On Suicide..

In the wake of two very public made suicides this week I am seeing a ton of posts that lend to the sentiment of "money, fame and success don't buy happiness."

As someone who is an advocate for "happiness" I think it's an important part of this puzzle we call life.. But I don't believe it is the defining factor on whether or not we stay or go.

Recently someone said to me "you're just a happy girl all the time" and I had to remind them that my happiness is a choice. One I have to consciously make every single day. One I have to remind myself to make. One that takes effort for me. Sure there are moments where there is no thoughts and it just comes naturally but in navigating this every day reality I work hard to Be who I want to be.

I was hit hard with Avicii's departure because I related SO deeply to his struggle. I felt it in his music long ago and I felt it when he left and his family said "Tim was a seeker, a fragile artistic soul searching for answers to existential questions.... He really struggled with thoughts about Meaning, Life, Happiness." - These words could easily be used to describe my life.

I thought about Kate Spade and what she created in this world.

I thought about Anthony Bourdain and the creative, writer and genius he was.

Both leaving behind children.

Of which so many assume is enough to make someone want to stay. Which I find to be such an ignorant assumption. If you have not struggled with depression OR existential crisis you cannot for a second fathom that just because someone loves or needs you that is enough to make this life worth living. It's so much fucking deeper than that.

Sometimes.. it's not about the god damn happiness.

Sometimes it's like drowning in a mind of thoughts you can't slow down.

It's sitting smack dab in the center of your bliss and STILL wondering, what the fuck is the meaning of all of this?

It's like knowing the answers to questions no one has dared to ask yet and feeling ahead of your time and yet, centuries behind.

It's like feeling all of the peace, love and happiness in your heart and then looking out on a world full of violence, ignorance and harm and struggling to make sense or co-exist with it all.

Its not always about being in the darkness.. but being so full of god damned light that you almost can't stand another second of being in your own presence.

It's like knowing your God like power and still feeling so oppressed as a human.

Maybe, the money and fame and success is what kept them here longer. Maybe actually living out some sort of momentary purpose was what helped them live as long as they did instead of pulling the (proverbial) trigger at 18 like so many have.

And why do we think we get to decide there is something wrong with suicide? Why do we get to decide that it's not the answer but old age, or some other universal or internal force that takes us out when it's "our time" IS the answer?

We don't know. We never know if someone has decided this life and all of it's ups and downs are too much, we don't know if the last heartbreak was the last straw in a lifetime of feeling rejected and abandoned because one of their parents left when they were just a kid and they never really healed from it, we don't know even amongst all of the beauty and love and bliss on this planet they could not connect to their own internal equivalent. We don't know that an unconscious trauma hiding deep in the crevices of their psyche unleashed it's fury in an unexpected moment and the pain and memories were too overwhelming to come to terms with, we don't know if having that child was ever their dream or destiny and maybe felt more of a burden than anything. We don't know and we cannot assume that money or fame or happiness had anything more or less to do with it. We don't know if hormonal or chemical or energetic imbalances plagued their brain and body for so long that eventually they did the only thing that felt like relief in a final moment of despair after trying too long to just "stay strong".

We just don't know.

And we don't get to assume.

We cannot assume that someone was so sad, so depressed, so unhappy, so unfulfilled that suicide was the only option.

Sometimes the most creative genius minds know too much and don't always know how to assimilate themselves in a world that's still two third's asleep.

Sometimes there is just a pain so deep that even amongst the happiness they don't know how to manage it.

And for the record, I don't believe suicide is selfish and if you believe someone needs to stay for you or their loved ones then you're the one being selfish.

The meaning of this life is what we give it.
The purpose of this life is how we live it.
The happiness in this life is our own interpretation of it.