Tis the season
when sadness looms, when despair overwhelms, when the light is literally gone or going, when life becomes filled with dark, cold, empty spaces.
When many of us retreat so far into ourselves that the corridor has closed behind us and we are stuck in a place with no door, no window, and no way out.
All we can see is the can'ts, wont's, don'ts.
We do not want anyone to know how far, how remote we've become. We pretend we're fine. We smile and make jokes when with others so they won't know how bad things are with us.
It's a time of year for joy and love. For literal warmth. For family huddling together in their caves until the world grows back into light and warmth of its own.
As happens when this season rolls around, there are many suicides and suicide attempts. Sometimes the mind collapses in on itself like a pile of so much rubble.
That Which Survives is buried, with pressure pressing all around. Pressing, pushing. compressing, making us smaller and more ineffective.
Recent suicides in my area have sprouted a lot of conversation on social media.
The messages are, or should be, hopeful, cheering, encouraging, optimistic.
For the most part, that is what they are --
to the ones not reduced to rubble in the dark places of their own souls.
Depression is a disease with many forms, many and varied symptoms, and a whole lot of unknowns. We, as a society, are finally acknowledging the disease aspect of this, and we even think we know how to help.
All the patient needs to do, is reach out, ask for help. Anyone can do that, right?
Well, no.
No one expects someone with a high fever and delirium to be walking around and talking sense.
No one expects the starving man or the thirsty child, so ill that any movement exhausts the energy in their muscles to the point of pain and unconsciousness, to get up off the floor and walk to the nearest kitchen and fix themselves. Shouting at a pneumonia patient to just breathe (or cough) is NOT going to make the air go in any easier or more effectively.
Yet this is exactly what you are asking of the lost souls buried in the dust, pebbles, rocks, bricks that are the rubble smothering and shredding them into components.
You ARE wonderful, opening yourself to the ill and offering to be their go-to when they need help. All they have to do is ask, or tell you of their need.
Their disease prevents them from doing so. It is a symptom.
They cannot ask.
They cannot reach.
It is not a matter of will.
It is not something they can do.
It is a symptom of their disease.
If you want to help, to prevent, to heal, YOU must be the one to watch for the symptoms, to reach out, to do the asking.
And it can be a helpless repetitive job.
You may not get answers.
You may get lies instead of truths.
You may be ignored and you will probably be shut out.
Darkness does not allow the admission of light, because when light enters, darkness is no more.
Look around you, at the people you live with, work with, deal with.
Are they being more quiet OR more noisy than is normal for them?
Are they preoccupied or often not occupied at all?
Are they just not themselves?
Ask them.
If they don't answer, or return generic answers -- "Just got a lot on my mind" or "it's been a tough time" or even "I'm tired; that's all. -- ask again.
Tell them you are here for them.
Then be there. Helping hand extended.
They cannot ask. The disease prevents that.
They may not be able to respond, and you are going to have to wield the shovel and shift the rubble. You are going to have to use an ice pick to bore a hole through a solid wall to let in the ray of light.
You will have to administer the treatment.
And they may fight you. Resist by non-response. That first beam of light can be painful to eyes that have too long endured the black blankness. Effective antibiotics can make an infection seem worse by declaring war on the invaders, who increase their numbers until the drug cuts off their reinforcements.
Do NOT say, they could've -- no, they couldn't. Their illness does not permit this.
Pay attention to behaviors, words, attitudes.
If YOU care, you must, must, must be the one to reach out.
