Suicide is Painless: Farewell Anthony Bourdain-Notes from the Camino de Santiago
“More people die annually from suicide than by any other type of violence, including armed conflict.” — The United Nations Health Agency
I guess that song (Suicide is Painless) from the television show MASH, was supposed to be ironic. Sure, in the end, we all die alone indeed feeling no pain. The pain, of course, is felt by those who love us.
Read further, and you’ll discover a few insights into suicide and one way to deal with someones suicidal tendencies.
Some say suicide is a selfish act. If you think about it though, those that think suicide is a selfish act are most likely, uhh…selfish. They’re pissed off because their perfectly ordered life, the one they fastidiously cling to and go to great lengths to keep, has been shattered, thrown into disarray because of their loss.
Hmm…last time I checked, the person who killed themselves suffered the most significant loss. This way of thinking represents a lack of empathy and no understanding of how depression works it’s black magic.
Some of us are prone to an unwarranted and unwanted dive into darkness caused by the vagaries of a past life- bad decisions, being hurt by others, a general malaise of worthlessness.
But for someone to take their own life, in light of…well…the absolute beauty (and pain) that life is can be incomprehensible. Click here for more.
You taught me the courage of stars before you left
How light carries on endlessly even after death
With shortness of breath you explained the infinite
How rare and beautiful it is to even exist- Sleeping at Last
But it happens. It’s happened to me. In my blog about walking across Spain on the Camino de Santiago, I wrote about waking up with dreams of suicide roiling in my head, my brain elaborating on how it might feel.
Also, I ran into a guy who was walking the Camino due to a suicide…
Early in my journey, I met an older gentleman from England. We walked together for a little while, really just a brief cup of coffees worth in the grand scheme of things. Typically, to further the conversation (after introducing ourselves) I asked what had brought them there.
He told me he was there to think about a friend of his, who had recently committed suicide. He told me he had no idea that his friend was despondent, and he never would have thought his friend would commit such an act.
I asked him if he had figured anything out yet. He smiled and said, “not really, but I wish I could’ve brought him here, I think it may have helped him understand a few things about himself and maybe…well…
His voice trailed off, and we walked in silence for a while. Not too long after our conversation, we separated. I thought about his friend. Some say that suicide is a selfish act. I don’t think I could ever do it. I’m too selfish for that. That may be the first joke written about suicide ever.
Suicide is typically seen as a decision made out of hopelessness, isolation, and loneliness. But maybe it can be seen as a great sadness at the very core of one’s emotional being. Is it due to a slow building, gnawing sense of hopelessness that at some point overwhelms you?
Or maybe it can be traced to an event, or a series of events, to something that wants to change that emotional core. And let me tell you, the brain doesn’t like change.
Maybe it’s when something you believed to be true with every thread in the fabric of your being has irrefutably changed forever, has been disrupted, overturned. Or maybe you finally concluded with certainty that something you thought was going to become a reality (a dream, love, finding Sasquatch) was just not going to happen.
Maybe it’s when hopes, dreams, and wishes die.
So, that voice in the back of your head knows that your life will never be the same. And that voice doesn’t like change. Change, even if you’re capable of it, takes a hella lot of work, especially if it’s changing the very essence of your being.
So if your being, soul, whatever you want to call it, tells you it’s not up to the task (and that voice can be thunderous) there aren’t too many options, especially if you’re incapable of reaching out. Unless you can live with the pain every day. But is that really living?
To read the blog of my walk on the Camino de Santiago, click here
We all weigh the pluses and minuses in our lives and act based on what we deem best for ourselves. At some point, when someone decides to kill themselves, something happens to tip the scale. And that thing is emotions.
When neuroscientists studied people with damage to their amygdala (the part of the brain that processes emotions), they found that not only were people not able to feel emotions, they were also not able to make decisions, which means that feelings are significant in decision making.
So it can be deduced that the decision to commit suicide is an emotional one. No kidding.
It may seem obvious, but what can be extracted from this salient fact is this: if you were in the room trying to convince Anthony Bourdain not to kill himself you wouldn’t try to appeal to his intellect, tell him what to think.
Instead, you would try and help him discover for himself what he feels is right, what is most advantageous to him. You would try and get him to reveal his problems, frustrations, unmet dreams, the things that make him feel worthless.
Then you could help him reconstruct the troubling image of himself that the voice in the back of his head has convinced him that he is.
Neurobiologist Bruce Leowolt utilizes this method in learning software he developed for a company that specializes in training people negotiating skills.
If this doesn’t work, you might try get him to bake some cookies. See BJ Miller’s Ted Talk- “What really matters at the end of life.”
In this proud land we grew up strong
We were wanted all along
I was taught to fight, taught to win
I never thought I could failNo fight left or so it seems
I am a man whose dreams have all deserted
I’ve changed my face, I’ve changed my name
But no one wants you when you lose
Don’t give up ’Cause you have friends…Got to walk out of here
I can’t take any more
Going to stand on that bridge
Keep my eyes down below
Whatever may come
And whatever may go
That river’s flowing
That river’s flowing
-Peter Gabriel
