I suspect he chose the cultural hall because his reason for killing himself had something to do with the church. It's certainly a statement-making choice.
Or maybe it was the only place he knew of where he could tie a rope and have enough room to fall.
Stray Mutt Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It's certainly a statement-making choice.
I had a great uncle that did just that. He worked for the local parish church (not LDS) and didn't get the promotion he had been promised by the leaders. It made him quite upset. One night he broke into the church, poured gasoline all over the pews, and light a match. He then climbed up to the top of the bell tower, put a rifle to his head, and killed himself. Only the outer stonewalls remained of the 200-year old church in the morning.
A very similar thing happened in Chile. I went to reactivate a family, and they told me the all-too-common tale of "My dad was always a leader, so the church made our father miss our childhoods, etc..."
I was cocky as ever and prepared to rebuke their sloth and covetousness... and then they said, "...and then one day we walked into the church, and there he was hanging. dead."
I was floored. But, what I am still deeply ashamed of to this day (even typing this, I have literally started crying in the middle of work) is that I didn't show compassion or empathy like any normal human should. Instead I testified that the church was true, and that god never gives us a temptation too great that we can't handle it, and that they should rise above this and still embrace the gospel. Even though their father wouldn't be in the Celestial Kingdom, he wouldn't want them to settle for a lesser kingdom.
One of them actually showed up to church the next week. I was such a bastard. I really need to go back to Chile and apologize (I still know where they live).
It is important to find peace within yourself for the actions you took while Mormon which hurt people. We all have to deal with that and it's not always possible or practical to find the people and apologize.
To be healthy, you must be the one who understands yourself more than anyone else. You must be your own best friend and advocate, instead of judging yourself. The church conditioned you to always find yourself lacking because that way they control you through making you feel forgiven, "better" through blessings, sacraments, etc. This is all illusory, of course.
You can feel better all by yourself by thinking about your motives. You were doing what you believed was best, right? You knew that the Mormon doctrine of eternal families offers the best comfort for those who have lost loved ones (ie, not really gone, you will see them again, etc).
The lack of human empathy and compassion IS NOT YOUR FAULT. As a missionary, you were forced to suppress all your human emotions and needs. You were deprived of sleep, isolated from loved ones, in fact--the whole list of characteristics of a cult is met particularly and enthusiastically in the treatment of missionaries. It is clearly a program to break the spirit and individuality of a person and make them into putty that can be molded.
You were there not because it was easy, but rather because you thought it was the right thing to do. You gave that grieving family all you had to offer--the testimony of Mormonism. Everything else that was human, that was you, was stripped away at the penalty of you being sent home in disgrace.
Judge your past based on your intentions and motives and you will gradually gain the acceptance of yourself and your previous life as the acts of someone who sacrificed to choose the right. You thought you were doing what was best and that is the healthy, realistic way to judge yourself.
We live in the present now and that's the focus. If you feel the need to contact people from the past, there's nothing wrong with that, but it should not be necessary for you to fully forgive yourself and move on.
I'm not justifying crime or anything, just talking about regret for having been only interested in converting people--seeing them as objects and not having the compassion a spiritual person should have as a fruit of the spirit.
I hope they reveal what was on the note that he left.
There was a young mormon guy that shot himself in my neighborhood. He was in law school and the top student in his class. I'm sure he was already pegged as a future bishop and so on. He and his wife had a 2 year old. He had apparently been struggling with severe depression (I'm sure caused, in part, by being mormon) drove out into the desert and ended it. In trying to make sense of it, my mom, a stupid tbm of course, went on and on about how he was moody and withdrawn. Then stated that his wife and daughter will be happier because now they get to go live with her family in Utah.
That is terrible. When I realized the church isn't true and realized my family was unwilling to value my feelings as much as the church leadership and considered me an apostate, I went through terrible depression. It is not hard to imagine I could have ended it all the same way (I certainly considered it). The desire not to leave my own 2 year old without a father helped. Fortunately, I got help and am mostly better.
In the past year I have known of two Mormon men who committed suicide. One left behind a family of 6. His wife promptly remarried about 3 months later. I really hope she has received the emotional help she needs, because I am afraid she might be masking it. Everyone's attitude seems to be that the gospel must be true since she is able to remarry so soon. The other was a long-time less-active who had recently started coming back to church.
But yes, it always gets blamed on the severe depression they were struggling with throughout their lives, but never a consideration that maybe the religion, or the transition from the religion is very harmful.
I read through the responses on the NOM forum and noticed most of the responses indicated he was the perfect leader, father... Appearances are, well, on the surface. No one knows what it was like within the walls of his home or in his head.
My former husband and I were the epitome of a happy couple (on the outside), so much so that we were asked by the bishopric to facilitate a question-and-answer session about how to make marriage better. "We thought of everyone and decided you two have the best marriage and down-to-earth approach so others will listen."
Stunned, we didn't say anything except, "We'll think about it," and after the dude left we looked at each other and started laughing. "Do they have any idea how horrible our marriage is? Apparently, not. What in the world are we doing that would make others think we're so great?"
I feel for his family, and especially his daughter who was among the YW who found him hanging. This is so horrific on so many levels.
I read the original post and the NOM thread earlier this morning and have been crying ever since. My mother killed herself seven years ago and her body was found by one of her children.
