AMERICAN SUICIDE

Let me be as blunt as I can be about who I am for my own sake:

I am a white man born, raised, and living in Richmond, Virginia and I am unwell.

That’s not a lot of detail on a first read. A reader, especially after the way I open that sentence, may be thinking “Yeah, so? You think you’re special?”

No. I have thought I was special in the past. To be embarrassingly blunt, I thought I was God’s Gift to Humanity in the past and I moved through the world as such.

I was wrong. I didn’t learn that on my own.

Thankfully, time and again, friends who I did not feel at the time were my friends have told me, “You’re not special. You’re definitely not God’s Gift to Man…” and those words hurt me. A lot. At first.

But because I knew deep down that these were human beings telling me these things—human beings just like me who, scientifically speaking (and more specifically biologically, chemically, and therefore psychologically speaking) are fundamentally the same as me—I knew I should probably at least hear them even if I wasn’t ready to listen to them.

In hearing them and then finally truly listening, people I thought were not my friends turned out to be my truest friends. These people came to me—another Human Being—and said—to my face—“You’re not special. You’re not God’s Gift to Man.”

They did the hard work of trying to help me. Now I had to do the hard work of listening. They said, “You’re not special.” They didn’t say, “We’re not special.”

I found this out because, like I said, I heard them. I kept their words with me and let them, at first painfully and then gradually more joyfully, change my insides while I considered them.

Let me unpack that further, because there’s more uncomfortable contemplating to be done yet. Trust me, these words are no easier to write than they are to read, then reread, then reread and rewrite, then reread and rewrite again:

Whether we like it or not, we are all human animals limited by human consciousness and all the logical flaws, biases, and feelings that come with that. Based on what little I know, I feel I can say most people struggle with being human. Being Human.

Let me think about that a bit more.

I am a white man living in Richmond Virginia in 2020 and I am saying aloud to the world, “I find it fairly difficult to be a human being.”

Now let me think even more.

“I am a White Man living debt-free in Richmond, Virginia in 2020 who eats well, drinks plenty of water, walks, runs, stretches, climbs, dances, reads, makes love, makes about $50,000 a year, has insurance, and lives in a beautiful home with a woman he loves and a dog he considers his soulmate with a backyard shaded by a 200 year old red oak. This individual finds it difficult to Be a Human Being.”

I can only begin to imagine what life is like for my less fortunate neighbors, but I must try. I now consider it my duty and the purpose of this project. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Because I am a human who feels profound, real sadness despite owning or otherwise having access to everything he believes he needs to live happily and healthily in America, I believe there’s something else at work here. Something unseen and sinister.

Because of this belief, I struggle with clinical depression, substance abuse, and anxiety.

My natural state can be summarized by a puppy who just found out about peanut butter.

Why is it I feel so haunted? Why is it I feel so ashamed of my self all the time? Why am I so afraid?

Why in the past have I contemplated suicide?

Well, unfortunately, suicide is a thought that naturally occurs to people all over this planet and for some of my more unfortunate neighbors it haunts them every day. I don’t mean to belittle their struggle in any way by imperfectly sharing my experience with suicidal ideation. The ultimate goal of this project is catharsis.

I believe it’s important for me to be blunt with myself and lean into discomfort for the thought process detailed in this essay to work its magic on me.

That being said, my thought process on suicide is different from my neighbors’ experiences with suicide because my experience with it is the direct result of my being A White Man Born, Raised, and Living in Richmond, Virginia Who Formerly Thought, and May Very Well Still Believe, He Was and Is God’s Gift to Man.

Everyone’s struggle is unique to them and just because I feel pain doesn’t mean anyone else feels any more or less pain. Unfortunately, me thinking about things does not affect other people’s lives, though I wish I could wish. Really “wish” for catharsis for my neighbors and have that “wish” be granted by some unseen force or higher power.

