"Suicide is painless"

A beautiful day again. I went quietly to St Michael's (where according to the bit of paper from the Bish, I am officially commissioned) and was sitting before Mass, when ye Rector sidled up to warn me that a former parishioner of mine would be prayed for in the intercessions in the departed section. He had suffered from bipolar disorder for years and had made several suicide attempts previously. This one succeeded. RIP.

I feel odd about this. At one level, no surprise. At another, "there but for the Grace of God...". The fact that when I crashed and burned last time, I actually got to the point of buying the razor blades - and in the early days at Emmaus, lay awake at night wondering which of the kitchen knives would be best for a quick soak in a warm bath with a couple of drinks, then opening the veins (the benefits of a classical education are obvious) - means I felt sharply the sense of final despair that I know he had gone through. When you have come close to embracing that pain free darkness and oblivion, it changes your perspective. I recall my sense of bafflement 20 odd years back when a University friend killed himself. Why hadn't he seen that the embarrassing situation he had got himself into (kerb crawling in Liverpool where he was a Tory Constituency agent) might have ended his hopes of a political career but wouldn't have stopped him from having a productive life? Now I understand it better. The release from sense of having failed at living can be terribly seductive.

I drew some wisdom from the sermon as it happens. Our desires teach us much about ourselves. Even the desires we fear or see as negative. Sexual desire teaches us of our need to love and to be loved. Desire for alcohol as an emotional anaesthetic teaches us of our desire for emotional stability and serenity. Desire for the nihilism of self-inflicted death teaches us about our deep desire for peace and respite from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". It is exactly when we follow the "devices and desires of our own hearts" that we get into trouble. Our desires have to be understood and assesed for their healthiness if they are to enable us be who we are called to be. Discerment and self knowledge are vital both to cut our way clear of our own unruly wills and affections that may be calling us into damage and also to slash through the frigidity and oppressiveness of ancient taboos reinforced by religious affirmation ("The Church/Bible teaches..."). The chains that bind us can be self, as well as socially and culturally, inflicted.

I went to a meeting to let some of this go - to detoxify my little brain if you like. A description of a dangerous mental attitude from the Big Book struck me forcibly: we fail to cope when we adopt an attitude of "belligerent denial". Which I translated as refusing to admit our powerlessness and angrily thinking we ought to be able cope/get a grip/get better. The horrid thing about mental health problems is that you are intelligent enough and aware enough to know you are broken inside but have no hope or see no chance of it healing even in time. It is only when you get some sense of hope (even a name for the problem) that you can begin to recover.