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“If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but I am without love, it will do me no good whatever. Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. Love does not come to an end.”
One of the biggest traps in any relationship is that the better you know someone, the easier it is to push their buttons. The longer you live with someone, the more you know exactly what to say to hurt them.
I know this from personal experience, for my wife and I nearly tore each other apart. Whoever said that love is never having to say you’re sorry was an idiot. Love is knowing when to say you’re sorry, and meaning it when you say it. Love is learning from your mistakes and putting in the effort day after day to be better, to love better.
Love is caring more about someone else than you do yourself, and being willing to do anything to make them happy.
Transitioning was perhaps the most selfish thing I have ever done - and yet I did it not just for myself. I knew that if I continued down the road I was on that it was just a matter of time before I couldn’t find a reason to not pull the trigger, to not swallow a bottle of pills. I knew that my transition might cost me my family, that it might mean that the one person that meant more to me than life itself would turn away from me - but I knew that if I didn’t I would hurt her and my sons worse by taking my own life.
Suicide is an act of violence, but the victims are those you leave behind who have to deal with your ultimate act of selfishness. My transition was the better choice as their was a chance, slim as it was, that we could move forward. If you’ve never read it, A Second Chance by Dawn Natelle starts out describing the repercussions of one teenager’s suicide, and how it impacts all those around her - all the lives that are ruined by that one selfish act. It really hits home. Take the time to at least read the beginning of this story, and think about the repercussions of one selfish act.
To anyone who is ever contemplating the act, remember, you are not alone and your actions impact all those who know you. Talk to those you care about, talk to a therapist, or if you feel there is no one else, talk to those of us here - talk to ME if you have no one else. For I have been there too.
Comments
Thank you, Dallas.
This was a beautiful and heartfelt post. I couldn’t agree more about the destructiveness of suicide. But also about the importance of not weaponizing your intimate knowledge of your spouse’s weaknesses in an argument, and the critical importance of saying, and being, sorry for the hurts you cause them. A line from a beautiful hymn sums up my view of a good marriage: “Ever giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blessed.”
Happy New Year, Dallas. May 2024 be a gentler year.
Emma
A message straight from the heart
You've touched on many truisms about relationships. You quote one of my favorite quotations about love. Sometimes when I read it, I put my name in place of the word "love" and if the statements don't ring true, then I know I'm in trouble.
The thing about love is that it's not a squishy feeling or emotion. We talk about "falling in love." I truth, we don't "fall" in love; we decide to love. I speak from experience. When I got engaged, aside from a great deal of lust (Eros... Greek for physical love) on my part, I can't say that I was in love. What I can say is that I didn't want to disappoint her and so decided to commit myself to her and later to love her.
Even at that, it was some time before I came to understand that love wasn't about what I could get from the relationship, but what I could give. If I love someone, they don't, aren't supposed to, fulfill any of my needs (that comes if they love me back) but I'm supposed to fulfill theirs; to give of myself even at a cost to myself. Self-sacrifice is the true measure of love.
As to suicide, you've hit the nail on the head. To convince ourselves that the world, our world; those we care about, are better off without us makes us delusional. Even if they claim they hate you, your passing will leave an emotional hole in their soul.
I've heard it said the suicide is a permanent solution for a temporary problem. That's a bit trite, but there is a bit of truth in it. What's temporary about the problem is that we are so close to it that we can't see a way around it. By doing as you suggest and talking to someone, almost anyone, about it we can gain a new perspective on it.
If it's true that whomever would be better off without you, that's a decision they should make. Show them the problem from your point of view and if that means they feel they are better off without you, they can walk away. Yes, that may hurt you, but if we take the decision away from them, it will hurt them. If they love you, then it's obvious how they will be hurt, but even if they hate you, they will feel guilt that you ended it all and they were part of the problem.
It's also said that a problem shared is a problem halved. The person you share it with will see things that you can't see and offer solutions you can't imagine. If that person is a loved one, then they can give of themselves to ease you pain and work with you to solve the problem. You owe it to them to give them the chance.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
I have been on the edge of suicide more than once
so I know that feeling well.