However, wishing doesn’t work. Praying definitely doesn’t work. Not on its own, anyway. But maybe if I do what Thomas Merton did and take the small action of sequestering myself with my thoughts, I can channel whatever God is and finally finish these thoughts and maybe in doing so, help someone other than myself. All that being said, here is my experience with suicidal ideation:

One August day a few years ago a man I loved very much died from suicide. He was a man known for bringing joy to the world through his very being. How could we have lost a man like him to suicide? How could this have happened? I felt hopeless. I felt, if this man lived the life he did and brought so much joy and was still taken by mental illness, what hope did I have?

Suffice to say, it triggered my clinical depression and sent me into a deep spiral of self-loathing. I slipped my belt off, ran the business end around the stalk of my ceiling fan, tucked it back through the buckle, tightened it and tested my weight on it and really, literally, leaned into the thought.

This man I loved had hung himself, and in my pain over losing him, I wanted to go where he went and feel what he felt. As I heard the fan creaking and aching against its fastenings, I began to feel fear and knew I wasn’t lost to the world yet. I felt I may still be of some use to my fellow man if I can tap into the reservoir of love that motivated me to deadly empathy. If my love for my neighbor can make me think about killing myself, I may still be able to help.

Because I don’t want to needlessly lose any more neighbors, and now that I realize I’m at peace with giving my life to my neighbors, I think I’m going to try.

Notice I didn’t say “dying” for my neighbors. Because like I said, I really don’t want any more neighbors dead, and I definitely don’t want to die now if I think I can be more use to others while I’m alive. But if it happens, oh well. Someone else will do this work eventually. That’s what my forefathers didn’t understand. They avoided the uncomfortable self-discovery required to cope with ignorance. It may have been harder for them, I’m not sure. It’s not for me to judge. They’re dead. They’re already judged if there’s any real cosmic justice out there. I don’t care about them. I care about the people I’m living with right now. That’s presence. And that’s the first step to love, I think. Sometimes, I think presence is love, that all love is just sustained attention. By that definition, I’ve been giving far too little love to myself and others.

Eventually, after I thought about this enough, I found the differentiation between self-love and love for others is false for me. Within me, my love feels as though it comes from the same well somewhere in my stomach. I think that’s because love means effort to the human body, and so loving naturally makes me unconsciously engage my eating zone. Which is the unscientific name I use for my digestive tract. That might be wrong, but it’s the story I tell myself. I love people and when I love I get hungry because love is work. I think the stories we tell ourselves matter, and it’s okay if they’re silly as long as they do no harm to me or others.

And I lead that last bit with “do no harm to me” because I can’t care for others if I don’t care for myself first, and I don’t love me yet. I’m coming to realize that I may be in love with the vision of this work and who I could be after it’s completed and maybe in striving to get there I’ll be able to save others some work on their own paths to self love.

But I’m getting distracted. The point is, I’ve contemplated suicide because I find it especially difficult to try to maintain my humanity and the pain of that realization makes me feel as though I’m moving through the world incorrectly and therefore causing untold amounts of undue pain and hampering the progress that I hope for so fervently in the core of my being but have, until now, done little to nothing about.

Hanging from my belt and hearing my ceiling fan strain against its fastenings, against these thoughts, I felt the way I moved through the world was blind and confused and dumb and the only responsible thing I could do for humanity at that point was bow out. I felt The Pain of Being in Reality was too great, and not only that, I was The Cause of Pain for so many others.

Because I was lucky enough to think fast enough that day and not lose my life to suicidal thinking I realized I may have the mental processes to help others think faster and not die.

I think this thought saved me not just from personal suicide, but may be able to save us from national suicide. American Suicide. Which is the road I believe my white forefathers refused to divert from and the road the we are currently marching down in hopes of finding another opportunity. Another fork in the road. We’ve missed plenty of chances, and thanks to the tireless work of the Black Community, we’ve taken a few course corrections, but we’re still heading for national suicide in my mind because White America is still learning to love themselves and by extension their neighbors and that’s dangerous when White America are the ones in power making all the decisions for their neighbors.

I don’t know about you, my dear reader, but I wouldn’t trust a stranger who doesn’t love my dog to buy his dog food, so why are we trusting people who haven’t learned to love us lead us?

Maybe 400 years of slavery tends to make people lie to one another. I know it makes them lie to themselves, because lying to myself is all I’ve been doing for the past 26 years.

