20 | Selfishness vs. Empathy
What I learned from Francisco’s story is that suicide actually exists on the extreme end of a sliding scale of disappearance. We are all entitled to disconnect from civilization — the only difference is how we choose to do it. Suicide represents the most dramatic and irreversible form of that conscious disconnection — the only permanent disappearance, if you will.
(to my Tarneeb friend & tennis foe)
Several years ago, I was invited by my friend Theo to play basketball, where I met his friend Francisco, one of his friends from school. There was nothing memorable about it, but years later, I would meet Francisco again when Theo moved to New York City. I made small talk and traded life updates with Francisco, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Not very long afterwards, I had coffee with Theo when he gave me a life update on Francisco. Francisco had taken Theo to the side and asked him for a favor. After dealing with some difficult emotional trials, Francisco had decided to leave his job and go off the grid for an indefinite amount of time. He wouldn’t tell anyone where he was going and planned to cut all communications with everyone, including family and friends. All of his belongings would be locked away in storage, and if he wasn’t heard from in a year, Theo was instructed to send all of those possessions to his family in his homeland. This all came as a shock to Theo, who had become a close friend of Francisco, and was extremely worried about his emotional state, but Francisco would not be deterred. He gave Theo a key to storage, and Francisco vanished.
Over the next year, any time that Francisco made contact with Theo, Theo would update me during our periodic coffee dates. There weren’t very many — Francisco had reached out to Theo twice regarding administrative tasks that he asked Theo to handle. Theo was deeply concerned for his friend, but was powerless to help alleviate Francisco’s pain.
More than a year later, Theo updated me with news of Francisco’s resurfacing. He had re-emerged in foreign lands, and was ready to talk about what he went through. Theo and Francisco ended up meeting up while Theo was traveling for work, and they had a long conversation about Francisco’s sabbatical. Theo was relieved to see his friend alive and well. Their first interaction involved lighthearted conversation — Theo wanted to be considerate of Francisco’s privacy, and ultimately, he was simply happy to see his friend again. The curtains slowly came down over subsequent interactions, and Francisco shared more details about his year away from civilization. Theo listened patiently, giving his friend plenty of space to share what he went through. When it was Theo’s turn to speak, he expressed his relief and his empathy, but hedged that with an honest admission of his resentment. Theo pointed out that Francisco’s act was selfish — Francisco had made a decision without the consideration of his family & friends, and while Francisco intended to be as minimally invasive as possible, it ended up being much more problematic because his loved ones were helpless in what they could do.
This is one of the most common refrains I have heard from people who discuss suicide, and I have always found it the most curious. The claim that the person who took their life was selfish. I don’t share Theo’s story as a canonical example — as a caring & compassionate friend, Theo approached the conversation with Francisco in a delicate and respectful way. But when people express this opinion about someone they have no connection with, the comment is tinged with judgment, dismissiveness and contempt. I was once in a group text messaging thread when someone said that he could see an individual on a ledge of a high-rise apartment building, on the verge of jumping but being talked out of it by police officers & firefighters. Others in the group commented on how selfish this individual was — how they were attracting so many people, diverting scarce resources, and affecting the lives of their loved ones. If you listen carefully to the chatter around high-profile suicides, you will undoubtedly see similar commentary on the inconsiderateness of the victim.
I haven’t been able to trace the origins of this sentiment, as it’s something that rarely comes across my mind when I learn about the plight of a suicidal. Maybe it has something to do with religion, maybe it has something to do with the way suicide is portrayed in the media. But what this public opinion underscores is the stigma around suicide in our society. Stigma has been a recurring theme in my posts, as it should be — it is one of the most prevalent barriers to a world where it is safer to express freely our emotional troughs. Accusations of selfishness do not deter the suicidal — it only isolates and ostracizes him or her. And if an individual has committed his or her final act, what purpose do these accusations serve except for further alienating the victim in their absence, and pushing those who are already struggling further out on the fringes?
I have always felt quite differently about people that have dealt with these morbid desires. I was so captivated by the tale of Theo and Francisco because I felt a great deal of empathy for Francisco’s plight — I didn’t know what had triggered his emotional trauma, but I knew his pain all too well. The empathy wasn’t exclusive to acquaintances or friends — it also extended to strangers in the news and celebrities who made headlines. I imagine this was the case because I am part of the minority who experiences this twisted form of depression. But therein lies the rub — if only a minority can empathize with suicidal victims, how can we ever tackle the pervasive selfishness argument that lies with many of the majority? Wouldn’t we live in a different world if instead of accusations of selfishness, we recognized these as cries for help? Wouldn’t that enable future generations to be more vigilant for the next round of victims?
