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I have yet to post here, although some of you may remember that a couple of years ago, my roommate took his own life.
I still vividly remember all of it as if it were yesterday, all the anger, all the sadness, all the questions that would never be answered. And yet, looking back on it, selfishness doesn't quite seem the right word. Helplessness seems more accurate.
Granted, I honestly don't know what he was thinking and won't profess to. What I do know is that he had a 9-year-old daughter that he absolutely adored. That much I know for certain. And I honestly believe that his feeling that nothing was ever going to get better was so strong that it even outweighed his knowing that his death would devastate her. I often wonder if he truly thought that his absence would be less hard on her than if he stuck around. His life was spiraling downward quickly and I think he was just completely overwhelmed by the circumstances.
And I suppose that my point is, it's very easy to feel anger towards people that end their own life. Not so easy to recognize that, in most cases, their mind's chemistry has led them to believe that this is the only solution. And to subscribe that to selfishness only really works if they are, in fact, in their right mind to begin with - which most of them aren't. It is asking someone who has lost the capability for rational thought to act rationally, and that often isn't possible.
In my particular case, the anger eventually faded away, only to be replaced by profound sadness. He was a good person, a loving father, a friend to many. He just lost his ability to recognize that in himself. He lost the ability to seek out rational solutions. He lost the ability see things as they really were. And I just can't hold any anger towards someone because they lose their ability to cope.
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