Ask Erik: Episode Twenty-Two

Here at Ask Erik, we've spent a lot of time reading books and comics, watching movies, and browsing through the Internet in the hopes of finding the answers to life's biggest mysteries. Who would win if Bugs Bunny fought Deadpool?  Why do some movies fail when other identical movies become blockbusters?  Why would they bring back Christina Aguillera to The Voice when Shakira is such a better judge and trainer?

Having instead amassed a vault of useless knowledge stored in his head, Erik instead tackles your questions and tries to find the answers you care about (or a reasonable facsimile).  Or, if you don't care, he'll at least try to make you laugh and forget you just wasted time you could spend doing anything else.



To Erik: What are your thoughts on suicide?

And here I was ready to discuss just why I hate the Denver The Last Dinosaur theme song so much.

Obviously, this is a serious topic, and it deserves to be treated that way.  I can't just make flippant remarks, wander around aimlessly with my sentences and hope to find some particular detail somewhere that lets me wrap back around to my original thought.  I need to be mature, thoughtful, and considerate since this is a subject that people might have personal experience with.

I'm going to start with the most important thing ever: the disclaimer.

I am not an expert in mental health.  I have no degree in psychology, chemical biology, brain chemistry, or any other medical or scientific study.  I'm only saying things I've heard and things I've thought about, and welcome any intellectual discussion on the matter.

Okay, so, first I guess we need some context.  One of my good friends recently had two people in their life attempt suicide.  Neither one was successful, thankfully, but obviously having two people attempt such a thing can be a major source of stress for any person.

Now, I guess, I have to differentiate between what I see as different causes of a person wanting to kill themselves:

1)  Situational.  The moments when things just become too overwhelming, and it's what I call "conditional" depression.  Enough bad things happen at such a scale that the person feels they can't live with the emotional pain and/or grief they are currently experiencing. 

2) Chemical.  If I ever considered such an act, this would probably be the reason why.  Chronic depression driven to a lack of self-worth, perhaps stacked with enough things going wrong as to drive a person over the edge.

3) Medical.  This is where a person's quality of life is so poor that they simply don't want to be in pain any more.  It might be a terminally ill patient who medicine simply can't help, or someone with a disability who finds life too difficult.

Now, I'm strictly anti-suicide in most cases.  If I could, I'd have a huge asterisk there leading to a footnote because I believe there's one instance where a person deciding to end their own life could be understood, and that's in a specific subset of group 3.  I believe that if a person is in such a medical condition that the simple act of living causes deep emotional and physical pain with no chance of any kind of treatment being able to help them, or if the only thing that person has to look forward to in the short time they have left is their body abandoning them and reducing their ability to exist to a level that no creature should ever endure, and if they're able to make a decision based on sound reasoning (you know, the whole "sound mind and body" without the body part), then I think a person should actually be allowed to dictate the terms of their own passing.  These are, of course, the extreme examples.

There's actually a brilliant documentary that was created with the help of Terry Pratchett (who was diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's) that explores the topic much deeper, but personally I found a short on the BBC titled Shaking Hands With Death to be just as compelling.  I consider it to be important viewing, and hope you'll all take a look.

Now, if a person who has a manageable condition or disability find it all too unbearable, at that point I believe counseling is needed.  I have chronic depression, I have a sister who is both Deaf and has mild autism, and I know many people in disability communities who are worse off than either of us, but they still get up every day and live their lives with determination.  One of the most dramatic speakers I heard of about the rights of people with disabilities was a woman who couldn't leave a wheelchair and had to speak with electronic help because she couldn't directly talk to anyone.

As in those cases, the first group I also think requires counseling and perhaps medication, the second I know requires medication and probably counseling.  As I've said before, in another article and this one, I have chronic depression because my brain doesn't produce a certain type of chemical that allows my emotional levels to stabilize correctly (which is ridiculously oversimplifying it, I'll admit), and I've had extremely low moments through my life.

Have I ever seriously considered suicide to be the best option in my life?  No.

Have I ever thought about suicide at all?  ...well, to be completely honest, yes.  It was never in a "I should kill myself" way, more like an astonished understanding of just how easy it would be simply in the everyday world, and just how delicate life is.  Realizing that, while I'm driving a car, a simple swerve of the wheel could be all it would take can both make you appreciate just how special being alive is while also terrifying you to the core since you realize just how many things out there you can't control.


The closest I ever came to thinking I should take my own life was when I was a teenager and I was extremely upset at my parents.  That wasn't so much a "I want to take my own life" matter so much as the irrational mindset of a brain still finishing formulating thinking "it would serve them right if I did."  I used to joke that the number one reason I would never kill myself is "I'm afraid of pain, and I'd hate to screw up and have my last moments be extremely painful."  It's not funny, but if it kept my brain from deciding that I should just "end it all," I'm not going to knock it.

Another part of why I never considered suicide to be the best option is that, even when I was an irrational teenager, the basic details of my "self" was that I always thought about other people.  Even when I was going "I could show them" my brain would always travel to what would happen next, and then what would happen after that, and after that, then after that.  My brain would lay out a complete path of pain, sorrow, and loss that my closest family would go through, and that was something I knew, deep down, I could never do.

Now, have I ever thought "people's lives would be so much better if I had never been born?"  Well, yeah, but the basic laws of temporal physics keep me from ever making that a reality, so even if I thought time travel-assisted termination was the best solution, I don't think I have to worry too much about it.

I'm worried that last paragraph came off as flippant.  I hope it didn't, because I know I use humor a lot to divert myself away from serious issues, but there is a part of me that does find it slightly amusing that I'd settle on something impossible as being the best way to end not necessarily my own suffering, but to make other peoples' lives "better."

I've heard people refer to suicide as "selfish."  I can't speak for everybody who ever considered it, but when I was at my lowest, it was never about me.  It was always about the negative things I brought to other peoples' lives, and how if I was just "taken out of the equation" they'd be doing better socially, monetarily, or business...ly.  I never thought "I want," it was always "for them."  Certainly, to some people leaving a note and getting ready to end it could be a test to see if anybody cares, or simply a cry for help and an action they wouldn't go through.  For others, I could see it being purely selfish, a "I don't want to keep going through this suffering, regardless of how this might affect other people."

But I can't speak for those people, because I never reached that point in my life.  I can only speak for me.  I think that for 99.999999% of suicides I hear about, some counseling, some medication, and some help would have helped the person get past what was holding them down and let them come back to being a good person again.  Even in the cases of where some one's sorrow is so deep that they'll never come out, I think there's still something they can take out of life to make it worth living.

For the few out there who want the assistance of someone in the medical community simply because they don't want death to get the final say in what it will be like to die, I think people need to take a closer look at what it would mean to the person considering it, and what it would mean if we simply told them "no, never."

This isn't going to be the strongest ending I've had for one of these articles, but just like most things based on my opinion, I can't really call anything I think about a "conclusion."  Every day I hear and learn things that influence how I think about subjects, and my definitions of what fits in one area and what fits in another shift with every new piece of data I take in.  I know the things I strongly believe in, which I've already mentioned, but I don't think I'd ever be able to say "nobody should ever, ever take or have someone help in taking their own life," simply because I think that to do so would be arrogant and closed-minded of me.

I guess, in the end, I haven't wandered off topic like I sometimes tend to, but I haven't really given any solid answers.  I do hope that people know that if anyone they know is considering taking their own lives, they should notify the authorities and contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline (1-800-273-8255) for more information and help.

Also, to anybody who lost someone to suicide, you have my heartfelt sympathies.

This is probably the best place to stop now.