Complicated

[bloodyrosemccoy]

So last Friday, somebody killed herself at the main branch of the Salt Lake City Library.

This is not the library I work at. My library is tiny and scuzzy, and its most notable architectural feature is the emergency exit door, whose sole purpose seems to be to terrify small, careless children. No, the downtown library is big and beautiful and full of light, with tiered floors and window banks and an awe-inspiring entrance hall. I don’t work there, but I love that library.

And so when a woman leaped from the fourth floor and crashed, screaming, down into this entrance hall, I found myself wanting to say two very different things to her:

1. My god. What an awful state you must have been in to so deliberately want to end your own life. Mental illness is a terrible thing, and my heart goes out to you in recognition of that very real, indescribable anguish. I wish we could have recognized your distress and gotten you help sooner.

2.You god damn selfish monster, how dare you use a beautiful, safe, public building to traumatize innocent bystanders? You could have killed someone else, but as it is, you simply left many patrons and staff deeply scarred because you wanted to die FLASHILY. No words can express how contemptible I find that.

The second reaction there is completely unfair to someone who wants to kill herself, because if you are committing suicide, you are probably not thinking straight. I firmly believe suicide itself is not so much a selfish act as it is a fatal symptom of a range of conditions that all fall under the heading of Deeply Fucked Up. Mostly I wish there was something that could have been done before to help her, to keep from driving her to this.

But I can’t deny that I harbor some resentment toward someone who affects innocents around them. It's natural enough, I think, but it's also a sign that there are many, many shades of suck involved here.

Comments

[willowistari.livejournal.com]

The second reaction is totally understandable, and I think the fact that you're worried about it being unfair says a lot about how good a person you are. If you weren't a good person you wouldn't care about it being mean or unfair.

[willowistari.livejournal.com]

Side note: Kudos to you for doing gluten free baking. I've had IBS my entire life and only last year did a doctor finally get the idea that I might have celiacs. So I cut out gluten and ta-dah, stomach problems solved. It took 26 years but better late than never! I'm still learning the whole "cook for yourself" aspect of it though.

[withoutawhy.livejournal.com]

O_O

[baby-rissa-chan.livejournal.com]

As someone who's had occasions when some of my mental processes were screwy enough to allow for suicidal ideation, there were times when the only reason I wasn't tempted to actually do anything about it was because I couldn't come up with a single scenario that didn't seem like it was likely to end in traumatizing or hurting someone else. No matter what, someone would eventually find my body and even if I managed to avoid anyone finding me in time to stop me, whether it was a fresh body or a decomposed one, it would be traumatizing no matter what I did. I could live with disappointing myself and pain more than I could with the idea of hurting someone else that badly.

The upshot of which is that when I hear about someone despoiling what ought to be a sanctuary of sorts with her self-inflicted death, it really is difficult not to judge her for it and resent the pain she caused others in the act, even when I know how far down you have to go before getting anywhere near that rock bottom.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been--well, not suicidal, fortunately, but I've looked down the road that leads to it. And I do rememer thinking that suicide would be a pretty shitty thing to do to people.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I can totally understand both feelings. I always feel awful at the people who step in front of trains, because of how horrible it is for the engineer and then all the people on the train.

[cougarfang.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine was on an Amtrak train last year and that happened to him.

My best friend's undergrad lab partner committed suicide last spring and she had to deal with so much grief and irrational guilt on top of all the other shit going on in her extended family's life. She probably didn't even register on her lab partner's mental radar, but.

It helped me let go of the idea of suicide altogether, because of all the fallout and trauma that ripples far across society, the unexpected repercussions, and the unfairness of it all.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

My feelings exactly.

[origamicage.livejournal.com]

I can sort of kind of understand 2, but not really.

You know why? Because I myself have contemplated jumping from that VERY SAME BUILDING. It's not because I want a 'flashy' death. That is not even remote it. Why, then, did I think of the library?

Because it's easy. Because it's the highest building that's open to the public and VERY EASY to get up that high. It's not because of flashily, it's because it's EASY. You can just walk in and....boom. When you're that fucked in the head, you don't generally think of other people, except in the sense of 'the world will be better off without me.)


Don't worry too much for me, I'm just trying to say what I've thought in the past. I'm on much better medicine now, though when I go there, I still keep away from the balconies - (I like the glass elevator though. Can't do anything in there, but you can still watch people.) or go on the roof. Yes, the library is goddamn beautiful. That's why I always thought of the roof. I sincerely believe they need more safeguards on the roof. But like I said, I am much better now. I just avoid the high spots because they remind me of bad thoughts in my past.

At least you do understand that your reaction is unfair, and that's a hell of a lot better than most people.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge my emotions, and I'd also be remiss if I didn't take a second look at them.

I'm glad you got better meds. Trying to find the right ones SURE IS FUN, ISN'T IT? (And then there was the brand that made me think nanobots had hijacked my mind ...)

[origamicage.livejournal.com]

OH YES IT IS.

Just last October I took one (for what, two days?) that made me extremely paranoid, of eyes especially. Had to cover up or remove ANYTHING with eyes in my room, including stuffed animals, blankets, pictures, socks, whatever. IT WASN'T FUN especially when the wall sockets started freaking me out. (they look like a tiny face okay) At least someone knows how that feels like, with the whacked out meds from hell.

Er. Excuse the babbling, I'm a tad sleep deprived.