WARNING: Contains spoilers, so if you haven’t read the book,
please read it before reading this post.
Before I start writing the actual post, I just want to warn
readers that this is a topic very close to my heart, and I have had some recent
experiences related to suicide. I will provide resources/facts, but a lot of
this post will be focused on my personal experiences. You don’t have to agree
with the things I say.
In Looking For Alaska
by John Green, Alaska commits suicide—that’s what Pudge and his friends realize
at the end of the book. Alaska was having some personal issues and decided that
the way out of the labyrinth of suffering is “straight and fast.” To kill
herself.
Suicide is the third-leading cause
of death in people between the ages of 15 to 24. Mental health
issues are the number one risk factor, and 95% of the people who die by suicide
have mental health issues. About one in five teenagers consider suicide
annually in the United States, and about 8% of teenagers attempted suicide in
2003. Click the hyperlink provided above to see possible warning signs. Suicide
rates differ between boys and girls. Girls attempt suicide twice as often as
boys, but they use less lethal methods. Boys die by suicide about four times as
often as girls do.
If you are a parent or a teacher, realize that most teens
who commit suicide give some sort of warning sign beforehand, so it’s important
to listen and look for these warning signs. Often, parents assume that the teen
is just talking about death, “to get attention,” but this isn’t the
case—teenagers don’t want to be sent to the shrink or go to the ER. It’s
crucial that parents LISTEN.
Now, here is where you might disagree with me, but if a teen
confides that they are having suicidal thoughts, maybe it’s not necessary to
freak out and put them on antidepressants right away. I had suicidal thoughts
as a teen, and once in a while, I still do think about suicide. Would I ever consider suicide though? Of course not.
We all have dark thoughts, and we need to work through them. I would actually
go so far as to say that fantasizing about suicide is actually healthy. Our society has stigmatized people
with mental health issues and they think that suicidal thoughts are a product
of depression, bipolar, substance abuse, etc. I think we all think about
suicide, but we just don’t want to admit it. Suicide is a “taboo” topic in many
American households and schools, but a more relaxed environment would allow
teens to discuss their feelings about suicide with adult role models. Of
course, you shouldn’t trivialize suicidal thoughts—take them seriously, but
don’t overreact.
Personal
Story:
Now, I’ll tell you about a recent experience I had with
suicide. You can move on to the “Religious Views on Suicide” section if you are
sensitive to these kinds of stories.
He was the first person I met this year at Gallaudet. I
remember dragging my oversized suitcase to my dorm and just before I reached
the doors of the building, a guy stopped me and said, “What is your name?” He
was an unusual character—he was wearing a fedora that clashed with his outfit
and one arm was in a sling.
There was something charming about this guy though, and his
eyes glittered with this childlike innocence that I have never seen in someone
his age. I never forgot them. “My name is Paige. What’s yours?”
He then spelled his name, and I misunderstood him—I thought
he said his name was Giovanni.
“Oh…” I nodded. “Good night!” He smiled at me as I walked
towards my dorm, puzzled. At the time, I thought he was high on drugs. I didn’t
understand why he would randomly introduce himself to me. I still don’t.
Ever since we met that night, he was like an unusual,
friendly ghost that haunted me. I saw him everyday. I passed him on my way to
class, I saw him sitting at that same place where we met, and I would see him
chatting with friends in the cafeteria while I chatted with mine. “Do you know
that guy?” I asked my friend, Rhiannon. “I see him every day! He stalks me!”
“Maybe you should sit down at his table and talk to him if
you’re so obsessed with him! Seriously—you talk about him everyday!” She
replied.
“Nah…” And I never did. I wish I did. I wrote stories about
him for my creative writing class. My creative writing teacher loved the
stories I wrote about Giovanni and his misadventures.
But then I stopped seeing Giovanni, and I wondered what
became of him. It wasn’t long before I saw his face on a poster and I thought, Hey there’s Giovanni! His name’s Gianni? I
then read what was on the poster:
“Gianni “Gio” Manganelli chose to ascend into Heaven on
March 30, 2014.”
It was then that I realized that I would never see him
again. He was such a stable presence in my life and now there was and still is
an emptiness in my life that only Gio can fill. The question I am always asking
is why? I will never know the answer
though. I just know that the answer was enough for him to decide that he no
longer wanted to live.
I am pissed at Gianni for deciding that. I am pissed at
myself for not trying to be his friend because who knows? Maybe I could have
helped him. I am pissed at his family for trying to cover up the fact that yes,
he did commit suicide. I am pissed at the world right now, and I feel helpless
and sad all the time. I cry a lot and because I am preoccupied, it’s affecting my performance in school. I don’t understand it because I only met him ONE TIME, but I don’t have
time to work through my feelings about it because it’s final exam and project
time.
My point is not to ramble about my feelings on what happened
though. The message I am trying to convey is that suicide impacts people
tremendously. If I only met Gianni once, I can’t imagine the pain I would feel
if I was his best friend or sister. Friends of his told me that he was having
some family and mental health issues, but somehow, he slipped through their
fingers.
Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions strictly prohibit
suicide and consider it a sin. The Talmud is a bit unclear, but it is clear
that in the Jewish religion, suicide is frowned upon. In Hinduism, suicide is
spiritually unacceptable and you become a ghost, wandering the earth until the
time when you were supposed to die had you not committed suicide. Buddhism does
not condemn suicide, but states that the reasons for committing suicide are
often negative and counteract the path to enlightenment. Wiccan religions don’t
have a general consensus on suicide, but some view it as a violation of the
sanctity of life.
I think it’s safe to say that most religions view suicide as
a bad thing, and it makes sense. It’s really tough on those left behind, and
they are called “suicide survivors.” How can their religion help them heal when
their religion has condemned their loved one because they committed suicide?
There are actually seven accounts of suicide in the Bible
(most notably, Judas) and none of those suicides were condemned. It wasn’t a
sin until St. Augustine declared it to be in the fifth century. Lately though,
the (Catholic) church is not condemning suicide—they have decided to take “the
whole issue of suicide out of the moral realm and placed it in the medical
realm, where it belongs.” They are now considering mental health issues and are
reconsidering the sin of suicide. See this article for a good explanation of
how Islamic, Jewish, and Christian religions today are handling suicide: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2005/10/21/october-21-2005-religion-and-suicide/11870/
Sorry
for the long post, but as I said before, suicide is an issue that is very
important to me.
