On Suicide and Surrounding Sicknesses: Further Reflections

After completing my previous post in memory of Robin Williams, I took to the webs and read even more on the subject of suicide and mental illness.

There is some worthy debate out there, of a more-than-merely-semantic nature, about the use of the term "selfish" in reference to suicide. First I encountered The Matt Walsh Blog, and later a contrary-minded piece by Dean Burnett from The Guardian. 

I don't want to be overly concerned about the disputations. "Take what you like, and leave the rest" is another one of those clever sayings I've heard over the years. Denizens of the blogosphere survive because of it. 

I summarize my takeaway from Walsh's offering from an excerpt of a tweet he included in the article: "It's not just clinical, it's spiritual." If by "not just" he means "but also," even "but primarily," it is acceptable. The soul is that which gives life to the body; the two are tailor-made for each other, and the soul is directly infused by the Author of Life, who cooperates with our parents in the sacred moment of our conception. I don't altogether dismiss his contention, but it requires some nuancing.

Concerning the central theme expressed in the article's title (Williams' "choice" of suicide): I do not judge the voluntariness of any particular suicide, as I state above. Nor can any man or woman fully plumb the darkness that impinges upon a profoundly depressed individual. In support of this, read Shaun McAfee's post, born of understanding and experience.

The claim that depression is a spiritual malady need not imply that "praying harder" or "thinking happier thoughts" or any merely human effort should do the trick, or that failing to do any of these things is defying or discounting God. Human persons suffer a profound deficit--a wound--in our nature, courtesy of original sin and compounded by personal sins. The wound manifests variously, but especially in the many forms of mental illness.

Burnett's article reinforces for me the reality that mental illness does not discriminate, and it disables the use of standard logic in those who suffer it. 

Warning of the supposed selfishness (or, if you will, "sinfulness") of suicide is not an adequate deterrent, instead providing further reinforcement of a negative self-image and assurance of others' (projected) ill feelings toward them. 

How exactly, I wonder, does one deter suicide, or alleviate depression? If depression is, as we often hear, "the common cold of mental illness," what's the prophylactic protocol? Upon hearing the first sneeze, is it time to say "God bless you" and start making funeral arrangements? "I speak like a foolish person" (2 Cor 11:21). Measures include prevention hotlines, therapy, medicine, personal outreach born of genuine attentiveness, and all the rest. 

The Sacraments, above all, have a healing effect on those who strive to partake of them with a pure heart. As I and others have noted, the attainment or maintenance of good feeling is not the aim of religion, and not even of spirituality (as if the twain never meet!); but Jesus did come "so that you

might have life, and have it to the full" (Jn 10:10)!

But let's return to "personal outreach born of genuine attentiveness": that is the key!

'How are you,' he lied.

"How are you?" Pesky question, that. Blessed are they who respond courageously and honestly. Blessed, too, are they who care when they ask, and listen reverently to the response and all its undertow. It makes a difference, believe me.

Nobody has directly demanded a retraction of my use of the word "selfish," as people are focusing instead on blogs that garner appreciable traffic. I don't believe it's necessary, as my previous post did qualify it with the appropriate Church teaching on the factors that compromise freedom and understanding. 

In that brand of neurosis that normally calls for "podiatric dentistry," I will nevertheless shade my story by suggesting that suicide starts in a self-centered frame of mind. In his article Burnett speculates about people who take their own lives as a courtesy to those who, in their minds, couldn't care less, or more kindly, about them: an interior booby trap! Mental illnesses, like their corporeal counterparts, have a way of turning people in on themselves, their fearful projections of abandonment. When something--anything--is not right in me, I don't seem to care quite as much about others' problems, large or small.

Now self-concern can be a very good thing. When a life preserver surfaces, the drowning person will and should grasp for it. But there also remains the risk of self-pity and contempt for God, the "One with the infinite power" who does not seem to be too eager to remove this stumbling-block to belief in His omnipotence and goodness. God's silence in the face of physical and moral evil is the greatest scandal, likely underlying more of the New Atheism than New Atheists probably care to recognize.

