Suicide and Its Sobering Lessons

By now, the name Tyler Clementi is a familiar one. For those unaware, he was the young, promising, and beautiful 18 year old college student who recently committed suicide after being unfairly "outed" as being gay on the Internet. The tragedy is not lost on us. So many would have told him his private sex life was his personal business, and had no impact whatsoever upon his value to the world. None of this will help comfort his family now, but it seems it should be said anyway.

Even the famed Ellen DeGeneres made an impassioned plea for the bullying and harassment of gay and lesbian people be brought to a halt, before another life is wasted. This harassment is as unfair as it is based purely on ignorance and viciousness. She's right. It is wrong...so wrong.

Young Tyler is not the only case of suicide recently, either
Reports are coming in of other cases of suicide. There's the case of Los Angeles teacher Rigoberto Ruelas who, after a "less than average" rating as a teacher on the LA Times website, also chose to end his life. His choice has an especially hard impact on the young, impressionable minds of the students who loved him dearly - who would rather have a devoted and passionate "less than average" teacher, than to have lost a good friend to suicide.

We must look at the hidden lessons of any suicide.
Beyond the obvious tragedy of seeing someone commit suicide, and thereby pass along their pain - magnified exponentially to those who care about them - there resides an even greater tragedy: It is the tragedy of those very people believing they had nothing to live for...that they had no way through their problems other than self-inflicted death. They did not have normal coping skills, so necessary in this world.

Where does this sense of futility come from? It seems to come from not knowing how to reach out for help. It seems to come from not realizing just how precious they were, even if but to a few. It would seem to simply be a matter of these two not understanding how to cope with very average, real-world, everyday problems, that millions of others handle quite smoothly. Mr. Clementi, Mr Ruelas, and so many others, just did not understand how valuable they were.

Those we normally blame a suicide on, are not the root cause.
One of the ultimate questions in cases such as these is can we, as a society, control the actions of everyone who may insult, harass, belittle, or demean others? No. We can't. Oftentimes, these types of actions are done without the actor even being aware of the impact of their words.

It's a normal reaction to find something, or someone to blame as a causative factor, when a loved one chooses suicide to end their pain. It's quite the loving human response to such a tragic event to attempt to stop the world and let our loved ones off, in the hopes of protecting those we care about. We are innately decent human beings, after all.

But it will not happen, and that my friends, is the cold, hard truth. My own efforts to control everyone around me also failed. It is simply and inarguably a fact that, in spite of how unjust and cruel the world can be, we cannot control the actions of others.

Remind your friends to be stronger than casual thoughts of suicide.
What we can do, however, is to give those coping skills to our fellow human. We can share the knowledge of inner strength with those we see struggling in life. We can show other Tyler Clementi's of the world that, no matter the actions of a handful of vicious and ignorant fools, they still matter to us.

Suicide is no option to combating the ignorance of fools.
We can take the time to help every Rigoberto Ruelas hang in there, in spite of what any scandal-based media outlet might say about them. We can help them thicken their skin. We can make the bold and courageous statement to our fellow Man of encouraging strength and disavowing the petty, fleeting opinions of others having any long-term effect on their lives.

Some things won't work to stop suicide.
All of us in this world will never be able to make the rest of us behave with decency and respect. The foolish and the hateful are simply too numerous to ever stem the flow of hatred and ignorance completely. Animal-like behaviors, based upon primitive ignorance, have been around so much longer than love, compassion, and concern. Further legislation is not the answer, either.

Good news: Some things will help prevent a suicide.
When we are witness to another person's pain, we can refuse to turn a blind eye to their suffering, and love them enough until they love themselves too. We can do our very best to help hurting souls to see other options than suicide. We can carry one another through. Grand demonstrations of concern aren't always what's needed. Sometimes, simple gestures are best.

These efforts may be expressed in any number of ways - whatever seems fitting at the moment. Sometimes it may be a gentle squeeze of the hand and a smile. Sometimes, a near vitriolic refusal to let someone denigrate or insult themselves may be called for. And still yet other times, it can be a friendly, masculine punch in the shoulder to help someone "snap out of it." However people go about it is not as important as the effort itself, to help stop another from slipping gently into habitual thoughts of suicide.

Sources:

Personal experience, and
Ellen DeGeneres
Rigoberto Ruelas
Originally published on Gather.