Last year I received a phone call informing me that an old friend and training partner from my father’s old dojo had shot himself to death. He just didn’t seem to be “the type”. In fact, he was probably one of the last people anyone would have expected to commit suicide. But then, we can never really know what pain people keep inside.
Of my own attempt 12 years ago… My reasons were my own and at the time, I deemed them valid. Romantic love was not a factor. Perhaps hardest for others to understand, it was a need to know why suicide had taken people once close to me, what pain must a person feel to lose all hope. It was, of all things, an experiment. Part psychological, part mystical and part artistic, trying to understand the human heart and soul, hope and despair, looking for the light...
Over the years some people have been surprised or disturbed by my ability to discuss this part of my past with degrees openness, humour and equanimity. It’s not that I see the scars as some perverse badge of honour. I don’t. And the humour I see in certain details is self-deprecating.
What I can say here is that my own experiences seem to bear out the general trends: A more violent, lethal method for men while women often act out of a sense of desperation. As for the belief that “once suicidal, always suicidal”, that is indeed a misconception. Just ask most suicide "survivors". For myself, it feels like a lifetime ago. Indeed, it sometimes seems like someone else’s life. I intend to live forever.
That having been said, suicide remains a very real, very frightening issue for many people. It can touch any of us, at any time. I don’t regret what happened 12 years ago. It irrevocably changed me and my perspective on life. I helped me understand others and myself. What I do regret is the emotional impact it has had on others.
For me, the deepest cut came over a decade later. Last fall those old scars on my arms, cost me someone very special for she could not understand and, in fear, turned away.
Some scars never heal.