For the most part, I fail to see the issue with suicide.
Life sucks? End it. After all, when you don't like what's on TV, you turn it off. And when you don't like what's on the radio? Punch the knob. Did you fuck up on a drawing? Throw it away.
Put those torches and pitchforks down. I'm not saying I wouldn't care. If someone I know commits suicide, I'll admit if I was close to them of course I'd become completely unhinged and then furious at them for doing it. But while I'm on this honesty kick, I also have to admit that while anger would immediately surface via finding out my friend is dead, it would also fade within - I'd say - a week. Very serious. Be honest. Could you really be horrifically angry for more than a week straight? The pain would still be there, sure. That's not a question. Even if it was your husband or wife that committed suicide, you would be bed-ridden and barely eating for a month at most. And then one day you'd get out of bed. And walk around. A couple weeks later you would walk outside. And eventually go back on Facebook and see that - lo and behold - everyone else has moved on. And by the end of that year you'd be working again, laughing at jokes again, and maybe even dating. A decade later you'd fall in love, maybe have a kid, and so on. Twenty years later, maybe a song would pop up or someone would say his or her name and you'd feel that twinge - happens to me all the time - but you'd hardly be paralyzed in misery the way you were the week after. In fact, you wouldn't even think of them that often. There might even be days or entire weeks when that person didn't even cross your mind. This is not a bad thing; it's the natural effect of time passing. Bottom line is: everyone is eventually fine.
Look, suicide isn't for everyone. I know the arguments: "What about [insert family/friend here]? How would they feel if you left them behind?" Well first off, the term "leaving behind" implies dying is going forward, so that's fine. Then they should be happy. And second, the people who lived on? How could I care? I'm dead. If I'm in Heaven, I'm happy. And if I go to Hell, then chances are I've bigger things to worry about than what kind of brownies aunt Linda made for the reception. The third alternative? Nothing. Absolutely nothing could happen after you die. No Heaven, no Hell, nothing. Curtains drop, fade to black. That's it. And in that case, I won't even see any of you later anyway. I'm dead. I will have ceased to be, as Monty Python put it. Alone. Except for the worms, of course.
Which is why I've never subscribed to the silly philosophy of, "God only gives you what you can handle." Clearly that's not true, or the mere notion of suicide wouldn't even exist. If people were only "given" what they could handle, then no one would ever feel so helpless and out of control that they would rather just give up and punch the Off button instead of pressing on. To make things worse, people defend it by saying, "Well, suicide is man's choice, not God's." Well first of all, no one said anything about it being God's choice. And second, God made the person and the person's soul and brain and had him born in that particular time in that particular part of the world. God created that person in that environment of family and friends and susceptible to their ideas and behaviors. If everything is God's plan, then that means he knew before he even created this person that what would happen in their life was more than they could emotionally handle. Getting fired, amputated, bankrupt and having the wife and kids die in a car accident all in one day? That stuff happens all the time. Some people have the mental fortitude to withstand that kind of onslaught from life. Some don't. The people who commit suicide are the people who didn't. And all they ever did was get set in this rat maze called "God's Plan."
Which is why I tend to leave "God" out of these conversations. When people insist on using him on these issues, he tends to come out of it looking like a huge asshole; And I prefer to think of whoever created us - God or otherwise - as someone with a bit more wisdom, patience, and forethought under its belt.
To put it simply: I have more faith in our creator than that. If there is one.
Suicide is as romantic as it can be cowardly; just for a different reason. Sex can save your life if you see it that way. It's probably dangerously unhealthy to let another soul be a safety net for yours. But to each their own. We're all wired differently. If someone is in such anguish that that make the choice to press the off switch, I can't really judge them - I didn't live their life. And while I might like to regurgitate fortune-cookie lines like, "You have so much to live for!" or, "Life will get better!" I don't know that for sure. People die old, miserable and alone all the time. Go to a dive bar and you'll see half a dozen bitter 60-year old men in flannel shirts bitching about life and heartbreak. Who's to say my friend wouldn't end up like that? I can't. Because in truth, I only want my friend to keep living so I don't feel sad. Because him dying would hurt me. I'm not considering the fact that he or she just might be saving themselves from a longer, worse life with an agonizing ending. All I know for sure, is that if they die, they won't be sad anymore. That's a harsh truth.
Sometimes, suicide really only affects one person. And no one else.
In the end, it always does.
Even stars die.
