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In response to Amy above, I'm interested to hear that humans aren't 'meant' to be unhappy. Looking at it from purely a Darwinian perspective, what advantage does happiness confer? How would satisfaction encourage the struggle for survival and/or mating?

I disagree. I don't think humans are meant to be happy. I believe we are meant to struggle toward our own perceived goals. And, when we achieve them we gain a measure of satisfaction. But did you ever know anyone who stopped striving even after they had met their goals? Our lot is to strive endlessly until they plant us. As it is for all animals. The difference is, unlike other animals, we don't die (at least not in America) when we miss or fail to achieve our goals. Instead, for many of us, we get depressed.

But that isn't the whole of it. Many of us are not suited to the artificial cultural and environmental conditions that we as a society have created. Our minds are not suited for that type of struggle--nor of course were our minds even built for such an exercise. So it shouldn't be surprising that modern humans can slip into intense sadness and emotional pain. This is also why, when that struggle becomes more intense as with the current financial horror, more of us become suicidal.

In other words, I'm normal, and its all of YOU who are crazy...heh.

Kidding.

D

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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A few things struck me as very true in this conversation. The first is, people who have made up their mind to (commit?) suicide can be VERY sneaky about it. They will try and fool their therapists and their loved ones to get away and do it. I've always felt suicide hotlines are pretty futile. If a person REALLY wants to die, the last thing you want to do is to have a total stranger talk you out of it. And of course there is always the looming spectre of having police and firemen show up at your door. When I cut my wrists (to the bone) I ran for the electrical panel and grabbed both 240 legs, after my wife found me and called 911. The irony was, I had no tendons to contract and so survived. I know this is hard to hear. Maybe even counterproductive. But its honest.

Another true thing is, in my experience it does seem like a relief when you decide to do it. If you have intractable problems in life, combined with mental illness/depression, you have no skills to solve those life problems. Its a great relief to find a way out--and that's all you can see...a solution, finally.

But of course it isn't a solution, which you see when you are not successful, and subsequently see the pain and trauma it causes for your loved ones. I think that is the key to preventing suicide. If a person tries and fails, it is CRUCIAL for everyone to cry and beg and cajole and just generally make the person see how hard life would be without them. Because almost no one who is suicidal wants to hurt the ones they love--they just can't perceive that they will. Instead, most times people will treat the person like a child that needs to be watched and kept safe. That, IMO is futile. Then the person will resort to sneakery.

I've been reading David Foster Wallace, who went through this last summer in hell, same as me. He succeeded.  But if you read much of his work, it  gives great insight into the complex, feverish energy of manic depression. The fear, the helplessness. The framing of everything in the world as so dark and ironic and malignant, that the only retort can be humor--and then fatalism.

D

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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Hi, I had two suicide attempts last spring the second of which was very serious. In other words these were not cries for help. I wanted to die. I have a 13yo son and a wife and have great guilt over this which contributes to my ongoing depression. I've resolved for their sake never to do it again. At the same time I am very ambivalent about life. I am an artist and bipolar with ghastly childhood traumas. I am in counseling and medicated.

Really my question is, for the survivors of loved ones who have died by their own hands--how do I help my wife and son deal with this? I've been very open and honest with them and reassuring that I won't do it again, and why I think it happened. Still, I feel I've damaged them, particularly my son, in some irreperable way. In the experience of survivors, what could I do to help my family?

D

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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