Content warning: suicide.
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The other day I received news that my friend’s ex had killed himself. He was, generally speaking, a good guy and it’s a sad thing. [He contracted/developed a Bonehead Disorder for which he refused to seak treatment that led to their breakup. It surprised all of us because he’d previously not shown any symptoms 🤷♀️]
As it happens, that friend is my person. And who I usually can vent to when something is bothering me. In this situation, she understandably, is not in the headspace to be that for me. As she shouldn’t have to, of course.
Luckily it was just a couple days till my regular therapy appointment.
I spoke to my therapist about things and eventually we were talking about suicide more generally (since that’s also how I lost my mom, there’s some history stuff churned up).
I said that “I know people say that suicide is really selfish…”
She said that it is.
We had a bit of a discussion about it.
It came down to realizing that my interpretation of “selfish” includes intent and greed. Which I don’t think is usually what’s going on. She agreed with me and we tried to think of another way to say selfish that didn’t also have those connotations.
The next day I came up with thoughtless, but I still don’t think that’s the right word either because part of the problem is thinking wrongly. They put a lot of thought behind it. But from inside their depression or other illness, they don’t have, or can’t see, the correct information.
Negligent was another word that is close, but not quite right.
As I started to write this post, my intention was to grumble a bit and complain about not having thought of the correct word to convey my meaning properly. As a person who takes pride in her facility with words it’s frustrating.
The act of coalescing my thoughts to write them down enabled me to produce a word/phrase that I think might work.
Self-oriented.
Because of their situation and/or mental health they aren’t able to see out of the pain and darkness to account for the feelings of others accurately. And depression lies to you.
Depression Lies.
If you are feeling suicidal, please reach out for help.
800-273-8255
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