20101027.016 ACT OF DESPERATION, ACT OF VIOLENCE

20101027.016 ACT OF DESPERATION, ACT OF VIOLENCE

The date was July 12, 2008. I had got off work the night before and went to my parents to talk to them and cry. It had been a rough day at work, but it was more than that. It was far more than that. I had felt attacked at work. I had felt attacked by the people at the church. I had felt attacked by everyone and everything. And all I could do was cry. And that is what I did. When I asked my questions of mom and dad and got no response, I calmed down and realized that a good night’s sleep would do me some good. Besides, I had to be to work at 11 in the morning and so I headed home to sleep. I got up in the morning feel pretty much the same - everyone was out to get me and I had no way of striking back. I called a friend and headed to the church to talk to her before I headed to work. When I got there, I simply broke down and wept. And I couldn’t stop. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to do something to take away the pain. I wanted to come out of the closet at the church. I wanted to tell all those people who were attacking me in one way or another just how evil they were and what they were doing to me. My friend realized how low I was and knew that I probably couldn’t be trusted to drive myself to work. So she took me to my mom & dad’s house and we called my doctor. A long story short - I was then admitted to the emergency room at St. Joseph hospital and then taken to Good Shepherd because of fear that I was going to harm myself in some way.

That was my experience with a suicide attempt. True, I never actually attempted it, but I was getting very close. The reason I bring all of this up and rehash it, is because I recently went to visit a friend at Good Shepherd. They also had threatened suicide and family members did the best they could do, which was to have my friend admitted to Good Shepherd. But, after visiting with her, I came to understand something about the human psyche that pushes someone to the point of either threatening suicide or committing suicide. And that is what I want to share with you in this BLOG.

Recently, Dan Savage and his campaign to stop teen suicide has received a lot of attention. The “IT GETS BETTER PROJECT” has been receiving tons and tons of videos of people telling those who might feel the need to self terminate, to, instead, stick around longer, because it gets better. And, although I don’t feel like my life is in a very good place, I still am running on the hope that it will, in fact, get better. It is a great campaign and I would encourage who ever is reading this to go to YOUTUBE and search on “IT GETS BETTER” and watch many of the videos because they are done by some wonderful caring people who have been there, who have threaten or attempted suicide, and who had lived past the blackest part of their lives to find the brightest of rainbows on the other side of that darkness. [ Actually, I will give the link at the end of this BLOG] I have watch many of the videos and the care and compassion of the people making those videos is heart warming and wonderful. And, as much as I want to make a video for the project, I’m not sure I can say with any certainty that it get’s better, . . . yet! I believe it will eventually, but I am not there yet. Besides, I have come to realize what it is that drove me to my point of wanting to self terminate as well as what drove my friend to that point. And that is what this BLOG is really about.

It is true that when you are condemned and demeaned, ridiculed and attacked in verbal or physical ways, you get to a point of desperation where you want it to end. I know being part of the GLBTQIA community is very difficult and the attacks seem endless. In fact, before I sat down to write this BLOG I received a message from someone who saw one of my comments on one of the IT GETS BETTER VIDEOS. Their message to me was, “you're not a Christian, you're a faggot!” It use to be that I would have been really hurt by such a statement, but I have been able to move past it. But the point I am trying to make is that when you hit rock bottom and you feel like more rocks are being dumped on you, you reach that point of desperation and you want to take the pain away. But, you may also want to strike out as I wanted to and that is yet another facet of suicide. You see, suicide isn’t just an act of taking away the pain. It also carries with it the hope of giving pain, of making those who have hurt you, to hurt just as much if not more. It may not seem logical, but that is what I realized after visiting my friend. Suicide is an act of desperation and an act of violence.

By the way, my friend is not part of the GLBTQIA community, which goes to show this pain shows no partiality to ethnicity, sexual identity, social class, or any of the other myriad ways that we catagorize and segregate ourselves. Because my friend was hurt by someone whom they loved, they responded with a threat to kill themselves, and the person whom they wanted to hurt said, “go ahead, at least I wouldn’t have to deal with you anymore.” Yes, that is the kind of evil we are faced with in this world, where someone threatens a last act of desperation and they are greeted with “go ahead”. That is just plain evil.

