Stop Romanticizing Suicide
Categories: Military, Opinion
After last week and pissing everyone off by suggesting that you cut the users and abusers of your kindness out of your life because many of them are attention-seeking assholes who will bleed you dry and put you into a tailspin (financially, emotionally, spiritually, relationally), we decided we wanted to write something else we think everyone should hear, even if you don’t fucking like it. So here it is. We encourage you to stop romanticizing suicide by utilizing dark poetry to describe the act. Stop giving suicide this sort of dark noir romanticized aura.
Phrases like the following:
“He/she fought his demons till they overcame him.”
“He/she lost his battle with PTSD.”
“He/she fought hard, but in the end, his demons were too much for him.”
“He/she succumbed to their wounds.”
Things like this soften the blow when a brother or sister commits suicide. It also paints their struggle as heroic and brave, fighting against demons that are insurmountable, fighting a force that he/she is hopelessly destined to lose no matter what. This dark poetry romanticizes suicide as if it’s an acceptable alternative to getting help, that somehow the guy or gal was brave in committing that act. Brave like a warrior destined to hold the line by themselves against an unstoppable and invincible onslaught.
But that’s not how it really is, is it? Rather, we beg and we plead for those that need help to reach out, to get proper mental health. And when they don’t, the aftermath is destructive. There are, in essence to play along with our metaphor, reinforcements available. Reinforcements that are able to defeat the demons and yet, suicide still seems to be the go-to “solution” (we put solution in quotes because it’s not a fucking solution, despite people treating it like one). We try to deal with the aftermath of suicide and say things to soften the blow. As we wrote in a reply last week on Facebook when people accused us of being unsympathetic and we’ll paraphrase this time because we don’t want to go back through ALL the social media to find it.
After 10+ years of hikes, challenges, and IGY6 tattoos, nothing has seemingly changed.
Maybe nothing has changed because we aren’t looking at suicide as this horrible thing, but rather as this sort of hopeless romantic struggle, we are ill-fated warriors doomed to take our own lives because that’s just how the story of our lives had been written in the stars. Dark poetic romanticism.
But the truth of suicide is much different from that dark poetic romanticized facade we give it.
Families are destroyed, kids grow up without parents, friends wonder why the victim didn’t call them…countless repercussions follow in the aftermath, really all suicide does is pass the pain along to someone else. It’s kicking the can down the road in the most permanent way possible.
Don’t get it twisted, and think that we’re victim shaming (the way a ton of you on social media like to) and think that we’re being assholes. After all these years and nothing changing, we need to rethink how we’re approaching it. Maybe we don’t have the right answer, but we can tell you this though, the romanticization of suicide is fucking bullshit and if you do it, then fuck you, buddy, because we’re tired of losing friends because they see suicide as the only honorable way out of their situation.
It should be the goal of every single suicide prevention non-profit and every mental health professional to work themselves out of a job in regards to suicide.
Crucify us if you must, but deep down, you know we’re right.
Disclaimer: The author of this piece is 4 years from his suicide attempt as of last week.
Nah. I think you’re a fucktard. Those that needed help reached out but you only recognized it as a plea for help after it was too late. You were too wrapped up in the details of your own life to recognize someone who was drowning in hopelessness. Those people fought every moment of every day to be there for the birth of your kids. The birthday parties. The happy and joyous occasions that MEANT something to you and your family. Meanwhile they were sinking deeper. You stopped getting ahold of them because they just weren’t any fun anymore. And they sank deeper. Alone. Once everything had been lost but their reputations you called them cowards because they had the audacity to affect YOUR life in a negative way. FUCK. YOU. They fought until they determined that the fight was ultimately unwinnable. You only caught their pleas for help in retrospect. “I should’ve known!” You tell yourself. You have your warning. Look for the signs.
I lost my Mother to suicide at 17. My younger Brother to suicide at 34. My Father to small cell lung cancer at 42. I’ve had my colon out at 46 for colon cancer. My left lung resectioned at 51 for lung cancer having never smoked a day in my life. I still have enough left in this PFC to break the jaw of the next fucker that says it’s a cowards way out. In war if you face down a situation that you KNOW will result in your death they pin a medal on you. When a dog is in pain every minute of every day we put it down out of compassion. “It was it’s time.” Cowards way out? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on as well as the blacksmith that shod that motherfucker.
Well, this started out with a great premise. I’m a fucktard. Outstanding, can’t wait to read what I’m sure are your other brilliant points. Rather accusatory for someone who doesn’t know me. James, did you reach out to me? Did I fail you?
