December 12, 2012

Suicide: A Perspective Beyond Time and Space

Adapted from Dr. Judith Orloff’s new book “Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life” (Three Rivers Press, 2011)

The dark night of all dark nights is the hopelessness of wanting to die.

In this state, you can see no promised land beyond depression.

Over the years, several of my patients have attempted suicide. One did die: a heavy metal rocker with a sapphire-blue Mohawk and a sensitive soul. But super-stardom could never allay his depression or persistent back pain for which none of the many specialists he consulted could locate a medical cause. Legions of fans revered him, but he didn’t revere himself. He felt happy and pain-free only on stage, immersed in his music and adulation. When he killed himself, we hadn’t met for many months, but I was deeply saddened. I’d been his safe place for two years; we’d been very close. I did everything I could think of to help him, but he was on a runaway course. Plus, he was surrounded by shark-like managers who urged him to go on tour despite his precarious condition. Intellectually, I realized all this, but still I lamented my inability to save his life. I’ll always miss him. I’ll always recall those days I’d visited him after a previous suicide attempt. He was on a locked psychiatric ward along with others who were psychotic, suicidal, and homicidal. To me, it’s a crime to put someone who’s depressed in with that mix. I wish I could’ve sent him to a peaceful retreat with sunlit porches and hammocks to dream on. But our mental health system isn’t organized like that. All those needing intensive care go to the same hellish ward in traditional hospitals. So I saw him there until he was no longer suicidal. Against my advice he went back on the road too soon. I was greatly afraid for him. Then, four months later, I got the call: he was found dead in his London hotel room after slashing his wrists.

Most suicides are preventable with skilled interventions. I know people--including those on a spiritual path--who at dark times have considered taking their lives. (Suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death among Americans.) If you’ve had these thoughts, they’re nothing to be ashamed of. But I also know that suicide isn’t the answer. Freedom comes when you persist in searching for the light until it’s visible again.
In service to our growth, life asks an extraordinary amount of us. That used to anger me. Some situations seemed unendurable. Watching my ebullient, talented mother waste away from cancer, struggling to find strength to be there for her without disintegrating, I’d inwardly protest, “I can’t do it. I don’t have it in me.” But I did--and had to see that. So must you. Try to keep reaching beyond pain towards a greater power within. My spiritual teacher says, “Heaven is not a dead-end road.” With hope and the proper support, you will find it.

For years I believed suicide was an option we had the right to choose if things got rotten enough. I no longer feel this way except, possibly, with terminal patients in constant physical agony. From deepening my intuition, I came to realize that holding onto suicide as an out separated me from the essence of living. A commitment to staying in my body through it all was mandatory for being fully alive. Thus, to be more present, I’ve vowed to follow the wisdom of whatever life brings.

Weigh this critical point: Leaving your body doesn’t make emotional challenges disappear. The soul’s work continues. What I intuitively sense about its destinations is that who you are here is who you’ll be there too, albeit without the physical form you’re accustomed to identifying with. I don’t mean this punitively. I’m simply saying you’ll eventually have to face your demons. Personally, I’d rather do it now than drag out the ordeal. I prefer to go onto other things. For those who believe in past lives, facing the self is unavoidable. Whether now or in distant eons, you must do it. This is good. This is purifying.

I’ve had an ex-boyfriend and some acquaintances commit suicide when depression became unbearable. Two by overdosing, one with a gun. Though I wasn’t in regular contact with these people at the time they took their lives, I was notified by mutual friends the day each suicide happened. While I was shaken by both these losses and the terrible desperation that must have occasioned them, I was also curious about where these people went and their subsequent state of being. So I tuned in, simultaneously inquisitive and anticipatorily weary about the kinds of pain I’d encounter. What did I find? None of them were in places I’d ever want to be, and each felt utterly lost. Always there was severe confusion, a swirling-through-limbo vertigo that made me nauseous. Where they were at felt like the alarming, abrupt plummeting of an airplane during turbulence--but cube that by the speed of light and picture if it didn’t let up. Still, despite the dire straits they were all clearly in, I also intuited a beneficent force surrounding them, though it didn’t seem as if they recognized it. They felt totally alone. When tuning into the lawyer who’d shot herself in the head, I found her disorientation was so jolting I could barely stay with it. This panicked woman had no idea where she was. Dizzying, disjointed memories of her life were bombarding her at such speed, “overwhelmed” didn’t begin to describe her condition. I suspect it took a while to find her bearings and proceed to a calmer place. From what I could intuit, the violence of her suicide made the transition even more chaotic. Once I got the gist of her experience, I wanted out of that vision so I didn’t risk absorbing such angst.

