(VIDEO TRANSCRIPT BELOW ESSAY)
It is normal to go through the 5 stages of grief when receiving the traumatic news that another person is planning to intentionally self-harm to the point that they die. It is normal to feel a range of conflicting emotions. It is normal to think you’ve gone through the 5 stages of grief, only to realize you never truly left denial.
Denial - “he doesn't mean it. He’s just doing this for attention. He’s just in deep pain. He’s just doing this for the purposes of activism.”
Anger - “how could he say that given the impact on me? How could he send the message to tens of thousands of people that suicide is a good way to cope with disability?” (In this video, and currently, I'm primarily angry at bearing witness to this farce)
Bargaining - “at least he'll be out of pain… Maybe if I am nicer to him, he’ll change his mind… If I help him talk it out, he’ll be here next year… Mayb-e if he goes to an ER, they’ll have the answer…”
Sadness- “I would really miss him if he dies. Now I’m worried about everyone else I care about. Now I’m wondering if MY life is worth living?”
Acceptance - “This person made a choice to have me contemplate their suicide. They may make the choice not be there for me in the future. I have a right to be angry, sad, relieved or anything else I'm feeling, for as long as I’m feeling it, and I may need support to process my feelings. I know I wasn’t in control of his choices, or to blame for his choice to burden the world with this information, or to end his life.”
Transcript:
So a number of you sent me this article and asked for my thoughts on it, so I’ll share them. When you are considering this person’s claim that they are planning to hurt themselves, you must recognize that this is a person who has also followed through on elaborate self-harm intentions in the past, so they are a person who is threatening suicide very publicly, and it’s a credible threat. when you are on the receiving end of a credible threat of suicide, or even a non-credible threat, it is traumatic. And so, I encourage people who are very worried about this individual to take a step back, and worry about their own feelings, and the way that they have been harmed by the fact that this person is so casually threatening suicide in such a public manner, not caring who he hurts, not caring what trauma he brings up.
You must ask yourself why he’s doing this, and whether a person who was considerate about the emotional lives of other people, whether they might have gone about it in a different manner. I imagine he thinks he’s doing it for some sort of greater good, but the reality is he is forcing us to contemplate that he may end his life in the near future. Threatening suicide’s not a nice thing to do. And it is often weaponized by abusive personalities to manipulate, and whether such a personality is that way for illness or some other reason, it’s beyond my pay grade to say.
But I do know that I am a survivor of somebody that regularly threatened to end their lives, and then died under suspicious circumstances, and I know what it’s like to be invested in preventing a suicide, and then to have to live with the self-blame after the fact. If you are close to somebody who is threatening suicide, you need to recognize that that’s probably not a safe situation for you, most likely it’s above your pay grade, and it’s okay to take care oef yourself, to protect yourself, from somebody that’s not protecting you. I hope this individual finds appropriate help, appropriate support, and an appropriate outlet for these feelings and these intentions.65
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