Results tagged “suicide” from Marilyn Sewell

I called my insurance agent just this morning--a really lovely man with whom I've been working with for years.  He has handled both my auto and my homeowner's insurance, and I must say Jeff has always been kind and helpful, pointing out ways to save me money at times.

So when I called his office today and asked for Jeff, the secretary said in a rather tense voice, "Who is calling?"  I told her, and she transferred me to another extension that I assumed would be Jeff's.  But, no, another agent answered and when I inquired about Jeff, he said, "I don't know if you've heard that Jeff passed away."

I was shocked, since Jeff was middle-aged and seemed to be fine.  So I asked this agent--who turned out to be Jeff's friend and office mate--what had happened to Jeff.  "He had a number of health issues," the man said.  "And then he became depressed.  They put him on medication, but it seemed to make him worse.  So sad.  It was in the papers--you may have read about it.  He just disappeared last June 12, and nobody knew where he was.  They didn't find him until July 7."  I asked how Jeff killed himself, and his friend said, "They never told us." 

The ubiquitous "they":  "They" put him on medication.  "They" didn't find him . . . ."  "They" never told us.  Who did what?  What actually happened?  "They" will probably never say, and we will probably never know.  It's the way we all speak when we don't want to assign responsibility, or get too close. 

The agent that I talked with was concerned and sad that he had lost his friend and co-worker.  He couldn't understand how someone could become so despondent that he would want to kill himself.  He said that life is so precious to him that he could never imagine taking his own life.

It is difficult for people who have never been clinically depressed to understand how devastating that disease can be.  I've been there, and I know.  Depression makes you feel cut off from others, as though you're behind some kind of glass, and you can't break through.  You can't engage others, except in a mechanical, phony way, because you feel so dead inside.  You can't feel joy in simple things, like a lovely sunset or a piece of music that ordinarily might lift your spirits. 

In short, you are experiencing the singularly most painful feeling for human beings--acute emotional separation, from others, from your own emotions, from the usual pleasures and interests of this world.  Sometimes there are feelings of worthlessness and guilt.  And besides this, you have the sense that you will never get any better.  Your pain is so great that you feel you must escape it at all costs.  Even thoughts of the effect your suicide might have on family and friends may be discounted.

I have never tried to kill myself.  Fortunately, medication has worked for me when I've been depressed, and I've come out of it in several weeks or so.  In the great majority of cases, some medication or other will be effective.  But not in absolutely every case.

I lost a friend some years ago to chronic depression--a brilliant academic, she never could break the life-long cycle of depression, and she committed suicide.  When I went to my 50th high school reunion this last July, I was greeted by the hostess there in my home town of Homer, LA, who explained to me that of our class of 49, 13 were dead--two of suicide.  The next person I talked with was a man in another class who told me that his brother had killed himself years ago.  Welcome to the real world.  Suicide happens all too often. 

So I must end this writing by saying that if you know anyone who is depressed, encourage this person to get help--this is not something you can "tough out."  True depression is not the same thing as being situationally sad because something bad has happened--that kind of sadness is understandable and part of all human experience.  However, for those with a chemical imbalance in their brain, sometimes difficult experiences can lead to clinical depression.  If you know someone who ever speaks about wanting to end his life, take those statements seriously, in particular if they have a specific plan as to how to do it.

Depression is a disease, and it is too often a fatal one.  We need to understand it as such and do all we can to help those sufferers heal.

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This past week I spent several days in Homer, the little N. Louisiana town where I grew up.  I went there to attend my 50th high school reunion, and once I got used to the idea that I actually graduated that long ago, I began looking forward to the event.

Almost as soon as I arrived at the afternoon gathering which opened the festivities, I learned that 11 of my 48 classmates were dead, 2 from suicide.  Then I talked with another classmate to whom I was particularly close, and I asked about his older brother.  He spoke in hushed tones: "Oh, he's been dead for 30 years.  He killed himself."  Welcome to Reality Reunion.  I wondered if this percentage of losses was normal, or if we were particularly prone to death--at least the men in our class, for 10 of the deceased were men.

My classmates were grown-ups.  They were (mostly) not playing games or being shy or competing.  They were just who they are, and glad to be there with one another.  The beauty queens were still pretty, if a bit thicker at the waist.  Some of us nerds had blossomed into more attractive adults.  People mainly had stayed married, many to hometown friends.  One woman I knew well had had a stroke and needed to remain seated.  Another who had been my college roommate had had a double mastectomy and had almost died a couple of years ago from a blood clot racing to her heart.  The top student in our class looked great--he had become a doctor, board certified in two specialties.  But his wife barely made it to the reunion.  She was suffering from a neurological disease which almost killed her last year, he said.  She looked pale and drawn.  He reminded me that in high school he and I "had been competitive."

Maybe we had.  I didn't remember it that way.  And now, what did it matter?  My classmates and I laughed and talked, lost in memories,  There was nostalgia and real joy, and yet all the talk seemed somehow laced with a nervous hum.  We were all standing on the edge of time, and we knew it.

The slights were recalled: the time I was left out of the pallet party, the way I always sat on the end when our group went to the movie, the fact that I never, never had a date, not even to the prom.  It didn't matter.  Many dreams had been dashed, mine and theirs, sooner or later.  We had all suffered, and we would all suffer still more.  And each of us would die.  We had each had our little triumphs, our moments of joy.  Each had taken a.different path, some more exalted than others, and yet each had in common, this keen sense of mortality. We came together for this brief time, we touched, and all was forgiven. 

