Within the past couple of days, a young 22-23 year old man in the part of Colorado where I hang out was walking along a local overpass. This overpass stands above one of the busiest traffic corridors in the area. For some reasons that we'll never really know, this young man - deeply loved by his family and his friends - made a decision...a decision that has now begun a ripple impact across the lives of so many other people.
This young man decided to follow through with a choice he must have made before he even started making his way to the overpass. He went to the railing of the overpass, and he hiked one leg, then the other, over that railing and made the last decision of his life when he jumped. He was critically injured upon impact, before the unwitting and innocent driver of an SUV hit him, finishing the task that the young man had set out to accomplish when he jumped.
I did not know this young man. Apparently, to some degree, neither did the people close to him. Perhaps they all thought they knew their friend, brother, or son. Yet, they apparently had no idea of who this young man really was, at the time...the level of confusion he was undergoing...the level of pain and hopelessness he was suffering. Or, maybe they did, but they had no idea of how to help him. This young man was a friend of my son's, and my son - like many who knew this person, and like anyone impacted by a suicide - is left asking so many questions amongst the currents of sadness, rage, heartache, and confusion that come with a death like this.
Ultimately, the question of "Why?" permeates the spheres of influence that the suicide leaves behind. If the suicide turns out to not be surprising, the loved ones left to heal from the debris are wondering why they couldn't have made the difference they wished they could have. Some wonder why they couldn't have seen the signs in enough time and with enough clarity to have stopped it. In cases like this, where I believe (I'm not sure) that people would not have expected this young man to end his life like this, the Big Why's usually turn out to not only be "Why did he do it," but "Why didn't he ask for help?" We're left to wonder why, when someone's in THAT much pain, THAT lost within themselves, why don't they ask for help?
There are so many reasons why someone won't. I'm not an expert on suicide, but I've been around it enough now in my five decades on the planet. I have had a few times when I'd contemplated it. I've had family members who have as well, and I watched my mother commit suicide (it just took her many years to finally achieve the desired effect). So, between my own personal and professional experiences, I have a pretty acute sense of the quiet desperation and despair that most of us deal with - on one level or another - and the perverse paradox of how seductive it gets to suffer in silence and isolation.
One of the most insidious things about depression is that it so convincingly assures you that no one can help, no one or no thing will be able to make any difference...it's best to just try to figure it out yourself...or just resign yourself to it never being able to get better, followed by numbing it with either substances or overwork, or maybe even suicide. While this is not unique to just men (I've lost women I loved to suicide), men suffer a particular shame - often a hidden shame, even to them - about asking for help. Hell, we often have a hard time even telling the whole truth about how we're REALLY feeling. period. Somehow, the fear of being perceived as weak or being a wuss trumps the substantial self-love and self-respect that we ideally would have that would cause us to get supported when we just don't have the remotest idea of what the hell to do with what we're feeling.
Added to that, a lot of us are dealing with so many changes and stresses, unparalleled in our lifetimes, I believe we've subtly (or not so subtly) become so self-absorbed that we are drastically losing our level of presence, to ourselves and others. We're not awake enough. It's getting to the point where this individual and collective self-absorption, along with our intense levels of fear - the fears up front and the ones that we keep trying to deny - renders us unable to even look at our brothers or sisters around us from a true sensitive & empathetic enough place to be able to recognize when our loved one is bullshitting themselves so masterfully that we've gotten drawn in to the deceit right along with them. In my judgment, men are experts at this. We're expert at both the isolation and self-deceit, but we're also expert at not being present at all the levels we need to be...again, to both ourselves and those around us.
I don't for a minute hold this young man's friends or family as responsible for his heartbreakingly senseless death. My own heart is deeply saddened for all that they, and the driver that actually hit this young man after he'd landed on the freeway, are going through. My heart is especially wrenched by my sadness over how much pain this man was in and that he wasn't able to sufficiently ask for help, if at all. Yet, the only way to try to make any real sense of what happened seems, to me, to rest in the need to create some kind of post-impact meaning that could maybe prevent someone else from ending their quiet despair this way. This seems particularly important as we head into the holiday time, which is one of the highest-risk timeframes in which people commit suicide.
I urge us all to snap out of our fear and self-referential daze that I, and so many others, so easily et seduced and mystified by. I urge you to really get out of your heads when you're with people you love, and feel INTO them. How do they feel to you? Does their energy match what they're saying when they tell you they're "fine?" If not, take the risk of going deeper with them...don't let them off the hook. If you're a man suffering like this, or watching another man suffering, get to a men's group as soon as possible. Trust your instincts and take the chance of annoying them with your deeper probing (to me, the consequences of NOT doing that justify the flak you may take for doing it). Go online and read the top signs of high-risk for suicide, and watch. If you're suffering from them, ask for help. None of us deserve to suffer the costs of not asking for help, nor do we have the right - through our own self-neglect - to then cause the level of suffering in our loved ones that can happen if the worst outcome were to result.
Take this time to reach out and love people. The gifts, the money, the "stuff" really just doesn't matter. Give the gift of your loving perception and connection to everyone in your life. It just may save a life.
