These Sad Black Swans
I see where two more souls have added themselves to the appalling tally of suicided young folk in Bridgend, Wales.
The grim count has been going on for over a year: healthy, apparently happy kids in this little corner of Cymry killing themselves out of, again apparently, nowhere.
Except it isn't out of nowhere, really, or maybe not, anyway. The horrifying thinking is that it's all copycat suicides, fed by the websites Facebook and Bebo, which romanticize it by "memorial" pages. Friends or acquaintances post their grief, or envy, or whatever it is, then go home and hang themselves to show support. Or something.
I find this both numbingly sad and incandescently outraging. I want to hug these kids till they squeak, so that they know they're not alone, and at the same time I long to slap them silly so they know how incredibly stupid and unbelievably selfish they are being.
There's no peace or surcease in suicide, kids. You only get yourself into more, and different, trouble than you do if you stay here and tough it out. And IT WILL GET BETTER. I swear. If you want it to. I won't say it won't hurt, fighting through. Because it will. A lot. And nor will I say it isn't incredibly hard, again because it is.
But it can be done. You can do it.
We all know something of the pain and despair that can cause someone, especially a young someone, to want to kill themselves. It hurts. Whatever it is, it hurts unbearably. But it's not romantic and it's nothing special and it certainly is not cool. It just is. But also it won't last forever. And the real waste and shame and, yes, sin is to believe it WILL last forever and to act accordingly.
I'm no counselor. I'm not trained as one and I don't see my role as being one. But if I can say something, so much as a single word, to be as a tiny pebble in the path to turn someone's course away from this yawning cliff, then please hear it. Once you're gone, you're gone. And you may end up somewhere you really would rather not be.
So, you know, don't. Please. No more.
The roll of the dead:
2007
Dale Crole, 18, hanged Jan 5
David Dilling, 19, hanged Feb 18
Thomas Davies, 20, hanged Feb 25
Allyn Price, 21, hanged April
James Knight, 26, hanged May 17
Leigh Jenkins, 22, hanged June 3
Zachery Barnes, 17, hanged Aug 11
Jason Williams, 21, hanged Aug 23
Andrew O'Neill, 19, hanged Sept 19
Luke Goodridge, 20, hanged Nov
Liam Clarke, 20, hanged Dec 27
2008
Gareth Morgan, 27, hanged Jan
Natasha Randall, 17, hanged Jan 17
Angeline Fuller, 18, hanged Feb 4
Nathaniel Pritchard, 15, hanged Feb 13
Kelly Stephenson, 20, Nathaniel's cousin, hanged Feb 13
The grim count has been going on for over a year: healthy, apparently happy kids in this little corner of Cymry killing themselves out of, again apparently, nowhere.
Except it isn't out of nowhere, really, or maybe not, anyway. The horrifying thinking is that it's all copycat suicides, fed by the websites Facebook and Bebo, which romanticize it by "memorial" pages. Friends or acquaintances post their grief, or envy, or whatever it is, then go home and hang themselves to show support. Or something.
I find this both numbingly sad and incandescently outraging. I want to hug these kids till they squeak, so that they know they're not alone, and at the same time I long to slap them silly so they know how incredibly stupid and unbelievably selfish they are being.
There's no peace or surcease in suicide, kids. You only get yourself into more, and different, trouble than you do if you stay here and tough it out. And IT WILL GET BETTER. I swear. If you want it to. I won't say it won't hurt, fighting through. Because it will. A lot. And nor will I say it isn't incredibly hard, again because it is.
But it can be done. You can do it.
We all know something of the pain and despair that can cause someone, especially a young someone, to want to kill themselves. It hurts. Whatever it is, it hurts unbearably. But it's not romantic and it's nothing special and it certainly is not cool. It just is. But also it won't last forever. And the real waste and shame and, yes, sin is to believe it WILL last forever and to act accordingly.
I'm no counselor. I'm not trained as one and I don't see my role as being one. But if I can say something, so much as a single word, to be as a tiny pebble in the path to turn someone's course away from this yawning cliff, then please hear it. Once you're gone, you're gone. And you may end up somewhere you really would rather not be.
So, you know, don't. Please. No more.
The roll of the dead:
2007
Dale Crole, 18, hanged Jan 5
David Dilling, 19, hanged Feb 18
Thomas Davies, 20, hanged Feb 25
Allyn Price, 21, hanged April
James Knight, 26, hanged May 17
Leigh Jenkins, 22, hanged June 3
Zachery Barnes, 17, hanged Aug 11
Jason Williams, 21, hanged Aug 23
Andrew O'Neill, 19, hanged Sept 19
Luke Goodridge, 20, hanged Nov
Liam Clarke, 20, hanged Dec 27
2008
Gareth Morgan, 27, hanged Jan
Natasha Randall, 17, hanged Jan 17
Angeline Fuller, 18, hanged Feb 4
Nathaniel Pritchard, 15, hanged Feb 13
Kelly Stephenson, 20, Nathaniel's cousin, hanged Feb 13
posted by Patricia Kennealy Morrison | 12:07 AM
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