I share my perceptions with you to offer what I sensed about suicide. As you can see, it may not be a way out of anything, as many depression sufferers envision. Though the pain in question may be temporarily put on the back burner, suicide seems to create another set of problems and a tumultuous journey. Even so, I’m certain that the soul eventually finds clarity and gets all the chances it needs to master emotional obstacles.

My duty as physician and healer is to talk people out of suicide. I can be effective  because I absolutely know there’s hope for everyone and that depression is a distortion. It swallows the light, making misery seem like the only truth. But it is not. You must remember that. If ever suicide starts looking good, stop, regroup, and fight to find hope. Reach out for help. Don’t be seduced by the voice of depression.



Judith Orloff MD, an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and intuition expert, is author of the New York Times Bestseller Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life (Three Rivers Press, 2011) Her other bestsellers are Positive Energy, Intuitive Healing, and Second Sight. Dr. Orloff synthesizes the pearls of traditional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of intuition and energy medicine. She passionately believes that the future of medicine involves integrating all this wisdom to achieve emotional freedom and total wellness. www.drjudithorloff.com

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PURCHASE the paperback book, Whose Stuff Is This? Finding Freedom from the Thoughts, Feelings, and Energy of Those Around You at http://tinyurl.com/EmpathAmazon.
The e-book version is now available for Kindle, iPhone, iPad, and other digital reading devices on Smashwords.com. Get the PDF on the author's website: WeAreOneinSpirit.com.
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4 comments:

  1. I've read some of Judith Orloff's stuff, & got the feeling that everything was all about her and trying to make her look good. So, unfortunately I've found it difficult to get much that's really helpful. I wish otherwise, because the book topics sound so full of promise. [Of course my reaction to her is an opportunity for healing in itself!] :)

    However, I've been doing some research myself on the topic of suicide. While I've thought about it quite a bit, only for the endless suffering from excruciating pain, illness, losing everything, etc., :) I am determined not to do this, and I certainly wouldn't want anyone else to.

    But I found some soothing information about "the other side", which is a different perspective than above. The links are below:

    http://soulproof.com/Suicide/suicide.html
    http://soulproof.com/Suicide/suicide2.html

    Although I suppose it's possible that where one ends up in the afterlife (whether real or perceived) could be determined by their beliefs and fears about it; ("What Dreams May Come" comes to mind). And the situation & intent could play into it, but it's for each to determine what resonates with them.

    I will confess that I actually did try to commit suicide once about 20 years ago, but it was related to BAD side effects from an antidepressant (Don't ya love when they say "death" is a possible side effect when advertising numerous drugs?). Of course back then there was no black box label warning (& no one would agree or even consider that antidepressants were capable of causing bipolar and suicidal type side effects).

    I've often thought that the real suffering I've endured since might be punishment. But if so, it's just my own punishment. Because underneath the religious dogma FEAR stamped into my brain as a child, I do not believe God or Source could ever be punishing. God is Love. We are part of God. We are Love.

    The trick is to remember & focus on that throughout the times of pain and cruelty of this world. And sites like this, with "out-of-this-world" amazing people like Yvonne, truly do help when one is hanging on by their teeth. :) THANKS YVONNE! You are a beautiful gift to this world.

    Kimberly

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  2. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Kimberly.

    I agree that our concept of God is out of whack--we've created a monster from our own fears. The Source energy that created us is totally loving and non-judgmental. You are right--God doesn't punish us. We punish ourselves and others.

    The thing about suicide is that it hurts those left behind mor than it hurts the soul departing from the body--some families never heal from it. The soul may or may not cross over. Like you said, it depends upon our beliefs at the time of death.

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    1. I have been reading a couple of comments here and i totally disagree, very few people know what happens after death, i thought the subject was about suicide because of depression and you start talking about life after death. That helps no one who has got suicidal thoughts, to me talking about life after death and your thoughts on it is just scaring people, don't you actually think people who are suffering with depression are scared enough with what is going on inside them, life after death is something that you nor me can give information on until you have been there,( its like telling someone how to do a job that you have never done before) its a subject that not many people know much about, so to tell people what you think comes after death and you really know nothing about it( you may say that im been negative) im not, i'm simply saying you should not talk about something that you have not even been there unless you truly know what waits for us, sometimes it's better to keep your thoughts to yourself because the last thing that anyone who is going through depression wants to talk about is life after death, cos it doesn't help, you need to get into the here and now with them and slowly but surely get them thinking positively about their future and not your thoughts of after life, some bloody do gooders really need to think about what they say, cos talking about life after death unless you have experienced it, you know nothing about it, so talking about that helps no one that is suffering from depression, they need positivety not what you or anybody else that have never been there know absolutely nothing about,

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    2. This is Judith Orloff's writing, not mine. Many people like myself have had near death experiences and witnessed what it's like on the other side. I know of several people who have died and come back. I have also been visited by souls on the other side. Part of my shamanic work is to cross souls over.

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