posted
Lemming jokes aside, I want to thank all who have posted here for their insightful comments on suicide. I have a LOT of friends who are suicidal, and what I've read so far has helped me to understand a little of what they might be going through.
posted
It's really hard when your own thoughts lie to you. How does one know what to believe, when one's own brain is a traitor? It will tell you that nobody wants to talk to you, that you are the foulest, most corrupt person that ever existed. Or that you are endlessly tiresome and mopey and dull. That you are contaminating everyone with whom you come into contact. Ashes and death, that you kill everything you touch.
Somehow you have to figure out what parts to ignore and disbelieve, and which to credit. Somehow you have to keep all that from turning into a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Thy portion esteem I highest Who wast not ever begot Thine next, being born, who diest And straightway again art not. With follies light as the feather Doth youth to man befall Then sorrows gather together There wants not one of them all: Wrath, envy, discord, strife, And the sword that seeketh life, Then sealing the sum of trouble Doth tottering age draw nigh, Whom friend and kinfolk fly, Age, upon whom redouble All sorrows under the sky.
[ August 27, 2003, 10:43 AM: Message edited by: ak ]
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posted
I think there's no question that there are genes that convey the tendency. My great grandfather committed suicide, for instance. And when I was 40 and had been battling mine already for 20 years, my mother told me that she too had always been suicidal our whole lives. I don't know why she never said before. It might have been a big help to me if she had, maybe. But maybe she just thought it was too personal, or maybe that it would be too frightening a thing to find out about your mother.
That word "estrago" from Speaker, a ruin or desolation, isn't it? It runs through my head at times like that.
In Dr. Kay Jamison's book Touched with Fire she showed lineages in families of people with major depressive illness, manic depression, and cyclothymia. These were artists and writers, poets and musicians. She showed that there is some connection between those madnesses and those gifts. Even if only that one has to develop the latter to have any possibility of surviving the former.
[ August 27, 2003, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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posted
I don't think suicidal tendencies can be passed genetically, but I do believe that genetic predispositions towards depression can be, which is almost the same thing but not quite.
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The stars have not dealt me the worst they could do My pleasures are plenty, my troubles are two, But oh, my two troubles, they reave me of rest: The brain in my head and the heart in my breast.
Oh grant me the ease that is granted so free, The birthright of multitudes, give it to me, Who relish their victuals and rest on their beds, With rocks in the bosom and guts in the head.
Housman has a lot of great things to say about being this way. I really love him. He's been such a friend and a comfort all my life.
This quote is to introduce the new question: would you change? Would you give it up and be as other folk?
I want to make clear that I don't think it is a choice. I think we are like this because we are made this way. We didn't choose to be this way and we can't choose to stop. The question I think I'm asking, though, is "Is it worth it to you?" "If it were possible for you to choose, would you choose not to be this way?"
I think the poem perfectly expresses it. And my answer, even in the depths of the worst of it, my answer is no I wouldn't. I would still choose to be me.
[ August 27, 2003, 04:18 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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Think no more, lad, laugh, be jolly. Why should men make haste to die? Empty heads and tongues a talking Make the rough road easy walking And the feather pate of folly Bears the falling sky.
Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking, Spins the heavy world around. If young hearts were not so clever Oh, they would be young forever, Think no more, 'tis only thinking Lays lads underground.
[ August 27, 2003, 04:18 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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Mac, don't be angry with her. She's well-meaning but knows not of what she speaks. Of course we can't just choose. She just doesn't know that. Don't be upset with her about it. She is mistaken.
<<<<<katharina>>>>>
<<<<<mac>>>>>
[ August 27, 2003, 07:48 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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Baloney, anne kate. Your post shows a distinct lack of imagination.
And was incredibly rude.
anne kate, was your question all a pose then? A tragic draping across the couch, hoping someone was watching? Why bother asking if you are going to blow off the answer?
posted
Let's clarify, is kat saying that the idea that suicidal tendencies are an illness is baloney?
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I wasn't setting you up. It was a valid question. WHY do people keep feeling the need to hug me? Is it pity? 'Cause I don't want that.
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quote:WHY do people keep feeling the need to hug me?
Okay.
I hugged you because from your post and from other recent ones, it is obvious that something hurts. It isn't pity. It's... heck, it's probably some sort of maternal hormones.
