Content warning: This piece includes mentions of suicide and suicidal ideation
I ended part two of my article with the detrimental importance of suicide education seeking the truth behind a negative narrative about a victim’s experience.
A couple of years ago I randomly met a Vietnam veteran who has passed away from suicide. I met this individual as he was passing on his bicycle. He was going to government offices to seek help. After his wife died, Tom became homeless. The awkward part was he was the brother-in-law of my grandmother’s neighbor, who she had known for over 20 years.
One day I was sitting outside with another neighbor, and Tom said, “I am going to commit suicide.”
My heart fell to the floor because I knew why he had said this. As a Vietnam vet he had tried seeking help at so many government places for homelessness and the response was “We can’t help you.” Tom tried to save the home him and his wife had built together.
The Vietnam War vets who could go home were not welcome They were spat on, assaulted, committed suicide, became homeless (some may still be homeless today), and experienced unemployment and drug addictions.
An example of Tom’s experience follows the information of vet experiences, even though veteran benefits started in 1917 (World War I) they were not implemented well. That’s why the Veterans Administration was established in 1930. This did not matter when the American people were against supporters of the war, not acknowledging the fact that many were drafted (forced into fighting for a cause unnecessary) and others volunteered. A concern was the amount of money the Vietnam vets should be paid for their service. Other issues, among many, have been the fight for adequate veterans’ benefits and Agent Orange causing detrimental health issues. This biological war chemical is still creating anxiety for veteran’s families and these warriors may have passed while advocating for their just compensation.
The reason for this backstory is Tom may have been dealing with this as well along with the experience of losing his wife. I learned how she held his broken pieces together. With her gone, Tom’s mental health was lost in societal despair. He dealt with the psychological warfare that played over and over in his mind.
I saw his soul lost on the day he said, “I had enough. I am going to commit suicide.”
My response was “I am not a veteran, but I do live with suicidal ideation and life for me is different too. Do you want to sit with me and talk about what you’re feeling?”
Tom said, “YES!” He became so happy and sat down. We spoke for a bit as I addressed witnessing how he was treated at those government places while seeking help. In our discussion, I said, “We didn’t know each other and never met but every word was heard. I was there. You didn’t see me and now we were introduced to this moment when he needed a hug just to be heard.”
Tom said thank you and sat on his bicycle to leave. I said, “Please sit with me again if you need to hear a voice with love when you need it the most.”
I realized his wife may have done the same for him in his moments of societal despair. He rode off and that was the last time I saw him. A couple weeks went by, and I saw that the neighbor we sat with said Tom passed away from a “broken heart.”
That was crap. I believe it was a suicide.
The moral of the story is even if you believe that government entities will continue to help you, they won’t. If you can’t offer them a part or all of your soul, they’ll mess up your life willingly and with pleasure. Whatever Tom and his wife’s story could have been, I only knew a little of their life when we spoke. His fragile soul and existence relied on the importance of her presence. When she was gone, so was his love for God that his wife held in her heart. Maybe we can all learn from Tom and his experience. From my point of view, maybe from Tom’s point of view, the world is a cesspool of crap spewed by “reptilian” garbage.
My writing is not for all readers and vendors, that is the most important part of this last piece. In part two of my writing, a volunteer asked me, “What did my article mean? What was I trying to say?”
I said, “Thank you for asking” and I explained to her about the societal despair other humans feel when they are outcasts. When people aren’t drawn in by the polarity of unsuccessful bias and remain different because they choose not to be part of the normality’s drama, or be abused or manipulated.
She said, “I can never live without trusting anyone.”
Well, my response to her statement was that the truth behind suicide is that when a blind eye is taken to other people’s actions, accountability for their hateful actions will never be justice for a victim’s experience. I also said everyone’s reality is not from a God perspective. Society normalizes the mentally unstable behavior of pedophilia and rape. Each offender does not get the right amount of time or receives probation by enablers or abusers themselves.
If a victim defends themselves, they are punished. In the final words of part three, my next piece will be about how the plagiarism of my words when others cannot be original is a mental health crisis.
