Yucky Topics Festival items: suicide

(This post has been composed quite some time in advance of the scheduled publication date and may or may not reflect RantWoman's state of mind as of the posting date. Okay? Writing about something? Okay? just writing about? really, okay?)

RantWoman, do you ever think about suicide?

Who hasn't?

But....

Look, okay, RantWoman has read a ton of suicide prevention literature and will be titrating content accordingly. RantWoman endured one emotional roller coaster that ended in multiple attempts and then a gunshot suicide. RantWoman also found herself on the fringes of someone's attempt to off themselves using only Tylenol, and months of emotional roller coaster after the attempt. Ultimately there was a premature death, but it was a horrible accident, not suicide. When RantWoman is poking at officially calling herself a writer, she also claims with the title license to go places in words she wants to underscore no intention of going in actions.

The two people above are some of the dead bodies who might have showed up in a RantWoman close of Annual Session worship message. The message was going to be about a year of weird anniversaries and Sudden Traumatic Death and people's hidden experiences and people's inability to think clearly either to ask questions or to offer help. This part of RantWoman's potential message rant so far has been consigned to the blogosphere. Hold its emergence elsewhere in the Light because so far some of the words coming related to Meeting Life are NOT gentle Quakerese.

So, um

Let me tell you about my building. My building is 7 stories tall. Some parts of the building, there is up to a 7-story drop, either from balconies or from window ledges. On my floor, there would be a 4-story drop. A time or two in the 8 years I have lived in my building, someone has flung themselves earthward and not survived. May they rest in peace.

Partly because of this, current building management maintains a strict "NOTHING on the balconies" policy. RantWoman considers this very unfortunate. Several summers RantWoman grew herbs and tomatoes in the glorious south exposure on the balcony across the hall.

Well, RantWoman's Chinese neighbors, RantWoman suspects, absconded with a basil plant but RantWoman forgave them outright: they have family come over every weekend and wonderful sounds and smells always fill the halls. So if a basil plant helps that happen, RantWoman is glad to contribute to the party.

As an aside, the Queen of Meow used to love to hop onto the railing and walk along it; the Queen of Spades only a handful of times has even figured how to jump up to the railing. Sigh.

The other thing RantWoman would like to do freely without trepidation: RantWoman's building has a "Do everything possible to prevent mold" policy. RantWoman from time to time MOPS HER FLOOR. Time to time sometimes means a LONG time in between. One reason: RantWoman would much prefer to dry her mop out on the balcony and prevent mold in the apartment. But for this to work best, RantWoman has to mop her floor on Friday night and dry the mop all weekend AND mark her mop a couple different ways with ownership and contact info and PLEASE DO NOT CONFISCATE indications. So RantWoman has only lost one mop and has managed to hold onto the current one for a decent while.

Okay, so...?

Enough housekeeping. Aside from impediments to doing the kinds of things one does to cut down on urges to fling themselves..., RantWoman has a time or two specifically gone downstairs to walk the breezeway or another longer route instead of just doing her morning stretches on the balcony. And RantWoman dumps this  dynamic into a simmering "How hard should I try to move? / Are there any themes I do NOT want accidentally to tip in the wrong direction?" calculus. Sigh.

Okay, is that all?

Awhile ago, someone RantWoman only knows from another person's faithfulness as a friend died in prison, convicted of murder. RantWoman would never mind being wrong about stuff like this but guessed the cause of death was suicide. RantWoman wrote a short Oh, no OW! HUGS email and called the next morning. RantWoman was grateful for the clarity to call.

Just cutting one's wrists is not an efficient way to commit suicide. Her Faithful friend said she had to pull all sorts of maneuvers in the prison library to do something that would work between the rounds of guard checks, count, etc. RantWoman is in awe of this person's desparation for release and commitment to getting there.

RantWoman had in mind only...   RantWoman thinks actually doing what RantWoman is thinking about would be GROSS. One of RantWoman's screens about getting more help would be if the thought stops seeming GROSS. RantWoman read a blog spost of someone's experience with... and really does not feel a need to go looking for more such blog posts. RantWoman also wonders if the appeal of ... is just creating something that hurts worse that whatever already hurts.

RantWoman, have you considered just getting some tatoos?
Ummmm.....

*********
In the spirit of Yucky Topics Festival, Resources:
Survivors of Suicide Support group at the Seattle Crisis Clinic
http://crisisclinic.org/find-help/survivors-of-suicide-support/
When RantWoman was visiting this resource, the support group RantWoman attended was facilitated by a brave social worker whose half-time job was reading all about suicide and facillitating suicide support groups.

Suicide Prevention:
If this had been around....
http://www.itgetsbetter.org/page/s/pledge?gclid=CPnXvf_M878CFRIcaQodMnwA2w
Lots of stuff in the search engine; just picked one link
http://www.suicidology.org/resources/nspw