Ever since my own mental health breakdown of 2004, I have been an advocate for discussing and treating anxiety, depression, OCD, and whatever other mental health issues people have.
The recent suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain have social media blowing up with commentary like this:
How could this happen?
I don't understand!
Call a suicide prevention line!
My gut reaction to these is: "PLEASE, JUST STOP!"
That feels harsh, but I cannot understand people trying to rationally understand suicide and the depths of despair that make people contemplate it or do it.
There is nothing rational about it, so trying to understand it from a rational framework is pointless.
Suicide goes against every fiber of genetic imperative to survive, survive, survive.
When my cousin committed suicide, I overheard numerous conversations whereby family and friends were questioning "why."
Thank your lucky stars if you don't understand why.
Even posting the suicide hotline number omits the truth, which I know personally: You can call a suicide hotline number, and maybe it will provide some relief. But feeling so despairing that you call a hotline puts you in touch with people who are rational and who may or may not understand from personal experience the despair of mental health issues. If you are so despairing that you call the hotline, it may not do any good.
When I called a suicide hotline, I spoke to someone completely rational. She made complete rational sense.
And she may as well have been talking to a mountainous wall of impenetrable iron because it didn't matter what she said.
I only knew and believed what I felt and what my own brain was telling me.
Which was completely irrational.
I did not attempt suicide, but I was feeling desperate.
I reached out to a suicide hotline because I didn't know where else to turn, and it was anonymous.
Eventually what did work was telling my husband that if he didn't take me to the doctor that day, I was going to end up in the hospital.
That doctor visit began a long, slow process to mental health "remission."
I am not cured, nor will I ever be.
I now have a child with mental health issues, which sometimes worsens my own mental health issues.
Depression and anxiety and OCD and other mental health disorders are isolating, and those in the public eye may be worse off than the rest of us because they are isolated already as a result of their celebrity.
The recent suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain have social media blowing up with commentary like this:
How could this happen?
I don't understand!
Call a suicide prevention line!
My gut reaction to these is: "PLEASE, JUST STOP!"
That feels harsh, but I cannot understand people trying to rationally understand suicide and the depths of despair that make people contemplate it or do it.
There is nothing rational about it, so trying to understand it from a rational framework is pointless.
Suicide goes against every fiber of genetic imperative to survive, survive, survive.
When my cousin committed suicide, I overheard numerous conversations whereby family and friends were questioning "why."
Thank your lucky stars if you don't understand why.
Even posting the suicide hotline number omits the truth, which I know personally: You can call a suicide hotline number, and maybe it will provide some relief. But feeling so despairing that you call a hotline puts you in touch with people who are rational and who may or may not understand from personal experience the despair of mental health issues. If you are so despairing that you call the hotline, it may not do any good.
When I called a suicide hotline, I spoke to someone completely rational. She made complete rational sense.
And she may as well have been talking to a mountainous wall of impenetrable iron because it didn't matter what she said.
I only knew and believed what I felt and what my own brain was telling me.
Which was completely irrational.
I did not attempt suicide, but I was feeling desperate.
I reached out to a suicide hotline because I didn't know where else to turn, and it was anonymous.
Eventually what did work was telling my husband that if he didn't take me to the doctor that day, I was going to end up in the hospital.
That doctor visit began a long, slow process to mental health "remission."
I am not cured, nor will I ever be.
I now have a child with mental health issues, which sometimes worsens my own mental health issues.
Depression and anxiety and OCD and other mental health disorders are isolating, and those in the public eye may be worse off than the rest of us because they are isolated already as a result of their celebrity.
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