The sad part about this whole thing is that I can see how suicide made you angry, made you disdainful and made you want to lash out at people. Maybe, when we see that this is the result of suicide, how it affects those we care about the most, we’ll stop seeing it as a viable solution to our pain. An animal doesn’t have the mental capacity that we as humans do. We don’t kill people just because they are in pain, we try to help them through that pain.
I get that you’re angry guy, but maybe your anger is better directed at someone else. We have several hotlines and organizations we can link you up with. But this, this right here, saying it’s the only way out. That shit needs to go.
I still wear my VA bracelet with the phone number for the hotline…it’s been three years
Reading this… I can honestly agree. My 21 year old sister committed her second attempt at Suicide 4 weeks ago and was this time successful. It still hurts me and my family and it doesn’t seem to get easier. I wish we could stop making it sound like the only option when it’s not. I really wish people who need the help really know that there is help for them and that they do not have to go through it alone because unfortunately now I have to go this with my family, with heart aches and I have to find help just to get through this. I wish my sister would have reached out more. Thank you for this article!
You’re completely fooling yourself if you believe that using tactful ways of explaining what someone did is romanticizing it. It’s not and you’re being completely delusional. I literally felt your inability to restrain your frustration with what has been seen in recent years on the subject of suicide. You’ve lost all hope, obviously, in the current system. That loss of hope is unfounded, but I fail to see what good your article does when it comes helping progress. All it does is complain and put forth no real solution. So attack you I will because you’ve done absolutely nothing but cry through the entire article. Sincerely, soldier just over three years from my lost battle with my demons.
Alright, well, we’re here for discussion so, I’ll address these points without attacking you.
First off, tactfulness to describe suicide, I don’t think it’s right or proper to deliberately mislead people about the act and what its consequences are.
Secondly, I’m delusional…maybe.
You literally felt my inability to restrain my frustration. Maybe that’s because I’m tired of hearing about people suck start a shotgun, forgive my frustration as I watch a generation of men and women feel like the answer to their pain is the business end of a firearm.
Thirdly, lost hope in the current system. What system? The one that still has everyone killing themselves in droves? The one that has failed to make a statistically significant dent in the problem despite our attacking it head one for nearly 10 years? What a great system to put my hope in.
Fourth, my solution is to stop romanticizing suicide. Start being honest about the consequences down the road.
Fifth, you attack me, because I want us to stop viewing suicide with rose-colored glasses because I’ve seen how it rips family’s apart and how it encourages others to commit the act?
Sixth, you and I have a very different idea of what crying is. Usually, tears are involved with crying.
Seventh, if you “lost your battle with your demons”, how are you still here?
In the end , I completely agreed with your statements, although I definately did not expect to in the beginning. ” After all these years and nothing changing, we need to rethink how we’re approaching it.” This is an amazingly true statement..it seems as if no one has a freakin clue.
Thanks for being real, brother, and not sugarcoating anybody it. We are/were warriors, and we don’t need any if that romanticism bs! Those of us who have had it affect our lives and who have even seen it know that it’s not pretty, so let’s not try to make sound “noble”. I grieve for my friends and family who have had to deal with this terrible situation first-hand, as they will NEVER be the same.
I ask that those who read this who may be contemplating “giving up” to remember that we are WARRIORS – either for country or our God or both – and we never supposed to take the easy route and we are NEVER supposed to give up! Besides, whether you know it or not, you have millions of brothers and sisters around you who have your back…just ask!
For the record, brother, I know that we veterans HATE to fail at ANYTHING…but in this case, I am glad that you failed once four years ago. 🙏
100% correct. PTSD doesn’t have to be forever. Suicide isn’t inevitable. We need to stop talking in these bullshit absolutes and start talking like the generations who went to war, came home, and survived, even thrived.
Going to war is a thing we did because evil needed to be fought. We did great, sometimes terrible things, which shook the world. I don’t limp along wounded from that, I bear my scars and hold my head high, because my brothers and sisters and I stood the breach and fought for kids who aren’t even our own.
Stop telling me I have to feel bad at all, let alone forever, for being a hero.
I doubt that romanticizing suicide has any real effect on suicides rates or that romanticizing it affects any individual’s decision. Rather than caring how their suicide may be view by other people, they have probably had enough of whatever life has given them at that point, or feel that life really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…..and no amount of “hey MAN! thats NOT OK!” is going to change that. As for people who do care about life, and who may be mourning the loss of a loved one….how they choose to address and remember a loved one’s death is not up to you, society or anyone else… that is whether they romanticize it, down play it or not even talk about it… Besides, ultimately, life, death and the choice of suicide are inherently romantic themes, to say that they are not or shouldn’t be devalues life, death and the challenges everyone faces on a daily basis.