by Lynn Harnack, LPC 5/24/2017
Since Chris Cornell hung himself last week in a hotel bathroom, depression has been a hot topic. I have seen more blogs and posts written about depression and getting help. Which, is good, when someone who was so brilliant commits a violent act such as suicide, we need to be reminded of how life is precious. We also need to be reminded to reach out to those who seem “down” or “distant”.
I am not here to write only about depression, I actually want to write about anger. Although depression and suicide seem to go together, there is another side of suicide that is not talked about as openly. See, in my practice I have clients who have been touched by suicide in some way- either they have tried it, thought about it or had family member who has followed through with suicide. I have found it is hard to touch in on the anger part of suicide.
Typically I have found that when it comes to suicide, people are angry. Like pissed off, want to throw stuff, angry! You know like “the Hulk” angry. They are angry because life, God, the Universe, whatever didn’t hand them a fair shake and because the anger was so seductive they just didn’t see another way out.
People often correlate depression with suicide, and while this is true depression is actually a lack of emotion or motivation. Anger is the fuel that helps motivate suicide. Anger has motion, it moves, it dances, anger seduces. Anger helps us feel like we have control over a situation. I actually want to mention that I think anger is also a really great and wonderful emotion if used correctly, however what I have found in my office is that most people are afraid of anger.
Anger hasn’t been modeled well for most of us. Because of this we suffer. What a shame that we become so narrow focused we lose sight of how wonderful life actually is, we lose sight of what a precious gift we have to offer the world. If we only could own our talents we could truly know what treasures we have to present.
