Often it is more than just the depressed person who is trying to hide their negative feelings. Many people don't listen, because they are not able to deal with the negative feelings they have. A depressed person brings a listener's own hopeless, helpless, feelings to the surface where they can't be avoided. We all have them. It's a part of being human. But a person who can't be honest with their own feelings, isn't going to find it easy to listen to a person who is suicidal. That is because they WILL be affected. It WILL be painful to hear. The truth is it forces us to face ourselves, the part of us that feels weak, has too many doubts and questions. The part we don't want to admit knows something about why a person wishes they could die. If we know that part of ourselves, we know something about how to survive the doubt, loneliness, fears of life, and sometimes knowing that even with all of this, life is all we have, death is the unknown, we will get there, all of us, but in the meantime we can understand each others feelings that life is hard and makes no sense. In the act of truly hearing someone in pain we create another thread connecting them to the fabric of life.
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Often it is more than just the depressed person who is trying to hide their negative feelings. Many people don't listen, because they are not able to deal with the negative feelings they have. A depressed person brings a listener's own hopeless, helpless, feelings to the surface where they can't be avoided. We all have them. It's a part of being human. But a person who can't be honest with their own feelings, isn't going to find it easy to listen to a person who is suicidal. That is because they WILL be affected. It WILL be painful to hear. The truth is it forces us to face ourselves, the part of us that feels weak, has too many doubts and questions. The part we don't want to admit knows something about why a person wishes they could die. If we know that part of ourselves, we know something about how to survive the doubt, loneliness, fears of life, and sometimes knowing that even with all of this, life is all we have, death is the unknown, we will get there, all of us, but in the meantime we can understand each others feelings that life is hard and makes no sense. In the act of truly hearing someone in pain we create another thread connecting them to the fabric of life.
August 15, 2010 - 7:40pmThis Comment
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