Cw Suicide - Blog Posts
secret trio my beloved
I made a game! It’s a text-based adventure about living with mental illness. I pulled a marathon coding session yesterday and ported it to javascript, so it’s now you can play it in a browser without having to install anything. Yay!
As the subject matter might suggest, it’s a little on the dark side. Writing it was an emotional but very rewarding experience. Self-expression through code!
Let me know what you think!
Very useful info.
sorry if this might be an upsetting subject, but what was believed to happen to the souls of those who committed suicide? i read that hekate has reign over and can command spirits that still wander earth due to having died traumatic deaths, like murder or suicide, but that's all i know
Hello, Anon! Thank you for the forewarning, but I've studied ancient Greek and Roman funerary practices and I worship Persephone/ Proserpina and Hades/Dis Pater, so the subject of your ask isn't upsetting to me at all.
In ancient Greece, those who died by suicide were regarded as innocent victims and their bodies were accorded proper burial. ¹
As far as I've been able to determine, the cause of death has no bearing on the fate of the soul of the deceased - deeds are what matter. So if a person has, in life, performed notable or heroic deeds or been initiated into the Mysteries, they receive places of honor in Elysium or the Isles of the Blest. Those who were basically good in life are sent to the Asphodel Meadows. Those who commit hubris (a serious transgression against divine law, such as flagrant disrespect of the gods, cannibalism, violations of xenia, or the murder of kin) receive punishment for a short term or eternity. *
The wandering of souls on earth was generally attributed to the deceased not having received "the honors due to the dead", meaning proper burial and the subsequent commemorations with their names spoken aloud and offerings of garlands, food, and drink at the grave throughout the year and across generations. Those who died by suicide or murder, unbeknownst to their families or friends, may have received proper burial and festival offerings from charitable strangers, but not the rites and offerings expected from their living family, and some of them may been unburied as well as untended. Therefore, they would be among the restless souls led from the underworld by Hekate each month on the eve of the new moon, seeking redress of wrongdoing and their honorable due. Hekate's deipnon, a plate of food crumbs and scraps, was left at crossroads at this time, an offering to appease the goddess and the wandering spirits.²
Wandering spirits were also believed to congregate in the streets of towns during the three-day Anthesteria festival in the spring of the year. On Chytroi, the final day of the Anthesteria, a special porridge of fruit and seeds was offered to those spirits and the last act of the festival was to proclaim to them, “‘Out! Out! Anthesteria is over!” Herbert Jennings Rose proposed that these wandering spirits were "...the spirits of the unburied or at least untended dead...Once a year measures were taken to give these spiritual vagabonds at least a little relief, which done they were got rid of with all convenient speed." ³
It's important to note that when the ancient Greeks made offerings to propitiate restless spirits, they did so at some distance from their homes. One knows one's own beloved dead, and has a good idea whether encouraging any of them to hang out inside one's home would be helpful, but a random wandering soul can become a nuisance and should be encouraged to return to the underworld.
Hope this helps!
*I have no idea how the ancient Greeks who believed in reincarnation worked this. Presumably, everyone got to select some aspects of their next life, except for those who'd reached ultimate spiritual development.
¹ Naiden, F.S. "The Sword Did It: A Greek Explanation of Suicide." The Classical Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 1, The Classical Association, Cambridge University Press], 2015, pp. 85–95, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43905643
² Smith, K.F. "Hekate's Suppers." Temenos, https://sites.google.com/site/hellenionstemenos/Home/festivals/hekatesdeipnon/hekate-d-1
³ Rose, Herbert Jennings. “Keres and Lemures.” The Harvard Theological Review, vol. 41, no. 4, Cambridge University Press, 1948, pp. 217–28, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1508045
I also consulted:
"Greek Underworld." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 October 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_underworld
The Greek Way of Death by Robert Garland, 2001 (X) is the best starter text the study of ancient Greek attitudes about death, the dead, and funerary practices, plus it has a rich bibliography for your tangents.
Strands of Existence
Recently one of my favorite pieces of media featured a character brought back to life with the exclamation of EMPTY! empty empty empty EMPTY!
It resonated harder than it should’ve to be honest
because I feel like that
I feel like I’ve been killed by life
by friends who should've been
family that wasn't
lovers who refused to be
My soul, exsanguinated by those who said they would cherish it
My dreams scooped out of my skull by harsh words and harsher realities of funding and conditional love and security
My wonder pulled from my chest by the same hands I once placed my stained glass heart into
My skin sensitive not from angry and rash touches but from the lack of any love at all
And its left me Empty
Left me feeling like the only things left are the strands of the person I once was and tried so hard to be tying me to a life that I don’t really want.
I tried to cut those strings
those delicate blue strings running the lengths of my arms and legs and release the hot red magic held within them
tried to free myself
tried to leave on gossamer wings
but it didn’t work
it failed
i failed.
So I stopped trying, I now bleed on pages instead of pillows and try to find those wings within me and let them free without letting them see the light. I try to leave those strings be and let them puppet me towards a life I want to lead instead of one I want to leave.
I still feel like there’s only strings within me, but at least I stopped trying to cut them
Now I pick up the pieces of my shattered stained glass heart and use yet more silver to weld it back together and try to believe what they say, that broken things fixed are just as beautiful if not more for the proof of recovery
And if I can do it
Maybe you can too
Maybe we both can one day look up and realize that those strings weren’t trapping us, but leading us to our destinies like red strings of fate tying us to happiness and a future that we can’t yet see
(↑ The pain is just an illusion, baby!)
chara can you please kill me please just kill me i don’t think i should life so please if don’t kill then i will because kill me will make me happier will you kill me because i never knew anything outside pain anger suffering sadness depression grief loss so will you take the life of this suicidal human being
Hello. This ask has caused me a lot of pain and confusion. I meant to speak with you privately but i could not have access to a dm.... I will say this, please be okay and not hurt yourself... at the very least please seek help from loved ones or people you have there with you that you trust.. please open up with them somehow and ask for help. Just talk things out, and please have a little courage to admit what is hurting you to them. Please do not listen to strangers in the internet who will tell you and feed your most helpless thoughts. It's just a small step to talk to your trusted people and slowly find yourself again. Please stay determined. Thank you.
US Helplines:
Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696
Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-8433
LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255
Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386
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UK Helplines:
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b-eat eating disorder support: 0845 634 14 14 (only open Mon-Fri 10.30am-8.30pm and Saturday 1pm-4.30pm) e-mail: help@b-eat.co.uk
b-eat youthline (for under 25’s with eating disorders): 08456347650 (open Mon-Fri 4.30pm - 8.30pm, Saturday 1pm-4.30pm)
Cruse Bereavement Care: 08444779400 e-mail: helpline@cruse.org.uk
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