FZ2878

For the fourth time in my 56 years I’ve heard about the suicide of a friend. Compared to the three other boys and men I’ve known who have taken their own lives, I knew this gentle young man the least, but he’s the first that could be considered a relative, as he was a second cousin of my wife.

I was only 14 years of age when the first person I knew, a close neighbor, personally took his own life. I really didn’t understand what had happened that day and remember breaking down crying when I was by myself in the bathroom. I don’t know why I cried, I just know that I did.

Now when I hear of someone who is not terminally ill or severely handicapped committing suicide, my first reaction is anger. Anger at the waste, anger at the thoughtlessness, and anger at the harm caused to the relatives and friends of the deceased. Perhaps that’s selfish on my part not to be sympathetic to the motives that could move someone to the point of courage or cowardice to take their own life. To be honest I think it would take more courage than cowardice, but to those of us who believe we would fight to the last moment to preserve life, to do otherwise would be incomprehensible.

Worldwide, there are more than a million suicides annually. That’s more than homicides and more than deaths due to war. Over the last 5 years, we’ve seen death by suicide increase by more than 60%, with the highest increases in developing countries. Men succeed more often than women despite the fact that women attempt suicide more often than men. Experts believe that this is because men tend to choose more violent methods of suicide, using firearms, knives and hanging, compared to those methods chosen by women which are more likely to be drug overdoses.

Personally, I think I’m too much of a coward to commit suicide. I can picture choosing assisted suicide if I was suffering immensely, and saw no other way out of my endless misery, but again that would be the choice of a coward.

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