As I have mentioned in other posts, friends and acquaintances of mine have committed suicide. Although I have felt--and sometimes still feel--sadness over losing them and anger over their absence, I never could condemn any of them. For one thing, I went through years--decades--in which not a day passed without my contemplating my own self-inflicted end. So I understand, at least somewhat, despair. For another, I have learned that just about everybody has a limit--almost never self-imposed--on how much physical or emotional pain or anguish he or she can endure. Of course, some people have more tolerance for such things than others, but some people are also given burdens to bear that most other people can't understand.
For some, no amount of love and support from family, friends and others can ease the suffering. That is the reason why, so often, when someone takes his or her own life, there seems to be a chorus of people lamenting how esteemed or even loved that person was. Those very same mourners wonder what they did or didn't do for the one who just ended his or her existence.
But then there are the ones who, knowing someone else's vulnerability, will do whatever they can to push that person over the edge. It can be simple harassment. Or it might be something more serious, like spreading false rumors about the person to cause him or her to lose a job, housing or to experience some other kind of life disruption.
Then there is the lowlife who wrote, "DO IT, if you're such a weak willed thin skinned (sic) dipshit, then fucking do it" in response to someone who wrote about killing herself in an online forum. "Good riddance," responded another alleged human.
The woman who wrote about killing herself was in constant, intense pain from fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. And she was transgendered.
Although Rachell Bryk's mother believes that the constant pain and the rejection she received as a result of her disabilities are what drove her to jump off the George Washington Bridge, messages found on her computer described some of the online bullying she experienced.
Now, I've experienced online bullying from Dominick, who--among other things--sent me an e-mail that said he would make my life so miserable that it would "make living in a cardboard box seem good". And he sent out e-mails claiming that I committed all of the crimes transphobes and the simply ignorant believe trans people do as a matter of course. He did other things, too, because he was angry over ending a relationship he always claimed--while we were together--meant nothing to him.
All of that was bad enough. But how much more difficult would it have been for me to deal with those things had I been in constant physical pain?
Whatever the truth is about Rachel's situation, I can only hope that if there is indeed anything after this life, that it does not include the pain and torture she experienced while she was here.
For some, no amount of love and support from family, friends and others can ease the suffering. That is the reason why, so often, when someone takes his or her own life, there seems to be a chorus of people lamenting how esteemed or even loved that person was. Those very same mourners wonder what they did or didn't do for the one who just ended his or her existence.
But then there are the ones who, knowing someone else's vulnerability, will do whatever they can to push that person over the edge. It can be simple harassment. Or it might be something more serious, like spreading false rumors about the person to cause him or her to lose a job, housing or to experience some other kind of life disruption.
Then there is the lowlife who wrote, "DO IT, if you're such a weak willed thin skinned (sic) dipshit, then fucking do it" in response to someone who wrote about killing herself in an online forum. "Good riddance," responded another alleged human.
The woman who wrote about killing herself was in constant, intense pain from fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. And she was transgendered.
Although Rachell Bryk's mother believes that the constant pain and the rejection she received as a result of her disabilities are what drove her to jump off the George Washington Bridge, messages found on her computer described some of the online bullying she experienced.
Now, I've experienced online bullying from Dominick, who--among other things--sent me an e-mail that said he would make my life so miserable that it would "make living in a cardboard box seem good". And he sent out e-mails claiming that I committed all of the crimes transphobes and the simply ignorant believe trans people do as a matter of course. He did other things, too, because he was angry over ending a relationship he always claimed--while we were together--meant nothing to him.
All of that was bad enough. But how much more difficult would it have been for me to deal with those things had I been in constant physical pain?
Whatever the truth is about Rachel's situation, I can only hope that if there is indeed anything after this life, that it does not include the pain and torture she experienced while she was here.
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