Suicide

1. REALITY

You think what you see, hear, smell, feel or remember are reality? Let us test it.

You see a white rectangle above four black circles? This is ONLY your imagination. There is no white rectangle there! In order to make sense of what we see, we unconsciously imagined the borders, and set up a frame according to our experiences.

DON’T USE YOUR EXPERIENCES TO CONSTRAIN YOURSELF – BREAK THE IMAGINED WALL, YOU ARE CAPABLE TO GO THROUGH THIS DIFFICULT TIME.

You see the happy face and the sad face? Now, cover your right eye and look at the grey sad face. Move slowly towards the screen. The colored happy face DISAPPEARS!
By focusing on the negative thinking, our brains suppress our happy memories and positive prospect. Different thoughts or interpretations of an event can lead to different moods in the same situation. (Just like “cover your right eye and look at …”) Once a mood is present, it is accompanied by additional thoughts that support and strengthen the mood. For example, angry people think about ways they have been hurt, depressed people think about how unfortunate life has been. (Just like “move slowly towards …”)

DEALING WITH THE NEGATIVE THINKING KEEPS YOU DEPRESSED – OPEN YOUR EYES, YOU WILL SEE A WHOLE NEW WORLD WITH LIGHT.

All you see, hear, smell, feel and remember in your conscious mind are indirect interpretations of the reality. They are significantly influenced by your bias and the current mood you are in.

How about cover your left eye and look at the colored happy face this time? Move slowly towards the screen, you will see the difference. Focus on positive past memories and specific future events you can look forward to … You will see the REALITY.

2. TREATABLE

You are not the only one who has suicidal thoughts. People at different age may have similar thoughts for different reasons. They could be the breakup of a relationship or conflicts with parents; being abused; feelings of isolation, of being different; a sense of personal worthlessness, failure or fear of failure; problems with drug and/or alcohol abuse; an unwanted pregnancy; parental divorce or family instability; sexuality conflicts; reports of other suicides or history of suicide in the family. People, who have debilitating medical conditions, are widowed, divorced, single, lack strong religious faith, are without a supportive social network; who are suffering from financial setback, humiliation, unrequited love, the collapse of a marriage, unreasonable pressures at school or work, and all sorts of other hurts and injuries to their self-esteem, may also developed depression and suicidal thoughts.

Today, these are well known and studied health issues caused by unbalanced or disrupted chemicals in the brain, which can be simply treated by combination of medicines and/or other alternatives, such as Psychotherapy and even Meditation.

There is nothing shameful about what you are thinking and feeling. Evolution and socialization enrich our emotions as a member of different groups, but they also make us more vulnerable to mood related disorders. Anyone could be sick under certain circumstance. However, same as other physical disorders, they are treatable.

3. TIME

Only human being has the concept of time. We are aware of the past and the present, and we can predict the future. However, when we are under enormous pain and stress, we tend to believe the future would be the same as the present, if not worse, and even the past was not any better.

The reason is that we are afraid of uncertainty in this difficult time. Therefore, we create a certainty about the future. And the shortcut is to persuade ourselves to believe that the future would be not different to the current situation. Once this strong fear, anger or sadness dominates our brain, positive emotion is further suppressed, and our world seems pointless, hopelessness and fragmentary.

However, no matter if you want it or not, time is cohesive and everything is continuously changing along its axis. The future is always unknown, but without this uncertainty, there is no freedom. We are free to imagine, to choose, to create, and to control our future, because there is uncertainty. Suicide is like stopping the time. It creates certainty without freedom, and certainty without future. Don’t forget that no one ever know what it will be after you commit suicide, you will still get to another uncertainty, which may not come with freedom or future.

Therefore, you can never get rid of uncertainty. If I were you, I will choose the uncertainty that you can control, that comes with freedom and a future …

Let your time flow. Recall specific past events that made you happy and consider what could happen in the future that would mean something to you. For example, some people out there in the future of your lives could come to love and cherish you. And don’t forget: TIME HEALS.

One of the things we most need to see us through the tough times is a belief that life, despite its pain and disappointment, is better than whatever death holds for us. Without a central core of firm beliefs or faith in ourselves or in our God, we can become the victims of our own self-doubt, the victims of our own emotions and the victims of our own hostility or hopelessness.

You are already in the bottom of the valley in your life journey, so if you keep walking, you will only go up …

4. NOT ALONE

No one was born alone. We are connected directly or indirectly to our relatives and all others in the human society through genes or natural bonding. In this society, we reach common goals by helping each other, and enhance our ability by teaching each other. That’s one of the major reasons why we are so advanced over other species. We are a family member of the whole human society, so there are many people in this world care about you, no matter what you told yourself, or what they told you.

