From: A Person Living with Chronic Depression To: Normal Americans Re: Five Things I Would Ask You To Stop Doing As someone who has lived successfully with low-grade chronic depression my entire life, the news of Mr. Williams’ suicide seems to have a different effect on me than it seems to have on you. The flood of facebook posts, tweets, and more formal news commentaries embrace a singular point of view which appears to represent the way “most people” react to such news, but that is not my reaction. His passing has led me to five ideas with five requests: 1. Please refrain from using language that equates the suicide as the inevitable end of a life-long battle against demonic possession. Depression and addictive behaviors have causes but to keep using medieval language for the sake of colorful copy is cynical at best and not helpful. The causes of depression, like all effects in life, are over-determined. There is no one reason or cause. It is, most likely, that depression is a flaw in internal chemistry. Simplistic observers like to think it’s about a lack of maturity, resolve, or character. It’s not that easy. 2. Please refrain from glorifying celebrities who terminate their lives with hyperbole such as genius, greatest actor of his generation, or greatest writer of his generation (I am thinking of Mr. Williams as well as Philip Seymour Hoffman and David Foster Wallace). While these accolades may have merit, it only sensationalizes the event and that leads away from an appropriately mindful and compassionate response. The user of hyperbole seeks to express their cleverness and validate their own opinion. (I know that, because I am guilty of it!) 3. Please refrain from expressing exaggerated emotion over accomplished or privileged folks’ sorrows while ignoring others who might be right in front of you. As I drove about my Los Angeles neighborhood today, I counted nine men and women living on the sidewalks. Please, make sure you see them also as people, right in front of you, who have spiritual, mental, and physical needs that are not being met. If you have emotional energy to spare, make sure that while your heart goes out to… you save some for the woman living in a shopping cart, a child without a home, or the veteran who left his or her soul on a battlefield. 4. When talking about people in your life who don’t handle things as well as you do, please stop belittling the achievements, the peace of mind, and the gratitude that many of us have worked hard for. There is great danger is settling for too little in life, I know. Striking the right balance between gratitude and staying hungry for the right things is an art not easily mastered. For some of us, simply finding refuge in honest joy and moments of beauty has been hard work and is it’s own, sweet reward. Don’t diminish that for me. 5. When reflecting on someone like Mr. Williams, please don’t assume that expressions of exuberance and happiness are in-authentic or masking something. The tears of a clown thing is old. And patronizing. In lieu of the above, I’d to recommend the following: when suicides occur, as they do every day, it is kind and compassionate to simply enfold that person in loving kindness and assume that their life was lived as best it could have been. If your world-view embraces some notion of an afterlife, trust that their essence will continue on, unfolding in grace. If you are a person friend of the deceased’s family, be kind. For the sake of building real bonds of unity and understanding, more is required than a like and sad-faced-emoticon. What that is, is for each of us to discover, in our own time. But that process is part of the glory of being human. When learning about a celebrity suicide, please use it to wake up to your inherent sense of poise, love and compassion for yourself as well as all of humanity. That will guide you in a rewarding direction.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 00:35:30 +0000
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