The Faces Of Suicide and Addiction

I sit bewildered and perplexed as I contemplate the differences between suicide and addiction. Why is society suddenly glorifying suicide and paying tributes to celebrities who kill themselves from suicide? While many people who openly are suffering from addictions and mental illness are either put into jail or denied health insurance? This is the very reason why suicide and mental illness along with drug addictions is growing rapidly in this country. I usually write about my feelings and thoughts, being a person who suffers constantly from mental illness, however, today I'm angry. I'm angry that so many people in my life have succumbed to this disease of addiction due to mental health issues. I am saddened that society sweeps them along the curb as garbage to forgotten at the dump. What does the face of suicide and addiction look like?  Does it look like a woman holding her babies, who stands outside the public assistance office with an eviction notice in her hand; only to be rejected because the government has cut funding to the programs that would aid her in this situation? Does suicide look like a daughter or a son who attends college and perseveres every day to meet the deadlines of their instructors, only to be booted out of college because their job is not enough to pay their tuition? Does suicide/addiction look like a man or a woman who has grown to fame by their talents and is admired by the world for being the best in their trade, only in the darkness of their room they face their own demons that they cannot reveal because the public deems them as perfect? Or is it the child who has suffered abuse, neglect or indifference their whole life and grew up trying to flush out their own existence using drugs, weed, and alcohol. Does the face of suicide and addiction look like a man or woman who works tiredly forty to eighty hour a weekday trying to maintain shelter only to end up living paycheck to paycheck? Is the face of suicide a mother or father who has lost a son or daughter? There are many more faces of suicide and addiction. I do realize that we as human beings can only do but so much and we all have limitations, however, let us stop separating and isolating suicide and addiction. These diseases are the same and boil down to mental illness. The only difference is that one goes unnoticed by all around them and then in a sudden moment, the impact is felt by all who have loved them, The other which is called addiction is a slow torturous death that infects everyone who loves them and has more causalities. Mental illness, addiction, and suicide go hand in hand and until we all realize that we will continue to suffer. The innocent casualties of this war are more than any physical war that has taken place in this society and continues to grow, because of the ignorance and arrogance of politicians that only make affordable help available to the ones who can afford it. The efforts in playing survival of the fittest are backfiring on us as a community and we are losing this war!

                                                            By- Simora England