A fatal marriage - depression and suicide
In Memory of Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, Robin Williams, Marilyn Monroe and many other voiceless sufferers.
Suicide is voiceless. It's the most taboo topic across cultures, time and space. There is such a deep sense of shame, guilt and horror in suicide that people don't want to address, especially the loved ones. A young girl found her mother drown in the bathtub, a wife found her husband's body in the garage. They all have similar melody traveling in the dark valley of betrayal and hurt, entangling web of deep troubling emotions enshrouded by a black cloak covering the unconscionable truth. Between the burning candles separating the living and the death is the infinite thorn of "why", bleeding like the weeping roses on the coffin. The deceased is both mourned for and regretted for a life unfinished, even in their final attempt to end it all; it is only the beginning for their loved ones who walk through the anesthetic gate to a life sentence of grief.
There is a fatal marriage between depression and suicide. According to the CDC, the rate of suicide has increased 25% since 1999. Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death in young people ages 15 to 34, and the 4th leading cause of death in people ages 45 to 54. One out of 5 people in America is depressed and many have compounded substance abuse issues. In interviewing suicidal patients, in a twisted and convoluted way, the patients actually thinks that the world would be a better place without them. Somehow, they are convinced that their loved ones will be so relieved when they died, or if suffer, will be short-termed and pretty soon, their memory will only be a fainting rose in a far away land. They even entertain that no one would care to visit their despicable self at the cemetery. On the other extreme, teenagers often fantasize that their death would become immortalized since it sends people a landmine message that was often ignored when they were alive. One patient describes her depression as choking. It feels as if the city waste dumps a whole truckload on her chest when she struggles to get out of bed daily. She fantasizes that someone would break through the door at night and kill her. This self-eradication thinking culminates in the irrevocable act of violence toward oneself, has no immunity from fames, wealth, race or ethnic groups, shockingly shows in the most kind-hearted person who would never hurt a fly.
Depressed people tend to credit all of their lives' successes and accomplishments as a stroke of luck; which happen through sheer universal hiccup while maximizing their failures as the avalanche of time. Internally, they do not feel deserving and worthy of love. They would subconsciously dim any light of joy and travel in this dark vacuum of life. There is a brutal beast rules their barren landscape of the mind. This animal weighs heavily on them and gobbles up on any kind of livelihood, dreams or life goals. In contrary to popular belief that it is a selfish act for them to take their lives, depressed people actually believe it is selfish for them to live since their loved ones deserve to remove this thorn out of their botanical garden of life. Their entirely life writes off as a fallacious accident in the human record of births.
Before we can judge depressed or suicidal people, the most scary thing is that all we have to do is to look at ourselves in the mirror. Depression is the greatest actor on the stage of life and we all have entertained nihilistic thoughts and are capable of auditing for this role well. We are our worst opera voice, when our superseded mind cloaks by past sufferings and paralyzes by future anxiety locks us up in some running away train of failure. The mind constantly creates itself, with all its falsities, delusions, pain and sufferings.
The antidote for clinical depression is corrective thinking, supportive environment and psychotropic meds as needed. The journey from victim to victor starts with surgically removing all of the false and polluted selves. When the patients recognize that they have been conditioned to chronic sadness and worries and busied training their skilled army of false selves, they begin to humor themselves. When they are able to see, that which can recognize the false selves is the true self, they begin to heal. When they are able to put a psychological space between their "observing self" and the emotions that they feel; that which they feel become simply noises in the engine. Emotions or noises tell them about the health of their engine and what it requires. It serves a functional purpose which must be observed and respect, but not to be mistaken as the engine itself.
When our friends or loved ones talk about dying, we must listen and obtain help for them. Even when they show signs of improvement and rebounded joy, clinical experience show that their temporal happiness may stem from the resolution that they have found a way to end it all. Sometimes, severely depressed people started medication and they become more healthy, but also strong enough to kill themselves. Safeguard their medications and oversee their medication intake. If you love someone, don't stop reaching out until they are completely well and even that, keep monitoring them and watch out for signs of relapse. One of these signs is when they become obsessed about how celebrities killed themselves. Somehow, famous people's deaths provide the validation that nothing in this life, including fame and success is worth living for.
Please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 800 273 8255 if you or someone you know needs help.