tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425732352511468694.post97796145150339357..comments2023-08-20T04:55:39.436-07:00Comments on Ars Psychiatrica: David Foster Wallace LivesNovalishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10501890494890617030noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425732352511468694.post-11096005372886142742010-07-20T02:47:53.227-07:002010-07-20T02:47:53.227-07:00Right, the completed suicide is like an emotional ...Right, the completed suicide is like an emotional black hole--information cannot escape to reach the rest of us. And yes, in the moments leading up to the suicide the person could be considered already gone, although the tragedy of suicide is that such states of total absence are usually temporary (the suicide validates the passing state by rendering it permanent). For every Plath or Wallace there are many like Joseph Conrad, who survived an early suicide attempt to achieve a literary life that, while not at all free of suffering, was emphatically worth living.Novalishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10501890494890617030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425732352511468694.post-88162808272388126002010-07-19T21:40:23.292-07:002010-07-19T21:40:23.292-07:00Individual experience is an unknowable subjectivit...Individual experience is an unknowable subjectivity. How someone can commit/contemplate suicide is infernally unanswerable. It's a completely closed psychic state, only speculatively accessible.<br /><br />Interesting article I came across on depression and how it literally robs the sufferer of the physical ability to perceive contrast as acutely as a non-sufferer.<br /><br />http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727695.100-depression-makes-the-world-look-dull.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4425732352511468694.post-44945879510291660982010-07-19T19:38:08.779-07:002010-07-19T19:38:08.779-07:00Well done. The sense "that this will not end...Well done. The sense "that this will not end well" can weigh heavy on relatives as well as clinicians. <br /><br /> I get very angry at the drug ads on TV as they imply that everyone can be completely cured, in a matter of weeks, for good. In fact, those who suffer from this Black Dog may work their way thru every form of treatment known to man and still end up a suicide. <br /><br />And who knows whether it's the well chosen treatment, or accident or the hand of God, or just some well timed human kindness that averts the feared self destruction time and again? <br /><br />I think of suicide as a sin, but not the victim's. I think of the disease or Satan or some chaos monster as what does the destroying. A person is not themself when they destroy themself. <br /><br />It's a good point about how could you do this in a world that contains me? A variant of this was the sorrow and hurt feelings my sister and I felt when my mother kept proclaiming that she wanted to die after my father died "What are we, chopped liver?? We love you and want you around." But she just wanted to be with him again. She was dying anyway, so no suicide necessary: like many bereaved spouses, she didn't fight hard for life. <br /><br />But suicide is an angry act also. It destroys the family and loved ones the person leaves behind. As Plath's son's later suicide shows, it increases the odds of children committing suicide. It rips a hole in a family. <br /><br />A friend, ten years later, would still (despite therapy and a loving church home) blanch and get shakey when telling me how her sister left her clothes on the beach and swam out to sea and never came back. A note. A suicide. it is this murder of the other's spirit that leads some to call suicide a sin. It also can quite literally involve a person refusing to meet their responsibilities. <br /><br />Sometimes, by the grace of God or with good care or blind luck, one can be in the maw of the Black Dog, barely able to move, but still resolve to try yet again to get better because one's children need their parent. <br /><br />I think it is harder to fight suicidal impulses when one doesn't have children. The feeling of being needed can sometimes be a beacon back to life for people (tho, obviously, it didn't suffice for Plath)Retrieverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09036341287285545932noreply@blogger.com