So you can't go home again.  There's no margin in doing so, for that home is frozen in time, is merely memory, and no longer exists, as soon as you step out of that page of your life.  You bring this new self, your changed self, back into that remembered time, and you smile.  You wish you had known then what you know now: we're all afraid that we're not enough.  In those trying high school years, each of us needed a little bit of kindness, some affirmation.  We still do.  It's never too late.       

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I was fascinated by David Brooks' editorial (NYTimes 5/12, A23) on an article entitled "What Makes Us Happy?" by Joshua Wolf Shenk, to be published in this next issue of the Atlantic.  In short, the article (now available on line) describes a longitudinal study done by one George Vaillant over a 42-year period on a group of 268 of the most promising young men of the Harvard class of 1942.  Among them were John F. Kennedy and Ben Bradlee. 

These young men were the creme de la creme: they were intelligent, sophisticated, advantaged in every way.  They had been selected from the rest of the entering class because they were considered the most well adjusted.  Since they were college sophomores, they have been visited by researchers regularly and studied in every aspect of their living.  The results are known as the Grant Study, and they are summarized in Shenk's article, which I have not as yet had a chance to read--but eagerly await.

Judging from their privileged beginnings, one might expect that these men would grow into highly successful, happy individuals.  The life stories, however, show quite a different outcome.  Brooks points out that one third of the men ended up suffering at least one bout of mental illness.  Many would be plagued with alcoholism.  A few, understandably, could never admit that they were gay, until they were of an advanced age. Brooks is struck, he says, by "the baffling variety of their lives."  What causes us to make certain decisions, to follow life-giving as opposed to destuctive paths?  And a man who seems to do well in one phase of his life might just fall apart in the next phase.  Why?

The study apparently produced some correlations.  Correlations don't prove, but they do suggest.  The men by and large did better as they aged.  Those who suffered from depression were much more likely to be dead by their early 60's.  But it's George Valliant's final conclusion that is the most profound and the most instructive to us all.  In a video he says, "Happiness is love.  Full Stop."

Ironically enough, love always seemed to elude Valliant himself, Brooks reports.  When he was 10, his father, who seemed successful and content, shot himself beside the family pool.  The mother removed the children from the house, and Valliant never saw the house again.  There was no memorial service.  Valliant married three times, returning then to his second wife.  For long periods he was estranged from his children.

Brooks concludes, poignantly, "Even when we know something, it is hard to make it so."

Yes, this is true.  But I have a response to this statement.  Stay tuned for my next reflection.

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This morning David Kellerman, 41, Acting CFO of mortgage giant Freddie Mac, was found dead, an apparent suicide.  Freddie Mac has been harshly criticized for financing risky loans that are now defaulting.  The company was also under fire for planning to pay more than $210,000,000 in bonuses to their executives, to give them incentives to stay.  Kellerman, who had taken over when the former CEO had been relieved of his duties, was responsible for 500 employees and was working on the current financial report at the time of his death.  He leaves behind a wife and a five-year-old daughter, Grace.

Why did Kellerman kill himself?  Was it the many points of pressure?  Was in shame, for being involved in what he knew were slight-of-hand loan deals?  Was it some illegal act that is yet to be uncovered?  There will be an investigation.  There will be follow-up articles.  But we may never know the truth.  He himself may not have fully understood the demons which pushed him to take his life.

But the question before us is: what's worth dying for?  Making a mistake--even a big one--is not worth dying for.  Doing something that you are ashamed of--that's not worth dying for, either.  Trying to live up to others' expectations and failing--that's not worth dying for, either.

What is worth dying for?  To save the life of another, perhaps.  To make justice.  To go against the powers that be, when the powers are corrupt and evil.  These are things worth dying for.  We remember those who have done so: the firemen of 9/11; soldiers who lay down their lives for their comrades or for their country; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Archbishop Romero; journalists who are murdered for writing the truth about crooked political leaders.

But suicide?  No.  It is always, always, always possible to start over when you make a mistake, or when you do wrong.  Forgiveness is always an option.  If it were not, which one of us could keep going, with our more or less constantly besmirched lives?  We all "fall short of the glory of God," as my saintly grandmother used to say.  We can say, "I was wrong.  I'm sorry."  And we can start over.  Every day, in fact.

The one who commits suicide just "wants out," because the pain is so great, and that person cannot see an end to the suffering.  Many of us feel that intensity of pain at one time or another.  But depression can be cured, pain will end, and life turns round.  Dear reader, if you're ever considering suicide, remember that. 

It is sad beyond words when a little five-year-old is left without a father--and answerless questions that will last a lifetime.  Suicide colors so many lives, and for so long: a wife left alone; fellow workers asking, "Why?"; friends blaming themselves and saying, "I should have called . . . ." 

 Sometimes it takes courage just to keep going, just to get up every morning and face the day.  But there is no honorable alternative, for it's not just your own life--you belong to all of us.  We are all diminished when any one person takes his life.

We are irrevocably connected, the one with the other.  Stay with us, brother.  Hang in there, sister.  Together, we can find a way through anything. 

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