Suicide: Just a Game.
I’ve been learning a lot about humankind and our social and societal systems as of late, and one particular demographic has really burdened my heart. Though I haven’t spent a lot of time focusing on this particular span of society, I wanted to focus on them in a blog that is essentially segued from my former blogs into this byproduct of all the thoughts I haven’t had a platform to share until now. But these people have been a prevalent theme in my heart as I wrote my blogs but didn’t save room to address the people who weight the heaviest on my heart as I give consideration to my perspectives on humanity.
The lonely. And even more particularly, the people who are so lonely, they don’t even want to live anymore.
A 14 year old girl sits at her dim laptop in her room. It’s about 1am and the house is dark. She has several tabs open- facebook, pinterest, and blue whale. On facebook, she’s scrolling through the feed looking at pictures of her friends and their babies and dogs and of course, plenty of political posts. She skips those entirely, and usually unfollows the people who use social media for politics- politics are for old people. On pinterest she has boards for paintings and crafts she wants to do, clothes she wishes she had, a board for funny quotes and pictures, and another board full of hairstyles. On blue whale, she occasionally responds to a chat then goes back to facebook or pinterest.
A blink on the blue whale tab. Another message. She opens it up and reads the request. The message is asking for a picture of the number 58 cut into the flesh on her wrists. She reads it several times, then goes to her desk where a pocketknife is tucked in with the pens and paintbrushes.
She actually cuts this number into her arm and sends the picture. A few more minutes. Another message from blue whale. Another request for another picture. This time of a slit vein. She doesn’t respond right away. She’s not sure she wants to do this. The person who sent the message waits a while then more forcefully demands a picture of the slit vein, or else. You want to win, you have to play.
Certainly this is just a sick nightmare, right?
This is a real game! A game? Suicide is now some kind of a joke?
21-year-old Filipp Budeikin was arrested in Russia last week for being the supposed founder of this game, commonly referred to as “the suicide game,” which as its’ name suggests, is actually intended to be a game that leads to literal suicide. The target demographic of this game is children who “feel alone” and these children are demanded to perform self-harming tasks and take pictures of the damage on their bodies to send in to the game in order to achieve a higher level in the game. The ultimate end destination in order to win the game is to actually take ones’ life.
15 suicides were allegedly connected to this game and to Budeikin before he was arrested, but he admitted of his own volition that he personally knew of 17. He claims that he is doing a service to these kids who “feel alone” by giving them something to strive for and to seek unity through.
I certainly hope that my reader is unsettled by this news release. This is a disgusting and abusive thing, to lure children in to harming and killing themselves. But from a moral standpoint, is suicide actually wrong? Catholics would argue that one will lose ones’ Salvation from the act of suicide. Muslims would argue that certain suicidal deeds are what secures Salvation.
Let’s look at God’s word and see what we find.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
We are made in the image of God. We are the image of God.
“For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe. “He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. “So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
God loves the hurting.
Matthew 6:26
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
God cares about the little creatures. How much more does He care about the ones that are made in His own image?
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
We are not our own. We belong to another, a higher, a creator. Our life does not belong to us.
We see from these verses that God LOVES the things He’s made. He’s a proud artist who sees the full functionality of His work, and wants it to be appreciated and used accordingly. I can fully understand this concept, because I absolutely love to paint. It’s a huge destresser for me and I currently have fourteen canvasses hanging on my wall in my apartment because there is nothing more cathartic to me than to make something beautiful.
And when I do, I proudly hang that picture on the wall
and stare at it and send pictures of it to my mom
and notify my fiance that I’ve made a thing
and he knows he’s expected to be excited with me about the thing I made.
I can’t bear to give them away because that’s a piece of my heart on that wall, and I want to keep it close to me. It’s not because I don’t love to bless people with gifts, but it’s just that if I make something for myself, it’s a piece of me. I have to purposely make something for another person if I want to give that something away, because these painting are a precious piece of soul. And if someone is standing too close to it with food, or touching it, or breathing on it, or blinking in its’ general direction too many times (I’m kidding…), I am tense. I want my work to be valued and appreciated and used correctly because I toiled over it to make it what it is. That’s how God feels about us, only infinitely more so, because He is a far better creator than I, and humans are far more beautiful pieces of art than I can make.
So it hurts God to watch His people take their own life.
I was watching one of the newest episodes of Sherlock Holmes on BBC this week, and Sherlock jumped into a situation where a discouraged woman was going to take her life. He smacked the weapon out of her hand and firmly shouted at her: How dare she take her life? Her life is not her own, because when she leaves, she is not left behind to mourn. She must not take her life because it does not belong to her!
And it’s true. We must not hurt others by taking ourselves out of their lives. We must not hurt God by destroying the piece of art He has made. This life is not our own. Yes, life is hard. But there is help.
I’ve been writing a lot of blogs on economics and social stratification and poverty these days. And it’s got my heart breaking. In every human system, there are always the underlings. The poor. And among these poor, there is so commonly a desperate hopelessness that they see no way out!
The US National Library of Medicine did a study on the suicide rates of the poor and report that:
“Measures of area poverty and deprivation are most likely to be inversely associated with suicide rates and median income is least likely to be inversely associated with suicide rates. Analyses using measures of unemployment and education and occupation were equally likely to demonstrate inverse associations.”
More simply put: If don’t have a lot to your name, your suicide rates are higher than if you’re rich. If you’re unemployed, your likeliness to commit suicide is higher.
The Boston globe gives us even more specific numbers. Over the span of 15 years (1999–2014), one study reported that during the duration of this study, the suicide rate for middle-aged women, ages 45 to 64, jumped by 63 percent. The overall suicide rate rose by 24 percent from 1999 to 2014. The increases were so widespread that they lifted the nation’s suicide rate to 13 per 100,000 people, the highest since 1986.In all, 42,773 people died from suicide in 2014, compared with 29,199 in 1999 (Boston Globe).
People who God loves are giving up and ending their lives. This is tragic! And then we have people like Filipp Budeikin who turn death in to a game and convince children to injure and slay themselves. How this must break the heart of God. I know that as I studied this topic in my cheery little college apartment, a solemn darkness surrounded me in my home and I was very saddened and hurt for these people. And I hope you are as well. Live life with your eyes up. Look for the hurt. Help them.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16420711
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright 2002, 2007, 2011, 2016, by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-teen-suicide-blue-whale-internet-social-media-game/28322884.html
