Suicide - mixed messages

Had a very interesting debate regarding suicide in that the person was bemoaning the loss of a relatively young person and the selfishness of them taking their own life and yet was, in the same breath, basically applauding the BBC documentary and the 'brave' people who had travelled to Switzerland to end it all! Now is this confused morals or what?

I have done funeral services for a number of people who have taken their own life and the circumstances surrounding their exit have been many and varied. Some were terminally ill, some had broken relationship, others still were making a point that they 'would do it' (how I wish people would stop saying that those who threaten to do it never do!) and a couple were the result of an obviously unbalanced mind.

Some told me that the dead person was immensely brave whilst other told me they were immensely stupid. Some wanted a quiet, embarrassed, funeral service whilst others wanted flags draping the coffin and a heroes funeral with all the trimmings. But here at the place where the rubber hits the road, regardless of the route that brought them to that place, it is my job to comfort those lost and help them to make sense of their situation and move on with their lives. It is my job to help those who grieve and the get them to have some perspective and be sensitive to the situation and the ways others might interpret them (for people are often quite harsh, aren't we?).

So what do you do with someone who has lost a friend and blames them for leaving them in such an unthinking and selfish manner? How do you explain that regardless of whether one travels to Switzerland (who I will now have to regard as financial whore and executioner of Europe I suppose*) or kills themself at home on their own (does the absence of TV camera crews make the act more heinous in terms of selfishness?) there are issues that have to be addressed and truths to be acknowledged and dealt with?

Many of those I see who have killed themselves have acted out of desperation, although it seems that because of the energy and passion that men have when this point comes, what might have been a warning shot end up as winning a coconut! Part of my training long back told me that often the line between almost doing it and doing it was thin and that many seeking to exercise a cry for help do it too well! Of course this is not the case with those who travel to do it and because they have made the journey some seem to think the act is endorsed by being 'rational'. I fail to see how killing oneself is a bloody rational act, especially when the reason is that the person who has chosen to die was 'weary' (weary is not a terminal disease but being selfish and wanting to play God is!).

Let's look at it from my perspective for a moment. Those who take their lives at home do so because they have reached a place where they cannot see life continuing. They reach this for a number of reason and that the person is so desperate and in such a state that they can do the act (which must be much like standing at the edge of a rock face and jumping off for the first time when you learn to abseil) speaks volumes of the state they were in. When asked was it brave or cowardly, I have to answer (and I always do) that it was 'desperate'. They'd reached a place where they couldn't go any further and that's the reality!

Could they (those left) have prevented it)? The question is always there. Got there earlier, hadn't gone out, hadn't got back later, hadn't left them alone, had rung them to see how they were, read the sings that they now see with hindsight. The answer is always 'No' because they can't and didn't and even had they done whatever it is that demonises the situation, there's always another day and another crisis. Is this true for those who selecte a 'rational' end to their life? No, I'm sorry I don't think so for they do it clinically and in a way that has no passion, no turmoil, no nothing but the desire to be in control.

So for those who wish to laud and applaud one group and agonise and complain at the selfishness of others who are 'stay at home' suicides can I point out that being 'assisted' brings nothing except some questions for those helpful types who 'assist' (isn't it called 'murder' and isn't there a moral component to carrying out a murder, regardless of the paucity of the local societal values of the place where it happens?).

And like fertility. Even is people have the ability to create or end life the right to either is a moot point, often decided by the finances of the local NHS trust for the former and the ability to pay to visit Switzerland (or one of the other three places) for the latter!

Pax

* During the Second World War it was the Swiss who had Nazis in one room and Allied nations in others funding and providing the means for the continuation (and expansion) of the fighting. The only question raised was that of interest and the potential for making money from the transactions. In the same way Swiss vaults housed (and still do I imaging) works of art, gold and many other artefacts of a Nazi regime) It is for this reasons that I have regarded Switzerland as the 'Whore of Europe'. Now they (proudly) add the label 'executioner' to their menu!