iPhone app iPad app Android phone app Android tablet app More
Featuring fresh takes and real-time analysis from HuffPost's signature lineup of contributors
Lorna Byrne

GET UPDATES FROM Lorna Byrne
 

Each and Every Suicide Diminishes Us

Posted: 04/17/2012 10:05 am

Each and every suicide in the world diminishes you and me. No matter if you don't know the person, their family, or even if they live on the other side of the world from you -- their decision to end this life prematurely affects you. It silently shatters a part of you -- even if you are not conscious of it.

Each and every one of us has a unique role to play in this world -- no one else can play this
part. No one is supposed to end their own life, when they do, it's as if a link in a chain is broken and it slows down the progress of humanity. We all need each other. When someone commits suicide it's as if everyone around the world shrinks a little.

We are shrinking a lot! The World Health Organization estimates that each year approximately one million people die from suicide 1. Based on these figures someone somewhere in the world, commits suicide every 40 seconds. The WHO predict that by 2020 the rate of death will increase to one every 20 seconds.

I have been seeing angels since I was a baby. I see them physically as I would see someone standing in front of me and I see them all the time. I see a guardian angel behind each and every person regardless of religion.

Most of the time I see the guardian angel three steps behind the person they are guarding, looking down on them and looking ahead as if helping to guide the person forward into their future. However when someone is thinking of ending their own life their guardian angel looks very different. It is no longer three steps behind but has moved forward and into the person. It's as if the person and his or her guardian angel have become intertwined.

When this happens the guardian angel is doing its best to try and kindle a light there; to show the person that there is some hope. The guardian angel, aided by other angels, family , friends and strangers, will do its best to stop this person committing suicide. They will try and bring the light of love into the pit of darkness that this person is experiencing. Sometimes I will see a different angel, other than a guardian angel, in front of the person holding a light. These angels are trying to encourage the person to have self confidence and self belief in themselves, to see the hope that is there for them.

Sometimes, even with all the help and love they are given by family and friends, by professionals and by the angels, the person may still feel unable to climb out of that darkness. The pain is just too much - they cannot help themselves and take their own lives.

No one is supposed to take their own life.

If however someone does commit suicide the angels have told me that they are wrapped in a blanket of God's love and are taken straight to Heaven.

Source: WHO

 
 
 

Follow Lorna Byrne on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@LornaByrne

FOLLOW RELIGION
 
 
  • Comments
  • 25
  • Pending Comments
  • 0
  • View FAQ
Comments are closed for this entry
View All
Favorites
Recency  | 
Popularity
02:24 AM on 04/19/2012
“Life is like a movie, if you've sat through more than half of it and its sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. None should blame you for walking out early.” --Doug Stanhope
09:00 AM on 04/30/2012
The cycle of change is evident in our lives when viewed over an extended period of time.If your life has sucked till now chances are that better days are waiting in the wings because change is inevitable & from worst,it can only get better.Isn't it ?
Please see this link http://jeeteraho.blogspot.in/2010/10/there-is-hope-only-if-there-is-life.html
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
10:00 PM on 04/18/2012
You are an obnoxious bleeding heart.

We are each individuals and you cannot speak for anyone but yourself. There are people every day that do not find life worth living because of unbearable pain. It is the ultimate in individual liberty--to decide one's own fate--and the ultimate in tyranny to attempt to deny that right.

While there are those that "try" to commit suicide and fail because they intend to fail and it is usually because they are desparate for someone else to give them attention and answers.

There are, however, those that make the decision and succeed because it is the right decision for them. It takes an arrogant, sadistic person to PRESUME to judge the right or wrong of this decision.
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
MagicManDoneIt
When facts are lacking. Just say...
11:36 PM on 04/18/2012
Thank you for stating my thoughts in such an elegant yet (rightfully) forceful manner. Faved.
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Daniel Myers
Then man created god in his image.
05:47 PM on 04/18/2012
I'm not sure I agree with the author. It's very likely that you wouldn't be able to identify the angels of the bible even even they were talking directly to you. They regularly pass for human when they want to.
Food for thought for the folks who believe that sort of stuff.
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Karl Wilder
Chef Stirring The Pot Harlem
01:05 PM on 04/18/2012
Ummmm no. I could name about 100 politicians who if they killed themselves the world would be a better, not a diminished place.
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
10:01 PM on 04/18/2012
Add a few zeroes to that number and I'd agree with you.
05:56 AM on 04/18/2012
I've had 2 friends take their lives and it was heartbreaking, but I understood the struggles they had gone through and hope they are at peace.

I don't believe in "guardian angels" and I believe that sometimes the life some lead are so burdened with pain that self-determination is warranted. People who rattle on about life being precious have not walked in another's shoes.

What I don't support are idiots who do it impulsively - or who take out their family or others as well. If you have family - children, spouse - it's a much more difficult situation.

