if there is one peculiar thing, it’s how celebrity suicides are handled. We were talking earlier about the note and the utility of framing your own death. Well Tom T. Hall didn’t leave a note. No one definitively knows why this 85 year old man killed himself.
In fact, it didn’t come out until well after that it even was a suicide. And that is the note that EVERY STORY ABOUT IT covers… OMG he was a country music legend, and isn’t it sad etc etc etc
Country music and depression go hand in hand in the United States, I don’t get how any country star dying of suicide is a “shock.”
I tracked down a rumor that he died after his son revealed some big secret, but that’s as far as that lead went. His son is also a country music singer. I guess I just don’t get it, when I care about someone, I want to know why they do what they do…. but the lack of curiosity is astounding all the while beside claims of how beloved and legendary he was…
IDK, I feel it does a disservice to the suicidal community when the details are covered up like this. I don’t think it would taint his legacy, any more than it has for people who do leave a note, or who’s reasons are known.
I don’t know, it might be worse to go out without anyone caring as to why you chose to write your own ending…. like was my story really that uninteresting? That you couldn’t even get into why I went the way I did?
It’s something that keeps me from killing myself, how terribly suicides are handled by those left behind. I have no illusion I’m on par with Tom T. Hall, but my point is if that is what happens to famous people, why should ordinary folk like us expect any better?
4 comments
our society just wants to bury suicides and never talk about real issues that affect real people, bc that would 1- break the illusion that “life is great” and “everything is fine” and 2- that society would actually have to deal with it. society is hellbent on preserving that head-in-the-sand model.
not that i’m encouraging you, but why not leave a very detailed note- detail all the ways people and society has failed you. local death of non celebrities do not get covered in the news, so your death likely won’t even be known to many other than the people you know. unless you live in a really small town.
“I feel it does a disservice to the suicidal community” LOL. that assumes ppl actually CARE about the suicidal community. people don’t. i’ve learned that long ago. -_-
Yup this is why I’m obsessed with celebrity suicides. It’s the only time you’ll ever hear suicide being discussed on a personal level, and even then it’s mostly rumors and bs. But I guess it’s being talked about so that’s better than nothing.
Like eternal darkness said, the problem is that nobody cares. They don’t want to know the causes of suicide because that might imply they have to actually do something. Instead it’s easier for society to drop some crocodile tears while mumbling something about suicide awareness and hotlines. Then they go back to their oblivious little lives.
Further adding salt to the wound (if a dead person can feel salt in their wound) is the fact that nobody cares to know the truth. Rumor mills grind overtime to come up with the most sensational shit, but again it just proves that nobody cares about the person, it’s just morbid sensationalism by the tabloids, and the public eats it up. Nobody cares about a lifetime of emotional struggles that led to someone’s suicide, but if the cause is a sex scandal then that’s front page news.