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Is it at all possible that she is not mistaken, but either 1) you are, or 2) she is mistaken about you but not about everyone?
You know how shrinks are always saying that you have to will yourself to change before you can? Well, a year or so after my suicide attempt I made a conscious effort to change my life and change my outlook. I didn't really believe it was possible before, but I was desperate and just giving it another shot. I wanted to mentally at least make a clean start even if I couldn't in other aspects of my life. It didn't work right away. There were days I slid back. And I was still depressed. But eventually, I climbed out. After a couple of years, I started being able to notice every once in a long while that my life wasn't really as dark as I had been perceiving it, that my perceptions were selective. If my perceptions were selective anyway, why couldn't I consciously direct what I chose to perceive instead of letting my subconscious do it for me? It took four or five years for me to climb out of my depression. And I am still insecure, and depression is still a pattern I know well, and skate close to from time to time. But I have changed. I am able now to tell that insidious voice mack talked about to shut the hell up, and it does.
Here is the point where we insult each other: you perceive my post as implying that you must not be as strong as I am because you have not been able to do this (though I am not implying this), and you get mad. You post back minimizing and making light of what I went through, saying if I was able to heal it couldn't have been that bad, and I was just a whiny teenager, and I get mad.
Let's not and say we did.
The thing is, I still remember what it was like to be on the wrong side of my depression. I remember how cynical I was, how absolutely certain I was that things could not get better in my own mind, that there was no way I would ever be anything other than unhappy. I remember reading a Sylvia Plath quote (I used to really be into her, of course) where she said that what suicidal people needed was not to hear that the birds still chirp and the breeze still blows and there is plenty of light in the world. And after I came out of my depression, I realized that she was exactly wrong. That's what I needed to know, but I was refusing to believe the message.
Can you make a choice to not be depressed/suicidal? Ultimately, I did.
I'm willing to concede that perhaps your depression was different from mine. Perhaps depression caused by chemical imbalances is different from depression caused by traumatic events. On the other hand, though, I know that depression, like an evil demon, is unwilling to let go of people in it's grasp, and doesn't allow them to listen to healthy messages, so who can say for sure?
But maybe what Katharina said wasn't a sign that she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about, but that this is what she has observed.
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kat, the question was "IF you could choose, would you choose to be not like this." To me that's a very interesting question because the answer is no for me. I mean most sorts of illness, like the flu, if I could choose not to have it of course I would. But this is both more and less than illness. It's about who you are.
I am sorry for blowing you off, but your thought that we can just choose is mistaken. It truly is. We can't choose not to be this way any more than we could choose not to have the flu if we caught it. We can do our best to make it get well quickly. But biochemistry is not a choice any more than viruses are.
I wasn't setting you up, though. I didn't mean CAN we choose, I meant IF we could choose then WOULD we choose.
[ August 27, 2003, 08:21 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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posted
We hug people we care about when they tell us they are having difficulties. Not because we pity them, but because we want to show we care and hope for the best for them.
I'm struggling right now with one of my kids in kindergarten, because she's not adjusting well, and it's making it hard for us at our jobs. I'm also still unhappy that Bob is moving away. Wanna pity me? Bug off. Wanna hug me? I won't bite.
Then again, I guess there's a thread for that . . .
When I hugged you, it was not an insult. If you choose to perceive it that way, that is not something I can control. But I think maybe you can control whether or not you react to it as an insult.
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It's an interesting idea to me, ak. Does this mean that at your essence, you're a little bittersweet? Or if you saw yourself in colors, there'd be a stripe of darkness?
How is it that the depression is uniquely part of you?
(Sincere curiousity, please don't get angry. Depression fascinates me in a perverse way, because I'm so optimistic)
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Icarus, you are brilliant. You said it so, so much better than I did/ever could have, and that is EXACTLY what I meant.
*points up* Exactly what he said.
Added: Both posts. I don't think all depression is biochemical in origin, but I know much is. That which is is much, much harder to deal with.
----
I know this is a touchy subject. I HATED it when I first moved to Dallas. I was miserable. I still don't like it, but I have plans to change. Feeling horribly out-of-place, lonely, and faintly hopeless, I called my older brother who gave me the "I'm happier because I'm stronger, and you're CHOOSING to be unhappy there." I was furious.
