CONTENT WARNING: Suicide



Saturday 23/7/2022. I was scrolling through Telegram and I clicked on somebody's profile to see a memorial for  shertu, who I knew in person for years and recently gotten back into regular contact with. Panic and in denial, I asked in a chat about what happened to him and I learned that he had committed suicide. I was instantly heartbroken, stricken with grief, fear and some guilt. Memories of the interactions I had with him flooded to me as these emotions prevented me from going to sleep until 5:30 AM in the morning.

My last memory of him was the last time we properly talked. He sat down and wanted to know the stuttering I have in person, and by extension my autism, more. It was a fruitful conversation and it warmed my heart that he wanted to understand me instead of shunning that part of me. Afterwards he talked with other friends about an exciting new project he was working on in his job as a computer programmer.
Before that was him showing interest in seeing whatever artworks I commissioned recently and showing interest in getting art with me but not having the money. Further back we were starting to reconnect. And then it was all of the positive moments we had when we interacted with one another. I was never a close friend of his but his death still left a hole in my heart anyway.

I watched his funeral. I deeply cried internally when I saw the immense grief and pain his family, his friends and ex were suffering and when I realized just how similar he was to me. He was also autistic and generally speaking had a similar personality, ambition and level of talent to me - the key difference is that he had the drive to realize his dreams where I did not. What that brought him was a purgatory of suffering and endless torment, one which I am eternally glad I avoided as I pursued my own projects while unemployed.
He kept getting jobs, but he could never keep them because his autism prevented him from fitting into the work culture wherever he went - he always was the one who did not fit in. Each time he lost a job, his depression mounted. He lost his most recent job, where he was working on the project I saw was promising, and decided that the world didn't want him. Without reaching out to anybody, he took his own life.

I commissioned Savaj over Telegram for an art which expresses the grief and suffering I felt over  shertu's suicide. He was truly one of the kindest people I ever knew and I am beyond enraged at the world that the stigma behind autism was what took him away. I wish I could rip a hole in reality to travel back in time tell the people who drove that stigma into the world that they are total monsters for bring endless suffering and torment to  shertu and other autistic people.

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Artist: SavajBunny on Telegram, Twitter
Orithan  Orithan