Suicide - it's not worth it

Tonight I heard about a recent attempted suicide by a young man in Crystal Lake - another student at Crystal Lake South High School.

How I'd like to be able to reach out and connect with every student, or other person, who thinks that taking his or her own life is the only remaining choice.

When I was studying regression hypnotherapy in northern Missouri in 1993 with a retired osteopathic physician, she (the doctor) told me I "had" to attend a ten-week hospice training class. I resisted, because the class was 30 miles south and met every Monday night.

But I went, and I've been glad ever since.

In that class was the first time I watched a video called Life After Life, by Dr. Raymond Moody. Dr. Moody is a research psychiatrist who has studied the Near-Death Experience (NDE). For that video Dr. Moody interviewed six people who had died, had NDEs and who came back.

One of them, a nurse, possibly from Nashville, described what she experienced after shooting herself in the chest. She said that she was told that she had a choice - she could either go ahead and die, and then have to come back in the future and go again through all the pain that had led up to her suicide and then live beyond it, or she could go back this time and then continue on with her life.

Her choice? She decided that she didn't want to have to go through all that pain all over again, so she returned to this life.

I recognize that my "take" on death probably differs greatly from that of most people. I can talk with people about death and dying at any time, and without trying to bring anyone around to the way I think about it. Often I can help that person to learn what he believes.

Before a person decides to end his life prematurely and acts on that decision, he really ought to understand what happens when his body stops. If he is going to say to himself right after dying, "Oh, man! That was a really stupid thing to do", then it's better to know that before, instead of after.