Heretical thoughts on suicide

Note: I wrote this several weeks ago and have been holding back on posting it because I worried it would upset some people, most likely those who have been personally touched by suicide. To you, I apologize if this offends. I was also concerned that those of us armed with our degree in talk show psychology from Dr. Phil University would be concerned about me. Though I inherited honestly the melancholy and empathy that inspires macabre posts like this, I hail from a line of long-living miserable people, talking often about and sometimes wishing aloud for death but refusing to give anyone the satisfaction.
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I was thinking of one of my favorite dead guys, David Foster Wallace (DFW) and an article in the Rolling Stone not long after his death going over his life and his last days. The article quoted something he wrote long before his death about suicide where he suggested that by the time a person kills themselves, they had already killed themselves where it counts. He stated that suicide was just being orderly, in essence, finishing the job.

I have been thinking about the stigma of suicide and tonight can not figure out why it is such a bad thing. The movie ends the same no matter how long it lasts. If I suck at living, am pretty entrenched in all the ways that make me suck at living, if life is going to be fear, unrequited longing, boredom, inadequacy, then why is it a bad thing to quit? Any one would tell you to quit a relationship or job like that. If I were talking about a guy, I would be counseled about how you can not change people yet life is different? Even if you suck at it, you are supposed to stick it out. Even though it ends the same no matter what. Even if you suck the joy from other’s lives by polarizing the room with your defeatist energy. Even then. Even though no one gets out alive.

Do I think any teenager is in a position to judge whether they are going to suck at life? Absolutely not. There is not a horrible or oppressive circumstance in a teenager’s life that can give them the perspective of adulthood. Suicide makes more sense in your mid/late-30’s and beyond. By then, you generally have a sense of self and you have actual history, not just a series of firsts (job, apartment, significant other, car) and you are no longer obsessed with the mechanics of adulthood. Your tastes refine. If you are still getting smashed every weekend you now like going somewhere where there are NOT a bunch of barely legal 21 year olds enamoured with their first legal alcohol and drunkenly talking about The Hills. You have opinions about stuff that come from actual experience. You start to get a sense that it probably does not get better from here, the world is not an endless vista of opportunity. If you have not had children or found that special someone, it is less and less likely to work out in your favor. Whatever job you are doing, even if you hate it, you are likely to be doing until you can retire. Like your body, life starts to lose flexibility and elasticity. The effort and resources required to 180 life are more than most can muster. You are not going to be a mixed martial artist, an even moderately famous writer/actress/singer/dancer, or Olympic swimmer. Sure everyone can cite examples of people who have done just that long beyond their 20’s and 30’s but part of the reason we celebrate them is because their accomplishments defy the odds. Yep, I just pissed on everyone's cornflakes, including mine.

But I'm not really talking about circumstantial suicide borne of regrets and misspent youth, or evasion from consequences after committing a crime or indiscretion. Nor am I talking about country music song suicide, triggered by heartbreak, loss of job, or any of the other classic country song themes of sorrow. I am talking about a history of psychic pain beyond and often in spite of your circumstances. A feeling deep down that you do not have it in you to be carefree, you can not be medicated there, you can not be psychoanalyzed there. Even faith falls short. You started fighting it in your teens and have been fighting most of your adult life just to function somewhere close to normal. Everyone wants better for you but no one knows what you need (neither do you, by the way) and you are pretty sure now that no one has what you need.

Is it so bad then that someone like that decides that they have had quite enough? The reluctant optimist in me wishes DFW had just stayed curled up in a little ball for as long as he needed until they found something that worked. To say he could become profoundly overcome with depression doesn't quite do his suffering justice for me, but he was also kind, wickedly smart, and really really funny. If I had loved him, I think I would often be angry with him for giving up and I would feel bad that I wasn't enough to live for. I'd like to think that they would have found something eventually that would have worked for him, even if that thing was just time. Our brains do change as we age, maybe he would have become more resilient. But it seems he did not think he would get better and perhaps wanted to save everyone the trouble and pain of watching him suffer.

Is that so bad?

I feel I can’t end this post without making it clear that;

a: I’m not suicidal. I'm probably several standard deviations left of normal but even as I despair, I hope. I don’t even want to hope and I hope. Even if my life turns out to be a bad movie (something probably directed by Michael Bay), my curiosity won’t let me leave without seeing how it ends. Even after seeing what happened to the cat.

b: I’m not suggesting you or anyone else should kill themselves. I’m not offering absolution for those who made that choice. It simply occurred to me that perhaps people who take their own lives are sometimes doing the best thing they know to do. When I think of what little I know of DFW, he had every reason to live but it was just too painful, he had lost hope it would ever be better, and he was tired. I’m saddened and sometimes frightened by his choice.

c: If I graduate from life having only found someone to share it with, I think it will be more than enough. For this, I’ll remain curious until I’m relieved of curiosity for all things.