Treatable Humans

What another powerful and remarkable chapter. I thought it was really interesting how there was a course dedicated to reading and writing about suicide, getting a more in-depth analysis of it in a social context and of one’s own thoughts about it. I know I haven’t thought too much about the subject of it, and I definitely agree that it’s misunderstood. I’m sure there was one point where I, too, had the impression that the people who commit suicide are all doomed from the start. But I loved that admission that Jon makes. No one is doomed. You strip away the humanity factor if you view them as separate identities from people who do not have suicidal thoughts. Everyone is treatable.

This chapter brought up a lot of experiences about suicide in my past and made me realize just how prominent it’s been in my thoughts. I have never once tried to commit suicide because the thought of death terrifies me, but I won’t lie and say it hasn’t skimmed the surface of my mind. In my darkest moments, I may have imagined what would happen if I did, but I couldn’t even fathom it happening, so I would quickly toss away the thought.

However, I used to have fears that my brother, Nick, was suicidal. My brother didn’t have the best childhood and was bullied through all of elementary, middle, and some of high school. I remember one day, my mom was talking to me about treating my brother nicer because she had gone through his drawer and found some really dark poetry he had written, and she was afraid he may be experiencing suicidal thoughts. I understood suicide, or at least thought I did, I knew it was the notion of someone killing him or herself, but I didn’t know anyone who this had happened to. After that, if he ever was angry or upset after a hard day, slamming our bathroom door and locking it, I was afraid he would never come out. That we would have to kick down the door and see him dead on the floor, a stained razor on the edge of the sink. I used to get the urges to hide our razor blades, I didn’t even want to think about the possibility of losing my brother even if we didn’t get along all the time.

The summer after my freshman year when I was staying in Ithaca, I received a phone call from my mom and her voice was shaky and uneasy.

“I’m sick to my stomach,” I remember her saying.

I felt a weight in my stomach. A kid I had gone to middle and high school with, who I would wait at the bus stop with, had jumped in front of a train before finishing his senior year. I never got to know him personally, but I’ll never forget that feeling of “what could have been done?” That feeling that he, as every person who deals with suicidal thoughts or tendencies, is in fact, not a hopeless case, but is treatable. I still feel for his family.

After that experience, after sort of knowing someone who has committed suicide, I’ve definitely become a little more aware to how frequent it does happen. I’m always so fearful that the next time I hear about a suicidal incidence, it’s going to be someone I know and love. I’m always so fearful that a pang of guilt will overcome me, this “what could I have done better? What should I have done better?” thought. When my dad got laid off, he fell into a deep depression, and he wouldn’t really open up to my family about how he was feeling. They say most successful suicides are males because they’ve internalized that you must repress your emotions, and my dad is the poster boy for hiding his feelings. Every news article of a train fatality in my town, I prayed wouldn’t be my father. I always felt like this fear was irrational, but then again, is that my irrational notions and disconnect from suicide? We all experience hardships, and suicide is the extreme end of that spectrum. And I feel it happens a lot more than we think.

I think this class that Jeff taught was important for the sake of students relating more with their readings through writing the diaries. So as to make that “invisible barrier,” that disconnect between people who commit suicide and people who don’t completely fade away. Seeing all people as humans that go through hard times but that are very much treatable. It not only helped them relate and feel attached, like they actually knew the authors, but it made them more in tune with their ideas about what suicide was and how it comes about in their lives. I know through writing this small piece, I’ve started to come to some sort of understanding about how I feel and think and write about suicide, but I still think there needs to be more education about it. Does IC have a course like this, or do they think it would be too problematic?