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.