How do people view or react to acts of suicide? Everyone's "truth" is different as it is an accumulation of personal experience combined with education, hearsay, culture and spirituality. Is suicide a "taboo?" My guess is that in general it is -- worldwide, even. But I also know from a personal experience that how it is viewed depends on where a person resides, spritual connectedness, or how other people react to it.
I grew up (age 4-12) in Winter Garden, FL, which was a pretty caring and sharing town in the 1950s and 1960s (and hopefully still is). When I was in the fifth grade, a classmate's mother committed suicide. She suffered seizures and other afflictions. I recall the townspeople being "neighborly" -- taking over meals upon occasion, helping keep the kids busy with activities, etc. In essence, they were "family." When the mother died, there was no shame. Surviving family and friends did not hide the fact of suicide. They allowed their grief to flow and welcomed support and understanding offered to them. No one needed to feel shame or blame, no "secret" had to be kept, no judgements of condemnation were made.
The town folks handled this tragedy, as well as many other circumstances, as a happening that needed to be accepted and handled with compassion, dignity and respect. Suicide, to our community, did not mean a lack of love or an act of revenge. It simply meant the person was in too much pain to want to keep going, and no mortal (our religious upbringing) can determine what an individual can or cannot handle. That is a dialogue and decision between the suffering person and God.
So for me, and for likely many other people who are fortunate enough to have such an indoctrination, suicide is not a "taboo." In the worldly picture, though, I realize that it is. I was a listener on a suicide hotline for four years, and many of our calls were from family members and friends (survivors) who did not feel they could have a conversation with anyone else about the suicide of their relatives or friends. I find many people have trouble even saying the word "suicide."
My thinking, based on my experiences, is that the act of committing suicide is not actually a taboo but rather is the inability of survivors to talk about it and for listeners to hear about it because it causes people to uncomfortably realize how frail and vulnerable the human being is. We prefer to feel and think we are strong and empowered because slipping away from that can mean we are giving in and giving up. Our natural instinct is to survive, and giving in or giving up goes against our DNA which, in turn, may cause a judgement label of "wrong" or "bad."
Praise God for the people and places He has placed in my life so that I am not haunted or silenced by events that are parts of living that should be recognized and improved. I plan to always be involved to some degree in programs that can help take away the stigma of a variety of woes people suffer -- providing in-home care as a Certified Nursing Assistant to mostly elderly people with Alzheimer's disease, being a long-time member of Al-anon, volunteering at the local VA hospital, being politically involved in some of these issues, and more. These are all existing realities in life, and shame on any of us who try to ignore or dismiss them. They, too, deserve loving, caring and open attention. ~ Maeke
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