WARNING: I discuss suicide
Some years ago I put my thoughts down to help with my therapy, needless to say it grew into more fiction than truth but hey it works for many of us. The story grew and I finally published it here for your pleasure and comment, at least the first eight chapters got posted with the last one remaining still in my work area.
The problem came during the editing of chapter 9, in which I tried to tie up the stories with a variety of outcomes that I saw as being typical of the Transgender/ Transsexual / Transvestite community. Some of the endings were happy, some had no change to their life but one of the characters in the story succumbed to depression and overdosed after several attempts. It has taken me over four years to come back to it and still I find it hard to finish without addressing the hard area for many people.
I may not make sense in this, but, we need to bring about a discussion of the hardest area to discuss, not to "solve the issue" or "defer the pain" but to simply be open for what others need in those hard times. I would love to finish my story by posting the final chapter but concerned that the rawness of many could open up wounds that may not be easily healed.
I would love your thoughts on this.
Kerry Brown - Trying to do no harm
Comments
Which story exactly?
It is timely that you would bring this up right now because I just finished reading Randaylyn's "Stark" and realized that chapter has some startling parallels with my own life in a really surprising way.
I doubt that I am in much danger of suicide over it all, but right now I am just really spittingly pissed off and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.
There are three choices, the first being should I just live my present life out? The second being should I try to return to living as a male, and finally should I just hang myself? In reality, there really are only two choices, male or female, though it is only honest to admit that choice 3 has often entered my mind.
For me, the price was far too high, meaning the loss of everything I ever valued. I was a good man, a damned good man, but one day I naively followed the Doctors advice to take anti depressants, and a lot of them.
Looking back, I was not GID but simply suffering too much from horrific and unpardonable early childhood trauma. And the excessive doses of then experimental and untested medications. A Medical Doctor who teaches Pharmacology at a local University confirms my assertion that the drugs made me legally incapable of making my own decisions.
So it was that suffering from PTSD from the childhood abuse, drained by a wife that took everything I could give but returned little, job pressures that mounted, especially after 9/11, and under the influence of ALL THOSE DRUGS, I failed.
AND, the Counselors who we so dearly love to idolize are just as fallible as we are, and from personal experience are often just as fucked up.
So, here I am 13 years after the 9/11 attack, off psych drugs for 7 years, and wondering what the hell happened?
To be clear, I mean to stop SRS in patients on psych medications because excessive psych drugs make us incompetent to make the SRS decision.
Yes, Gwen
TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE
I do believe that we should find a way to discuss this. Far too many of us suicide. I almost said die by our own hands but, I believe that many who go that route have been terribly coerced by society, work and school places and family that it is not their own hands except as a proxy for the other.
I assume that I will die by my hand in a place and time of my choosing. If my life becomes unlivable for whatever reason, likely medical or economic, I shan't force me to live it.
Understand, that time is not here. I have always found ways to enjoy life and even in my somewhat straitened health and financial circumstances, I am still hugely enjoying life every day. I love and I am loved. I have a community to which I belong, LGBT elders so to speak and I can still get around. Party is still going on, why leave now but if & when for me, the party's over, I'll call it a day. I do know that this is a permanent solution to what is likely a temporary circumstance.
Hope I'm not triggering anyone.
Joani
Go for it
I would say go for it, but with suitable warnings of course.
We shouldn't shy away from difficult subjects, not if we treat them with care at least.
I Have Been A Close Observer
Of two suicides. It's not fun, and the two people who took their own lives for some reason regarded themselves as worthless, which none of us survivors could understand. But the people who really suffered were their families, left to struggle with an inexplicable loss.
I have been close to doing it myself many years ago, but now I know that it is not a solution. Those that are left behind bear the pain. Life is worth living, even when it seems to suck. So write it as you see it,
Joanne
observations
When we have nothing or anyone to live for we are truly in pain. The one thing that stops many people is the pain we would cause others and until such time as the scales are tipped we "weigh in" every day.
Always seek an alternative and value what we have, however small it is.
Versus....
....when hopelessness outweighs any ability to see beyond the pain.... It's a subject that scrapes at raw nerves still exposed by emotional scars that barely cover our pain. I know I've been in that place all too often, but I also know that it is important to explore the very real prospect that sits outside many of our doors. Any 'real-life' fictional look at this life we lead would do well to consider even if to discard the idea of suicide since it's an all-too horrific component of life for many of us. I think you make perfect if tragic sense, and I appreciate your willingness to discuss this. Thank you!
Love, Andrea Lena
as someone who has been on the edge, more than once
as long as its done carefully, its a good thing to bring out into the open.
Unless it's written with
Unless it's written with malicious intent - in which case I'm sure it would quickly be removed from this site - I doubt whether any work of fiction, no matter how clumsy or thoughtless, has the potential to influence someone's state of mind to such an extent that it becomes a contributory factor in their decision to take their own life. It may not help, but that's not the same thing.
What fiction can do is give people hope. Maybe not to those standing on the brink, who I guess won't be doing a lot of reading anyway, but to those staring down the lonely road that might one day lead them there.
Or it could shock them into taking a different direction.
Authority is not given to you, Steward of Gondor, to order the hour of your death.
Wise words, forcefully expressed, never do harm.
Good luck finishing your story.
Intent vs reaction
What you say is true about malicious intent to harm people and like you I trust that the ever watching and reading eyes would act quick enough.
In many cases the reaction is not the expected one or Over The Top (OTT) based on the personal stability or feelings of desperation at their situation.
I was always told to look beyond any OTT's to find the cause of the reaction or outburst but in the non face to face world that we exist in today that is close on impossible.
The story has been finished for the last 2 years, just stalled at the posting stage.
I was there for 8 or so months...
It is not pleasant wondering if this would be the day. The only reason I survived is I had family whom I loved more than I hated myself. I wonder how many families lost someone because in their shock of finding out they were TG they rejected someone they actually loved very much. More tragedy on top of an awful tragedy.
When you truly accept yourself I think you can work on loving yourself again, but we are mirrors of society at large.
To finish or not to finish
Thanks girls, you have helped me make some sort of decision about the final chapter.
It does need "tuning up" more editorial input but I have started the work and expect to finish in a few days. I am thinking that the intro should contain a clear warning and may be some reasoning behind the chapter. It was the fear of uncontrolled thoughts that first brought me out of the closet and into a counselling practice. Since then the thoughts have been largely balanced or more like "why should I give in to the mongrels that treated me so badly?"
I appreciate all of your comments and understand that many are still hurting each day. This is a journey of many steps, some forward and some backwards but we must choose to continue to walk.
Walk with peace in your mind.
Kerry