Anthony Bordain. Kate
Spade. Young doctors plunging from
towers. Such high profile cases grab our
attention, but they are merely tips of an iceberg: the epidemic of suicide. What’s going on? What were these people thinking?
I wasn’t. Thinking,
that is. I was far beyond thought. I had no choice, no other option. At the tender age of 20, life was unbearable,
and I had to make it stop. Everyone I
loved would be better off without me. I remember exactly what I felt, with
laser clarity, as if it were yesterday. Feelings
are to belief as facts are to knowledge.
Was there a suicide hotline, 50 years ago? Would I have called one? I doubt it.
My descent into depression was gradual and mundane. No unique tragedies, just the usual assortment
of disappointments, romantic conflicts, a genetic family curse, and a general
disillusionment with mankind. The world
was in turmoil: King and Kennedy
assasinations, childhood friends coming home dead or crazy from the Viet Nam
War, Kent State, violent demonstrations everywhere. Graffiti in a toilet stall in the student
center read: “Committing suicide at Rice
is redundant.”
Not everyone who feels sad commits suicide, but
contemplation is nearly universal. Some
inciting stimulus is required for actual commission, like a match tossed into
the pile of straw. For me, it was the
suicide of a family friend. She had invited
us over for dinner, shortly after her husband left her. Despite her changing circumstance, she was
upbeat and charming, totally devoted to two adorable children. We shared the same name, spelled the same way,
and she understood me, encouraged me. Less
than a week after that nice evening, my parents didn’t show up to meet me for dinner. That was the time before email and cell
phones, so I got the news of her death from a payphone in a dark parking lot. If I close my eyes, I recall the sound of the
nearby surf, the warm, humid air, and the diamond studded black velvet
sky.
Fortunately, I had no access to a lofty ledge, so I couldn’t
just take one small step into oblivion. I
didn’t own a gun. And my room mates came
home early. I have a vague recollection
of a large tube pumping out my stomach and waking up to my mother sitting on
the side of my bed, wiping my face with a cool cloth. After a few weeks of therapy, the
psychiatrist, threw in the towel. I
wasn’t compliant. But I was better. Time and family support lifted the fog of
depression. Here was the big takeaway,
the overarching lesson: my family would
never have recovered from the pain of my death.
The real tragedy of suicide is the desolation of those left behind.
It wasn’t grief over the loss of a friend that drove
me. It was simply her act of smashing
through the mysterious wall at the outer boundary of life, leaving a gaping
hole in reality, like a gash in the side of an airplane at 30,000 feet. She was the queen of hearts pulled from the
house of cards, the domino falling against me.
Suicide is an impulse that can jump from one life to
another, like some viral meme, or a spark from a wildfire that flies across a
river or highway to spread the inferno.
If someone else steps over that line, the act is no longer
unthinkable. Maybe the urge to shoot
people in a school or a club is a similar germ. I feel immune now, as if I have been
vaccinated. Still, at the first news
about Bordain’s death, before I heard that he had taken his own life, I had a
weird random thought. The world is in terrible shape. He’s lucky to get out before it gets worse.
Suicide is contagious. It is a tragic epidemic. Like any public health crisis, we need more
research, more knowledge. We can’t just
build safety nets to catch the falling. It
is just not possible to deliver the a critical message of hope for redemption
on a need to know basis, at the crucial instant of decision. We need to address the forces that drive
people to the narrow ledges of skyscrapers.
