Why did it happen? What drove him to do
it? Impulse? Probably involved, but not enough by itself. Shame?
Despair? Words like those get tossed out like so many epitaphs that
fail to do justice to the dead. So again, not enough. The words that
explain my son's choice have not yet been written. It is my hope that
by going through the process of doing so, I can find some way to
understand how to accept the results of his decision. Perhaps others
will gain some insight into their own loss as well. Perhaps not.
Either way I need to write - to think - before I can move on. To do
otherwise is not an option.
Humans are hard wired to protect our
children, and with good reason. Unlike most other mammals, our young
are born helpless and would die within hours without our care. I've
read that the reasons for this have to do compromising overall
physical development for our abnormally large skulls. We need to get
out before the skull becomes too large to fit through the birth
canal. Nature giveth and nature taketh away, I guess. I know one
thing - our abnormally large skulls have enough room in them for an
incredibly complex brain. sadly, sometimes a brain that has to deal
with a world that its own kind has created can't, despite all the
internal real estate.
The human mind has often been referred
to as a biological computer, and that sounds like a fair analogy to
me. Computers can't compute everything, though. Some algorithms just
can't be solved, no matter the size or power of the machine. The
result is a catastrophic failure. Suicide is like that, in some ways.
Anguish so overwhelming that it can't be resolved induces the brain
to spiral down into a sort of cascading failure of logic so profound
that it overloads the most powerful instinct we posses - the will to
live. Unfortunately, for the survivors of a loved one's suicide, it's
even more difficult than that to explain. We ask ourselves, "What
could possibly explain our child's choice to die?", and find
that what answers we get are general banalities and platitudes for
the most part. They're meant to help, to provide hope. Without hope,
why go on?
So what could possibly cause a person
to utterly lose all hope? There are more answers to that question
than I'm able to give, obviously. As many as there are people on the
Earth, maybe more. One person's sad event is another's debilitating
tragedy. It depends on culture and circumstance; an event that seems
horrifying or repulsive in one culture might be seen as blase or
acceptable in another, or even in the same culture during a different
period in its history. Suicide is one of the very few acts seen as
shameful and horrifying by almost all cultures. Like cannibalism, the
condemnation of the act is nearly universal, but not quite.
That says something about how profoundly deep the negative reaction
to suicide runs in our species, and also about how widely varied
people's perceptions and beliefs can be.
Humans are a social species, it's vital
to our mental health that we have others to interact with. Without
social interaction of the proper type during the appropriate periods
in our development, we tend to end up unhealthy and dysfunctional.
Some kind of healthy family and friend network is vital to our
continued good mental health. The modern social media culture and our
too-busy lifestyle have contributed to the reduction of the family
interaction component of our society, while simultaneously
emphasizing and mutating the friends component of that dynamic. All
of this hasn't been helped by our culture's youth oriented,
materialistic pop culture, which is contributing to a shallow,
competitive set of values among our youth. If parental wisdom and
guidance is lacking, something else will fill the gap.
Suicide has even been described as a
rejection of the group, since a big part of the group's job is to
help one and other. "Why didn't s/he ask for help?", is a
very common question asked by those left behind. In my son's case,
the well documented culture of silence among students certainly must
have contributed to his reluctance to speak to us about his problems.
It likely didn't help that the main source of his pain were feelings
of being ostracized and alone. Those types of feelings often lead to
victims believing that nobody - not even their own parents - can
help. Even when he did finally tell us what was going on, he held
back some of the worst aspects of his torment. We were left feeling
that we'd done too little, too late. We had no idea of the extent of
his abuser's vicious attacks. We discovered that the old advice to
"turn the other cheek", ( which was one of our very first
pieces of advice to him ), probably made things worse! The rules to
bullying had already begun to change, but we were completely unaware
of that back in 2006.
The world was about to see the advent
of cyberbullying, but neither the word nor the concept had made it
into the mainstream at the time. Cyberbullying's onset and its severe
effects could not have been predicted in advance. The world had no
clue that our kids were slowly becoming so deeply reliant on their
on-line social network, often to the exclusion of other forms of
interaction. Kids born onto the digital age often see things
radically differently than our generation did. The common problem of
so-called "sexting" is a good example of that. It seems
outrageous to most parents, ( I can't even imagine doing such a thing
even if it were possible thirty years ago ), yet to many kids today
it's no big deal. Until it comes back to haunt them when somebody
decides to publicize the pictures, or use them to threaten the kid
with publicizing them. My point here is that as a culture, we're just
beginning to understand the broad ranging and profound changes
occurring in our world as a result of the information explosion, and
the resultant effects those changes are having on our kids.
So while trying to understand our son's
choice to end his life, I've come to realize that I can't look at
suicide from the point of view that predates the information and
instant communication culture of kids today. An act that has been
viewed as extreme, ( and it still is extreme! ), appears to have
somehow become more acceptable, or even seen as necessary by some
kids today. What could possibly be that powerful? What could
seem so horrifyingly impossible to live with that a child
chooses death over dealing with it? It's almost like some part of
childhood innocence has been bred out of us; that eternally
optimistic part of us that used to help shield us against the worst
of life's troubles. It's as if kids are looking at the world with a
lifetime of cynicism behind them - like damaged adults. That kind of
cold, hard world view in the impulsive, immature mind of a child
certainly sounds like a recipe for disaster, doesn't it?
I will be posting further thoughts on this subject in future posts