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| This post does not speak flippantly or use vulgar terms or graphic descriptions. It does, however, touch on an extremely sensitive subject and employs strong opinions while discussing it, although this is done with an attempt to be sensitive to people who have been hurt by, or are contemplating suicide. Choose whether to read based on how you know you will react. |
Someone I actually sort-of-knew recently died. They were a couple of years younger, and had moved away in the middle of high school, but I'd interacted with them enough that of all the people who have died in my age group from my county, this was the first time it was someone who I'd spent any length of time talking to.
Whereas it appears to have been a drug overdose of some kind, it is unclear whether it was suicide or accidental. When I initially heard about it, the rumors favored suicide, and that's what provoked me to think about the subject. What follows are my thoughts to a friend over text one evening, followed by some further thoughts in response to statements they made in reply.
This is probably going to be very different from anything you've ever read before on the subject, because I don't treat the person who commits suicide as a sympathetic victim. I advise you to think about that before you begin, and while I encourage you to consider my view, I also don't want to unnecessarily offend people who are by nature sensitive and have a hard time dealing with heavy issues in a very straightforward manner. So this is my best effort not to be ham-fisted in how I write. Thanks for reading this before beginning the post proper.
Alert: Read the above introduction before proceeding to digest the body of the post.
