This is graphic. You have been warned.
When I was young, a boy I grew up with (my babysitters son, a couple of years my junior) poured gasoline into their second story bathtub and set himself on fire. As a result of this he set the house on fire too, and when the firefighters scrambled into the house to put out the blaze, they discovered what had happened. Nobody knew what caused the fire until the firefighters blasted in with their hoses.
They found gouges from his fingers scratched in the tile. He was still barely alive when they got him outside, but all of his veins had completely cauterized and they could do nothing to save him. He died minutes later.
He was 14 years old. He left a note to his parents, and another to a girl. We were told that the police withheld the note to the girl, because they feared it would cause her too much damage, as he named her as the reason he killed himself.
She was not to blame.
Was he?
How can a 14 year old child comprehend the gravity of such a decision? Was his mental illness a chemical imbalance in his brain? This was in the early 90's. His parents never detected anything remotely wrong with him leading up to that moment.
Were they to blame? No.
My great uncle, a WW2 Navy Man and career firefighter developed emphysema in his 70's-- this strong, proud man rapidly deteriorated to the point he could not stand without suffocating unless he used an oxygen tank.
He took a .38 out to their shed and took his life when his wife of a half-century was gone to the store for groceries. He left a note expressing his eternal love for her, and his determination to release her from the burden of his terminal decline.
Who was to blame?
I have been, in my earlier life, frighteningly explicit in my musings on suicide. I was at a place I can not talk about in detail, but to say that I look back to that time and know it was closer than I would ever share to anyone. With one more beer one of those nights, or one stray thought... I could have been dead for over 20 years now,
The path through that darkness can hold no reason-- friendships carry no weight. There is no family support that will bear that burden for you. It is a storm within your soul, and it can only be weathered alone-- because that is what puts you there. In a crowd of millions, you are still alone in those times.
Asante, you did what you should do for your friend-- what we should all do for someone that is in crisis-- but it will be her decision. I pray she chooses to live, because the past 20+ years of my life have been the best so far. I have still had dark days, but I have passed the darkest. I will never contemplate that course again, because I know where that door goes, and I love life so much more having it on my map.
It's a marvel that we can reason it out so easily-- us bystanders-- why doesn't she pack up and move to Oregon?-- or Lousiana?. Change her whole life and set and setting could follow!
She has to want to. That's always the hardest sell. Yourself.
And in the off chance she is not sincere in her desperation, and she is using it as a tool to drive emotional connection with people? She's still mentally ill. She knows how broken she is-- if she uses such horrors for attention. She must reckon with her life as it is, and choose to live it in a way that she can love again.
Blame, in all the cases I've touched on, is irrelevant. The spectrum of "cause" is wide and unique to the individual. The choice is not yours--as others have said. You have been, and are there for her. That's what counts for you. Hopefully it will count for her, too. But if you discover the worst someday, you must know that the path she was on started the day she was born, and be at peace with it.
-------------------- I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination-- John Keats Spore Trading List
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