One often most self-defeating reactions we have when we become depressed is to withdraw into ourselves and endure our pain alone. We are not alone, and we are not supposed to fight alone. Everyone need help once a while in the life journey, but most people don’t provide help initially. You have to reach out for them, and let them know about your situation.

Being a member of the human society also means that your individual action would have great influence on others in the society. I am sure you can imagine how bad the people you leave behind would feel. You may even ruin the rest of their lives. Your action may lay a seed in their mind (and those future generations of your family tree), so one day one of them may do the same thing to end his/her pain, because you had demonstrated that it is reasonable to do that. And you may not notice that the report about your action on the news may cause some followers to do the same thing.

Be a survivor. Be a HERO!

You are not alone, not even now!

6. COPING RESOURCES

Each time we have to make a decision, we take all the available information we have, run it through our little brains and then, sometimes crossing our fingers, we decide what we will do. What if we didn't have all the information necessary to make a really good decision?

We all make choices base on the solutions available. The more solutions we have, the better choice we tend to make. However, we didn’t notice those other choices out there.
Positive social support is important to help us to go through this difficult time.

There are two Hotline in USA:
1-800-273-8255 (TTY: 1-800-799-4889)
1-800-784-2433
You can also E-mail to the Samaritans: jo@samaritans.org
All information you provide to them is confidential.

You think that’s all? NO. The database published by United Way Information & Referral Center on my desk is as thick as a phone book, and it only lists agencies within the six cities and counties near here. You can imagine tens of thousands more across the United State and other countries. They provide Basic Needs (Clothing, Financial, Food, and Household items), Education/Employment, Health Care, Housing/Shelters, Legal Assistance, etc. Some of their numbers are listed on the front pages of every phone book. You may also call local United Way or Salvation Army to get connected to thousands of other agencies.

It is true that they may not solve all your problems, and things may not be very smooth at the beginning. Some agencies may have waiting list, or have special requirement, or be lack of funding for the moment, but they will try their best to help you through the tough time and refer you to more resources if needed.
In addition, please don’t forget your relatives, friends, people around you, and even strangers running support groups online. All of them may provide you options you never know or think of. At the same time, you would get positive problem-solving skills from them.

Depression feeds on the soil of shame and secrecy. Put it another way, expression is the great enemy of depression. The more open we are to others about how we feel, the greater the chance we can change how we feel.

KNOCK ON THE DOORS. ONE DOOR SHUT, THE OTHERS WILL OPEN.

7. ONE STEP AT A TIME

You do not need to find solutions to all your problems right now. Trying to solve them all together will only overwhelm you.
What you should do is to attack them one by one. Break problems down into small steps, and take one small step at a time, and soon you will see the big progress you had made. Focus on what you can do rather than what you can't do. While you are solving some of the problems, you will also find that solutions to other problems will keep revealing themselves.

Keeping busy is often said to be the source of happiness. Throwing yourself into some left-brain activity like reading, talking often brings relief from depression. Talking and thinking about emotions also gives us control over them, so they cease to overwhelm us.

It is a great idea to make a small "to-do" list everyday. I already make the first one for you. Don’t worry, it is easy and there are only two items.

1. Pick up your phone, and make the calls – talk with the people I mentioned in the last page.

2. Give your gun, drugs, and other things you may use to hurt yourself to someone you trust. And stay away from alcohol.

8. TO LIVE

What we lived for?
Money? Success? Fame? Love? Health? Freedom? God?
Because you are considering suicide, I guess most of these seem far from you or meaningless right now. One important reason is that most of these concepts are complex and vague. Can we simplify them, and trace them back to their common origin?

YES! And the answer is:
As human beings, a highly developed social species, we were born to copy our successful genes, to share our experiences, and to provide rewarding assistance and better environment for human beings and our next generations to grow and further develop ourselves. This is the ultimate goal and meaning of our lives.

This is the reason why you should smile to the stranger even when you are sick or tired.
This is the reason why you should pat the little shoulder and say: “Don’t you cry. Everything’s gonna be alright.” even he/she is not your own child.
This is the reason why you should give the tourists the direction even you are in a hurry.
…
This is the reason why you should keep living even you think you have nothing else to offer.

We were born to survive, to strive, to love, to share, to create, to exceed … , and to LIVE!
I hope this will become your personal philosophies of life, and you are aware of its value, its sanctity, its purpose, its utility to the future of mankind.

Everyone of us maybe just a tiny sand in the Universal Sand Timer, but each of us is unique, essential, and necessary to the Eternity of Human Species.

Isn’t it worth fighting for?
Isn’t it worth living for?

Until I see you in the near future, wish you the best luck!

BTW, thank you for the wonderful New Year gift you gave me.

Love,
DP

Jan. 1, 2019