Luckily, I was also telling the truth to myself by listening to Ta Nahesi Coates, James Baldwin, August Wilson, Killer Mike, Claudia Rankine, Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medgar Evars, Mr. Chancelor Bennett, and so many more who gave me thoughts I began to horde in my mind like treasures. Because that’s what they are. The works of Black America are treasures.

And this pile of treasured thoughts were, I believe, the thoughts that saved me. In some twist of fate, I think my white forefathers created a world where any naturally occurring human being would feel despair, then they lied to those naturally occurring human beings about their feelings of despair while black thinkers and writers did the hard work of trying to remind us all that love is our natural state.

They did and still do this not only with their words, but with their actions. Love drove and still drives Black America to organize, to march, to live and die with one another, and write it down to preserve the memory of those countless thousands who’ve been taken from us by White America.

Love motivated these leaders to say, “If not me, then who?” and face up with America in an attempt to save us from a terrible, final National Suicide. Even though America was paid for with black bodies and black lives, Black America sought and still strives to save us all. That’s love. That’s selflessness.

So let me say it again, maybe it will hit different now:

In my limited experiences, White America has yet to learn to truly love themselves and they certainly have yet to love their neighbors.

That can be an overwhelming thought, I know. The implications that we are still suffering from slavery can be overwhelming for White America. The thought that White America has yet to learn to truly love is nearly unacceptable.

Simply said, I think it’s because some White Americans (like I have in the past) believe we’ve “solved” slavery. We have not. It will never be “solved” because it was a crime so deep and profoundly inhuman that it scarred everything and everyone it touched. All we can hope to do is remember our shame and honor those we thoughtlessly destroyed and when we’re finally, truly on the road to healing maybe we can begin to work toward an America that is truly equal and equitable.

White America wants the consequences of slavery to be over because it hurts their feelings. Black America wants it to be over because it hurts their bodies. That’s the unfortunate truth.

I may be wrong. Lord knows I’ve been wrong before. These thoughts require focus, effort, and a will that I have before now reserved only for the purpose of propelling me toward personal profit and when I occasionally resurface from my pursuit of personal financial profit and social position (which basically translates to “power”) I realize I am failing to be human. Being and feeling truly Human isn’t about Power. I think it’s about Love.

Smarter people than me have done the hard word of watching others move through the world in an attempt to uncover what I like to call, “hiccups in the human thinking process.” Some of those smarter people are doctors who spent their time healing others, some are writers who spent their lives delighting us with their stories, some are just people who like to push a cart of cat food around the neighborhood to feed the strays in the alleyway. All these people, in their ways, showed me my own hiccups of humanity.

These people who I did not yet like, but still loved, said to me, “You’re not God’s Gift to Humanity.” And they’re absolutely right. We’re God’s gifts. All of us.

So now, thanks to those people, I not only love but also like and, more than that, admire. I feel, at times, as though I’ve tapped a reservoir of endless energy.

Already since beginning this contemplation, I’ve noticed I sleep better, wake up earlier, run faster, dance looser, and generally feel better. And now that I feel better, I feel I can commit to act. To “spread the Good News” so to speak:

Hope is alive in America, because hope lives in me and I know I’m not alone. So here’s my commitment to you, my dear sweet reader and neighbor:

As long as I’m wearing my belt, I hope it may help me save others with the lesson it represents: I’m not God’s Gift to Humanity, We are All God’s Gifts to Ourselves and Each Other, and if I need presence or presents I must only reach out to one of my fellow Gifts, just as I hope they know they can reach out to me.

No matter where I am, if you can find me or reach out to me or sit down with me, I promise you I will be present with you until I’m taken from this Earth. Below these words is a picture of what I look like. If you see me in the street and need presence and love, I’ve got more than a little to spare.

Again, I’m just one white man born, raised, and living in Richmond, Virginia and I am unwell. But I think you, dear reader, can help me be better. Even if you’re just me rereading this essay later. You can help me be better because you are me. I think you can help us all be better. You can’t make me be better, because I’m stubborn. Okay, forget the “better” part of that hope. Maybe you can help me simply get to “being.”