The haunting theme song we all know so well from "M*A*S*H" is wrong, terribly wrong.
Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be,
The pains that are withheld for me,
I realize and I can see...
That suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.
In a way, it's not surprising that when Mike Altman, the son of the movie's director, Robert Altman, wrote the song's lyrics, he was only 14 years old.
What did he know about pain ... or suicide? Did he know at such a young age that suicide is anything but painless?
As an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention illustration accompanying a Daily Star story last weekend pointed out, every 16 minutes someone in the U.S. dies by suicide ... and every 17 minutes someone is left to make sense of it.
Let's set aside for now the controversy of terminally ill people in terrible physical pain being entitled to end their lives with dignity.
At its core, suicide is, as often said, a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
That doesn't mean the emotional pain someone feels before seriously contemplating ending his or her life isn't as real as physical pain.
It is _ most certainly it is.
We all have moments of despair. Sometimes those moments can last for weeks, months or even years. We can almost understand the desire to put an end to the torment.
Almost.
"The real reason for not committing suicide is because you always know how swell life gets again after the hell is over."
That quote was by Pulitzer Prize- and Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway, who on a July day in 1961, committed suicide by shooting himself.
We were dismayed to learn that over the last 27 years, Delaware County has had the highest average rate of suicide of any county in New York state. The reasons are anybody's guess. The experts our reporter spoke with offered factors that included the economic downturn, Delaware being a rural county with limited access to mental health services, its high alcohol use and easy access to guns.
One expert said that 90 percent of all suicides are associated with psychiatric disorders. That's just one reason for people contemplating suicide _ and those who care about them _ to seek help.
A good first step is to call a suicide hot line at (800) 784-2433 or (800) 273-8255.
Suicide is anything but painless. Not for the victim ... and certainly not for those left behind.
