I woke up this morning with that sick to the stomach feeling that something bad had happened, and then I remembered, Robin Williams died yesterday. That certain news reporters have chosen to speak ill of him during this time sickens me. The pejorative, disrespectful, and ignorant statements that we are assaulted with concerning suicide angels are in abundance…and are disquieting to cope with on a daily basis. You’ve heard them many times, statements about suicide being “a sin,” “a crime,” “an act of self-murder,” etc. Well, let me address one more ignorant statement – that suicide is a “selfish” act. WRONG. Suicide is a desperate act by someone who is in intense pain and wants their pain to stop. That is a HUMAN response to extreme pain, not a selfish one. And over 90 percent of the people who die by suicide have a mental illness at the time of their death, so they are not thinking clearly. Saying that a person who had severe clinical depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, PTSD, or a similar illness was engaging in an act of selfishness when they died by suicide – even though their thought process, mood, and judgment were greatly affected by their mental illness – is not only inaccurate, but downright cruel, to both the suicide angel and the suicide survivors. And those who use the word “selfish” are merely helping perpetuate the STIGMA associated with suicide. A suicidal action that manifests from intense, excruciating, unbearable pain associated with a serious mental illness has nothing to do with selfishness. Period.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 20:17:15 +0000
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