To return to the first article of note, a spiritual solution is indicated. It is systemic in scope, and ultimately addresses what Pope Saint John Paul II called "the culture of death." Now I don't hold up Robin Williams or any other suicide victim as a billy club for the "culture war." Rather, every opportunity to affirm the value of our own existence, from generous parenthood to living wages to respect for the elderly to attentive listening to you-name-it: it's all the spiritual solution!

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Now my keener readers may have noted (though none openly) that my "In Memoriam" piece on Robin Williams failed to include a single recollection of the man--his generosity, sensitivity, faith, energy, or talent.

Comics appeal to the incongruous, the absurd. Prophet-like, they point out to us where things don't match up when they should. They don't so much predict the future but disclose and decry the peculiarities of the present. We laugh at comedians, because somewhere their truth resonates within us, especially when that truth contains a hint of tragedy.

Yes, I watched a number of episodes of "Mork and Mindy" (1978-82) when I was a kid. I enjoyed "Moscow on the Hudson," "Mrs. Doubtfire," "Dead Poets' Society," and a few other Williams films. But one more recent discovery has seized my interest, courtesy of another Burnett: Carol. Her show's 11-year run concluded in my toddlerhood (1978), paving Williams' way for "Mork" and subsequent gems.

Thanks to YouTube, millions get to enjoy the lunacy (pardon the use of the word in this context) of the stars and skits. Here is one of my favorites, the Funeral sketch. Poking fun at our contemporary sterilization of mourning, Robin teaches Carol how to "keen":

Rage Against The Dying of the Light (In Memoriam, Robin Williams)

So Robin Williams committed suicide. Cue the flood of tributes, laments, reposts of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255), how "cunning, baffling, and powerful" (to steal a phrase) depression can be, how it tends to infest comic souls* and how particularly insidious depression can be when substance abuse accompanies it.

I am not for an instant maligning this response. Renewals of human solidarity usually take a tragedy to happen, but not always. The Internet is laced with incidents promoting carefulness, courtesy, and compassion "between the acts." And we'll always be "between the acts" (of suicide), for "the poor you will have with [and within] you always" (Mt 26:11).

Persons suffering from depression, substance abuse, and suicide temptations can be helped, but many well-intentioned attempts end up reinforcing it. Helping seems a delicate art, but not impossible and certainly not "for professionals only," because it's the amateurs--literally, those who love--who are the "first responders" in emotional crises.

Among my initial reactions to news like yesterday's is frustration and irritation. "Robin Williams! Well, that sucks! What a waste of talent, generosity, and energy! What'd he do that for? Couldn't anyone have tried to stop him?" As an adult, in the minds of his loved ones he might not have merited round-the-clock supervision; perhaps by that point he had a sense of calmness about arriving at his solution.

I don't know...and that's just it.

If we knew, that knowledge still wouldn't control the situation, now that it--he--has passed. Suicide understandably prompts guilt over the very fact that we "didn't know," or perhaps may have denied, the extent of the person's problems.

We may also be angry--at depression made flesh, at the suicide victim for seeming selfish..for being him/herself in that mysterious state, which is already very much given over to silence, to brooding, to isolation and alienation, and their attendant pain, so that suicide appears the only available option, the last, best prescription for pain relief. 

Objectively speaking, the taking of one's own life is a selfish act, contradictory to "the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life...gravely contrary to [the just love of self, of neighbor, and of God]" (Catechism, 2281). It is one of many ways people deny and defy the goodness of their own existence and its Creator.

However, given the numerous factors that inhibit the full use of one's intellect and will, compromising the full exercise of understanding and freedom, we have every reason to entrust tortured souls to the Divine Mercy that exceeds the limits we conceive (CCC, 2282-83).

But we still should "rage, rage against the dying of the light" (as John Keating, Williams' character in Dead Poets Society, might exhort). Our rage may take many forms: prayer, sharing links to helpful articles on depression and suicide prevention, keeping your eyes, ears, and heart open to the people around you each day--which may present you the opportunity either to extend compassion to someone who suffers, or to disclose your own hurts to someone who cares.

*Language alert ("Cracked," remember.)

Love: The Response to Death

Runner, writer, and educator Joe Muldowney over at "Running Shorts: The Blog" shared last week about a close friend's recent suicide. He expressed his bewilderment over why his friend, or anyone else, would decide to take his own life. Joe's appropriate response was not an "answer" to the question; instead it was a forward movement:

I kissed my wife and told her I loved her. I spoke to my three children. They are doing well with their lives and careers. I threw snowballs in the air for Dixie, my Labrador Retriever, to catch.

