Orange is part romance, part slice of life, and part dark as hell. It does it so beautifully that you feel like you’re on a roller coaster of emotions, especially if you can relate even a little bit to the words and themes of regret & suicide in the story.

The anime revolves around Kakeru and a group of 5 friends who he ends up joining after moving to a new school—Naho, Suwa, Azusa, Takako, & Hagita.

Kakeru internally deals with the guilt and regret of his mother’s suicide, while Naho and the rest of the of the group receive letters from their 10 year future selves telling them how to help save Kakeru and erase their own regrets.

Kakeru and Naho slowly build up mutual feelings for each other, while at the same time dealing with their internal conflicts by themselves. Kakeru struggles with wanting to die because of the guilt and regret about his mother’s suicide, as well as the fear of hurting others like Naho from his decisions. Naho struggles with knowing Kakeru’s troubles and her future self’s regrets and wanting to save him on her own, not wanting to burden her friends by opening up to them (who are also in the loop and getting letters).

Even though it’s an unrealistic scenario to have your future self telling you everything you should or shouldn’t do to avoid regrets, it allows Orange to really showcase how complicated the feeling of wanting to die is and how there’s not just one source, but that it’s compounded by so many interconnected things.

It’s easy to think of suicide as black and white because of what is visible to the outside. Either someone is suicidal and attempted to take their life, or not. Orange shows an example journey of someone going through all facets and thoughts of life to the point where they actually take their life.

The Life Lesson

I wanted to die on and off for a few years of my life. I’ve never tried to commit suicide, so I just thought that I was being dramatic because I never made an attempt on my life. Then I found out that passive suicidal ideation is a thing, and I started to take myself more seriously. That itself is a problem. I was downplaying my own issues and feelings, so how can I focus on myself or even expect others to take me seriously?

I couldn’t take the overwhelming pressure of everything, even if it was self inflicted. Regret of choices in my life would overwhelm me. It slowly built up until it became tunnel vision. And it’s not like I sat there just twiddling my thumbs. I tried a lot of things. I tried calling a hotline. I tried talking about it. I looked up articles and similar stories online. I purchased things. I put my effort into Bedtime Bossing. I tried taking a vacation. Ultimately these were all band-aids and I couldn’t escape the core feelings of wanting to die.

Part of the reason I never wanted to talk about it, was because I didn’t think anyone would understand (and I hope most people don’t understand because what a shitty thing this is to have to go through). I was afraid of hearing comments about:

• not being so dramatic
• how much stuff I have to live for
• how much the people around me love me
• how much it would hurt and affect the people in my life
• how things would get better

which is what you hear and read stories of how people respond to suicidal thoughts (Reddit is sadly both a place of comfort and toxicity for certain topics like this).

I was afraid to be lectured about why I shouldn’t want to die, or made to feel ashamed for feeling this way, like it’s just a joke. Orange brings up this exact scenario. At one point, Kakeru hangs out with his old friends from years ago and tells them about how he’s been wanting to die. His friends brush it off like he’s joking. This only makes him feel more alone. Sometimes we feel that it’s easier to just endure it ourselves rather than risk opening up and feeling ostracized, or judged, or brushed off like a joke. But as Kakeru says, “endure too much, and it’ll be your loss”.

The scary part with passive suicidal ideation is even if I didn’t have any definite plans to take my life, I never knew what might happen and push me to my breaking point; the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. That’s exactly what happened to Kakeru in Orange when he found a note from his deceased mother and it sent him on a spiral of guilt and regret that led to a “car accident” while on a bike ride.

I don’t think anyone who feels this way actually wants to feel this way. Of course I wanted to be happy. Forget happy, at one point I just wanted to not want to die all the time. But it’s always easier said than done. Feelings aren’t something you can just stop feeling.

I knew people loved me still, like my family and friends. I knew how much it might hurt or impact them. The thing is when you get to this point in life, typically the pain and suffering the person feels is greater than the selfless desire to live for others’ sake.

It exacerbated to the point where it was a runaway coping mechanism, where even small things would make me immediately crave death, because I just could not see a light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually though, I found my way out.

What to do if you’re having thoughts of passive suicidal ideation

There’s really no answer I can give you. Sometimes you gotta try everything, or take a leap of faith, or it just takes time for something small to change your perspective. Sit a friend down, tell them what you DON’T want them to say, take a chance and open up, even if they don’t know how you’re feeling. I do believe that feeling alone and that no one will understand you (because nobody really talks about these things if they go through it) is a huge factor to why these thoughts are so hard to resolve on your own. Kakeru found solace and joy in Naru; she might not have had passive suicidal ideation thoughts, but how she tried not being a burden on her friends allowed Kakeru to relate a lot to his pain of not being able to open up.

For me, I think what ultimately helped was a complete change of pace. I left my job, I moved states, and I basically had a new fresh start. The way I liked to analogize it was that everything around me (work, the culture, obligation, expectations, lack of space, the bubble) was poisoning me and I couldn’t work on building a tolerance to this poison if I kept ingesting it constantly. It’s not that I can never go back, I just needed space to heal. I’m 10x better than where I was, even if at times I still have a tendency to fall back into dark thoughts as a coping mechanism. The improvement is that overall I’ve found a positive mindset on life, and I’m learning to manage my thoughts and feelings when bad things happen, because you can only control yourself, not your environment.

If you read the life lesson of tattoos, one of the REAL underlying reasons I chose to get my music arrow tattoo on my left forearm was a reminder to not harm myself if I ever fell back into dark thoughts, because why would I ever want to ruin such a beautiful piece of art.

Ultimately, know that you’re not alone. You can never tell who’s going through these things, since it’s somewhat of a societal taboo topic to talk about still. But if you never take a chance to open up, you’ll never know if someone else does understand.

What to do as a friend?

As a listener, if someone who’s dealing with passive suicidal ideation or suicidal thoughts has the courage to open up about what they’re going through and chooses you to confide in, I implore you to take it seriously and really consider your words. This does NOT mean you are in charge of their life, or responsible for their actions. I do believe that many, if not most, people who feel this way don’t tend to speak up in fear of making others worry about them, or becoming a burden. So the best thing you can do as a friend, is to just be a friend, not a new caretaker. If they were to come to you after being heartbroken, would you make yourself responsible for the heartbreak? Of course not.

I say this in the life lesson of consoling others that it never hurts to say that you cannot empathetically understand, and instead ask how you can support them, or suggest things you think they might appreciate (like a hug!).

Who knows, like in Orange, you may end up finding yourself a new best friend, or even a significant other.