[bluerooibos]

Yeah. The guy had what appears to be a pretty great life. Looking through twitter, there's photos of him with his kids and wife.

I just can't comprehend how someone can arrive at the decision to commit suicide, especially when you have a wife and children, and to then tweet about it. The human mind is an odd thing.

[Barrin92]

What's always resonated with me is David Foster Wallace's description, thinking of it as a decision is not the right way to look at it.

"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

[bookofjoe]

Trust me, been there tried to do that (June 1977 — I woke up several days later intubated/on a ventilator in the ICU). It's completely logical when you're profoundly depressed. If you haven't been there then you "just can't comprehend..."

[jamestimmins]

I'm glad you made it through that experience, and hope that things have improved considerably since then.

I've never been seriously suicidal, but I did have a period of bad depression/OCD where I experienced what I later learned is called "derealization", where I felt cut off from everything in life and as though I was viewing the world through frosted glass. Once I received help and left that state, I was struck by how much it felt that everything I cared about was already gone. I can only imagine there's a similar feeling when people die by suicide.

[projektfu]

When I had refractory major depression it felt like a terminal illness. I often hoped I'd get hit by a car or someone would kill me in a mugging. When you're depressed, people also often treat you like you have leprosy. However, now I struggle to empathize with others who are going through the same thing.

Thankfully I found medication and life changes that worked, especially moving to a sunny climate. I also recommend sobriety, it stops a vicious cycle with depression and dependence.

[mlambie]

Suicide is not a decision. It’s not something you commit, like a crime. Our phrasing needs to reflect this.

It’s a disease. Chris died of suicide.

[avg_dev]

thanks for saying this. i believe it to be an important comment and it has helped me.