A friend of mine said to me, “You don’t want to kill yourself boy. You have to be mad to do that.” It made me laugh, firstly because he has known me for years and still can’t accept I am not always the jovial, erudite man he meets down the pub. Secondly, I think suicide, far from being mad as a concept, is a totally logical response the the distress, disfunction and depression I experience.
Here is the argument. I have swung between depression and total mania since birth. The depression makes me agoraphobic, professionally and socially unreliable, totally disassociated and lacking all motivation. Depression destroys my career, finances,personal and social relationships. The mania makes me hyper efficient, professionally focused, socially involved and extrovert. Mania leads to wealth and happiness, until it gets out of hand and judgement goes out the window. Money gets spent without rational consideration, too many unjustifiable risks are taken professionally, socially and economically. The house of cards falls and another career is stuffed, you drown in debt and your friends and many of your loved ones disappear from your life. This destruction of your life usually results in you Sinking into depression. The depression leaves you withdrawn, dysfunctional, unreliable, lacking in drive, motivation, self confidence and belief. You can’t see your way out and don’t believe you can recover. Given the destruction of your whole being, your way of life and your social standing, wanting to die is logical. If you want to die you consider how you can achieve death. You research and plan how you might kill yourself. If you have the opportunity to act when that deep desire not to be alive anymore hits, you will attempt and maybe achieve suicide. If you are depressed and hold no hope, no value to life, you believe life will not improve, suicide is both a likely and logical response. I personally feel I only have so much energy and the constant destruction of my life and career has stolen that energy. I am worn out and want to die. Every time if feel this way, which is anything from four times a day to twice a week it is like flipping a coin. Sometimes I act and damage myself but find myself stopping because my wife has loved me through everything. She doesn’t deserve that knock on the door she fears, or worse, finding my body herself. My reaction to this support is to try to drive her away , actively destroying the relationship to free me to act and kill myself. Result, I hurt a beautiful woman who doesn’t deserve anything but love and treasuring. Consequence, as I recover I connect to my emotions and I am shamed, feel disgusted with myself and relapse into depression. Relapse to the comfort of disassociation and emotional numbness. When your madness causes you and your loved ones so much pain, of course suicide is logical. What we must not forget though are the hundreds of thousands of people who successfully manage their condition, they build good lives and find happiness. Hard to have hope in the depths of depression, maybe the more we think on the people who have managed to achieve that stability, the more chance we have of fighting through the madness and seeing the logic in living.