If you don’t know who Cheslie Kryst was there are tons of news articles & videos available, or you could read her book like I did. She was Miss USA 2019, a full time lawyer, athlete, model, activist, fashion blogger, TV host for the show Extra, and a ton of other stuff. She jumped from a highrise in NYC in 2022.
The book is in 2 parts, the main part is her memoir beginning on the night she won Miss USA 2019 and contining thru the 1.5 years of her reign living in NYC while flashing back to the years leading up to it. The 2nd part is written by her mom who picks up the story on the day Cheslie jumped in 2022.
It’s a really good read, and it’s really interesting because she talks at length about her anxieties on stage, which sound disastrous from the way she describes it (such as panicking and struggling to remove her sash during the swimsuit competition), but if you look up the actual footage, you’d never notice a thing went wrong.
That’s the biggest takeaway I got from the book, which by the way never mentions depression or suicide in the part she wrote, even though you can glean from bits like the swimsuit malfunction that her mind was in high alert mode, if not on the verge of panic, even though the footage shows nothing. The part she wrote isn’t about depression at all, but it’s more about how she pushed herself to keep doing more & more.
Her part ends on an upbeat note, handing off the crown to her successor, vacating the luxurious Miss USA suite and getting her own apartment, a TV gig and supposedly great new opportunities.
The 2nd part is written by her mother and has a very, very different tone. As you can guess it’s mostly about the grief & hell of dealing with the aftermath, but it also exposes what the 1st part totally avoids: how much Cheslie struggled with depression and even a prior suicide attempt 6 years earlier.
What’s interesting is Cheslie’s part doesn’t seem like she’s trying to conceal anything. She does mention her isolation a lot, but the way she presents it, it’s a choice. It’s all very businesslike, even down to her nasty breakup with a “cheating” bf (or was it paranoia? up to the reader), or the way she handled online trolls with a sort of manufactured friendly diplomacy, even though we get a peek into her mind which is on the verge of melting down. What I’m saying is she makes it seem like she had everything under control, because that’s what she herself believed.
THAT’S EXACTLY IT. For high functioning depressed people there is no such thing as depression. That’s why it can’t be treated. The chapter about her breakup is really interesting because there’s no wallowing in self pity. She mentions crying almost in passing, but instantly all pain gets compartmentalized, set aside so she can focus on studying for the bar exam or preparing for a pageant.
I think that’s why ultimately this book doesn’t help me. It helps in the way I can totally relate, but there’s no moral of the story. There’s no cure. She did everything right. Even the mother says she couldn’t think of anything more to do (Cheslie was already feeling stifled at the constant check-ins). The bottom line is Cheslie isolated herself because she knew no one could help, and that’s exactly what I’ve done too. So wtf, I guess I’ll keep doing what I’m doing until I snap and take the plunge myself.
“I began to feel the slow burn of solitude, craving the sweetness of someone asking me how my day was because they truly wanted to know. Sometimes loneliness is the cost of self respect.” – Cheslie Kryst
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“I began to feel the slow burn of solitude, craving the sweetness of someone asking me how my day was because they truly wanted to know. Sometimes loneliness is the cost of self respect.” – Cheslie Kryst
Often, often I agree with this. I lost my job today, and so much of what went wrong had to do with me trying to hold my head up, and not being willing to open up to people who clearly did not respect me or want into my actual life…..
and I just got done doing the whole wrestling match with my case worker about how he thought I was suicidal about the whole thing….. and it isn’t that I’m not, I’m just not letting many people in right now.
Because when the world is as hostile as it is to me now, you circle the wagons. You don’t let people in. Solitude IS the cost of self respect.
If people actually wanted in…… they know where the fucking door is. They know the proper way to ask, they know how to actually support me. My wife is actually doing it, and she’s getting more of the truth than most people. Not the suicidal bits, but no one gets that these days.
I mean you guys do, but who are you going to tell? My social worker guesses, but he doesn’g get to know when he’s right.
Being high functioning is a lot about being an enigma. That’s the only way you get away with it if you actually go through with the plan of committing suicide. Low functioning suicidal people get hospitalized. A lot of high functioning suicidal people take others out with them, not saying I’d be one, but I’ve thought about it.
I’ve been at this so long I’ve thought about every way out……… you do that when you’ve been trapped this long. It isn’t wrong to think about it, as I keep saying, and you can’t harm someone for thinking about it.
“Because when the world is as hostile as it is to me now, you circle the wagons. You don’t let people in. Solitude IS the cost of self respect. ”
Bingo. That’s solid logic, regardless of whether we’re high functioning or not. But with the high functioning individual it’s amplified because there’s so much to lose.
That sucks hard about losing your job just because you didn’t get all weepy and beg for pity from the people who clearly weren’t qualified. But again, your strategy makes total sense: don’t let people in blindly, especially not potential threats and enemies. The fact that they fired you proves they were your enemies, so you did good to shut them out. Unfortunately they win either way.
You do get to walk away with your self respect.
But yeah it’s a lonely ass place, self respect. For some of us it’s a fatal irony: self respect is what makes us strong, but it bars any reliance on others so we end up without any help when we need it.
And we’re not gonna blindly open up the wagon train to anyone claiming to be a savior. Like you, my door is wide open but it takes a special person to find that door. In the past that door has only been accessible to girlfriends of more than 2 years. That’s about how long it takes for someone to figure out all the right things to say, all the right things to do. Sounds like your wife is at that level with you so she must be a great stabilizing force.
I’ve noticed that a lot of high functioning suicides happen to people who aren’t in serious relationships. For example athletes who don’t have time for relationships or introverted people in general (isolated artists, Van Gogh syndrome). Having once had that 1 magic relationship where she knew all the right things to say and could pull me out of a death spiral, I can now feel how there’s no safety net. One false move and it’s straight to the bottom.
I also agree that high functioning suicides are almost always secretive, covert operations that no one could ever know because to reveal even a squeak would ruin the strength of the plan. Everyone here on SP knows how suicidal I am, but I’m not going to reveal that to people irl who know where I live and can call the cops on me (been there, done that, made me twice as suicidal and 10x more secretive).
I was highly functional from the outside but suicidal. Around 25 years ago, there was virtually no awareness or discussion about suicide, mental health, body image disorders, child abuse or anything “taboo” at all, which made it terrifying for someone growing up in that environment to speak about those issues. Another reason was I was already singled out as a minority, considered undesirable in certain sense, and faced a lot of harassment and discrimination. There was really no one to turn to since both society and my parents contributed to the problem. My “secrecy” was more forced than anything.
Did you ever figure out how to deal with those bottled feelings? I think that’s what leads to impulsive or uncontrollable suicide attempts. The pressure has to come out somehow, and suicide is the last stop.
Although I grew up in a comparatively more open society than what you described, my parents and extended family have always had that old world bs attitude of “mental health issues don’t happen to us” And with that beaten into my head at a young age, it’s now a part of my programming.
The irony is, I found out much later, there’s a history of batshit crazy in my family going back at least 3 generations including suicide. But don’t bring it up, they’ll outright deny it.
In any case, I think I can relate. Secrecy & suppression is a real killer. When you combine that with an irrational drive to succeed, it’s a powderkeg waiting for anything to set it off.
Not really, but hopefully society can keep changing in a more open-minded direction regardless of political ups and downs. I was raised to believe that the bad things in my life were either “good for me in the long run” or my fault for not being smart enough or working hard enough. There was only one version of truth: There is no bullying or discrimination. The system is fair to everyone. Parents always want and do what’s best for their children, so the children are the ones causing any problems, etc.