Suicide and the Agony of Separateness

HE TRUE NATURE OF THE FORCES which motivate a person to take his or her own life often remain hidden from those who have been left behind. However, there does seem to be a common mental condition that underlies not only suicide (whether completed, abandoned, or thwarted) but also the loneliness and depression which can lead one to it. Such a mental condition goes by many names, but it could be called "separateness," or more accurately, a separative consciousness.

"A surprisingly large percentage of our population has either contemplated or actually attempted suicide at some time or other."

Let's not merely point to this condition in "others," for we all share it to some extent. "Their" agony is our agony, even though it may now manifest less intensely in us. And to be completely honest, let's even allow that we are they. A surprisingly large percentage of our population has either contemplated or actually attempted suicide at some time or other. Within many of the seemingly happy people we meet on the street or in our workplace, the thought of suicide has been a more or less silent alternative in the midst of life's reversals. It's not an impulse that people commonly share about themselves, hence one naturally imagines that few others experience it.

Sympathetic friends typically regard a suicidal person as being an unfortunate victim—of blind chance, of other people's thoughtlessness, of an unfair social system—or some combination thereof. While this impression of a suicidal person as a victim is perhaps frequently held, there is another view—that an attempter's self-image may be the logical outcome of separative assumptions.

"It's easy for us to adopt an attitude of separateness because we are conditioned into it almost from birth."

Let's assume for a moment that we are involved in this mindset. It's easy for us to adopt an attitude of separateness because we are conditioned into it almost from birth. Many of us have the view that we are separate from others. We have separate bodies, separate homes, separate jobs, and separate ambitions. We may want to make money, perhaps more money than other people make, so that we can indulge our egos a bit by having fancier cars, wearing more stylish clothes, living in larger homes, or sending our children to more prestigious colleges.

Even if we don't have such tendencies, we may put ourselves first more subtly by feeling that our religion is superior to that of others (and trying to convince them of it) or by burdening our friends with stories about our successes. Some of us lack a feeling of unity and brotherhood toward our fellow humans, and we instead view our associates as divided between the "bad" (our competitors and enemies) and the "good" (those who serve and comfort us). Our mind may whisper to us, "I deserve the best. Let the others fend for themselves."

The hidden danger in having a separative outlook is that, while it appears to serve our best interests in the short run, it can eventually lead us into loneliness. The attitudes which maximize our own feelings of importance and minimize the roles played by others are the same attitudes which, when the chips are down, can trap us in a cocoon of self-pity or a self-destructive desire for oblivion.

"We feel as if a great weight were pressing down on us, and we perceive a world inexorably closing in."

Into a life lived separatively there may come a surprising discovery: "I am not the most important being on earth, and never was." This discovery may come suddenly by way of some devastating personal tragedy or great disappointment, or gradually through less severe reversals. We learn that the world can indeed get along without us—that we are expendable. We may feel cynical like the person who observed, "The graveyards are full of people who couldn't be replaced." Such an awakening may hit us like a ton of bricks (if suddenly) or like a ton of feathers (if gradually)—but either way, it's a ton. We feel as if a great weight were pressing down on us, and we perceive a world inexorably closing in. Hope seems to have fled. Little remains but black despair.

When we turn our thoughts to suicide in a misguided attempt to ease emotional pain, we can agonize in guilt and fear. If we are religious, we may worry that suicide will send us straight to hell, or we may be tortured by concern for those whom we will be leaving behind. However, the overriding wish is to escape from this apparently unfair, hostile, dreary, meaningless life. We may wish to end the pain by somehow drifting off into a pleasant, nebulous never-never-land where cares and sorrows are behind us forever. And we want our death to be painless. If we could be freed from our pain, we might not be suicidal—hence the choice of pain pills or the sudden-death methods.

"After our suicidal feelings have faded, we can move away from humiliation...."

If our suicidal feelings or attempts do not actually result in our demise, how do we heal ourselves? Suicidal depressions are seldom cured quickly, due to the depth of the process. Separative thought patterns which are established and hardened over many years can hardly be reversed in a month or two of recuperating in a psychiatric environment. Gradually we have to reconstruct our broken self-image along lines that allow a progressive realization that other people are our brothers and sisters, and are not really "others" to be impressed, coddled, or feared. After our suicidal feelings have faded, we can move away from humiliation by perceiving more clearly the deep unity within which we all share our lives as a family of earth dwellers.

Probably the most healing direction we can take in recovering from our failed assumptions is to begin putting others first—by living a life that begins to manifest loving, serving, giving, and forgiving. The impartial law of cause and effect which has led us into our "valley of the shadow of death" can become our ally and firm support. Where there was hatred and competition, we discover that love engenders more love, and cooperation results in more cooperation.

A therapeutic new tendency arises in us through our loving and giving to others. A generous spirit is perhaps the surest approach to permanent health or wholeness. It may be called love, compassion, or altruism, but it's just common sense because it works. Scriptures of major religions teach in one form or another that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7). Thankfully, this law applies to the good seeds as well as the bad seeds.

If a lesson is to have lasting value for us, we must somehow learn it through our own initiative. It's unwise for a well-meaning Good Samaritan (whether friend, family member, crisis line helper, or therapist) to suggest that our suicidal thoughts have arisen from separateness. When we are reaching out for help, we don't want unflattering theories. What we need is support, caring, being there so that we can heal.

"When we can live for us all, we no longer have to die for ourselves."

Life-saving concepts cannot be fully communicated to us through words. Renewal must arise from the marrow of our own bones. There may need to be sleepless nights, flaming anger, tears by the pint, gritting of teeth, and glimpses into the chasm of death before we can slowly awaken from our nightmare of self-imprisoning separateness.

When hope dawns again, as it likely will, we begin to see life's inevitable misfortunes and disappointments not as deuces dealt out by a heartless deity from a stacked universe, but as opportunities—for growing, for learning, and for aiding fellow strugglers. Each failure teaches us a valuable lesson in the "dear school" of experience—a lesson which advances us toward a more useful attitude of self-forgetfulness and one-pointedness (that is, pointed towards the One). When we can live for us all, we no longer have to die for ourselves.