SUICIDE - part 2

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

I have been reflecting over the big differences between different countries when it comes to this topic. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that suicide or not is dependent on the society you live in: norms, religion, poverty, climate and culture.

Japan has had an attitude to suicide that was positive once. I’m thinking about hara-kiri. This was done in order to die with some honour left, instead of going on as a looser. Some suicides were good or even the norm. That's perhaps not the situation today but still the young people feel a tremendous preassure to be high achievers and if they fail they might kill themselves.

So, the individual can not be the only one to blame if we have to blame all these people who choose to die. Rather the whole society has to take on some responsibility for this. In America most people have a gun. And how good is that if someone gets an impulse to kill himself? This method is very quick and effective. Perhaps this is part of the reason for the large number of suicides?
Social problems need to be solved before we can judge. 

How people who try to kill themselves are treated have a big importance. In Sweden I wrote how they get punished instead of helped. There is no mercy. Nobody ask you why you did it.
I have stopped looking for the Exit door now. Why? Well, one thing is that I’m getting sicker and older so things will take care of themselves eventually. When I’m threatened by severe illness I tend to struggle for my life. It’s when things get calmer but I’m just isolated and bored, that’s when the risk returns. 

However I’ve stopped taking overdoses. Why? Because I died, that’s why. It took a miracle to get the police to my apartment in spite of the hard work from internet-friends.  It took more than 8 hours.
The nurses in the ambulance and the doctors actually succeeded in getting me back to life. For some seconds they forced me up to the surface shouting: “Look at us!!!” (They couldn’t give me gastric lavage without active reflexes from the bowels and if not I would die) 

For a few seconds I saw a lot of people working hard to save my life, some sitting at computers watching what was happening within my body. They were so many and so hard working. When they could get some of all the pills up I heard them shouting for joy. I felt their genuine joy and love, how happy they were that they had saved my life. 

LOVE – it’s the key, the only way to make someone choose to stay on earth. I think about this event with big gratitude. I remember their love, and the enormous costs…just for me…and then I have to pay back by using my best days or moments by showing someone else love. That’s why we are here!

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 machine that doesn’t allow their spirit to leave the body?

I think this question has to be lift up and discussed much more. If we are so afraid of death that we can’t let people die who are practically dead then we are going too far. Many treatments can actually be questioned. They can be extremely painful and go on and on for so long that the patient has no will left to go through all that pain just to lie in a bed. My sick mother kept her cancer secret in order to be able to come out of her hopeless situation. She was 85. Her old neighbour jumped from the balcony to come out of hers. If society want to prolong old people’s lives they also must give them an environment to live in that is worthy. Care homes for elderly are gradually taken away in Sweden.

 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?

This question is really difficult. If we are not eternal it is just a question of showing consideration to people close to you, if there are any.

But if we are eternal it’s another story. Many of us believe that the meaning of life is to learn to love, to show love and – a bit wiser – go back to the source of Life. 

This is what a strong, spiritual experience outside my body taught me. I was in a state of love and peace outside my body listening to a strong voice that spoke to me about the meaning of my life.  Nowadays I believe there is a meaning in staying in pain and isolation. I believe in the Law of Dying. What I think about are the word of Jesus:

He said: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single seed, but if it dies it bears abundant fruit."

The law of dying is symbolized by that seed lying helplessly in that dark and cold soil. If the seed had the capacity to worry as we humans have it would ask itself every day: "What's the meaning with me lying here, not seen by anybody, without any function, any progress, no life, dying alone?" But as far as I know they can't question life, just live it. And when it does, it dies and something starts growing towards the light. A force inside it makes it drill itself through the ground; it meets the light and develops into grain, into bread that reduces the hunger of the world!

We are that grain. So, no matter how meaningless a life might look – it isn’t! We are not here to be happy, but to give our lives to suffering humans around us.
I like the after life book “Embraced by the light” and the story Betty Eadie tells us fits rather well into my own encounters with the “other side”. I recommend the videos you can find about her in the You Tube! She warns us to commit suicide since that might lead us into darkness on the other side. 

Betty: “God judges according to the heart. He explained to me that people who commit suicide, or any other act that is horrid, are people who are dysfunctional; they have mutated -- their souls mutated somewhere along the line, perhaps even at birth, perhaps genetic problems. You know, we are not to judge, only He can judge. But that to condemn someone to hell is the greater sin, which is something we should never, ever do.”


Sometimes I can go out, like the other day. I knew I could not walk more than 800 meters, so I could not afford to choose the wrong path to a new acquaintance. I hoped I would find someone to ask along the way. Suddenly there was a small, child at my side. He looked at me with so much love and said: "Where are you going?" I answered: "To Pinestreet, but I don't know how to find it." "I live there. I WILL GO WITH YOU AND SHOW YOU THE WAY!"

This is how I survive: I just try to open up my heart for the guidance life wants to give the brokenhearted.

I WILL GO WITH YOU AND SHOW YOU THE WAY!