In the Catholic Weekly One-Body One Spirit column, a Catholic movement that works to prevent suicide, a professor writes about the extreme despair that leads to death.
If you look at human existence simply, you can express it as life and death. Human essence cannot be replaced by anything else, he sees it as 'self-determination, self-regulation'.
A close look at humanity reveals many mutually contradictory concepts that coexist in symbiosis with physiological, time, consciousness, relationships, values, and spiritual concepts. In human existence, there are various contradictions such as input and output, past and future, creation and destruction, love and hate, understanding and misunderstanding, freedom and restraint, reality and unreality (illusion), sacred and profane, limit and transcendence all connected.
Coming into the world, human beings often cannot understand themselves because they are finished products made up of the contradictions listed above. Existentially, humans question not only the absurdity of the world but also their absurd inner world. However, most of them live in their original form until death. However, when subjected to repeated failures in life, they raise questions about why this happened and examine their internal contradictions.
When self-inquiry intensifies, existence disintegrates. In the process of examination, they face all kinds of contradictions. One side contradicts the other. Unfortunately, it is difficult to return to the original state (finished product) even if the pieces of human existence once disassembled are put back together.
The word 'dissociation', a psychological term, also means 'taking apart'. It means separating the elements that make up something. Dissociation often occurs in people who have suffered enough psychological trauma to shake their identity. A person who suffers because he cannot handle his present self draws out from within himself a stranger he doesn't know. The process consists of a kind of self-replacement work in which the self is disassembled and rearranged to reveal a different person.
As this dissociation progresses, one forgets the original self and recognizes another identity as the real me. Also, although there is a difference in duration and degree, people lose their memories of the past altogether. They experience a state of uncertainty.
They say life and death are indistinguishable. Death is inherent in human life, and glimpses make human life more original. However, a suicide victim sees life and death from a different angle. Rather than viewing life and death as contradictory but integrated dimensions, they perceive them as completely incompatible. Until suicidal behavior, the identity that accepts life and death on the same line is maintained. However, when pain accumulates and reaches a state of extreme despair, life and death disintegrate and separate, and the person leans toward death.
Similar to the dissociation phenomenon, a stranger who has lost his original self and is capable of suicidal behavior has risen from within. The last safety valve left to a person who has become able to die in this way is now only fear of death. The professor thinks that this fear of death may be the last natural healing power that keeps one from suicide.