Me, as an example, I have no family. I have no close friends any longer. I've deliberately distanced myself from friends. No plans to jump off a bridge or any other action but I have consistently felt that I have nothing left to offer. I take chances & push limits - I have nothing to lose. I believe opportunity or fate will present itself.
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Happy scotty
05:01 AM on 04/18/2012
I don't have the courage to do myself in.
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
10:02 PM on 04/18/2012
Sometimes it takes it seems to take more courage to live; however, those that have the courage to make the decision to die should be entitled to do so without condemnation..
02:20 AM on 04/18/2012
Though I think that anyone who sees angels is probably insane, I have to wonder why you don't take a look at the veterans of the present 'Bush' wars who kill themselves one every 80 minutes - over 6,000 this last year. Why is this wonderful Christian nation continuing these pointless military adventures? What are your angels doing here?
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
photo
12:11 AM on 04/18/2012
Sorry. You don't own my body. I do.
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
10:03 PM on 04/18/2012
Excellent point.
photo
AdorableHero
Conquer your dark side or become it.
12:00 AM on 04/18/2012
Wondering why I'm even bothering to comment... I guess I just want people to know to not worry that the last line of this article is going to drive anyone to do anything desperate, because, in my experience, being desperate enough to think about suicide means *not caring* about heaven, oblivion, or even hell. Even when I believed in hell, the thought that I'd go there if I took my own life - may have given me a little pause but didn't didn't actually do much for my feelings of being a damned burden and wanting to rid my family and the world in general of the burden I presented just by existing.

I actually wrote about the feelings that accompany this kind of desperation in a fantasy-fiction short story that involved an angel (which was presented as possibly a construct of the main character's mind), so maybe that's why I'm replying. This article reminds me of my fiction. I'd post a link, but I'm afraid of getting harrassed by the kind of people who frequent here.

One think that's kept me alive so far is thinking, "Burden? So what! The world is poo and *deserves* to be burdened!" - anger and living for spite sometimes really keeps me going. So anyone here who tells me I ought to die is only fueling my life at this point.
09:52 PM on 04/17/2012
My best friend from college was a wonderful smart funny person. I am very bad at long distance relationships, but we kept touch and talked once or twice a month for years and years, and were able to visit each other every few. He suffered from depression. He took prosac and some other drugs. He told me that it kept a light at the end of the tunnel. He never married. He was a gifted teacher. He taught high school english. Then after he retired he taught at a community college. Then he gave it up. I was really worried but he seemed to be doing ok. Found some new friends. Doing social things. Then I got the call that he had blown his brains out with a pistol.

I miss him like hell, but I can't tell you he "shouldn't" have done it. I was there for the pain, the paranoia, the miracle of even being able to get up in the morning when your reality is totally flat, nothing moves you, excites you, calls you to action. What do you do when your own body is telling you not to live? He had done his thing. Finished his mission. Inspired a thousand kids to think and love the language and be something. What courage he had! Let him rest lady. He ran a damn good race. Don't make him wrong.
07:43 PM on 04/17/2012
I chose to come into this life and I will chose to leave it if I wish, I don't care if it makes the world smaller or not.
09:03 AM on 04/18/2012
Actually, you did not choose to come into this life. No one can make that choice for himself.
11:41 AM on 04/18/2012
myopinion2,
You are welcome to your opinion, but, I prefer mine for me. And even if the first part of my statement seems an error in you view, My last part on desiding to leave it , still stands for me.
11:42 AM on 04/18/2012
as to your reply to my response, I did not and do not take issue with the second part of your comment.
01:02 PM on 04/18/2012
myopinion2,
Thank you, that is all that I ask!:)
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Elijah A Alexander Jr
Elijah NatureBoy
06:15 PM on 04/17/2012
My vision suggests you correctly assessed *Each and every one of us has a unique role to play in this world -- no one else can play [our] parts* which includes the need to commit suicide. The law of Karma and our need to experience every primary experience of every man require us to commit suicide for every cause it has ever been committed and as both genders doing them before our lifeforces are allowed to become eternal beings.

However, when you ended it with *If however someone does commit suicide the angels have told me that they are wrapped in a blanket of God's love and are taken straight to Heaven* I believe they are speaking to you in terms of your belief, "we go to heaven when we discarnate." In all honesty, my revelation suggests discarnated lifeforces doesn't go to heaven, Purgatory is Catholicism's name for the place of the discarnated before reincarnating. Heaven is the state of consciousness when one accepts all the natural magnifiers [opposites] of earth and refuse to judge then with abstract magnifiers
like good and evil, pretty and ugly and the like.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Zriv123
06:05 PM on 04/17/2012
I think articles like this one drive people to do desperate things.
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
arachne646
No more hurting people--Peace
11:54 AM on 04/18/2012
I'm not sure how, other than encouraging people to write about their suicidal feelings. Do you mean because it gives them hope that they won't go to Hell if they committ suicide? It doesn't seem logical that a just and loving God would punish even a very wicked person who'd been wicked all his life with an eternity of torture for about 70-80 years of sin, maximum, does it?
04:09 PM on 04/18/2012
I don't believe in God, hell, or heaven. I have lived my life believing in Karma, but I no longer believe in it. I show kindness to others and even animals just because I'd want to be treated that way.

Knowing my friends who struggled with mental illness and considerable traumas that Hollywood couldn't make up - if there was a God who deemed them taking their lives was a sin, I wouldn't want to know such a God. I've seen them struggle, fight valiantly, be abandoned and betrayed by their family... I doubt even Jacob could have come out on top if he had a severe mental illness and no support system.