So how should we respond? Well, the first point to note is that what the people of the IT GETS BETTER PROJECT are doing is on target. We need to explain to those who would try this act of desperation that they are wanted, needed, beautiful creations of the CREATOR GOD. The second point to note is that those who would bully, those who would condemn and demean, those who would be so evil as to encourage such an act of violence as suicide will get their recompense in the end. They will have to answer for their evilness and they will have to come face to face with their own evil acts of karma, which may come back to bite them in their butt. The third point is to tell those who are so desperate that they have so many other options available to them to get even. Taking one’s life will not cause the bullies the pain that we all want them to feel. But making our own life better will heap mountains of burning coals on their very souls! Is that rather vindictive of me? Yes! But I am human just like anyone else, and I have been hurt just like so many who have walked this way before me. And I, too, want those who have hurt me to be hurt in return. But, that is not my job. My job is only to better myself so that others may look and realize just how wrong they were!

For those who want more information on the IT GETS BETTER PROJECT you may click here:

http://www.itgetsbetterproject.com/

or here to watch the many videos:

http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject

and for those who are needing someone to talk to, you may call the TREVOR PROJECT. Their number may be found at the end of the IT GETS BETTER VIDEOS or on the IT GETS BETTER PROJECT web site above.

Blessings to all of you and in all that you may do. - David L.

20101002.015 GUILTY AS CHARGED!

20101002.015 GUILTY AS CHARGED!

Well, it looks like it has been over a month since I wrote a BLOG. And for that, I am truly sorry. It also seems that a topic or subject comes rising up from the depths of nowhere and triggers this urge within me to write something. That is why I am writing this BLOG for you right now. For those who have been living in a vacuum, there have been a large number of teen suicides as of late. And the ones that have crossed our airwaves have been of gay teens. Tonight, I was watching the evening news with my mom & dad. And the story about the gay college student from Rutgers came on. I listened about how there is some question whether it was a gay hate crime or not. “After all, the victim’s roommate has several gay friends” the news caster reported. At that point, I had to put in my two cents. You see, it doesn’t matter if the person who is doing the teasing or taunting is gay or has gay friends. What matters is how the victim perceives the teasing and taunting within themselves. You see, I have been there, and in fact, still struggle with my own personal battle scars. I have never actually attempted suicide, but I have thought about it a lot! It was because I was THINKING about suicide that I was hospitalized two years ago. But, my battle scars run much deeper than that, as do most who have struggled with being different.

I have explained this in past BLOGS but will explain it here, again. Every time you hear someone give a disparaging remark, every time you see someone show anger at you for being different, every time you get shoved into a locker or get hit for being gay, you are psychologically cut. And those cuts turn into gashes, and those gashes become those voices inside your head that tell you, you are worthless, you are horrible, you are evil for being the way you are. And when someone pushes you too far, even if they did it out of “fun”, your mind, your psyche, tells you, you need to end it all right there. It is called internalized homophobia and I have been there. In fact, I still struggle with it. I am not so well adjusted that I am able to simply brush off the comments and attitudes of others around me. I did not know Tyler Clementi, but I think I understand at least a little of what he thought and what he felt. The feeling of fear and red if others knew my dirty little sex secrets, the yearning to be “normal” what ever that may be, the drive to keep my life “under the covers” so no one else knows what is really happening in my life, all of these lead to the fear of being gay. I can only imagine the hatred that Tyler must have had for himself when he learned that his roommate had aired his “dirty laundry” to the internet! Is it any wonder why he would kill himself? Now, do you understand why it isn’t about the person committing the crime, but rather it is about the person who is the victim of the crime?

And here is where my title comes into play. You see, we all are guilty of adding to the internalized homophobia of Tyler and everyone else who has been demeaned for being who they are. We are all guilty of laughing at or tell gay jokes and perpetrating gay punch lines. We are all guilty of fostering a society and culture of hatred when we refuse to speak up against someone who uses the phrase, or we, ourselves, use “that’s so gay” to mean something bad. We are all guilty whenever we do anything that puts “being gay” into a second class or negative view. We are all guilty, guilty as charged! And the only way that we can assuage our guilt is to start showing compassion to each other more, start speaking out that being gay is OK, that it is OK to be different, that being gay is good, that being gay is not sinful, it is not something to be rejected, it is not worth killing someone over. We are guilty as charged. But there is hope. Will you change and take a stand with me to reach out to the millions of other Tylers who hate themselves? Will you changed the way society views those who seem different in one way or another? Will you change how you react to those who are different and show them the acceptance that every human being deserves? And that is where the hope lies, because I have written this with the hope that you will! - Blessings in all ways - David L.