Suicide is a word that’s stigmatised as much as any other I can care to think of. Given that those who resort to it often struggle with unbearable guilt and shame, it seems beyond madness that suicide itself is perceived as a shameful or cowardly act by society at large. It remains the biggest killer of young men in the UK, and it should come as no big surprise that males are particularly prone to hiding their feelings for fear of how others will perceive them. The sooner we all understand that mental illness is an illness like any other, and that sufferers are as much to blame for it as they are heart disease or a stroke, the better.
It’s also easier than you’d think to dismiss suicidal thoughts. A classic symptom of depression is guilt, self-loathing or low self-esteem, where a sufferer beats themselves up for problems that are beyond their control, or perhaps even things for which they’re not the slightest bit at fault. Amid this mental angst, it’s easy to dismiss thoughts of self-harm or suicide as yet another cause for mental self-flagellation. Telling yourself that you’re just being silly, or that it’s all an overly dramatic cry for attention may actually be easier than facing up to the fact that you have a serious mental health problem. After all, finding reasons to castigate themselves all over again is a nasty habit that depressed minds get into.
In fact, until I’d experienced and come to terms with my own suicidal thoughts, I had no idea that they could creep up on you like this. I’d thought that suicide was something that people turn to after years of intolerable depression, and something that you’d definitely know you were going through way ahead of taking any action towards it. I didn’t realise that denial was something that could stalk sufferers of depression; that they could be so busy keeping up an act for everyone else, that they as good as had themselves convinced as well. For we know that denial plays a powerful role in addiction, eating disorders and alike, but suicide as well? Perhaps that relationship isn’t quite so well understood.
Two outstanding examples of the grip that denial can have on a suicidal person are explored in issues of my personal favourite comic of all time, Y: The Last Man (actually, I’m going to bump that up to my favourite book of all time), and also my favourite Aaron Sorkin thing ever, The West Wing. In each case, the stories feature psychological interventions on key characters, Yorick Brown and Josh Lyman respectively. The two story arcs also explore the power of a counsellor with formidable insight – anybody who’s ever been lucky enough to find a half decent counsellor in their time will surely relate.
I’m hesitant to go into the stories any more than that though, because they’re so good that you’ll want to discover them personally. But you can find the relevant Y: The Last Man issues on Comixology below, and there’s also a link to The West Wing Season 2 on iTunes (look for episode 10, ‘Noël’):
Y: The Last Man #18
Y: The Last Man #19
The West Wing Season 2 – iTunes (Episode 10, ’Noël’)
Suicide is a lot of different things, and effects many people in a variety of ways. At its simplest, however, it’s that existence becomes so unbearable from one moment to the next that the thought of killing yourself almost comes as a relief. For me it was the realisation that having been racked with anxiety and depression for so long, I was beginning to have almost euphoric feelings at the idea of killing myself to release my mind from the torment. For months I’d been telling myself that I wasn’t that serious of a case, and that I couldn’t possibly bring myself to suicide purely for fear of death. But suicide doesn’t think like that. It finds you at your most desperate, makes you feel trapped no matter which way you look, and convinces you that there’s no more positive a future waiting for you than the pain you’re feeling right now.
Of course, none of this is true. There are always options, and things can always get better. And if you can’t convince yourself of that, then convince yourself of this:
Anger is more useful than despair, as Arnie’s T-850 from Terminator 3 explains…
Find something to be angry about, and focus on it. This one trick might just give you the energy and motivation to keep on fighting for another day. In one of the last few issues of Y: The Last Man (#58), there’s a call-back to the story arc mentioned above, and in it we find out Yorick Brown’s motivation to keep on fighting. If that’s not a good enough reason to read the whole saga, I don’t know what is…
