Religions & Suicide

Suicide? Morals? Religion. 

Christians believe that God is the one who gave them life when God created Adam. This is why he is the only subject that is permitted to decide when your life is going to end. You as a person can live your life freely and do the things that make you happy but that it is also important to give back and to help other people, and make them happy too. If you take your life, then you are only helping yourself and you are making your loved ones sad, and that as seen by the Church is selfish.

In the memoir The Burn Journals, Brent is very selfish. He tries to commit suicide and he leaves all his family and his friends really sad. His brother won’t even talk to him. He didn’t go to visit him for a while when he was in the hospital and he even doubts if “Craig can love me again” in page 58. His mother cries a lot and she is very sensitive. “Mom sits by my bedside… And we both cry together.” Pg 60

In Jewish law Suicide is normally forbidden. It is only acceptable if it is to commission cardinal sins. These make you give up your life rather than sin, other than that it is prohibited. Jewish law says that you shouldn’t rush death because of personal problems or to evade pain. The people who commit suicide are buried in another part of the cemetery separated from the others.

I am sure, that one, Brent was not Jewish and two he didn’t commit a cardinal sin. He just ‘stole school supplies in algebra’ pg 70 and he did it ‘because of school and because of his friends’ pg 57. So to me it is still unclear on why he decided to commit suicide. If he would’ve succeeded, and if he were Jewish, he would right now be buried far away from his family. But he didn’t and he is now regretting something that he would have no reason to regret in the first place if he hadn’t made such a quick decision.

Islam, sees suicide like one of the utmost sins you can ever commit and it can harm you spiritual voyage because as said in the Quran “and do not kill yourselves, surely God is most Merciful to you.” Suicide is forbidden in Muslim thoughts.

Again, Brent made a decision that is completely frowned upon, he decided to try to take his life when it wasn’t his time to die.

So many religions are against suicide and yet so many people commit it. How and why do people get to this decision is beyond my understanding. And it is not in what you believe in or you don’t, its simple morals that you have to understand in life. 

In Control

Happiness

A famous Greek philosopher named Aristotle once said that ‘happiness depends upon ourselves.’ What he said had a lot of sense back then, and still does today. We make our own happiness and we can choose to be happy or unhappy with what we have. You are able to find happiness within yourself because you shouldn’t make the mistake on depending on anyone else for your happiness. I think this is what Aristotle wanted us to interpret when he said that.

I don’t think that in the memoir The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon quite understands what this means, but he gets to do it after various and constant shifts of emotions throughout the book. Brent includes a lot of different attitudes towards his situation during the book. 

We do get something from him, it’s that he really liked the Intensive Care Unit. When he has to move to the normal rooms he feels very nostalgic. Even when he only starts thinking about his rehab hospital in Delwaere he starts by being excited and he says that it will be good for him the he ‘will be happy’ and that he will ‘make new friends and try new things’ pg 113.

He doesn’t really mean it because he doesn’t understand how he can be happy in another place that is not the hospital. He ‘doesn’t want to leave’ in page 113 followed by a ‘Don’t make me leave’ which makes us appeal to his emotions and makes us feel sad for him, and this is exactly what he is trying to do because he quickly dismisses the thought of being said and starts being annoyed and throws some f-bombs ‘fuck it, its fucking useless.’ That is the moment when he knows that he is not going to be able to convince anyone and that eventually he is going to have to face reality and attend the rehab and leave the hospital.

What is interesting is that later on the same page he starts to be really sarcastic ‘Hey, Mom. Guess who tried to kill themselves a bunch of other times besides the one you know about? That’s right, me.’ The he starts using the word and very repeatedly showing us how nervous he is about the fact that he has to tell his mom about everything he has tried doing in the past.

It is curious that in only one page we are able to really understand all the emotions he goes through in just a few minutes of his life. Right now he doesn’t understand the meaning of happiness. He thinks that he will only find it in this hospital and that he will be uncomfortable even in his own home.

‘Yeah, lets go home,” I say

“Home?”

‘I mean the Unit.” –page 164

In only four months the unit has become his home.

Even if he does experience joy outside the hospital he doesn’t understand why and he just prefers to go back to his room, at the hospital.

As soon as Brent understands that he is the one that controls his happiness and how he feels he will find happiness within himself. He needs to be in control. 

Visual Vocabulary The Burn Journals

Well, here goes a lot of medical terms.. I hope you don't get TOO bored... (i didn't)

Jobst: a brand of gradient compression garments 

Garments: Any article of clothing

Skin-grafting: To transplant the healthy skin from a patients body or another persons body to a wound or burn so new skin can be formed.

Cystic fibrosis:  is a hereditary chronic disease of the glands which produced viscid mucus which obstructs the pancreatic ducts leading to an infection od fibrosis.

Silvadene: is a brand name for silver sulfadizine.

Bacitracin: is a mixture of related cyclic polypeptides produced by organisms of the licheniformis group

Mesh:  any kind of knit, woven fabric of an open texture.

Burrowing:  It can be either a hole or tunnel in the ground made by a rabbit, fox, that serves as a  habitation and refuge. It can also be a place of retreat; shelter.

Skimpy: very small; to thrifty; short and revealing

Throb: to beat with increased force or very fast when you are under a lot of emotion or excitement.

Metamucil: Is a bulk-producing laxative and fiber supplement

Personality Gets the Heart

Regret. 

I regret going out last night. I regret fighting with my sister. I regret that I didn’t stay in AP Chemistry. I can say, that I regret all those things right now, and if I probably think about it for a while, I would find lots of things that I have regretted doing for a long time. Because I have, done a lot of things that I regret, but I understand that the people who love me, will love me even if I make mistakes or decisions that I will later regret. They love me for who I am and not for what I look like. I am not a very self-conscious person, and I can say that with confidence because even if I have felt that someone is better than me in many ways, maybe at soccer or at art, I still know that if maybe they are smarter at math, maybe I’m smarter at history.

Okay, so what am I getting too? I think we have all experienced the, “Oh s*!@t I look horrible in that picture” or the “Agh I don’t like how this shirt fits me. Especially girls, can understand where I come from when I say that. In the memoir The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon he is very self-conscious about his looks. He thinks that because of how he looks no one is ever going to love him, and he is wondering about that throughout the book.

“Mom, no one’s ever going to love me, are they?” says Brent in page 70 like if he were sure of this that he is saying and that there was in fact, no way that nobody would ever love him. He doesn’t even look at himself when he looks at the mirror and he says that he “tries not to look at his face” in page 180 and if he doesn’t want to look at himself, he obviously doesn’t want other people to look at him either, this is why in page 70 he says that he is going to live in a basement when he is older so no one has to look at him. This is normal for him to think about, his future and everything, but people are sometimes very superficial, and I would like to include myself in that group, because it might seem wrong but it’s the truth. People sometimes just think of what they look on the outside but they always forget that ‘Beauty gets the attention, but personality gets the heart.’

He is constantly repeating that he really regrets that he “shouldn’t of done that” pg 185 meaning that he shouldn’t of burned himself and that he should’ve stopped earlier. He worries a lot about this, and it is normal, because he does not yet understand that people fall in love with what kind of person you are right now and they don’t care about your past mistakes and they don’t care what you look like.