Suicide is painless . . .

I do not know about you, but I had a crappy week. One of my friends from college decided that he didn't want to live anymore and killed himself. So I have had a week of fairly depressing and mixed up thoughts, along with a fair bit of reflection.

Mainly though the is a feeling of dis-belief. It is now an unfortunately all too real cliche that he was one of the last people I would have expected to do this. But he did, and now he is dead. I had not been in contact with him for a while and now I will not be able to be ever again. The finality of that is perhaps the thing that is hardest to deal with. Especially as he was living in a different country to me.

Music is something that I have always used to help me to perhaps magnify some of the moods or emotions that I am going through in order to explain them in a better way to myself.

I wrote in this piece here  that darkness is explored in a lot of music. In a piece of self indulgence I re-read that piece to see if it explained where I was. When I wrote it , I was trying to talk to a different friend who was going through a dark time. That piece however doesn't convey anything of what I am going through at this time. That is more about depression.

here is a song

Suicide is painless.

Except it isn't painless is it? In fact it is very far from fucking painless. Because in this case, his wife found him hanging from a bathroom extension being built. It wasn't very painless for her. It isn't painless for his parents. He was an only child. It certainly isn't painless for his friends.

It is a strange part of human nature, but when you know that an event is harder on other people than yourself, you do not feel it as strongly as you might. I am not sure if that conveys what I actually want to say here. In a longer form what I am saying is that because I know his wife, parents and closer friends are having a worse time than I am with this, I feel more for them than I do for myself. To a point, because self pity is also there. I am not a 'poor me' person I think, but there is some of that there.

Another song about suicide

So where am I? I am in a place listening to music, dark music , about people who are apparently are at the end. They say though that most suicide's are a very spur of the moment thing. This is why the people that are left to pick up the pieces are always so shocked. But there are signs and there are things to look for. I have no idea if there were in the case. Frankly , I am not sure it makes any difference. In fact I know it doesn't make any difference. Why analyse and search for things that only serve to enhance guilt? There is not point to that and I am not entertaining the idea that things could have been prevented.

No, I am a little angry. Angry at my friend. Angry because he didn't talk to someone about it. Didn't talk to me about it actually. It isn't about trying to influence things, as above, very difficult to do. No it is more that I would have hoped that this guy, an intelligent, highly educated, successful guy, would have had a reflex to realize that he needed to get help. One of my favourite sayings is that people who are mad have no idea that they are not reacting to their surroundings in the correct way. For example, you are currently sitting in a white padded room and not reading this. You only think you are because that is what your mind is telling you is going on. You have no real way of knowing this one way or the other. Am I saying he was crazy? Not crazy but certainly not reacting to his surroundings in a best for him way.

There is sorrow mixed into what I am feeling as well. Sorrow because I obviously didn't know him as well as I thought I did. I am surprised by his actions and that comes from the fact that I didn't expect them. So I didn't really understand him. That leads to a lot of questioning and there you start to look for explanation and perhaps this is not a healthy path to go down. What if there turns out to be a clear reason? He didn't leave a note btw. But if there is a reason then maybe . . and that way is a dark path which twists through things like blame and guilt. Not going there. Because it doesn't change anything.

So it has been little less than a week since I was told. Have to say that the person who told me has been doing it a lot tougher than me. Hours spent with the widow and also the family. Well done pal, you are a good person. Really mean that.

So where to from here? Well, as with all the other people who aren't contactable any more, I am trying to remember the good times shared. There were a lot. Like I said we were college buddies. We hung out a lot for four years. Four years of a lot of partying, fun and growth I guess. We hung out in various places around the world after college, partied there too. He taught me one thing that has always stayed with me. He only cared about what he called first circle of people around him thought. He told me many times that as long as those people were alright with him, he limited it to about 4 or 5, then he didn't care what anyone else thought. He really didn't and people outside of that circle, which I was perhaps in at one point, had difficulty with this.

I have always thought that it is a good way to live and carry yourself. Except that it isn't true anymore is it? Because those people, that small group. He has now hurt the most.

Strangely, I remember one night out above the others. the following song came on in the bar we used to go to every week. Seriously we would have been to this place 200+ times. This one night though, this song came on and he joined in singing the lyrics to the end last verse. I was surprised because although I knew he liked the band, I didn't realise this song had spoken to him. I asked him afterwards who he was singing about and he said that I knew.

I didn't , don't and I guess I will not now.

I am done with writing about this now. I thought it might help, might get things in my head in order. but I keep almost breaking down, and enough is enough.

I can' t comprehend it because it is not something I would actually ever do.

See you pal.