A Dark Topic that needs more Light

First, let me start by thanking those who periodically come back to check my site.  I have bought the domain name of http://www.willsamuel.ca/ (finally), but it has not been implemented yet.  When it is up and running I will redirect this site to that address.  Additionally, if you look at my portfolio link, I will be working on that this week after I finish a few key projects.

Now, with a heavy heart, I feel the need to write on a rather dark topic: suicide.

This past Friday (Nov 12), Daron Richardson, daughter of Senators assistant coach Luc Richardson, attempted to take her own life.  The 14 year old Ashbury College student died of her injuries later in hospital and sparked the local debate about suicide.  A sad coincidence that CTV Ottawa also began their three part series on this troubling topic and I started thinking back to my youth.

Although I have never been one to think of self-destruction as a means to an end, my journal from when I was a teenager could possibly read otherwise.  However, I have been both witness and mourner to two suicide attempts in the past.  When I was no older than eighteen, I intervened on a suicide attempt in the home I was staying at.  My journal is a mess of memory and reflection of finding my roommate in the bathtub with her wrists slit.  Thinking back on it I still feel anxious and unsure of what I should or should not say on the matter.  What I do know is that she exhibited no warning signs to the people she lived with short of wanting her personal space.  She was the first … and I saved her.  She hated me for it then and today I do not know what she thinks or even if she tried again.

The second was the most profound experience in my life.  It has a lot to do with why I moved to Ottawa, why I cut myself off from everyone in Belleville for so long and not a day goes by I do not think about it.  I knew Chris since I was a young boy and we kept running into one another as we grew up, but fate would have it that we would also be roommates during his darkest hours.

Chris McGuire was born in January 1977, five months before I was.  He was a bright, articulate and fun loving kid.  When his mother passed away, Chris was a young boy and he often spoke about how that influenced his life.  When I truly grew to know Chris we were both in our late teens.  We would sit around and smoke cigarettes, listen to Rush or to his latest lyrics and beats for his band, Fusion (back in the late 90s, Belleville had a budding music scene and Fusion was our favourite power trio).  Everything, on the outside, looked up for Chris.  However, those close to him, knew his darker thoughts.

His music was often a window into his ideas of death, but only those he was truly close with understood he had serious intentions.  I cannot count the number of times that his girlfriend, Star, or I, or our mutual friend Mike would have to find Chris and make sure he was OK.  It is a sickening feeling being a teenager and trying to cope with someone who sincerely wants to end their own life.  What sort of advice would you give to a teenager that was in our situation?  I had roomed with Chris and tried to keep myself close as a way to monitor him and “keep him happy”, but sadly on August 17, 1996, Chris took his life while I slept.

The morning of his death is the single most vivid memory I have of Chris next to my 19th birthday (Chris joined me at my mother’s and they had a long talk about death and loss as well).  I remember Star knocking on my door.  I remember the pit of my gut feeling that this has to be some sort of joke, a tragic and sick joke.  I remember walking over the bridge and seeing white sheets on the railroad tracks.  I do not remember the precise details of what was said to me by the police and people there, but I do remember feeling my heart shatter and I started to emotionally shut down.  It was the darkest time in my life and the angriest I had ever been; I would remain that angry for years to come.

When Chris took his own life I large chunk of me died with him.  He was my friend.  I tried as hard as I could to keep him happy, to watch him, to make sure he was safe, but when he died I blamed myself.  Not only did I blame myself then, I blamed myself for years to come.  I did not close that dark chapter until the spring of 2002 when I was able to visit his grave and tell him how I truly hurt.

Suicide has a profound impact.  It is much akin to taking a rock and throwing it in to a puddle of water.  Each wave crashing out from the center represents what could have been rippling into nothingness.  For me, when Chris died, a lot of my innocence died with him.  I shut down from long term relationships and friendships and became a jaded and untrusting person.  I sincerely believed I was the reason why he died and why others around me seemed to get hurt or pass on too.  I know now that he died because of immense anguish, personal pain and sorrow.  He did not have an outlet to express himself beyond his social circle and music.

Now, 14 years after Chris’s death, we are still struggling to provide youth with alternatives to suicide.  Whenever I hear of a suicide I feel an immediacy to react.  It is a very personal struggle for anyone who goes through the thoughts of killing themselves, but equally personal for those they leave behind.

If you are a young person and are feeling adrift and thinking of suicide, please reach out.  Your family is the first step, but if you feel as though they are not the option then please turn to the professionals.  Kids Help Phone (1-800-668-6868) is the first place you can turn to.  It’s free, confidential and there for you to use.  They will direct you to all of your resources. 

Know that you are not alone and that people care … even strangers.

W.