I will,' 'I must.'
No matter how hard everyone tries to explain it or try to understand, you can’t without experiencing it firsthand. However, it turns out that when it happens to you or with you, you become an advocate for its awareness and prevention.
It might be true, but we are human, we should try nonetheless because nothing is set in stone-- Your aim isn’t result but effect; don’t focus on saving somebody’s life, instead focus on prolonging it as long as ultimately he can save himself.