My auntie died last night. They found her body under a tree in a park. Wednesday night she threatened to kill herself and walked out of her house. They found her body yesterday afternoon. When I first heard about her walking out, I rolled my eyes and went back to work. She has been threatening to kill herself for about ten years now, and has attempted it a few times, but only when someone was due home so she could be found.
We all wrote this off as attention seeking behaviour. And of course it was. You don’t do this to yourself if you don’t want help. But that doesn’t mean we should have ignored her, or that she was seeking attention in the same way a toddler throwing a tantrum is seeking attention. Why were we so dismissive of her? Where was our compassion and empathy and supportiveness when we were all needed?
She had five kids and four grandkids, one of whom was born about a month ago.
I had a lot more I was going to write on this last night, but I just can’t do it right now. I will follow up with a point at a later date.
[...] I was on the 42nd floor and realised how easy it would be to unclip my harness”. Given past events, his comments are way out of line and unacceptable. I would dump him for that part alone. He [...]