I can’t imagine a day when talking about suicide won’t be a controversial topic but once again it’s been thrown into the air as something people are openly discussing on the back of the recent passing of Peaches Geldof. There’s no current evidence that her death was a result of suicide but due to the Tweet she posted the night before, speculation seems to be rife. I’m not especially interested in discussing what happened to Peaches as I think rumours are rather disrespectful when somebody’s family are grieving. However, the wider topic of discussion that this throws up is something that is always going to be interesting to me.
Today in the office, a couple of the team started talking about this and then discussing how selfish it is for a mother of young children to commit suicide. While I can see their point, I popped my opinion out there and I’m popping it out here again to see if I receive anything other than shocked responses. My opinion, and I promise this is the honest truth, is that it is more selfish for someone who is that seriously depressed to carry on than it is for them to move on to whatever comes after the life we know.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting this is a decision that should be taken lightly and that human life should be wasted but I do believe that people who have spent long enough wishing they weren’t alive will never truly come back. I’m talking about those who can’t get through daily life without throwing the lives of all others around them into disarray. Essentially, I’m talking about people who are like my own mother was. For a good 10 years, (the entirety of the time I remember when she was alive) she wasn’t right. The tiniest things would cause her world to collapse; the sausages not being defrosted leading to hours of tears and anger is one of my earliest memories of such behaviour.
As a child, this is distressing. You’ve no idea what to expect from your parent, no understanding of why they’re so different to everyone else’s parents and no idea what it is you’ve done to deserve having it all taken out on you. Now multiply those confusing feelings by 10 years and factor in physical violence but also mixed with a huge amount of love and I hope you can start to understand why my opinion on this is the way it is.
How can one person love you so much and be the absolute centre of your world, pushing you to be the best version of yourself you can be yet also be the person that screams at you when the car won’t start? Or the person who cries and then screams and then slams doors, punches worktops and shouts at you because they spilled their dinner. It’s a very strange world to live in, is that and to be perfectly honest, life is a lot easier without it.
So, for those on the outside looking in at a world they have no experience of, I challenge you to say that it’s always better for a suicidal person to keep pressing on now that you’ve had a glimpse of the reality. Yes, when a mother leaves her young children, they’ll probably never get over it but they’ll probably also never recover from the damage she could inflict by sticking around for an eternity. So what’s best? My opinion is that every situation is different and requires a resolution unique to itself but sometimes, the controversial answer is the right one.
I’ll never change what the masses think but I’d like to at least challenge it so here’s hoping I’ve achieved that today! X
P.S. – All of the above is an extremely moderate version of real events, so if my viewpoint seems extreme, consider the words I haven’t written as well as the ones I have.
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