Suicide - Symptom, Not Selfishness
Today Chester Bennington was laid to rest, but the hearts of those who mourn him are not at rest at all. My heart is troubled in a way it hasn’t been for years, and I’m struggling not to think of his final moments. Today I’m going to speak to those who have called him, or anyone else, selfish for taking their own life.
I’m not entirely unsympathetic to your sentiments, because I had my moment of thinking, “Oh, that rat bastard,” when I found out. As someone who lost her father in childhood, I know how hard things will be for his children throughout the rest of their lives. I’m especially concerned for his sweet little six-year-old daughters, Lila and Lily, because I developed major abandonment issues on the back of my father’s death when I was just a bit older than them. And my father died of brain cancer, so no one could even suggest that he left by choice. But I’m here to tell you that calling people who kill themselves selfish makes you look ignorant.
To those of you who, like me, have struggled with suicidal impulses in their lives: you should know better. The fact that you’re still alive, while Chester is not, does not make you better or stronger than him. He lived a productive, extraordinary life for decades while struggling with depression, addiction, self-loathing and the aftermath of his abusive childhood. And the demons still got him. And they could still take any of us. Stay humble and be thankful for every good day that you have.
To those of you who have been fortunate enough to not struggle with these things, this letter is mostly to you. I hope that none of you ever, ever have to experience the feeling of being a danger to yourself. Of feeling like you, and everyone around you, would be better off if you were gone. Of feeling like eternal damnation would be preferable to staying alive. These feelings are not rational and often do not make sense in the wider context of a person’s life. A person can have a blessed and fortunate life, and still find the world unbearable.
From age nine until age thirteen I suffered from suicidal impulses off and on. My father died when I was eight, and my remarkable stepfather came along soon enough after to help fill the void (though he never replaced my father and never pretended to). But the first few years after that horrible event were the worst of my life. I had a complicated and troubled family life, I was bullied incessantly at my new school, I became estranged from God without my father there to guide me in seeking Him, and life seemed like a bleak road ahead.
The only reason that I did not actually kill myself was that I feared going to hell if I did. My Catholic friends were taught that those who commit suicide go to hell, and I feared that they could be right. (Just by the by, both the Orthodox and Catholic Churches hold suicide to be a sin, but have given consideration in recent history to how mental illness can affect one’s judgment. Beliefs about the salvation of those who kill themselves are the subject of some debate.) God and I weren’t always close in those years, but He was still Lord and sovereign, and my eternal soul was in His hands. If enduring the miserable, dark world for a few decades would save me from eternal hellfire, that was a deal I would take. But I still self-harmed and often wished that life would somehow come to an end because I didn’t want to live life like a tragic character in a sad movie.
The (physical) self-harm and suicidal tendencies stopped entirely after Linkin Park entered my paradigm. They got me out of a massive ditch that I’d never thought I’d get out of and put me on the long, long, lonnnnnggg and winding road to a happy (if imperfect and still challenging) life. That road would be filled with roadblocks, and I would go through another episode of self-harm and suicidality a few years after, though it had a good outcome.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder quite often onsets at adolescence, and mine reared its ugly head and became severe around age fifteen/sixteen. It got to a point where I could no longer function, and although I had a bright outlook on the future at that moment, I felt like it was slipping away from me. I knew there had to be something wrong with me, psychiatrically, but having already been (as I now know) misdiagnosed and given medication that didn’t help, I was afraid that even the best modern medicine couldn’t help me.
A few weeks after my eighteenth birthday, my helpless and terrified parents took me to the ER with cuts all over my arm. In my extremely ill state, that was the only way I knew how to explain I was in real trouble and needed professional help. The only reason I didn’t take a sharp blade and cut my carotid artery was that I owed it to everyone who loved me to try, one last time, to survive this torment, which felt like a culmination of all the pain I’d experienced my whole life. But I had decided, in that surreal space in time, that if nothing could be done to stop the symptoms, I would have no choice but to end my own life. Even hell was preferable to this.
This is the state to which mental illness can reduce people. Mental illness – be it depression, OCD spectrum disorders, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc.– is as real as heart disease, renal disease, respiratory disease, or any other medical problem. But it has an ability like no other kind of illness to make people want to die.
I was extraordinarily lucky, and was immediately taken into the care of excellent psychiatrists who quickly diagnosed me with OCD. OCD is often accompanied by depression, and that combined with the difficulties in my life made a fertile breeding ground for depression. (To this day I suffer from occasional depressive episodes, during very hard or anxiety-inducing times.) The OCD symptoms are largely controlled with medication, with cognitive-behavioural therapy and bibliotherapy as useful tools when they do flare up. I was released into the care of my parents after a night in hospital, and was confined to my house for a week afterward, still in a bad state although filled with new hope. The medications took a few days to start taking effect, and during those difficult days, I listened to Linkin Park as I always did in bad times. I prayed, read Scripture, and thought about all those people who were suffering like me without getting medical treatment.
From the time of onset to the time of my diagnoses was just a few years. Many people suffer from mental illness for decades before they are diagnosed. Some are never diagnosed at all. Some are diagnosed and for a myriad of reasons do not get the help they need. Any and all of these people are at risk for suicide, and no one is immune from it. It’s easy when you’re thinking of ending your life, to believe that you are a burden to those you love and that you’re doing them a favour. I do not believe for one moment that people end their lives from a lack of love for their families, their children, their friends, their faith, or a desire to hurt anyone.
No one knows what went through Chester’s mind in those last moments, and in this life at least, we never will. But I think it’s safe to say that whatever else was happening within him, he hadn’t forgotten about those who loved him. He wasn’t trying to hurt his beautiful wife who loved him so much, his six gorgeous children, his incredible bandmates who cherished him, the rest of his family, or the millions of us around the world whose lives he touched, changed, and saved. He didn’t leave by a reasoned choice, he was stolen from us. For that, I will feel cheated and angry to the end of my days.
So the next time you want to call Chester, or Chris Cornell, or Robin Williams, or anyone else who kills themselves, selfish, stop and think. Ask yourself what it feels like to reject the most basic human instinct, to survive, because life is too painful. Ask yourself what it feels like to have your own brain betray you, and destroy you from the inside out. Suicide is a symptom of serious illness, that could happen to anyone, and placing blame is no help to anyone.