Comments (5)

1. I absolutely agree! I suffer from depression and anxiety and I hate being asked the ‘suicide’ questions. I feel like saying, “Have you lost your mind”!

2. I think you nailed it – we are the mules. We typically are the responsible ones left standing when those around us are sick, in need, or have abdicated carrying their share of the load. Good question though – one I never would have thought to ask or examine.

   1. Me either. That’s part of why it stunned me when I saw it.

3. I’ve only experienced, what I considered depression, once in my life. It only lasted a month or two and it was circumstantial. Suicide never entered my mind. I knew why I was depressed, and I knew when I removed myself from the situation, I’d be better again. I remember breaking down in my general practitioner’s office, as I shared what I was going through. He asked if I needed medication to get through it. I said, “No. In a couple of weeks it’ll all be over.” A couple weeks later, the issues had resolved and I moved on with my life.

   With that in mind, I may not be the best person to answer.

   I think there are a few reasons.

   1) I grew up in a strong Christian family. My family is from the deep south. Suicide just isn’t an option. I don’t even think people talk about suicide. I would say it’s a foreign concept even. It’s like going to a friend and saying, “Hey… I found you can take trips to the moon for like $50.” And your friend saying, “Really? How do you do that?” It’s just something that’s never been considered an option. “Oh really? People do that? You can kill yourself? Are you sure it wasn’t an accident?”

   2) We’re fighters. Despite how awful life can be, I think we’re raised in a culture where we believe we have to fight back. Suicide is, again, foreign. You can’t fight back when you’re dead. It reminds me of before I married my husband (a white man). I went to my mother and mentioned how different he was from me. I said, “I feel like I’m struggling to climb out of this pit. Every thing is a fight to the surface. Yet he seems compliant with where he is… he just goes with the flow.” I don’t think it’s in our nature to just give up. Even in slavery, our ancestors worked until the work killed them or their masters did. Our ancestors overcame and survived inhumane treatment. Life today is almost a walk in the park. How can we give up when we’ve come so far?

   3) We realize that life is a trial. I always feel like there’s something better for me, and I’m always reaching to achieve it. It doesn’t matter if I reach a goal, there’s always another goal on the horizon. Honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied with simply being. Life is about striving and the hope that comes through working toward something better.

   4) We are role models for the future. My mother, her mother, her mother’s mother… they all suffered and survived. They each passed down a legacy. I’m a role model to my girls. I think to myself, if something happened to my husband, my kids and I would be okay. However, I worry. I can’t imagine my kids growing up without me… having no mother. I worry about my husband trying to raise our son alone. I feel irreplaceable.

   When I think of the fourth reason, I wonder if that’s it. I think a lot of depressed people who contemplate suicide might think they don’t matter. They might think the world is a better place without them, especially if they think all they bring is misery.

   I don’t think the world is better off without me. I think it’ll be worse, especially for my family. It’s like the woman you quoted who has a mother and children she has to be there for. People depend on the Black Woman. Even in times of slavery, the Black Woman was the heart of everything. She was the woman who even raised the master’s children.

   I think history set us up as irreplaceable, even if we’re or are abused. We have value. You don’t kill something that’s so precious, even if that something is yourself.

   1. The woman with the mother and child to take care of is me 🙂 Thanks for your response. All the reasons you listed make sense and most resonate with me.

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