It's like you're in a hole, and there's someone standing on the edge with hands on hips saying "It's your fault you're there." Of course the response is going to be to tell them to go to hell.
posted
Oh, and what I forgot to add: getting better hasn't made me less artistic. In fact, I've had improved follow through. Now, I don't just get the brilliant ideas, I have (more) drive and motivation to get somewhere with them.
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posted
Ah, that's interesting, Icky, because I would certainly choose not to have desperate sorrow, nor to spend days and nights in agony wishing myself dead. What I mean when I say I wouldn't choose to be otherwise is that part of the whole thing, inseparably, is the sensitivity, the strong feelings, the empathy with others, appreciation for books and music and art and the glory of spring and the beauty of nature and junk. Just the transcendant joy! It's part of the same thing!
I think there's a way for us to learn to be in such a way that we can hold fast to the joy and give away the agony. I just believe there is. It may involve medications that we discover along with other things, and there may always be a certain amount of just having to tough through some bad stuff. And maybe that's what you and kat mean by choosing to change. But if I ever learn that it will be from having experienced both, I think.
Oh, and mac, do not scorn the sympathy that is the product of a kind heart. I don't mind sympathy. I don't think one needs to give or take any messages about who is better or stronger or more powerful along with kindness and sympathy. I try to think of every person as being my superior in some ways and my inferior in others. Otherwise we would have nothing to learn from each other, no gifts to give one another.
[ August 27, 2003, 08:35 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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quote:I try to think of every person as being my superior in some ways and my inferior in others.
anne kate, didn't you gently chastise me for even listening to what the women I was talking to thought?
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posted
About your purse? Yes. One of the qualities I try to excel at is ignoring things that are beneath our notice.
One that I suck at is letting discussions about philosophical points hurt my friends' feelings when what I really mean first of all and forever is that I love them, they are my dear friends.
[ August 27, 2003, 08:39 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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quote:What I mean when I say I wouldn't choose to be otherwise is that part of the whole thing, inseparably, is the sensitivity, the strong feelings, the empathy with others, appreciation for books and music and art and the glory of spring and the beauty of nature and junk. Just the transcendant joy! It's part of the same thing!
I think the joy quite likely has its roots in the same place as the sorrow. *nod* I think that root is a person's sensitivity. I think sensitive people are much more likely to be pushed into depression by things that less sensitive people would blow off. (And yes, I do believe that some people really are more sensitive than others.) But I still have the sensitivity (for better and for worse), "the strong feelings, the empathy with others, appreciation for books and music and art and the glory of spring and the beauty of nature and junk." I just don't want to kill myself anymore.
quote:I think there's a way for us to learn to be in such a way that we can hold fast to the joy and give away the agony. I just believe there is. It may involve medications that we discover along with other things, and there may always be a certain amount of just having to tough through some bad stuff. And maybe that's what you and kat mean by choosing to change. But if I ever learn that it will be from having experienced both, I think.
*nod* That sounds about right. Heh, common ground after all!
And I would say that, now that the worst is past, I reap some advantages from what I've been through. I'd say it's made me stronger. And maybe even more sensitive than I was before.
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quote:Is there any other species than ours in which suicidal behavoirs are evidenced?
I have been contemplating this question. I have heard that many animals, particularly those that live with and bond with humans, can die of a "broken heart". That is, when they are separated from a loved one (either animal or human), they may simply stop eating and drinking and allow themselves to die. Animals will also do this sometimes when they are very ill.
Is this the same as suicide? Is it any less suicide because the animal does not have the choice to shot or poison himself?
If I were terminally ill and took poison to speed my death, our society would label this suicide. If however, I simply refused to accept an IV so that I would quickly die of dehydration, it is completely acceptable. Is the difference just an imaginary construct, or is there a clear difference between the two?
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posted
I think it's an imaginary construct. One big reason I have had in the past for contemplating suicide is the combination of the terrible mental agony with the feeling that it was never going to get any better. This is pretty similar to what a stage 4 cancer patient might feel, I imagine, when being asked if they want to accept an IV. or like Richard Feynman felt when he decided to forego dialysis after his kidneys failed. If your quality of life sucks and there's no hope of it improving, isn't it just a choice you make whether to go on or not? I see a total continuum here, with the proviso that when your brain is messed up it lies to you about your chances of feeling better.
