Dueling with Depression: kill it with kindness

Next month is National Suicide Prevention Month. I know — not exactly something you’d write on your calendar next to Birthday Party at Mike’s! A friend might see it and ask if you’re feeling suicidal. You’d, of course, tell them “no!” before hiding in the bathroom, crying silently on the toilet while eating a slice of chocolate birthday cake (with chocolate sprinkles).

But suicide continues to be a persistent poltergeist haunting not only the lives of those suffering from depression, but friends and family members as well.

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) reports that every day, over one hundred Americans take their own lives at a rate of 12.93 per 100K Americans. (That works out to about 42,773 Americans who die of suicide every year — that’s over 42,000 families annually that have to endure the fallout of suicide.)

As someone who’s wrestled with suicidal thoughts, these statistics don’t surprise me. I once told a therapist I would commit suicide if I could get away with it.

She was not at all amused.

The relief that suicide offers from the internal and violent maelstrom in my mind can be overwhelmingly seductive, and I can only sympathize with those who decide to check out early from this ethereal plane.

A much more talented writer by the name of Voltaire summed up suicide quite nicely in Candide:

“A hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but I still loved life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps the most disastrous of our inclinations; for is there anything sillier than to desire to bear continually a burden one always wishes to throw on the ground; to look upon oneself with horror and yet to cling to oneself; in short, to caress the serpent which devours us until he has eaten our heart?”

Humor is one of my defense mechanisms, not because I’m heartless or blind to the pain suicide causes, but because there’s just too much hurt, and all I can do is laugh at the absurdity of it all — or I’d go insane.

There are days when I’m drowning in emptiness and loneliness, even in the company of friends and family who I know love me. Hell, I’ve been at parties in tall apartment buildings surrounded by music and laughter while asking myself, I wonder if I could jump through that window? The fall would certainly kill me, but the glass might not break. Then I’d just look like a drunk idiot running into the window. People would laugh at me. God I’m depressed.

But, I’ve also witnessed what suicide does to those left behind — cavernous, permanent scars cut across the heart. Worst of all, no one can see those scars.

I truly believe that if emotional scars were visible to everyone like burns across the face, we would all be much more compassionate to each other. Sometimes a small act of kindness from a complete stranger can help reset my perspective. I feel grounded.

It’s certainly not a solution, but as we roll into September and suicide awareness, keep in mind that small acts of compassion can function as a stopgap for someone suffering silently, adrift in the cold shadow of suicide.