You view a disease as a morale failure.
This is maybe the closest I’ve been to just saying fuck off and ditching this forum.
Suicide is not a disease you idiots. It’s an action. What planet are you on?
Mental health is the disease, if you’re looking for a name. Suicide is more of a symptom.
Let’s take a step back here. Is anyone arguing that suicide is not selfish, and is an inevitable, fatal conclusion to depression?
Because I would super like to hear your argument of that.
Suicidal ideation (and suicide) is a common although by no means guaranteed symptom of depression. It is not a selfish act, it is a symptom of a disease.
Suicide is not the guaranteed outcome of depression any more than death is the guaranteed outcome of cancer, or a heart attack, or a stroke, or influenza. Death is a possible outcome of all of those, however.
Try and put yourself in the place of someone who’s in such unyielding and constant pain that they’d prefer to suffer physical pain followed by oblivion than continue to try to live with it. It’s not easy if you’ve never personally experienced it, but give it a shot.
I’d also recommend David Foster Wallace’s story “The Depressed Person”, if you have a moment.
In my mind it is a huge mistake to make cancer and depression equivalent. It demeans people with cancer and paints an unfair picture of people with depression.
Also, can we agree depression is not fatal, even without treatment, at least? We must have some common ground if we are going to have a real discussion about this.
Uhmm. No.
Your idea of common ground is “assume that my conclusions are correct”.
So, it’s neither common ground nor is it accurate.
That is a remarkably revealing statement.
Why is being compared with depression demeaning to cancer patients?
And I would like to here the argument that suicide not a selfish act. It is the pinnacle of selfishness. If you would like to argue that selfishness is not a bad thing or worthy of judgment, that’s another, useful discussion. But suicide is ultimately selfish.
I’m saying that suicide as a conclusion to depression is demeaning to cancer patients. Go tell a cancer patient that you a depressed and can therefore identify with the fight of their lives they are going through. It’s insulting.
This.
So, it’s demeaning to a cancer patient for someone who has struggled for decades with suicidal ideation to suggest that they have an understanding of what it is to be fighting for your life?
You haven’t got a fucking clue have you? You are fixated on suicide as a moral failure to the point that you come soooo close to an epiphany and then go skipping away.
Can you guys take this to another thread maybe?
I’m a chef. The year Kitchen Confidential hit the NYT I got three copies for Christmas. This is what I wrote on FB earlier.
I was at work for five hours today before I heard the news- prepping for my own business, and then for my ‘real’ job. Then the others arrived and told me, and he’s been on my mind ever since.
This bit has been making the rounds, from his first essay in The New Yorker: “I love the sheer weirdness of the kitchen life: the dreamers, the crackpots, the refugees, and the sociopaths with whom I continue to work; the ever-present smells of roasting bones, searing fish, and simmering liquids; the noise and clatter, the hiss and spray, the flames, the smoke, and the steam.”
It’s a good bit. I relate. What it leaves off is the end of the paragraph: “Admittedly, it’s a life that grinds you down. Most of us who live and operate in the culinary underworld are in some fundamental way dysfunctional.”
This is truth. And it’s an industry that tends to reinforce that dysfunction. It has gotten better over the years- due in no small part to the man calling out that bullshit macho culture. But the habits and demons (both mental and physical) that possess us in our youth can be hard to shake. I’m not surprised he finally lost his fight.
This is a tragedy for a variety of reasons I don’t have the heart to talk about right now. And it’s a sobering reminder that no matter your apparent ‘success’ in the world, you never really leave this stuff behind.
I believe he left the world a better place, through his work to foster a sense of empathy and understanding through the medium of food.
Rest in peace, finally, Mr. Bourdain
Thank you for that.
I’m throwing in a +1. I need to reconsider some things. It is insane that there are people who encounter the death of another and immediately think how could you do this to me.
I discussed Bourdain’s death with my wife and mentioned that I assumed his heart would have given out suddenly on account of his past addictions. She had a good point, which is that even if he’s been clean for a long time, it’s not unlikely that self medication for depression may have been the cause of his addictions in the first place.
So, in a sense, it would have been the depression that took his life either way.
I also just bristle a little bit at the implication that those who are suicidal simply don’t consider how it would impact the people around them. Because of course it couldn’t be that they have thought about it and thought about it and thought about it; and in the end their own suffering still surpasses their ability to cope. Because it just can’t be that you’ve underestimated to what extent they have suffered. Their pain can’t have been that much worse than what you have felt, so it must be that they are weak.
And, as I said in my first post in the thread, depression has a very nasty way of fucking with your own perception, and convincing you that as bad as it will hurt the people around you (and you know that it will–quite terribly) if you kill yourself, the burden your continued existence will place on them would far outweigh that in the long run. I’ll add that in the times I’ve felt suicidal in the past, I felt great shame and embarrassment that I wasn’t able to carry through with the act, and thereby made those around me to suffer even more… that if I could have just gone and done it, then they would have finally been free of me and no longer been weighed down by that anchor. Thankfully, this has passed. Mostly.
And I really hate to bring up any sort of victim-blaming, but the whole thing of writing the act off as selfish has an enormous chilling impact on people who are depressed and pushes them even further from seeking help or reaching out. Because what better way to help someone battling a constant and overwhelming feeling of utter worthlessness than to shame them for feeling that way and berate them for only thinking of themselves, right?