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posted
It really does all revolve around hope. Perhaps that is why suicide is considered such a serious sin by most Christian faiths because we believe that because we believe that the atonement of Christ brings a sure hope for a better world. Suicide then appears, in most cases, to be the abandonment of faith in God.
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posted
Just want to let you know that I appreciate the thread, and the ideas popping up in it and the content in general.
Coming from a family where everyone suffers from depression (my brother, father, and mother as well as myself), it's particularly relevent, and even moreso considering a close family friend committed suicide in June, and my great uncle committed suicide over the weekend (ridiculous summer, two relatives and two closes friends have died this summer).
As for my own basic personal take on the issue, I can't explain it, other than to say that I could never figure out how to extricate the disorder from myself without risking my personality and identity in the process. This is why as a teenager I rejected counseling repeatedly, and again as a college student. How can I remain me, without this ugly dark fog that seems to have permanantly surrounded me since i entered Middle School? I don't know how much is chemical/genetic, and how much isn't, though I figure at least some of it must be chemical considering the genetic ties (seems to have afflicted family on both sides for at least three generations).
I'm better today than I was five years, just as I was better five years ago, than I was in the late eighties, but I don't know if I'll ever beat this particular enemy. I guess the best you can do sometimes is just keep fighting the good fight. As much as a cliche as it is, and as appealing as Dana Gould's classic line is ("If life's a gift you should be able to return it."), I find strength in those around me, in keepin' on keepin' on as the Dylan tune went, and in finding the little humor and the little bits of love in everything I do and in everything I see. It can never fully assuage what this disorder does to me, and to many of you, but it's the best I can do these days.
Anyway I hope all of us suffering from it can find a way to retain our identities while fighting off, or at least keeping depression at bay for the forseeable future.
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Aren't there species of animals that mate for life that have been known to beach themselves or stop eating or whatever if their lover dies?
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(Btw, I feel totally inadequate whever I try to offer comfort to people in cases like yours where I would imagine the grief must be quite immense. Suffice to say that if I had any inkling of what I could say to make you feel better, I would say it. All I can do is offer you a hug.)
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<<<graywolfe>>> I'm glad I made this thread. It seems like several people have felt like it was a good thing for them.
quote: It's an interesting idea to me, ak. Does this mean that at your essence, you're a little bittersweet? Or if you saw yourself in colors, there'd be a stripe of darkness?
How is it that the depression is uniquely part of you?
(Sincere curiousity, please don't get angry. Depression fascinates me in a perverse way, because I'm so optimistic)
Abby, I just saw this question. Let me try and answer it. It's not depression that's uniquely part of me, it's a quality I call flameyness. It means having very strong feelings, being sensitive, empathetic, feeling responsible for the world, being very tender hearted, noticing beauty everywhere, feeling awe at things, and stuff like that. It's a volatility. Flameyness is inseparable from who I am, and it also causes me to feel extreme anguish fairly often. The suicidal episodes are connected with the anguish. Just pure mental agony for hours and days on end. When I picked the color I was, I picked a royal purple. There's no dark stripe there.
Depression is more a feeling of not existing at all. Of everything being mopwater gray. Of having no feelings whatsoever and being unable to bring myself to move, almost. I had a month of depression a few months back, and for most of it I was just an empty shell with no person inside who leaked fluid continually at the eye sockets. I wasn't in any danger of dying then unless from not caring enough to eat or drink or breathe. That's not really part of me, it's what is left behind when I leave this plane, this physical existence, altogether.
[ August 27, 2003, 10:55 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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quote:Depression is more a feeling of not existing at all. Of everything being mopwater gray. Of having no feelings whatsoever and being unable to bring myself to move, almost.
*nod* The first year or two of my recovery is when I started to cry. I hardly ever cried when I was depressed. Mostly, I just tried to sleep. And read, but I still do that.
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quote: It's not depression that's uniquely part of me, it's a quality I call flameyness... It's a volatility. Flameyness is inseparable from who I am...
I guess I have that, to a point... But I don't feel as if the world's problems are my responsibility.. I think I'm OK, just as long as I do the best I can...
quote: Depression is more a feeling of not existing at all. Of everything being mopwater gray.
Oh. I guess I've experienced that before. I'm glad I don't have to do it a lot. It must be terrible in long stretches. I usually only get depressed when my future is very unsure... Like now... Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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As kat said, maybe it's a maternal thing?![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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