SUICIDE - okey or not?

This post is written in English - in my Swedish blogg! So, in order to be able to read it you have to click on ORIGINAL LANGUAGE!

Otherwise this text will bli translated into some kind of uncomprehendable rubbish.

I’m now going to write two posts in English: 1. because the translation machine doesn’t work well enough
2. Because this topic is a very important and global one. I like to discuss taboos.  ALL kind of problems must be taken up into the light and discussed so that we can develop a higher consciousness about this social problem that is buried under layers and layers of fear, shame, guilt, hatred and condemnation. Some questions I ask myself are:

1.  Why are there so big differences between countries when it comes to this problem? Some countries have a very high suicide rate and some very low. Why?

 2.  Who has the responsibility for a suicide – only the individual or perhaps also the environment?

3.  In what extent are we allowed to play God and keep people who partly already are dead or in coma tied up to a machinse that doesn’t allow their spirit to leave the body?

 4.  Why should a person who is in deep suffering, without any hope whatsoever that things will change for the better, just remain in her suffering if there is an alternative? Does she have the right to end the suffering. If not – how come?

Let’s start with the first question. Some statistics are useful here since they make you think and perhaps find some answers. We can’t trust this figures too much, especially when it comes to dictatorships, but it’s better than nothing I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

Let’s start with Sweden, since that’s where I live and was born. Sweden has the reputation among Americans to be the country where people love to take their own lives. Well, according to the statistics we are number 35 on the ranking list. The USA: nr 36, that is not much better, is it? Well, why are Swedes suicidal?

Many young people here don’t see any future. The unemployment rate is huge: 30 % among young people (up to 26). It is very common that young girls cut themselves with racer blades, burn themselves with cigarettes and take overdoses. So, what happens if they seek help for this?  They will be treated like criminals by the healthcare, told off and in different ways punished for it – locked up in a hospital or a prison for mentally ill criminals. But they will not get the change to talk things over with a shrink – unless they have rich parent who can pay for a private shrink.

60 % of singles older than 65 use pills and alcohol in order to survive their isolation. The children might live far away and here the families don’t take responsibility for each other more that in rare cases. No brother would pay the bills for his sick sister who has lost her sick leave because the government nowadays says that everybody is healthy enough to work again if they have been home during one year and a half. 

These new rules have lead to several suicides. In an English paper I read that a Swedish woman who killed herself when she lost her benefits must have done it for mental reasons since she had two grown up sons who could support her. They writer didn’t understand that a Swedish child would never support his old, sick mother. We are atheistic, individualist and everybody is left on her own.
Now that the welfare system we once had has fallen apart, people die because the culture is built on a socialistic basis and it will take decades for people to realize that the in common welfare is gone and that we now, within what’s left of the families, must take a responsibility similar to what existed a hundred years ago. The development here is similar to the one in Russia.

The cold climate makes it hard to get in contact with other people. Fellowship is usually built on activities of different kinds, which exclude people like me to take part of it. You can’t visit  a pub or a bar to have a chat with the locals. Pubs are often closed, except for the weekend, and if you are older that 40 they will laugh at you. The pubs are like brothels, where men go to find a one night stand. Real prostitution is forbidden. 
To find someone to talk to, in this not hospitable country, is hard. There are few natural venues.

At the top of the ranking list there are countries with little or no democracy, some also with cold climate, which in combination with poverty is a disaster. Warm weather promotes contact between people and it’s easier to survive.

The lowest suicide rate is on Haiti, from 2003. Did they have trust wordy statistics there? Well, before the earthquake I guess it was kind of a paradise to live there? Islands with sand beeches and palm trees – that’s for many of us just a dream. There are several sunny islands that show a low suicide rate. Perhaps they can live a more natural life than most of us? But as we know many of the islands are taken over by the see gradually, or earthquakes…

I lived in the Netherlands for a while, 8 years ago, when I was exhausted by my attempts to help homeless abusers that couldn’t get any real help from the community. I hade read about the Dutch methods to solve social problems. I needed a vacation from a country that suffers from severe denial when it comes to these matters. In NL (ranking 51) I spent a lot of time in the pubs talking to people who had normal problems, like with relationships for example. Those could come up at a few occasions but the Swedes constant complaining about society, politicians, the numerous immigrants, the fading away welfare and the terrible weather, I was delivered from.  I didn’t live in an atmosphere of constant bitterness and suppressed wrath there. Friendships and responsibility for friends and family was taken much more seriously there than I had seen in Sweden.

My new friends did drink some bears every day, but not so much that they got drunk. They made everyone relax and together we felt joyful because we had each other, a fellowship with low demands and higher acceptance than at home. We made jokes and laughed a lot. The local pub was always open and there was usually someone to talk to, which of course is a way to diminish the loneliness that often triggers suicide.

I do understand that the suicide rate is lower in Holland. Nobody has to fear an extremely painful and slow death, since persons who are so sick that there is nothing more to life that to wait for a painful death, have the right to Euthanasia. If this assisted “suicide” is included in the figures I don’t know.
Before my last “war” started – against cancer this time - I had emigration plans. I was reading about Malta. My joints need warmth. My soul needs company and in southern Europe people usually sit out in bars and talk half the night when it’s cooler. Warmth make people talk more and in Malta most people speak English. Dutch I couldn’t learn! In the ranking list I saw that the amount of suicides was four times lower that in Sweden!!!

SUICIDE AND RELIGION

Sweden is the most atheistic country in the world which of course promotes suicide. If you think the body AND the soul/spirit cease to exist it’s easier to kill yourself then if you are a Maltese Catholic that believes in heaven, purgatory and hell. “Where will I go if I do what the Bible forbids?” That is a thought that might stop many from doing it.

India, known for it’s extreme poverty is ranked 44, lower than many rich countries. Why?  Indians often believe in reincarnation and that the life I live right now determines what the next life will be like. So I’d better live for developing my spirituality, ability to love and to do what’s right. I don’t want to come back to a life that’s even worse than this, I want to go higher. Such thoughts also are preventive. 

Muslims I’m sure have the same fear for hell as Christians. But as we know they might blow themselves up in order to defeat the enemy and come to heaven that way. These teachings can be used by those who are looking for suitable, suicide bombers. That’s really tragic. I met one man from Tunisia that left for this reason, he wanted to avoid being killed this way. He was traumatised and later on he tried to commit suicide, but this dragged me, who was praying for him, into a miracle. My spirit somehow suddenly was with him in the waters where he was drowning and called out to God to save his life – and he did. My body was in my bed, awoken by all the splashing and gurgling sounds from the waters in the Mediterranean see, where he was.

More reflections (2-4) follow in the next post. If this was readable it’s nice if you write me and say so. Klick on “kommentarer”.