Rethinking Suicide

"Don't do it!"

"Stop! You have so much to live for!"

"Once you go through with it, there's no turning back!"

I've had these words spoken to me more times than I can count.

Every time I was about to order a White Castle crave case.

But others hear these words every day. From well-meaning people. Friends, family and creditors who would be really bummed if they made a premature journey to the other side.

The conventional wisdom is that suicide is driven by some type of mental illness. Depression. Bipolar disorder. Anxiety. Complex PTSD. Being a Lions fan.

But what if...

...just indulge me for a second on this...

...what if...suicidality weren't unnatural at all?

Instead, what if the desire to end one's life was simply a profound expression of homesickness?

Now, this is where I'm going to start sounding a bit crazy, so you've been forewarned.

On the road last week, I had a profound epiphany. A vision. An awakening. One of those experiences that can only be understood, and is nearly impossible to explain.

In this vision, I saw the other side.

Told you this would sound nuts. I want to lampoon the hell out of myself as we speak, and I'm the one who experienced it.

Yet...it was the most real thing I've ever felt. And it was a vision of a place my mind called, "Perfectia."

Lazy, right? Christ, I need to up my creativity when in full communion with the universe.

Perfectia was a similar manifestation to what others call, "Heaven", "Home", "Source", or "Detroit."

But it wasn't a place filled with fluffy white clouds and a geriatric ruler with an unkempt beard, surrounded by doting angels with harps that look like extras from an Animal House toga party.

Instead, it was pure, unbound consciousness. No limitations. Endless creativity. Timelessness. Perfect connection with everything and everyone. Unconditional love. No concept of pain or loss or grief or wanting. Just...perfection. Hence the name. Everything we conceive of as "good", multiplied by infinity.

Now, take that unbound consciousness, that oneness with perfection, where bacon is good for you and Dane Cook no longer tortures us with his brand of comedy, and stick it in a human body.

Give it aches and pains. Give it the grief of losing a mother in childhood. Give it war trauma. Give it a cleft lip, missing arm or one of the many cancers on the menu. Give it attraction for someone of the same sex while born into a strict religious family. Give it dreams of fantasy novels to be written while stuck running spreadsheets in a cubicle. Give it the love of its life running off with another and leaving them in the dust. Give it societal expectations that are impossible to meet.

Most people simply deal with these things as a normal part of life. Seroheads, as I call them. Tricked by feel-good chemicals in their brains that were evolved to help them deal with all of this. Then layer on a level of acceptance and embrace, where there's great honor in meeting these horrors head-on with a stiff upper-lip and cold, stoic approach. Where these calamities are not simply to be tolerated, but embraced as some kind of character-building experience. And, the more you suffer, the better off you are for it!

But somewhere deep down, you know none of this is true. You also know that Perfectia exists, that place of unbound consciousness, even if you've forgotten it. You experience it every time you have a first kiss or come up with a brilliant idea or have the perfect stroke of seemingly improbable luck.

The suicidal mind, however, is the one that hasn't completely forgotten Perfectia.

It's the mind that says, "Wait - none of this is right. Pain and suffering and hatred and stress and fear and $4.19 at the pump...this is unnatural. This is all wrong. This is sadistic. And it runs afoul of everything I know, intrinsically, is good and right in this universe. So I want out. I want to go home."

Like a child from a loving home sent to a summer camp filled with fire ants, vicious bullies, and chili that gives you the runs for days, all they want to do is go home.

They're not crazy for wanting that. They're not wrong for wanting that. And they shouldn't be shamed for wanting that.

But every step of the way, the kid is confronted by counselors and other campers who tell them how lucky they are to be there! How amazing camp is! And how they should be grateful for the experience of poison oak and wedgies.

The religious counselors tell them that summer camp is a sacred gift, and they're going to be severely punished if they try to leave. The new age counselors tell them that the fire ants are part of some cosmic plan to elevate their soul to a new, slightly less shitty summer camp. So, they might as well ride it out and make the best of it, because if they try to leave, they'll have to come back to this place next summer. And the next. An endless loop of pointless torture, like an all-staff meeting.

Then there's the atheist counselors who tell them to make the best of it, because nothing exists outside of summer camp.

And all these counselors and campers are the normal ones.

And this kid, for wanting to bolt from the hellscape and go home to their video games and mother's cooking that won't blow out their lower GI tract, is the crazy one.

The good news for the kid, and for everyone at that camp (whether they know it or not), is that eventually, they all do go home. The bound consciousness is unbound once more, free to resume communion with all that is. Free to create without limitation, love without condition and imagine without suffering.

Perhaps in the mean time, we can give the kid a break. Show them a bit of empathy, and stop patronizing them with messages about how wonderful camp is, when they have a lucid memory of something far better. They're not crazy for wanting to go home.

In fact, they may be the only sane one in the campground.

________________________________________________________