by Rosie E.
Once, while on a train, I met an old man with the brightest eyes I had ever seen. He began to talk to no one in particular. As people smiled and nodded or politely excused themselves, I listened intently to the thoughts that seemed to come stumbling out of his mouth.
The man spoke in detail about how he had just returned from his native Ireland where he spent the better part of three months in the town where he grew up. On the days leading up to the 25th anniversary of the death of his wife he contemplated suicide because he just wanted to see her face again. But on the day she died, he swore he saw her angel at the pub. He said that the trip had awakened him from his depression. He finally accepted the thing he could not change.
The man’s beautiful story deeply affected me. I was also suffering from thoughts of suicide and wanted desperately to gain some understanding of my existence. I thought, “There’s no point. Life is too hard to fight for. Maybe my death would give my life some consequence.” I was wrong.
Despite my reckless and self-destructive choices, I was fortunate enough to come into a new environment that saved me from that miserable state. The Family Foundation School has given me guidelines by which to live, and now I am a much more functional person.
What is disturbing, though, is that many media personalities advocate depression and bad behavior. Reality TV had a large impact on my negative choices.
There was a reality TV show a few years ago that featured a 19-year-old girl who cut herself. Although there were public service announcements following each episode urging cutters to seek help, I didn’t notice. I was mesmerized by the glamour of the girl’s situation.
I wanted my parents and peers to see that I wasn’t happy with the life I was living, and the girl on the TV certainly seemed to be getting the message across. But all my cutting did was allow me to indulge in the fantasy that things would change if people felt bad for me.
No one pitied me. They saw me as pathetic and cowardly.
By no means do I propose that those with serious self-mutilation problems are cowardly. I think, though, that the glorification of the practice is detrimental to vulnerable teenagers.
I can empathize with all those people, like the man on the train, who are not yet out of that dark state of mind. Depression affects 19 million Americans over the age of 18, while more than half of college students have considered suicide at some point in their lives.
It is imperative, though, that people take responsibility for their lives. It is possible to choose to live happily. According to the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention website, between 80 and 90 percent of people with depression respond positively to treatment. But medicine and talk-therapy isn’t the only way to get better.
I took a real spiritual inventory and saw that all I needed to do was ask for help. I could not have gotten healthier on my own. I needed a soul-searching to show me that I have a purpose.
My life is not always easy. I struggle every day with discouraging thoughts. But I have been given a lively spirit, full of creativity and femininity, full of life and joy and sorrow, full of thoughts and actions and words, which allows me to choose life over an early death.
