“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill himself doesn’t do so out of ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom it’s invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill himself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view. The fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames. When the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall, it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk looking up and yelling ‘Don’t jump!’ and ‘Hang on!’ can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
-Unknown
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I wish there was a ‘like’ button for this.
Jesus. I’ve probably made 50 rambling posts trying to express what’s so brilliantly expressed there in 1 paragraph. Whoever said that deserves the pulitzer prize.
hahaha yea. I read that somewhere. I didn’t write that. I only titled it. Just figured I’d share as it so beautifully describes, as you said, and what I myself could never accurately put into words.
the perfect analogy.too bad the writer is uknown/anonymous.would have liked to read his/her work if there were more.thanks for sharing, takingbackmyusedromance.
“And yet nobody down on the sidewalk looking up and yelling ‘Don’t jump!’ and ‘Hang on!’ can understand the jump. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
It’s expressed well, but it’s not true.
I’ve never been trapped in a burning building, but I was once near death while driving down the highway with an angry wasp in the car. It was a very close call, and if there hadn’t been a space to pull over right away, I’d have wrecked, for sure. The immediate panic response rules out conscious, rational thought, and we’re reduced to acting on pure instinct.
This is the same mental process one would undergo when trapped on the upper floor in a burning building, and I’m sure a LOT of people can relate to it. If we’re rational observers watching from the ground, *of course* we’re going to TRY to tell them to hang on. I understand the instinctive panic, yes, but sometimes people can overcome their panic and get the rational circuitry working in time to find an escape route.
By the way, the analogy itself isn’t bad, it certainly applies to some suicidal individuals. I only take issue with the notion that no one else can possibly understand.
i guess you have a point if the jumping-off-a-burning-building was happening in real life.you’re right that the panic response can be overridden and another way to survive can be found.and i do agree that in real-life one does not need to have experienced the same situation (being trapped in a burning building) to empathize and/or understand what a person is going through.
but regarding the analogy, it is quite possible that no matter how well-meaning a person is, that person still will not be able to understand what it feels to be depressed/sad/confused/angry enough to want to end one’s own life, unless that person has been there.other people may say that they do understand why we’re sad but they won’t understand why we want to end our lives over it.i guess that’s my opinion based on what i’ve seen and experienced in my own life and reading posts here.
for me, the analogy is no one will really understand why you want to jump off the building (perform suicide) because either they don’t know there’s a fire behind you (they don’t know your reasons) or they don’t know how painful the fire is (they don’t understand how your reasons can push you to wanting to end your own life).only people who have been caught between the fire and the choice of jumping know why it’s perfectly rational to jump and end it quickly rather than face a slow, painful death when either way the result is death.
“no one will really understand why you want to jump off the building (perform suicide) because either they don’t know there’s a fire behind you (they don’t know your reasons) or they don’t know how painful the fire is”
Thank you, Soonerthecosmos, I see what you mean now. And I agree, there are some people who, however well meaning, will never truly be able to grasp what it’s like to feel so bad they wish for their own death.
For anyone interested it is actually a quote by a man named David Foster Wallace. I happen to love this quote myself. Best of luck to all of you!!!!!!!
thanks for the info, lost26.:)