With suicide season fast upon us, I thought it would be a good time to address the question of ‘ending it all,’ or as Shakespeare phrased it, “to be or not to be.”
While most of us are preparing our yards for spring planting and our decks for summer barbecuing, others are trying to figure out how to end it all. Now, most people think that the highest suicide rates occur in the bleakest months, like lovely February, but actually the sweet spring months have the highest rates.
April, after all, is the cruellest month. (Actually, that would be May in St. Albert because our spring comes a bit later than most.)
I know I sound trite, but I am approaching this topic with a great deal of expertise and have learned that the number one antidote to suicidal thoughts is having a well-developed sense of humour.
I happen to have one and I wasn’t born with it, so listen up.
First thing you should know about the topic is that one of the largest segments in our society to commit suicide is middle-aged men who have recently gone through a divorce. He could be your neighbour.
So as you’re out in your yard pruning your shrubs and scrubbing the grill, he could be sitting in his home-office reminiscing about the recent loss of his family while listening to the laughter of your family cooking up some dogs on the grill. In his mind, he didn’t just lose time with his children, he lost his own mini-civilization. To men, this can result in intolerable psychological suffering and lead them to suicidal thoughts.
Now suicide is a very complicated topic, and I don’t mean to point fingers at anyone. In fact, I’m of the belief that the only one responsible for one’s own suicide is one’s own self unless, of course, it’s your neighbour’s dog basting on your grill, in which case, yes, you may be directly responsible for his impending suicide.
If you want to help, I suggest tapping on his door and inviting him over for a beer on your patio.
Enough advice for the happy middle-class; I have some shocking advice for the one contemplating suicide. You almost have it right. You want to kill yourself when the key to escaping this intolerable suffering is to lose your Self (with a capital ‘S’) and to develop your self (with a lowercase ‘s’). The difference between the two is that the uppercase Self is trying to figure out how to regain his or her own happiness whereas the lowercase self tries to figure out how to increase the happiness level of others.
Now the tricky part about this transition is that you have probably lost everyone you loved, like your wife and kids. You want to love others, but they may have abandoned you. So you need to put yourself in the midst of caring communities and learn to love everyone you meet within them. Here are some tips to give you immediate results:
First, join a welcoming church where you feel comfortable. But don’t hit on the women there. That’s not the kind of love I’m referring to. Just go and be grateful you’re surrounded by beautiful people.
Second, volunteer at a charitable organization that participates in activities you love to do. But don’t cry on their shoulders; they have enough problems.
Third, spend time in nature but leave the .44 magnum at home. I’m referring to connecting with trees and flowers, not putting a bullet hole in the forehead of Bambi.
Fourth, be sure you have plans for every statutory holiday. These are the killers! Get of out town, my friend and come back safely for work on Monday morning.
There you have it!
Before you know it, someone beautiful will come back into your life and this time the two of you will have a new sense of purpose, like creating happiness for others no matter the cost to your capital ‘S’ Self. And you’ll both be out there pruning and mowing your lawn creating unhappiness for some other neighbour. One thing is certain in all of this: If you do kill yourself, you’ll never live long enough to see that day. So just don’t do it; instead, live it!
Sharon Ryan teaches ethics for UCLA Extension and wrote a book about suicide entitled, “Live Your Life: How to Abandon Your Miserable Existence without Killing Yourself and Others Along the Way.”
