Friday, February 15, 2013

Coping with Suicide: WANTED - Body Parts

WANTED Body Parts, Various
To Borrow:
Ears, for listening
Shoulder, to cry on
Hand, to hold.
(Preferable all from
same person.)
To Keep:
Two (2) Legs, to stand on.
Must be tangible and
in good working order.

Contact: Kelly

"We need to tell our story over and over again. There is no limit to the number of times we need to tell it." - Glenn Morrison
Here’s the thing: All the people I trust have heard my story to at least some extent and I’m reluctant to tell it to them again.

It’s dad’s birthday this Sunday; this is a date I’ve always simultaneously acknowledged and avoided. I had been hoping this year would be different. If I’d made contact with dad before Christmas (as I’d hoped,) I wanted to be able to see him for his birthday. The best laid plans…

Anyway, That’s not even what I want to talk about and it’s not that I don’t think those around me wouldn’t want to listen. I believe that all of my friends, if I told them that I needed to talk, would want to be there for me. Most of them, however, aren’t capable, for various reasons; capable of listening to me as I need, that is. Some of them are capable, but I wouldn’t know where to start; some of them are capable, and I wouldn’t know how to finish. There are very few of my friends that I’m comfortable around at all, fewer still that I’m comfortable crying around on rare occasions.

I don’t know how most of my friends would react to me crying on their shoulder, though I believe all of them would want to be sympathetic and, as much as possible, empathetic. Not knowing, however, both scares and deters me. As I wrote in At The Moment, I still need to know how a given social situation is likely to play out. In fact, this is something that I normally need - yes, there are still parts of my life that are normal - it’s just that my need is more encompassing than usual.

A dear friend and brother asked me the other day how I was, how I am. When I failed to find words to express my answer, he kindly and accurately suggested “struggling.” In my aim to ‘get back to normal’ I have realised that I have lacked direction in my life for some time. By remaining at University, I had deluded myself into thinking that I had direction. A degree for the sake of being at University, rather than being at University for the sake of a degree. I saw at the end of last year how futile and, frankly, facile this had been and decided to give up the gag. Now, however, with the rest of my life whirling around me, I feel like my legs have slipped out from underneath me and that I have little to stand on. I am struggling. If the Holy Faith I profess was not so solid, if I did not have within it the support and structure that I do, I would have nothing at all to stand on.

***

As I’ve been typing this, I’ve wondered whether I should post it. I don’t want my friends who may read it to think that I think that they’re not there for me: I know they are. I am relying on their prayer and the love they bear me in Christ to get through. I know that if I approached any one of them to talk to them, to ask to cry in front of them, to ask them to hold my hand as I find my feet, they would be there in a heartbeat. I know that, in Christ, I am loved by so many. I am so grateful for that; I am grateful to them and, most of all, to Him Who loves me through them.

I will post this, praying that those who read it, whom I consider friends, will not take offence because none is meant.

I will post this because this is how I’m coping at the moment.
I will post this because the point of this series is to put out into the public sphere the story of someone dealing with a suicide.
 I will post this because I must,
whether or not anyone listens.

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