For the mentally impaired, there is a sinister cognitive distortion at play here. I want to challenge the assumption that the act of suicide is a careless endeavor — on the contrary, a great deal of thought goes into the planning of many victims. But instead of taking into account all of the lives that they will affect, they assume that their absence will relieve the burden of their family & loved ones. Francisco had decided to retreat into the shadows without any warning of family & friends because he had concluded this would be the least disruptive way that he could unplug from society. This assumption was based on a misguided belief that his family & friends would be burdened by his emotional ordeals — an example of mind reading, which is described in no. 5 on the list of cognitive distortions. The opposite was true — this did not alleviate the worries of his loved ones, it exacerbated them. But unlike the cases of suicides where there is no return, Francisco did re-emerge and face the folly of his thinking. To know the tricks of the mind is to discern the thin line that separates life and death.
What I learned from Francisco’s story is that suicide actually exists on the extreme end of a sliding scale of disappearance. We are all entitled to disconnect from civilization — the only difference is how we choose to do it. Suicide represents the most dramatic and irreversible form of that conscious disconnection — the only permanent disappearance, if you will. Francisco chose to disappear from the world, but preserved the option of coming back, which he ended up exercising. In ways that I am only coming to understand now, it inspired my own disappearing act a few months later.
November 2016 marked my final month in New York City. I was emotionally defeated, physically drained, and mentally crippled. I had known that I was going to be leaving New York City for 2.5 months before my actual departure date, but had chosen to tell very few people. Many people had come and gone in my six years of living in the city — farewell parties had become almost routine. I had built many of my deepest friendships in that time, and proper etiquette maintained that those people deserve an appropriate goodbye.
Unfortunately, my head was in no place for a farewell party. I was becoming increasingly isolated, and my indifference towards social gatherings was turning into inexplicable animosity. I remember a birthday party in the last few weeks where I stayed close to a corner so that I could avoid people. My natural extroversion had morphed into a secluded agony, and that transformation was taking its toll on my social ties. Thus, I started planning out my disappearance from New York City. I had my one-way flight already booked, and started drafting my final e-mail months in advance. I spent countless hours choosing every word and turning over every phrase. I was not going to tell anyone in advance — I would send out my e-mail moments before my departing flight, and leave without giving anyone the chance to say goodbye. I was not going to drag my friends into the emotional black hole where I found myself.
By the end of November, I had been convinced by one close friend that leaving without any warning would damage friendships that I had taken six years to build, and that I should reconsider my exit strategy. I settled on a compromise, where I individually chased down more than a dozen of my closest friends and shared my news with them privately. What ensued were some of my most heartfelt, meaningful exchanges that I had in my time in New York — it was a shame that it had taken so long to take down my protective walls. Conversations take on a refreshing but unfamiliar level of honesty and candor when the end of a significant life chapter is on the horizon. While I had done right by this small group of people, I was still ghosting on the majority of my friends — something that disappointed me, but something that I also knew was necessary.
I spent the entirety of December responding to a deluge of replies to my letter. It was the most emotionally exhausting undertaking of my life, but I needed it to deconstruct my misery & devastation. The goodbye e-mail that triggered all of those replies started with a seemingly unrelated reflection, followed by a profound quote, then a sincere thank you for carrying me, concluded by a heartfelt apology for disappearing so abruptly. It dawned on me a couple of weeks later that this is more or less the general structure of a suicide note — a sobering realization. But unlike suicide, my disappearance was not irreversible.
The flood of e-mails in response to my final note disproved my misplaced belief that a silent departure would have gone unnoticed; if anything, I was taken aback by the range of thoughtful messages that I received. In other words, feelings are not facts — my assumption that I was doing everyone a favor by leaving without any notice was rooted in distorted thinking. It took me several weeks to craft my goodbye e-mail and get it to a place where I could achieve my main objectives: share a private pain, express an unbounded gratitude, and apologize for a sudden departure. But in the end, it is impossible to deny the e-mail for what it was truly was: a cry for help.
The Semicolon Series is motivated by my NYC Marathon campaign to raise money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Please consider donating here.
