I am one of the ranks of harried commuters that put up with the vagaries of the train system day after day. When I took my job, I anticipated being a commuter for a couple of years - so far I've worked there almost seven years!
Yesterday, on the way home, it was chaos. Someone had jumped on the track from a bridge between Clapham and Croydon and must have been sprayed everywhere by an express train, because the whole network in that area was at a halt.
I have never understood why you would take your own life. It has always seemed to me that for an adult that does not have a mental illness (and therefore by implication is fully in control of their actions), suicide is the ultimate in selfish acts. It devastates those you leave behind and doesn't really solve anything except for the person that does it. The fallout lasts far longer than a death by natural causes or accident. And to commit such an act in a way that inconveniences thousands of others really pisses me off.
Don't get me wrong; I don't underestimate the despair that financial difficulties or failed relationships can bring. I have been pretty low with both problems myself at some stage or another of my life. But always, at the back of my mind even in my lowest moments, has been the knowledge that in many ways I have much to celebrate in my life. My children, my resilience, my health and my ability to make success out of nothing, even if it takes a while. When the whole world seemed to be against me, there was always something and I wouldn't have made my family suffer by imposing the guilt they would feel if I had topped myself.
Whoever it was that jumped, well I'm sorry for your trouble but actually, not as sorry as I could have been if you'd been less selfish, sought some help and sorted things out with people that care about you or in the remote chance you don't have any of those, proper professionals. You may have felt you had nothing to live for, and you have now shared that feeling with your family. And inconvenienced about half a million people in the doing. Well done.
I am of a very similar opinion to you, Mrs White. Although it could be regarded as being callous or uncaring, I have always felt that the 'public suicide' must always be an act of desperation but also of acute selfishness. It must be quite horrible to be so depressed that you would contemplate taking your own life, but carrying it out in full view of others smacks of showmanship at its bleakest. Like you, I have always had that reserve of resilience and a view that there must be a way out of what ever hole you are in. I too feel sorry for people who do not have the support that you or I enjoy, but part of me will always growl when someone tops themselves at my inconvenience.
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