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renniekins | |
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Suicide is such a weird thing. It's strange, how easy it is to talk and joke about it. It's eerie, how casually it slips into our daily conversations, our thoughts, our humor. "If he talks one minute longer, I'm putting a bullet through my head." "This song makes me want to suck on an exhaust pipe." "Pardon me, I'm going to find a window that opens." "I coulda killed myself." "Makes me want to die." It's funny....until it becomes a reality. Then all of a sudden it is an unimaginable tragedy. The loss of life is always sad. The loss of a young life, a loved one, ripped away by from you by that same loved one's own hand, the knowledge that you weren't enough to keep them here....well it's something beyond words. It leaves you scarred forever. Those same silly references that everyone makes, that even you yourself have made, take on a whole new meaning. Putting a finger to a temple and pulling an imaginary trigger. Grasping an imaginary rope above a head, cocking that head to the side. "Traffic was so slow today I nearly slit my wrists." They are everywhere. I challenge you to go a week, even a day, without hearing or seeing a joking suicide reference. I pretend to laugh, while inside I wince. Sometimes I even see the humor, a little bit, but inside I remember horror, police, funeral, ashes, sorting through belongings, leftover bullets, shattered dreams, a thousand different individual hurts. But I smile, I shake my head, and I tell the memories to wait, there is nothing they can do. Because what am I going to do, educate the world? Change the whole way that humor works? Of course not. It is too ingrained in our conversational style. It is who we are as a people. We joke about tragedy, all forms. Maybe it gets us through life, makes facing the unbearable just a little bit easier. Unfortunately those of us who have been personally and horribly affected by whatever tragedy is being joked about just have to grit our teeth and deal with it. My work neighbor is going through girl problems. Each day is different, whether or not he wants to be with her, never see her again, marry her, etc. He's been obsessing, talking to me, talking to half the people in the office, hashing out his troubles. He jokes graphically about suicide constantly. It's just his way of talking. It's just his way of blowing off steam, relieving and expressing stress. He'll be quick to assure us that he's not serious, but the next day he'll ask me if he can borrow a pistol. I know that he doesn't really mean anything (and I've made fairly certain), but each joke hurts me a little more. Finally this evening after everyone was mostly gone, I asked him to come into my cubicle. I showed him a photo I have of S, and told him a sentence of two of my story. Enough to have him looking horrified and stuttering apology after apology. I tried my best to reassure him that it was okay, not to apologize, that I just wanted him to understand something about me, so maybe he'd realize what impact his words might have. I don't know if it will make a difference or not, but hopefully it will, at least a little bit. I feel a little better, anyway. Current Mood: thoughtful
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i'm glad that you said something to him too, and i'm sorry you had to deal with those feelings at work.
i think that this kind of issue comes up a lot, unfortunately. i remember that my best friend in high school had a brother who is mentally retarded. one day, she confessed to me how much it hurt her when people would use the term "retard" so casually, just the way you said... "don't be such a retard," or, "i must be retarded or something." i noticed, after that, how often our friends constantly called each other "retard" without even thinking.
i was grateful that she told me how much it hurt her, and i know i've thought about that word and others like it a little more since then. i bet that man appreciated the way in which you talked to him about it, too.
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I hope I've not joked about it altho I've given it a lot of thought. I prefer anything to a nursing home but let me tell you a story. i went to confusion about fifteen years ago, came home with a real bad cold and it kept getting worse. I refused to go to the hospital, thinking I'd get over it, said "I can die at home a lot more convientantly. So, a week later all of the duaghters gathered around me, insisted they were not going to leave the houise till I was checked at Oakwood. To shut them up I went and immedaitely they stuck me in. I guess that's the time I had heart failure altho the doc was never fully convinced The second day I wake up and I've got a guard in the room. They don't say anything but I know what is going on. MY knife is missing from the drawer, when I go to shave the guard opens the door ---- They think I'm gonna cut my throat with an electric razor. Every time I go to the bathroom the guard opens the door a trifle. I"M BOILING ! When my doc shows up I raise hell. He explains that some old lady was told she had cancer and she went out the window, now everyone is worried. We've been sorta friend for years, will I take him off the hook by taking to the pysch ? I agree to do it, the shrink asks why I carry a knife and i tell him I've had one since I was eight years old, I'm naked without one. Finally I tell him " Look, if I was going out a window I woulod do it! I wouldn't lie in a bed three days, WITHOUT A CIGARETTE, MAKING UP MY GODDAMN MIND ! AND if I was planning on it I'd have done it sometime between 4 and 7 am when the guard was sound asleep ! When I got back to my room the guard was gone and I never saw him again. Later that day they discharged me. Three days in the hospital and on the fourth day I got up at 7 AM, droive to Northern Ohio and Lynn Hickham drove us to Kentucky when I was GOH at a con. Later someone told the chairman "I hear he was pretty sick " and the chairman said ' I wouldn't be surprised, he was here four days and smoked almost two cartons of cigarettes and every morning we had to go to town and get him more whiskey, he'd run us out the night before " When I deline to a certain point I expect to handle it myself but meantime I'd got some ass to kick. Howard
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From: ktlove3 |
Date:
August 28th, 2002 04:51 pm (UTC)
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yes, i agree it is so difficult to talk about in real life. the sad thing is, because it happened to me so young, many of my friends today do not know about it, and it is something that i do not feel comfortable bringing up usually... i respect that you can even talk about it in you journal... for me, i haven't even been able to do that for the most part. and sometimes it eats away, when you can't share... so silly as it may seem, for me, even talking about it with a stranger, in a medium that is rather impersonal, is still a big step that i don't usually take. i'm glad i have this time though, because sometimes it is healthier to share, even just a bit, rather than supressing all of the feelings... thanks again. i guess... i kind of needed to say that. call me silly... i'm used to it!
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I don't think it's silly. I think it's great that you've decided not to let it eat away at you from inside. Even small steps will eventually get you where you need to be!
For me, it only happened 3 years ago, and it was a huge life-changing event (we were engaged), so naturally almost everyone who knew me knew about it. The people closest to me now, they know about it. But there are lots of people in my life who don't, because I've met them after it happened. Sometimes I feel like it's something I need to tell them; I feel as though I'm keeping this dreadful secret from them. But as the event grows more distant, I find less of a need to tell people about it. It's just one part of my life, not my whole life anymore, if that makes sense.
Anyway. If you want to tell me more, either now or later, you're welcome to. If you don't want to, that's perfectly okay to... Thanks for sharing a bit of yourself with me. (:
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