My life is not a tragedy. My life is not a soap opera for your benefit. I am a person. I am Jean. I deserve to be treated with respect.
This week at work I heard a professional telling clerical workers (who had no professional need for this information) about a consumer who had completed a suicide attempt. This description was complete with all the gory (and I mean that literally) details. The tone of the incident was like he was telling the plot of a particularly good soap opera episode. My first reaction was anger. How dare they talk about consumers that way? Isn't there any respect for confidentiality? Don't they know they're talking about a real person? He must have been in terrible pain to do what he did. Isn't there any empathy for his experience?
Still, even to me, it was largely an abstraction. Sometimes we do commit suicide, don't we? Then it dawned on me. Eight years ago I attempted suicide in a similar way after a similar trigger. The difference between this nameless man and me is that I survived.
Eight years ago, I had no home, job, family, friends or money. I felt like there was nothing left in my bag of tricks. Eight years later, I have a home, job, friends and money. I have a life better than I could have imagined then. He never got that chance. He never got to see how things could change.
And then I realized…They could be talking about me