Reply #6: Because you write a poem about suicide

[sybylla]

doesn't mean you are considering it. This is a myth that keeps people from talking about suicide. I find the number of people who believe that if you say it or think it, you want to do it or are planning to do it, absolutely dumbfounding. It isn't a virus, it isn't a magic word that acts on us with some hypnotic power. In fact, suicide itself is not just some casual act like, say..., having sex. It is an act of desperation, at least in the mind of those who choose to do it.

For example, If I think about buying a Mini Cooper, does that mean I will?
If I think about having children, does that mean I will?
If I think about killing my mother-in-law, and don't think I haven't, does that mean I will?

Throughout my life I've spent time contemplating a great many things. The point of all that thinking isn't merely to choose to act but in large part to understand both the great variety of options open to me as well as the choices of others.

I think about suicide much more than the average person, no doubt. But I am far from suicidal. I think about suicide because of what I have seen it to do to my sister-in-law's family since her husband killed himself January 24, 1994. That one act has sent the lives of more than a dozen people careening down a path not of their own choosing. And I watch every day as many of them struggle fruitlessly to get back to the course they want to be on, the one they were on when he was still a part of their lives.