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  • Showing only topics with the tag "death". Back to normal view
    1. Winter poem

      A little pretext. I wrote this poem in november 2017, and I slightly improved it today. I enjoy creating stories and poems are a way that I did not try much before. I don't know much about it,...

      A little pretext. I wrote this poem in november 2017, and I slightly improved it today. I enjoy creating stories and poems are a way that I did not try much before. I don't know much about it, except the few things I learned in school and i can't remember most of it. Also english is my second language and there might be some words that don't fit in.
      The changes in lines and rythm are intended to match the story.
      If this does not meet the high-quality content and discussion and therefore doesn't fit in with ~, let me know and I will remove it.

      To stop my rambling: Feel free to leave criticism. I plan to make poetry my hobby so any tips, comments, feedback and thoughts are appreciated.

      Somewhere,
      deep in the wild
      Layed there,
      Cold a little child.
      
      It wasn't very long ago,
      The rotten did not show,
      All consuming deafening silence,
      Pierced only by crows crying violent.
      
      What happened here?
      She ran from fear.
      To escape the grasp,
      Of the ones she hold dear.
      
      One soul has passed before her,
      Taking with his life,
      The only thing she ever strived
      Her mother, father and her brother
      Two of these caused the disaster.
      
      It began with a fight,
      In a cold winter night,
      Snow falling lightly,
      And the ice growing wildly.
      
      Suddenly the moment
      when all seemed to fly
      Death was potent
      Coming in the blink of an eye.
      
      Crushed by the car's roof,
      Not needing any more proof.
      The little boy left,
      She cried over his death
      
      Sad things passed
      and bad will follow.
      To escape the sorrow
      Two chose their paths
      
      Alcohol in mornings and nights,
      Followed by overbearing fights,
      Inbetween this shit
      Was one little kid
      
      Treated like air,
      It was just not fair
      Her family's break,
      Was the last thing she could take
      
      She ran into the woods,
      Only on foot.
      Soon she lost her trail
      And soon after she wailed.
      
      In her last thoughts
      she met her god.
      Looked him deep in the eye
      And pierced him with a knive
      
      Somewhere,
      deep in the wild
      Layed there,
      Cold a little child.
      
      

      Edit: Formatting mistakes

      17 votes
    2. Suicide, and the way we talk about it

      Last night before bed, I was posting about some books that I really liked. One of them is called Stay: A History of Suicide & The Philosophies Against It. Another person noted that it sounded...

      Last night before bed, I was posting about some books that I really liked. One of them is called Stay: A History of Suicide & The Philosophies Against It. Another person noted that it sounded interesting, and I started to reply to that user. I got about a paragraph in before stepping back and thinking, "this isn't something I should write here," and deleting everything.

      This morning, I rolled over and checked my phone. Anthony Bourdain, died by suicide at 61.. This hurts. I loved Bourdain, his work for years was to broaden our cultural awareness and open us up to new worlds. He was, in many ways, a tangible Star Trek. His death will be mourned by thousands, and that he was taken by suicide will be considered by many, many, other people with suicidal thoughts.

      Suicide spreads as a contagion - it can be looked on almost epidemiologically. The way that we talk about suicide is... Telling. It's something that we try to avoid talking about, despite us almost all knowing someone who has died by suicide.

      I have worked in mental health for several years and in high acuity settings the past year. I work with people experiencing suicidal ideation every single day. It is often my job to talk around what I consider to be a monster that lives in our heads. To try and convince or guide people away from their monster and take the day for themselves. Some of the people I've worked with have ideation only, sometimes they have had as many as two dozen hospital-resulting attempts in their history. This work is stressful, it's draining. It's very meaningful, especially when change or at least the flash of change is present. It hurts, too, when it isn't enough.

      A big part of our education attempts is to be able to talk about the monster. It isn't easy for someone experiencing suicidal ideation to talk about it. There are fears that they will be seen as attention seeking - they are! It is a just thing to seek attention when you feel that you're losing the battle. There are fears that they won't be taken seriously - and often they are not. We minimize our problems to bad days or bad weeks or bad years. We say, "Just get over it," and sometimes people simply do not have the capacity to do it by themselves.

      We would never, ever, tell someone with a broken arm to get over it without treatment. We would never, ever, tell someone with a bone protruding from their leg that they were just looking for some attention. And yet, this is how we approach mental health.

      I have been suicidal myself, somewhere in the haze of depression that clung to me for about five years. Even as I write this, I feel the urge to minimize it and say, "but never to the severity of those I've worked with." Simultaneously minimizing my own experience and serving to stigmatize those that I serve. The monster's power lies in its language. The more we refuse to talk about it, the more we isolate, the more control it has.

      I went to counseling for sixteen weeks, and was only minimally invested. It took me another two years after having left counseling to start using the tools. A big part of my own ability to hold on was the book, Stay, because of its humanistic approach to prevention, one that does not rely on religion. An unfortunate thing about working in mental health is that I now understand what it is to plant a seed and not know if it will grow or not.

      Anyway, I wanted to write something about this when I saw the news this morning. One of the major themes of Stay is that suicide is theft not just from your friends and family, but from yourself. I have not felt suicidal or depressed for several years, and I can say that this theft would have been true. Except it doesn't include just my friends or family, but the people that I've interacted with and helped with similar thinking styles along the way.

      I encourage you, if you think a friend or colleague is struggling, ask the questions. "How are you feeling today?" You never know how this might help. Do you feel like someone you know might be suicidal? Ask the question. Asking someone if they are feeling suicidal is not a significant trigger that may cause them to commit - though this fear often stops us from asking. Consider, they live with the monster every day, how welcome it must be to have someone else recognize it?

      I will leave off with Hamlet's Soliloquy. I have never been huge on Shakespeare, lacking time to read. I read this as well in Stay, and now I listen to it frequently. I even had the opportunity to use it in a Group I lead the other day.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYZHb2xo0OI

      20 votes