This man's family and friends are going through a hell that is difficult to imagine and that I would not wish on anyone. May they find the peace and support they need, from any source that gives them comfort. And I dearly hope no one says anything horrible at the funeral.
I hope the rush of emotion and the tears will help you to feel better. Only people who have experienced a horrific death like a suicide know the torment the family goes through afterward.
If you are reading this and have been thinking that suicide might be a way out, please reconsider. The people you love will think of you and how you died every day for the rest of their lives. They will cry over what they imagine they could have done differently.
Don't put your pain on your spouse and children--get help. If you have professional help and if it isn't working, switch to someone else.
Did you know that children of parents who commit suicide have a 30% greater chance of killing themselves?
Not to steal this thread or anything, but it reminds me of a man, who was a former YM leader. Wife came home and found him hanging, having committed suicide. Left adult children and a large extended family who were very active TBM's. They were all so distraught that at the funeral home, the family enlisted the service the spiritual giant of the stake. This guy who had made a name for himself in giving "powerful" blessings. At the funeral home, post mortum x5 days, the surviving sons, etc. gave this deceased gentleman a blessing, i.e. "that he would be forgiven for having committed suicide and received into the kingdom.
My point is that TSCC is grounded in guilt and frustration. Even in death they slam you. Idiots. Surprised we don't see more and more of this type of thing. Proly, the bishopric member above felt guilty about something and could not imagine the back lash and social embarrasment of a court. Maybe not. It could have been a number of things.
At suicide funerals, bishops have been instructed to read an official stance of the church on suicide. Luckily, many do not do that.
But I have known multiple families who have had a child commit suicide, and the bishop did read the statement.
The statement isn't egregious, per se, but it is very insensitive and sterile. It is not what a grieving family needs to hear, & is meant to reinforce doctrine (I can't imagine it was written in a hope to convert any non-members in the crowd, but instead to scare the still believing inactives back into paying tithing... I mean back into the fold).
By pure coincidence I am reading right now a thoughtful and thought-provoking book called November of the Soul: The Enigma of Suicide, by George Howe Colt. Suicide is an enigma. Even when a person who kills his or herself leaves a note (and they often do not), the note does not seem to give any comfort to the people the dead person left behind.
It's hard to know how much the Mormon Church contributes to mental illness, and to suicide, in its members. One General Authority, Alexander Morrison, gave a General Conference talk about mental illness, and wrote a book about it: Valley of Sorrow.
When I was a Mormon Church member, and struggled with severe depression, the Church was of no help at all, either in its teachings or its practices. Personal prayer, my name put on the temple prayer roll, and priesthood blessings did nothing. On the other hand, I do not think anything about the Church contributed to the depression either.
The church doesn't care if a person works him/herself to death. Individuals must draw boundaries and save themselves. The way people are expected to sacrifice their time/health/families for the cult is tragic. God surely doesn't want this.
When my 18 year old daughter died by suicide, I allowed my TMB relatives to hold a Mormon funeral. I literally held onto my chair to stop myself from stomping out of the room while my BIL spewed judgement and bullshit aimed at my dead child. My MIL was HOT to get may daughter's temple work done and to me it was about as meaningful as throwing carrots in the air, so I let her try to get it set up. Turns out suicide victims must wait a full year after death just like any other felon or murderer. My MIL is blissfully unaware that her endowed grand-daughter was an atheist. Life is hard--Mormonism makes it harder.
I am so sorry. No one should have to be subjected to a mormon funeral, let alone the people grieving the loss of the individual. I'm glad you made it through it, but I'm sorry you had to.
You sound like a very compassionate & strong daughter to allow your extended family to do what they thought they had to. I couldn't have done that.
Doesn't proxy temple work for every un-endowed person who dies in any way, member or non-member, and not just by suicide, have to wait for a year to pass, before being performed for the decedent?
My husband made the comment that life wouldn't be worth living if the leaders were lying. I think there are those who would carry through with the feeling. I don't think he would but the church has that strong of a hold on a persons belief system they can't imagine life without it, or they can and can't live with the consequenses of losing their family as they know it.
There was a young man from our ward, married with a baby on the way who hung himself in his parents home. My daughter dated him in high school. When he got home from his mission they continued to date a little. He was interested in learning about Masonry, I suspect he did and was led to the truth about the church. He knew his wife loved the priesthood and would probably end the marriage if he wasn't the expected priesthood holder. I am speculating but I wouldn't be surprised if I am right, he left no note.
The fact is that this is a false church, yet it has the power to make an individual feel so bad about themselves that they feel their only way out is suicide.
I have no idea what led this man to this, but I'm pretty sure that the mormon church had SOMETHING to do with it given his choice of location.
I knew a fundamentalist Mormon that shot himself while sitting in his car at a parking lot near the Church Office Building. This was about 1 to 2 years ago. He left a note, but there was something suspicious about it since he was very vocal about his beliefs (handed out fliers, dvds, etc. at temple square) and the church was fighting against him. Also there was nothing in the papers or news, at least not that I noticed. His wife was a TBM and sold me most of his books like a few days after it happened. She didn't seem sad or shocked at all, but maybe some people are good at hiding that kind of thing.