Media and Society’s Impact on Me

My favorite movies when I was growing up was Lethal Weapon and An Officer and a Gentleman which was. I was approximately six years old when I saw both of these films.

In the movie Lethal Weapon a dominant theme is that of the insanity of one of the main characters, Detective Martin Riggs, and his suicidal behavior brought about by the trauma of the death of his wife. While in An Officer and a Gentlemen a major point in the plot is the suicide of one of the main characters, Sid Worley. Sid commits suicide after his lover rejects his proposal of marriage(because Sid dropped out of Officer Candidate School) and then tells him she lied about her pregnancy by him(she wasn’t pregnant at all).

As a young child, one isn’t aware of the capacity of the mind to absorb information vicariously. However, studies have shown that vicarious learning is a definite method of learning. In my case it seems I learned that it was okay to attempt suicide because of the emotional trauma brought about by the loss of a loved one.

Where is a person supposed to learn how to deal with such loss? From parents? From friends? From their own experiences? There is no way that I could have learned anything from my parents. My mother was emotionally distant and my father wasn’t in my life at all. There was no chance for me to learn anything from friends in elementary school or middle school; in high school people were in and out of relationships all the time. The sadness from the termination was always brief or just not talked about at all. I didn’t date in high school as I was overweight and believed no girls would want to date me. So, where did I turn to learn about relationships? Movies.

I learned that suicide is an acceptable means of dealing with loss. I learned that one’s death wouldn’t have a long effect on the lives of those left behind as the characters were initially overwrought with distress but minutes later were okay. Possibly being a young child made it so that it was difficult to interpret the timeline associated with the catharses of the characters that had to deal with the deaths.

So, was it okay for me to attempt suicide to show my pain because of the end of my relationship with my ex? At the time, in my eyes it was a viable option. It seemed to me that if she didn’t want to be with me, why would she care if I died? I understand that I was wrong in that belief. My first attempt represented multiple ideas: not knowing what else to do to convey my level of emotional suffering as well as trying to show how much I wanted to talk with her. However, in my second attempt I was completely ready to die; there was no level of manipulation. In my third I was just punishing myself.

In college from friends and acquaintances I learned that it is okay to be emotionally distant upon the termination of a relationship, that it is okay to go to the house of your ex(I never did this, by the way, because I knew it would be too much and it would be threatening), that it was okay to admit a desire of suicide to your ex, and that it was okay to repeatedly contact them via calling or texts. However, for me I learned that it is not acceptable to do any of those things. And by the way, in all of those cases the relationships were eventually restarted.

Was I wrong in what I did? It seems so. But was I the first? No. Did it work for others, making it seem as though it was an acceptable means of communication? Yes.

Why did I have to lose so much?