Love is the best response to death. Love is the best response to the threat of death, to the contemplation of death.

There are many dimensions to the mystery of suicide. Sometimes Love doesn't get to the person in time. Sometimes the person isn't able, or willing, to receive Love. Sometimes bystanders are afraid to express Love.

And sometimes I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, and am afraid to suggest that anything I could offer (in this or other subjects) holds any weight whatever, except if I happen to be citing the Bible or the Catechism.

A friend who struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts directed me to the popular blog Hyperbole and a Half, which deftly chronicles, among other topics, the young author's struggles with being depressed (here and here) and with being subjected to sincere supporters.

I confess to being one of those well intentioned persons. Call me anything, but don't call me "at a loss for something to say." If a person gives me an inch of willingness to be heard and harangued, I'm taking a yard. Whatever it takes to distract them (and me!) from self.

In the heart of the dejected, Self--the false one, not the true one--becomes the enemy. More properly, the false self becomes the tool of the Primordial Enemy of Salvation and Transcendence (PEST). I distinguish the false from the true self in terms of who a person is from the perspective of a wise and loving Creator and those persons who, knowingly or not, assist Him in building up the human family. There may be technical dimensions to the distinction, such as one might encounter in the likes of Merton or Jung, but these exceed the scope of the current post and the current poster.

Thank God and thank my friends, my worst moments...so far...haven't been nearly as bad as I ever thought they were. But I certainly acknowledge how easy it is for the mind to become an echo chamber that augments only the worst thoughts and feelings, and this with gusto. How subtly and stupidly "You didn't lock the door" can morph into "You suck both professionally and personally!" But that's just how people can roll; it is both a science and an art.

In their malaise do the discouraged mean to manipulate? Sometimes I think they do, absent their better judgment, only because I've been aware of that proclivity in myself. Unable and/or unwilling to receive the Full Insight About Themselves (FIAT), they may unwittingly resort to repeating those time-honored deprecations (imprecations?) at the first, second, or nineteenth sign of imperfection. At the least, they may repeat it interiorly, or aloud when they sense that the receiver might retract or mollify his or her statement, even if it was reasonable and practical ("Locking the door secures the house, which ought to be important to you").

In short (because, at just under 5'4", that's what I am), the "You" in question is not the real person. He or she is the delicate yet sturdy construct of years' worth of lies, approximations, intimations, and mishearings, honed by the finest sandpaper and sealed with the oiliest varnish. Don't dare destroy it, because, as the lie goes, there might be nothing left to salvage; and then what?

My friend Joe's sadness is no doubt shared by many who survive a loved one's suicide. "What could I have done--especially if I'd known about it"; or, if I knew about it, "why didn't he reach out, or why didn't I reach out...more than (say) three times?" Mourners go through the gamut from denial to acceptance with the uniqueness of snowflakes, though with enough predictability to have made a science of it.

In the economies of many households, the deficit of Love goes back generations. And (to shift metaphorical tracks) in some situations, a single traumatic event or protracted experience (e.g., war) can derail a train that previously had run smoothly. The passengers are either genuinely interested in everyone's safety or simply want to reach their destinations without further disturbance. The team of mechanics (ideally, it is a team) have run out of tools, and even the best of them are tempted to run out of patience. And, above all, the conductor himself often doesn't know how it happened or how to return to optimal conditions.

If mass transit reports such problems, how much more so the human spirit, which surpasses mere functionality and is "worth more than many sparrows" (Mt 10:31)?

The caregivers in a concerned community (family, workplace, presbyterate, etc.) must try their darnedest to uplift the downtrodden among them. At the same time they cannot ultimately take responsibility for the final outcome, and would do well, therefore, to enlist auxiliaries, even if for their own sanity. Consider the game plan of Moses, for whom seventy elders did the trick (Num 10:11-15). Seventy may be too high or too dear, but how about three?

Plus we cannot underestimate the care we demonstrate on our knees, praying that our friends want to be well, or even want to want to be well. "Paul plants, Apollos waters," but who knows how the grain may eventually make its grand appearance?