Understanding Suicide

I'm due to deliver a baby in the next couple of weeks and not feeling up to setting up my camera to do this in video form, so I hope you forgive me, but you'll just have to read this blog post.

There has been a lot going around about suicide recently and especially a show called 13 Reasons Why.  Everything we ingest with our eyes and ears stays with us in our hearts and minds for the rest of our lives, thus the repeated command to "seek ye out of the best books" (and I'll add movies, video games, music and even commercials).

In 2003, I married a man who had an addiction to pornography.  Not just the "I watch it and I don't want to stop watching it" kind of behavior, but the "this is a drug and once I have given in a little it is next to impossible to stop until the urge is fulfilled.  Then I feel so guilty for having given in that I turn to this drug again and again" kind of addiction.

Over the course of our six year marriage, he would get help for a few months, and then stop getting help.  The addiction would get a little worse... he'd get help for a few months and then stop getting help.  This cycle was painful for all of us, but in 2009, it reached a marriage ending climax.  He sexually abused a child.

The next six months were probably the most difficult.  Our divorce and his Court Marshal were the dominating logistical nightmares of my every day.  Therapy sessions, moving and trying to raise three children on my own were the dominating emotional nightmares of my every day.  During this time, in an attempt to not harbor the anger, I fought to forgive him, to try to understand how this could have happened, to place myself in his shoes.

Between limited conversations with him and listening to or reading the trial testimonies, I did begin to understand, far too well... and it was tormenting me.

In the past, suicide was frowned upon.  Families of those who suffered from that loss scarcely received sympathy.  This has slowly changed and is now not just offered sympathy but we are expected to actually understand it, we are expected to accept it even.  Now, we even have a show that puts us in the mind frame of a young woman who kills herself.  And it's tormenting us... but we don't see it.

As I began to understand where my ex-husband was coming from, I began to not only understand his addiction, but how he might have been considered what he did normal, or "not that bad" and how he could potentially do it again.  I began to grasp that his sexual addiction was generations in the making and how this behavior might one day be acceptable in society and how people who have tendencies toward criminal sexual behaviors, regardless of who else they may effect, will be the norm, not the exception... just like murdering yourself was once considered the most heinous form of murder.

As we've become a more emotional society, without regard for logic in our behaviors, we sympathize with anybody's situation as long as it pulls on the right heartstrings.  We overlook simple concepts like "this is wrong" because we don't want to offend.

Then there's a concept of "don't picture a pink elephant with purple polka-dots and a tiara".  Did you just picture the elephant?  Of course you did.

We fill our schools with posters and videos and TV shows and everything "don't bully".  Now every jerky child is called a bully and every person who is, or claims to be, a victim is sensationalized, regardless of accuracy.  The market for bullying is saturated and real bullies are simply becoming more clever at it while children who are just rude have become scapegoats for the image of "preventing bullying".

Pornography has already become a mainstream problem that is acceptable (I blame Friends), and the truth that it leads to further sexual promiscuity has become sensationalized via books and movies like 50 Shades of Gray.  We now have sensationalized suicide, like drug use, drinking, sexual promiscuity and many other things that were once considered evil, sinful or criminal.

Do I think we should go back to mistreating the family of the person who committed suicide?  No.  But I do not like what we're turning it into, trying to understand it, to relate.  This is unhealthy for our psyches and is making it acceptable in society.  After being sensationalized, it will become normalized and everybody will be required to accept it or be called horrible people, "bigots', even.

The solution is to start talking.  Talk to your children, from a young age, about sex, love, kindness, what is good, and what is bad, your expectations of them and what types of adults you want them to be.  If you don't think you can talk to your child, find a way, start family dinners and various other activities, start paying attention.  If you don't know your child well enough to know when they're down in the dumps, then it's time to start paying closer attention.  Children can be clever, but you have at 20 or more years on them, you are smarter.

This is not a blame game, this is not a game at all.  This is time to stop sending our kids to school with relief that they're gone.  This is time to stop assuming somebody else should be teaching them about life.  We did not give birth to these babies so we could watch them live in another world from five to eighteen years old.  We are responsible for who they become as adults.  That responsibility includes who and what we permit them to be exposed to at school, online, on TV and in books.  We do not need to expose them to the negative to teach a lesson, we need to expose them to the positive so they have something to live and strive for.   They will live up to what they better understand and often what feels good over what feels right.


This is the responsibility we took on at conception and it's hard... it's REALLY hard sometimes, but it's the most important work we will do in this life and the one we will be held accountable for in both generations to come and in the next life.

I'm not gone, I'm just busy.

It's been a long time.  It's been a VERY long time.  I'm not done here, though.  I'll be back.  When my home accommodates a video without children in it, I'll be back.  When my time is not dedicated to the insanity that is life, I'll be back.  In the meantime, check out my latest weigh loss blog at http://wmli2.blogspot.com.

I love you guys!

Not the prettiest or most important video I've ever posted, but it was eye-opening for me.  This is definitely  me "raw".

It has been a LOOOOONG time!

I Can Hope For a Better World

Just Faith

Why Me?

Who Am I?
Lyrics by Kyra Conner

Female

Why me?  Why me?
This is so much more than I can bear
Have you forgotten I am here?
Why me? 
I’m facing this trial on my own
You said I would not be alone

chorus

Who am I that I should feel such pain?

Who am I that I should know such sorrow?
Who am I that I should hurt so much I can’t see past tomorrow?
Who am I?
Who am I?

Male

Why not?  Why not?
I am here, though you can’t see.
You’re not alone in suffering
Why not?
All that I have said is true
Can you not see the stronger you

Female

Who am I that I should not feel pain?
Who am I that I should not know sorrow?
Who am I that should miss the hurt that strengthens me tomorrow?
Who am I?
Who am I?

Why me? Why me?
The blessings of what I have learned
Are greater than I think I’ve earned
 
Male
Why not? Why not?
My love for you's unlimited
If you will simply let me in

both

Who am I that I should know such joy?
Who am I that I should feel such peace?
Who am I that I see through the trials on into eternity?
Who am I?
Who am I?

Fail With Gusto!