So let me add my name to Dallas' as a person that people could call on if they feel close to the edge. You people are all precious, give yourselves a chance!
Don't I know it
I know I am lessened with the death of my spouse/partner/whatever this year.
My life companion was farrrr from perfect but there is no question that she truly loved me and I keenly feel that loss every day.
My heart goes out to all those who have lost someone dear to them.
I know that loss
As someone recently said in a movie.
"What is grief if not love persevering?" It 's been nearly five years and I cry every day. My heart to yours,
Love, Andrea Lena
What if you don't care?
But what if you would be just as happy if your suicide made those around you unhappy?
The closest I ever came to actually killing myself was when I was age 10 and 11. My life was an emotional hell, and the people around me made it clear that either they didn't see any reason to care or else that my misery was my own fault. (After all, children don't have the capacity for real suffering, right?) No one even tried to commiserate, let alone do anything to make my life less awful. Speaking of "love", my parents always told me that they loved me, but when push came to shove, they simply, and at times explicitly, turned their back on what I was going through; as a result, I can't say the word "love" without feeling like I'm lying, like the word itself is a lie. I kept making plans to kill myself, but I knew if I went through with, I'd better succeed, since the adults around me would take a failed suicide attempt as justification for making me feel even worse than I already was feeling. (No matter how bad things are, they can always be worse.) My unspoken attitude towards making them suffer was that they didn't give a **** about my misery, why would I care about theirs? And if I succeeded, I wouldn't have to deal with the blowback. What stopped me was that the prospect of dying terrified me, plus when things were really painful, I tended to dissociate, which would give me a little respite. (They called it "daydreaming," but my therapist says it was really dissociation. Even now, when things are really tough, I tend to dissociate.)
That was my thinking back then (to the extent that my mental and emotional chaos allowed me think at all), and though I can express it more clearly now, I don't see the way things were in my life back then much different now. And it wasn't until I transitioned, 7 years ago, that I stopped asking myself whether my life since then had gotten enough better to justify me not killing myself back then.
Even now, 60 years later, when people pull out the "but think of how bad your loved ones will feel," I get angry. I feel that unless you actually know someone well and really understand what they're going through and have taken steps to make them feel better, you have no business condemning their choice.
It Is About 65 Years
Since I attempted suicide and I can still say that until I failed I wasn't thinking about anyone else. I was in the depths of misery at my imagined plight and I owe my life to an alert bus-driver who slammed on his brakes before he hit me, and then gave me a real earful about how stupid I was and how I had endangered the lives of him and his passengers.
That woke me up and made me think. I never tried again and I gained a sense of perspective into the probable consequences of my actions.
Since then I have been a witness or a bystander to a couple of other suicides and have seen widows and children, relatives and friends, grieve at their loss, wondering what they did wrong to cause the person to commit the act, and feel guilt because they didn't see it coming, when in fact they could have done nothing to prevent it.
The cause lies only in the heart of the one who died and it is usually an illusion. Been there, didn't do it. Teenagers always feel those terrible emotions the worst because they haven't learned to deal with them.
So Sorry You Went through That
Suicide is an irrational act.
To make sense a human endeavor must have an outcome that improves the situation.
I've stared suicide in the face several times. Try having $millions of dollars of death benefit under your life insurance policies and $millions of dollars of debt that appears impossible to resolve.
At one point I was about $3 million in debt and had about $5 million in death benefit under my life policies.
Due to slander and libel, I was having a tough time making a go of it in my business. I sought justice in court but found none. Add to that a little thing known as gender dysphoria.
I wanted it all to end.
What stopped me? I carefully considered what my suicide would do to each member of my family. The devastation they would feel would never go away.
I realize some considering suicide WANT TO INFLICT PAIN on those who survive them. However, I've been to too many funerals. For every person who is in the depths of sorrow, there is another who is laughing and enjoying a world without the departed.
Laughing? Yes, laughing. Smiling. Celebrating .
Many funerals are the ultimate of the self-fulfilling prophecy that is gender dysphoria. They fill you with guilt and shame, and then mock you for the pain you feel and your attempts to mitigate it.
Suicide is an irrational act with no positive outcome.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)