Beyond the Pain

I still remember the strangeness of listening to the theme from M*A*S*H (the movie) in the darkness of the huge cinema on Calgary’s 16th Avenue. It was the Summer of 1970 and I must have watched it with my ex-wife but I don’t remember her presence. I sat, as if alone, in the dark struck by the strangeness of the opening scenes. The choppers dropping their loads of battered, bloody bodies; all overlain with the hauntingly beautiful but strange contradiction of the theme song.

It was my first exposure to “gallows humour”, the absolutely dark, dismal, strange, black humour that has come to mark the conversations of surgeons in TV series like “ER”, “Grey’s Anatomy”, and “Saving Hope”. Gallows Humour is used to “distance” the medical professional from his/her patient, in an attempt to be objective. I suppose if they weren’t objective the might feel too much, and might go crazy, or worse yet … well … er … attempt to kill themselves.”

The theme song from M*A*S*H, Suicide Is Painless, is a fitting start to this post. I have recently thought a lot about “self murder” given the death of Robin Williams. I knew it would happen. I don’t mind the tributes for he was a comic genuis. Like Joan Rivers he was able to tranform his pain into humour — in itself a kind of visit to the dark side.

But, I resent the attempts of what I call Rag Mags, you know them, to captilize on Robin’s death by endlessly speculating about the “secrets of his last hours” or “he could have been saved.” BULL SHIT!

No one, sometimes even the person who attempts suicide, knows what goes through the mind of the attempter of self murder. No one!

The family, the doctors, the psychologists, the psychiatrists, the other sucidology experts can speculate as to the causes and what was going through the mind of the person attempting (and often suceeding) suicide. But it is just speculation and OFTEN a very painful, emotionally exhausting search for answers that just are not available and will never, ever be available.

Yet why the hell am I writing this post about a subject that many simply don’t want to talk about?

A good god damn question.

Because I seem to be compelled to talk about the S-word, Suicide. Because, you see, I have attempted to kill myself no less than SIX times.

Yes, folks, countem SIX.

Obviously I never succeeded. But, it wasn’t for lack of trying. I have been often asked, “Were you serious?”

To which question I often reply, “Yes. I was deadly serious.”

Even my first attempt, which is marked by the hesitation scars of an attempt to slash my left wrist, was deadly serious. And, subsequent attempts were increasingly deadly.

Who is to blame?

I don’t like to play the blame game. I try to think about who is responsible. I am going to say something that some might find provocative.

The person who is most responsible is the person who attempts and/or suceeds at sucide.

In my next post, I will tell you why I think that.

My wonderful landlady Dragita gave me a book for Christmas 2010. It was a miniture edition of Rick Warren’s “The Purpose-Driven Life”. I didn’t read it right away, figuring it was the usual fundamentalist Christian bullshit.

I don’t remember when I actually first read through it. The book has 40 ‘chapters’, 40 being a significant number in the bible. The idea is to read 1 chapter a day and reflect on the lesson, kind of like the daily bible reading we did when I was a JW.

I have reread The Purpose-Driven Life 3 or 4 times since Dragita first gave it to me. Today I am reading Day 10. The lesson is about surrendering to God. And, the notion is that when we surrender to God we MOST become US. That is, surrender is not about becoming some sort of robot but about being “all we can be”.

And, I began to think about the notion of surrendering to some greater purpose. A number of religions talk about surrender: I think it is part and parcel of the essence of Bhuddism. I know it IS an aspect of Christianity: the Desiderata says of God, “however you conceive him to be”. And, the Serenity Prayer teaches us to let go of the things we can’t change. Finally, a keystone of the 12-step program of AA is the notion of surrender to “your Higher Power”.

I just reread Deepak Chopra’s “God” for the third or fourth time. It contains the stories of 10 Spiritual Seekers. People like Job, the Apostle Paul, Rumi, and Julian of Norwich. Their seeking, in different ways, leads to the final chapter of the book where Deepak uses the 10 examples to examine the nature of God. He suggests that like the cells are part of the body WE are part of God. When I was a JW I was taught that God was “in heaven”. I thought of him – and he was a HE – as a wee bit schizophrenic or at least he had a mood disorder; for he was either VERY ANGRY or he was LOVING.

I mean the Old Testament God is one pissed off dude. Then between the first and second acts he transforms into the Loving Father who sacrifices his Son to save Mankind. REALLY, said in a snarky voice.

ANYWAY! (As Ellen says). I digress. My journey over these 29 years since I left the smothering womb of the JW religion has been the realization that God is

NOT seperate from me but is part of me and I am part of him/her and hers/his Universe. That notion is particularly freeing for me.

For you see, I AM NOT A SINNER because to be a sinner is to be apart from God. I am a part of the Universe, so I CAN NOT be apart from God. Ergo I can not be a sinner. Of course, this notion plays havoc with the teachings of most, if not all, Christian churches.

What if I am not a Sinner but just a Human Being trying to find his way in the world by listening for the voice of the God in me: gently giving Guidance.