by Katie-Ellen

Created on: February 07, 2010

No, but neither is it a personal right of anyone else to elect themselves as judge and jury after a person has made the choice to commit suicide.

Life is given as a gift just as each new day is a gift to us to give our best to. But within the scheme of things so much can happen to alter the balance. And for some, the balance never rights itself.

Our society is filled with news on a regular basis of those suffering from depression. There are surely many more who suffer in silence, and alone, or even with support.

And the reasons, well there can be a million different ones. Maybe there has been a chemical imbalance since birth. But it doesn’t make it any easier. There can be a series of events that simply pushes a person over the edge. One single thing can be the last straw and no matter how much we love a person, we cannot see the internal struggle that haunts them by day and night.

When someone takes their own life, it affects so many in a very tragic and cruel way that can take a very long time to work through. Shock is just the beginning and neutralises us as we absorb the loss and helplessness, and guilt.

Personal rights don’t even come close to the experience of the person who took their own life. The utter despair and loss of hope, to set their world back into some form of balance and support network to help them work through a situation or series of situations that led them to such a heartbreaking choice isn’t always possible. But maybe that is our ‘right’ to try, regardless of the reactions.

There are other reason’s a person takes their own life. And it is trauma, or the inability to be able to process it in a way that can eventually bring healing and peace, no matter how long it takes.

You just have to pick up the daily newspapers, the latest magazines, read the ‘secrets’ of the celebrities that they have been grappling with. Basically, it is an internal hell that has the end result of turning to tragedy for those left behind who have loved them and lost them.

Rights! In the end, who cares about rights and the campaigns for claiming suicide as a great sin or crime? Get real! Unless you walk in the same shoes, experience the utter desolation of where they have come from and the only option they see opening before them, what right do you have to pass judgement upon their already overburdened shoulders.

The decision is such a quick instant one. If there are any rights, it is the one to stand up and take action if you know of someone you think will harm themselves. Tell someone who can make a difference. That is where ‘rights’ should have their focus.

At the end of the day, when life is lost from our touch, believe in something greater, something where goodness and healing is larger than life itself. Call it what you may. And within this encompassing belief – believe it to be a place where the person who has taken their own life is enfolded with love, compassion, understanding, and healing.

Sometimes, we just can’t stop the act; can’t make the choices for that person, no matter how much we want to. But please, don’t take the ‘right’ into your own hands and judge them cruelly, or their family and friends left behind to try and put their life back together again.

Learn more about this author, Katie-Ellen.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.