My fascination with suicide started in July 2014 when a 16 years old youth under my care committed suicide. She hung herself with her belt tied to her ceiling fan.
I was devastated.
A publisher friend told me that many of her writers currently are writing about suicide, depression and mental illness . I shared with her my research conclusion that it takes a moment of insanity for any individuals to consider taking one's' own life. Others may have other conclusions.
Let's talk about this 16 years old who decided in a moment to hang herself using her belt on her ceiling fan. She locked her door the night before and only in the morning her mom discovered her, hung from the ceiling fan.
Prior to her suicide, this young girl, Denise, was off the social grid in my youth group for two years. Her mom didn't understand what happened because she just suddenly turned into a recluse after her 13th birthday. But suddenly in June 2014 she joined us in a group outing to Taiping. Her mom was happy, thinking that she has finally came out of her reclusivity. We had fun and good chat and Denise even mixed around with everyone. Two weeks later tragedy struck.
I was told later by a suicide expert friend that the trip with us was her way of saying farewell.
Apparently there were signs of her mind turning dark, dark as in a bad movie evil controlled dark. Her teacher showed her mother an essay. A simple essay where student just continue from the opening sentence. In this essay the opening line was, "As I was walking home one night..." Her essay went a totally different way that's unusual. She talked about her mother had an accident, landed in hospital and she visited her. She said she saw The Reaper, the forebearer of death standing by the corner waiting for the time to bring her mother home. "I talked to the Reaper and the Reaper invited me to join him and he told me death is good." Denise wrote.
That was in April 2014. After the funeral, I spoke with her mother and she told me that she was into reading books related vampire, spirit and occult. She loved to watch horror movies too.
What triggered me to search was when I heard a Christian commented that those who commited suicide will go to hell. I was disturbed and not angry at such a comment and in my mind, "Is it really true?" That's when I started my research.
Let's talk about this 16 years old who decided in a moment to hang herself using her belt on her ceiling fan. She locked her door the night before and only in the morning her mom discovered her, hung from the ceiling fan.
Prior to her suicide, this young girl, Denise, was off the social grid in my youth group for two years. Her mom didn't understand what happened because she just suddenly turned into a recluse after her 13th birthday. But suddenly in June 2014 she joined us in a group outing to Taiping. Her mom was happy, thinking that she has finally came out of her reclusivity. We had fun and good chat and Denise even mixed around with everyone. Two weeks later tragedy struck.
I was told later by a suicide expert friend that the trip with us was her way of saying farewell.
Apparently there were signs of her mind turning dark, dark as in a bad movie evil controlled dark. Her teacher showed her mother an essay. A simple essay where student just continue from the opening sentence. In this essay the opening line was, "As I was walking home one night..." Her essay went a totally different way that's unusual. She talked about her mother had an accident, landed in hospital and she visited her. She said she saw The Reaper, the forebearer of death standing by the corner waiting for the time to bring her mother home. "I talked to the Reaper and the Reaper invited me to join him and he told me death is good." Denise wrote.
That was in April 2014. After the funeral, I spoke with her mother and she told me that she was into reading books related vampire, spirit and occult. She loved to watch horror movies too.
What triggered me to search was when I heard a Christian commented that those who commited suicide will go to hell. I was disturbed and not angry at such a comment and in my mind, "Is it really true?" That's when I started my research.
I approached it carefully knowing that i am not the expert and suicide is an intricate subject.I adopted the medical, psychological, theological, philosophical and cultural context approach. Read a number of books on death and suicide and I discovered that it is not easy for us to commit suicide.
You and I are built with three failsafe devices to prevent us from commiting suicide.
You and I are built with three failsafe devices to prevent us from commiting suicide.
The first fail safe prevention is that ' We are born with eternity in our hearts'. In short we are all born to seek eternity , to live longer, looks prettier and younger. Even the products in the market focus on helping individuals look young, feel young and be young again.
For one to commit suicide he/she must break this first failsafe.
For one to commit suicide he/she must break this first failsafe.
In the book of Ecclesiastes 3:11 the wise king Solomon says, ".....he(God) has put eternity into man's heart....."
Even if one do not believe in God agrees that they wanted to live longer and will not just choose to die.
The second failsafe is that " We are born with moral law in hearts'. We actually knew what is right. We are born with a moral compass.
It does not matter where we are from, we all instinctively knew what is right and wrong. We somehow knew that killing ourselves is not right. We knew killing others is not right, we knew killing ourselves is not right, we knew that taking bribe is wrong. We somehow knew. In Jeremiah 31:33 states that God made a new covenant where he implanted his law into man's heart.
The final failsafe prevention is 'Pain'.
We all hate pain, we disliked the discomfort that pain gave us, yet in my research i understand this not from a medical stand point but from a philosophical one. Pain is a double edge sword, it is something we do not like but it is the failsafe device that kept us. We see fire , we move away from the heat. We are extra careful with knifes so that we do not cut ourselves accidentally. We have five senses to help us navigate through traffic jams.
It does not matter where we are from, we all instinctively knew what is right and wrong. We somehow knew that killing ourselves is not right. We knew killing others is not right, we knew killing ourselves is not right, we knew that taking bribe is wrong. We somehow knew. In Jeremiah 31:33 states that God made a new covenant where he implanted his law into man's heart.
The final failsafe prevention is 'Pain'.
We all hate pain, we disliked the discomfort that pain gave us, yet in my research i understand this not from a medical stand point but from a philosophical one. Pain is a double edge sword, it is something we do not like but it is the failsafe device that kept us. We see fire , we move away from the heat. We are extra careful with knifes so that we do not cut ourselves accidentally. We have five senses to help us navigate through traffic jams.
Therefore for someone to actually decided to commit suicide he/she must suffer a momentary insanity. To break the three failsafe devices one has to be crazy for that moment to leap off a twenty storeys building.
The challenge for us that this momentary insanity crosses many people's mind daily. it has even crossed my mind sometimes when I struggle with my life working long hours, paying bills , school fees, supporting my late parents , kid decided not to study, wife angry with you for reasons sometimes you do not know. I had moments where i felt alone in this world, alone at work, alone at home. I had moments where i wonder what the 'bloody ' heck am I working so hard for when the world gave me nothing but troubles, worries, being scolded, being blamed. Even the state of the the country affairs and our bleak future especially when age is catching up with me and that the Government basically doing nothing constructive to provide for the aged. The pain that i sometimes get with my gout and the after exercise nagging pain. All these take a toll on me.
These had caused me to entertain the thought 'Death isn't so bad' idea.
I am not having such thoughts now. What I am saying is I don't think I am alone in this. Having such suicidal thoughts occasionally. Entertaining the idea of death is good.
Good thing is that I am generally a happy person, which helps and there are two powerful tools that helped me to snapped out of such thoughts.
The first tool is that I have a purpose in life, which is to help as many people as I can. I know that I am not here to live a life for myself but for others.
The other is my passion for comedy, through my comedy I transferred my worries and fear and anger onto the paper and then to the stage and look at worries, anger and fear with a new lense of humour.
If you had suicidal thoughts, take a breather, you are probably having a momentary insanity, which like fart shall pass. Just hold your breathe long enough.
May you find peace amidst your storm.
May you find peace amidst your storm.
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