š Sidebar: Christ, Suicide, and Step Two
(The Dangerous Thought I May Have Said Out Loud)
When I was deep in collapseāpost-suicide attempt, post-ego shatteringā
I wasnāt just questioning God.
I was questioning how we speak about despair.
And I remembered something in Billās Story:
that line where he calls suicide the āfinal gesture of humility and sacrifice.ā
Becauseā¦ thatās not just addiction memoir.
Thatās theological language.
Thatās martyrdom language.
Thatās Christ language.
āļø The Problem With That Line
If Bill is working within a Judeo-Christian framework (and he is),
then calling suicide the ultimate sacrifice creates a tension:
Because in that theology, thereās only one ultimate sacrifice.
And it was made on a cross.
So what was Bill trying to say?
Did he mean suicide could be redemptive? Noble? Even holy?
šÆļø The Dangerous, Honest Question I Wouldāve Asked:
Can suicide ever be Christ-like?
Not in sin. Not in despair.
What if someoneācompletely wrong, but sincerelyā
believes their absence will hurt less than their presence?
What if they think removing themselves is the only mercy left?
But a distorted form of love?
Thatās the Christ parallel no one wants to name.
Because wasnāt Christās death, in some way, a knowing surrender to destruction?
Didnāt He walk toward it, eyes open, believing the world needed it?
Is that a form of divine suicide?
And if soāwhat does that mean for those of us whoāve stood at that ledge?
āļø But Hereās Where Iād Land (and maybe did, in that room):
Christās death wasnāt hopeless.
It was devastating, yes. But it wasnāt nihilistic.
It was an offering into life.
Suicide, when it happens on earth, is almost never that.
Itās usually isolation, misperception, pain too loud to hold.
But what if we stopped calling it purely selfish?
What if we understood that some who try to die arenāt trying to destroyā
Theyāre trying to stop harming.
And in that distorted way,
they think theyāre being noble.
They think theyāre Christ-like.
That doesnāt make it right.
But it does make it human.
š” Step Two and the Resurrection Nobody Talks About
āCame to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.ā
that restoration comes right after we tried to end it.
After the failed attempt.
After the pills, or the belt, or the freeway.
Thatās when some of us met Godānot in a chapelā
but on the bathroom floor, blinking at fluorescent light.
Sanity isnāt just āgetting back to normal.ā
Sanity is learning that staying alive is not a selfish act.
That your presence isnāt a curseāitās a chance to love better.
šļø So Maybe I Did Say Christās Death Was a Kind of Suicide.
āBut unlike ours, His was always moving toward resurrection.ā
But because I survived long enough to see the story re-edit itself.
