Quick side note: Hello, Cruel World – 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & other Outlaws deals with some heavy topics, if you don’t feel like reading about something like that today just skip this post…
Usually I have mixed feelings about blurbs, much like trailers they reveal far too much about the story or absolutely nothing at all. Fortunately, parts of this introduction are so much better for describing the vibe of this book:
„This is not a book of reasons not to kill yourself. No matter how many I could come up with, you’ll come up with more reasons to go through with it. This is a book about things to do instead.” – p. 17
This little thing went on my shelf with certain ulterior motives. To me, the title sounded like a good life insurance policy for when I’m in a deep hole again and neither therapy nor friends are within reach. I needed it faster than I would have liked and therefore I can say: My ulterior motives were right: It is a good life insurance, in two parts.
The first part of the book is a nearly 60-page autobiographical essay about identity, sexuality, desire, bullying, being considered a freak/problem, and a (very) short ride through queer history in America. The second part is the education and explanation of the 101 alternatives that you should do instead of killing yourself. The big gimmick at the end: an index of all 101 options that uses symbols to rate severity, safety and effectiveness of each alternative.
When I first skimmed the list, I looked up the severity rating for „ask someone for help“ and to my satisfaction it was rated as „difficult“. That was the moment I knew the book had been the right decision. Although the sheer existence of an autobiographical essay put me off at first. I just haven’t had a good experience with them. Many are cautionary and even more of them don’t really add value. Kate Bornstein’s is not one of them.
What makes it so different? For one thing, it reads (very) honestly and for another, it speaks a language and with metaphors that I finally „emotionally understand“. It has helped to learn in therapy from concepts like the „inner child“ or treatment methods like „schema therapy“ or the “Internal Family Systems Model”. What has also helped is learning to feel what the body needs or that „doing nothing“ often means that I am very much doing something, even though it may not be physical. Every now and then there are still days when nothing helps. It feels like therapy never happened and all sorts of „things“ that could help distract me have either been forgotten or don’t work. I call these days „rage“ or „pain days“ because even the famous
“I’ve become so numb
I can’t feel you there
Become so tired
So much more aware
I’m becoming this
All I want to do
Is be more like me
And be less like you”
quickly turns into anger or rather aggression for me. In short: Fight or Flight, which my physical body then likes to turn into „freeze“. Sentences like „It’s okay that you feel angry“, do help in the regards that I don’t feel worse, but they also don’t make me feel better. Once the anger is there, it has to go somewhere…
„I’ve been killing off the parts of myself that need to die and making lots of room for all the parts of me that are beautiful and kind and life affirming? Over the years I’ve learned that the urge to kill myself isn’t bad or wicked. Its scary but not a signpost. It takes a long time to hone yourself down to the you that you’ve always believed you could be.” – p. 76
The first time I read the passage, I thought that’s sounds…. a bit harsh and then I read it again and again. On the fourth time I realised that I understand this picture of self-love and love of life much better than the approach of many others: Drinking tea, watching feel-good series, getting favourite blanket, eating chocolate. I wish everyone these things, if they actually help you. They gave me little, I didn’t know what was missing, but something was missing…. Maybe it’s a certain kind of effective power both metaphorically and emotionally. Watching feel-good series or yoga often feel very passive to me. When I’m angry I want to get out, move around and if that’s not an option at least ruin my wax crayons, performing a cord cutting ritual or burning pieces of paper, on which I wrote bad things. Who said that the state of the art can’t be living the controlled chaos. Isn’t that one of the foundations of life?
Another aspect I liked about her „essay“ was her approach to the alternatives. I can’t hear the sentences „…but look on the bright side“ or „Have you ever thought about that…?“ anymore. Most of the time, in fact, I will truthfully answer „Yes, I did and no it didn’t help.“ At least for conflicts on an interpersonal basis, I couldn’t get the passage out of my head:
“I think, instead, we should try something like this: ‘Excuse me… I hope I’m not interrupting’ […] ‘I find you fascinating and so different from me. Might I ask you what your life’s been like? I think we could learn something from each other.’ – p. 56
It is one of those sentences that say in a structured and meaningful way exactly what I feel but cannot express. They help me especially with the people on the street, where I am never sure if they are sad or lost. Are these people at a crossroads that will change their lives or have they lost their potential to change and their personality is set in stone at 28 already?
The honesty in the essay is also reflected in the alternatives… The first dozen are the alternatives that every sufferer should really try, such as asking someone for help, calling the helpline, talking to friends, finding a therapy place. The further you read, the more colourful the mix becomes, from „Throwing away morals“, to „Be afraid. Be very afraid“ to suggestions that are really dangerous and tend to be more in the area of “being immoral”. The only rule that has top priority here would be „Don’t be mean“. The extent to which one can interpret this directive is proven by the subreddit „Am I the asshole?“, but I think the larger context becomes clear. Putting other people at risk with your own behaviour sucks, don’t do it. Don’t be the asshole. Instead try this alternative:
“2. I choose a better feeling and put it in motion.
I’m not talking about finding a way to feel happy. I’m talking about finding a way to feel better than the way you feel right now. Happy/sad is a binary that mostly keeps us stuck in sad. […] So, in this step, I look for a feeling that is closer to happy than where I am at the moment.” – p. 90
On the first glance it looks pretty basic, it is probably pretty basic, I still needed this book to get what my therapist meant, when she said, “Anything that helps, however brief the moment, is good. Continue.” In my world, an alternative or coping mechanism was pointless exactly when they didn’t help.
“I made the effort to humanise myself and meet a friend and during that I felt better too, but as soon as I was back home I felt as miserable as before…. that coping mechanism is a scam, it didn’t help me through the entire day! Worse, it didn’t cure my depression…“ – my past brain
When I tried to explain the idea to my therapist, she looked at me uncomprehendingly. In the meantime, I know that it’s about the moment and it’s about not forgetting positive feelings like happiness, joy or being understood. It’s about learning to imagine another world or possibilities in which the world is not always black, but it’s also not possible to live in paradise.
To what extent the book benefits or not from the brief treatment of American queer history, I am not able to say. It makes the message that queer people have been around far longer than conservatives would like us to know read more smoothly, emotionally it makes no difference to me.
I’ve thought long and hard about ever recommending a self-help book or a guidebook…. Simply because I have a problem with most of the self-help or self-care industry. Health cannot be solved by buying objects, nor can it be solved by a 14-day programme in which you are persuaded that you can do anything if only you believe strongly in it. In short, health is not a commodity…. and Hello, Cruel World – 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & other Outlaws reads like the author knows that too. At the same time, I can say that this book is certainly not for everyone. Most likely it is not even for everyone who has had mental health problems. It is blunt, it has a lot of very dark humour and if I think about my old classmates, even the ones I was friends with would absolutely be freaked out by this book.