Posted by sar on July 29, 2001, at 3:11:41
In reply to Re: overdose » sar, posted by Wendy B. on July 28, 2001, at 14:48:07
> (...)
>
> > > If I want you to stay around, because you seem like such a nice person who is trying to get it together, is that just me being selfish?
> > >
> > > A hug,
> > > Wendy
> >
> >
> >
> > Wendy,
> >
> > thank you. i don't even know what to say. my theories on suicide differ so much from the norm that i believe they must be bizarre or extreme, and it's such a sticky topic.
> >
>
> not so sticky, I've wondered all my life how, if someone wants to be gone from this world, their right to do that should be taken away by zealous hotline helpers and concerned shrinks. I have trouble with it myself...
> I think I live outside the norm most of the time, I hate the banal. sometimes I just want everybody to be well, and you get attached to certain folks on the BBoard. you think the right thing to say is: 'killing yourself is not the way out of your particular hell, please think again.'
I think that because we're Americans (are you American? or a Brit, or from where?) suicide is completely taboo. I've taken many anthropology classes and have learned that in other countries, breastfeeding a child until age 5 is the norm and considered very healthy. Here, that would be consisdered sexual abuse. In Japan, kamikaze missions and hari kari (Is that what it was called) was very noble and humble; here, it would be considered illegal and a reason to haul you off in an ambulance.
>
> > how can suicide be classy? i don't know, maybe it's just my idealization of it. Purposeful overdose, like eating too many opium cakes or clenching an asp to your bosom or jumping into an active volcano seem--appropriate? Nobly forlorn?
>
> I get the concept, intellectually. Your examples are very funny, excuse the laughter (it's a waayyy serious subject, man). I think I can understand the urge to do away wih myself, too, I've had it once or twice. my sister's had it, just this low-level 'what's the point of living' attitude most of our lives. at extreme moments we have stepped near the edge, literally. our noble way is drowning, but we're both good swimmers. go figure...
> I had a friend whose method would have been drowning too, but he would do it really BIG, like jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, you know, high drama.
> Is fantasizing about it the same as glorifying it, or idealizing it?Ah, drowning...isn't that how Virginia Woolf did it? Tonight as I was driving to the store to lift some wine (because I am broke and it is past hours) I thought of Marshall McLuhan--what did he say, "the message is the medium" or somesuch? "the medium is the message"? Mila brought it up some time ago, speaking of once wanting to slit her wrists, but intsead allowed herself to become a "handless maiden." Let others take the burden. The message of an overdose is to blissfully stop the pain, to go to sleep forever.
> > shooting yourself in the head=not classy. getting a cop to shoot you=not classy.
> >
> > i hope this isn't making you uncomfortable...
>
> No, it's really ok... But Hemmingway shot himself in the head, actually, he put a shotgun on the ground, put his mouth over it, and reached down and blew his head off, or so I've read. And he was a classy guy, I guess...
>
You're right. Hem was quite a talented but tortured bastard; however, he was a sportly Man's Man and (as I imagine) simply would not have done with a quivering pill overdose or humanly blood. He wrote like bullets--that extreme, cowboy-style short powerful prose--and died by bullet. Powerful. Since you say you're not freaked out by this topic, I'll tell you this: at my most suicidal, I researched it extensively on the web and came across a site that contains photos of both successful and unsuccessful suicides. Gun through the mouth or in the side of the head is not a foolproof method--it could quite possibly just leave you with massively ugly head injuries.> > one moment i am drunkenly suicidal, the next morning i am in giggles and eating my organic vegan food lingering over hot tea and loving the sun. dr. jekyll & ms. hyde.
>
> yeah, it's always the big back and forth. I don't drink or do anything more than pot and/or two drinks, tops, because my meds for BP II might cause me to have a seizure (they say)... so I'm not a good help on that issue. I drank a lot when I was in college, but now it's too hard on my body... have you ever done the detox route, or a 12-step program? i know lots of people find the AA thing very weird, too rigid, too much god/spirituality/higher power stuff... whatever.
> organic, vegan food, though, I've been getting into that more and more lately, where I live is a particularly good environment for that kind of eating, that lifestyle.
> but the dichotomy is clear here: if you care enough about your body during one part of the day to eat vegan, organic food, and you love it! and then don't care a thing about your body later when you drink too much... what's it all about?it's all about feeling! i became a big animal-rights activist at age 16, not to feel better physically, but eating tortured/dead animals had always disturbed me. I think now it's an interesting parallel--I turned veggie when receiving the most abuse from others (parents and guys). now it's all somatic; not only do i still strongly believe in the animal-rights movement, but it feels so good to eat raw/organic/vegan! it just feels good. and when i don't eat that way i don't feel guilty (i'll have some cheddar or white bread etc sometimes) i just don't feel as good.
when i don't drink i don't feel guilty or proud, i just don't feel as good.
besides, eating healthy helps to temper the impending beer belly!
> > JahL once wrote that if he goes to a party and isn't having a good time, he leaves, and it's no big deal.
>
> you mean you just stay, no matter what, and get trashed?
No. (I mean I've done that, but that's not what i was talking about.) Jah's metaphor was the party=life; if you're not having a good time you leave. (Walk home in the case of a party; kill yourslef in the case of life.)>
> > just such a private choice.
>
> sometimes I think it's the only way for some people, if you're drinking, you just do it till you're numb...
>
>
> > i have lots of doctors and pills, lots of my anxiety is gone, i listen to music now and have started perusing non-psychology books in the first time for more than a year.
>
> music is the way, man, it really soothes me, too, playing guitar as well... like I said, it seemed from your posts that you're really getting some moments of clarity and lightness... being able to laugh and enjoy life while drinking tea and eating excellent food is a good sign, no?
i am. i used to be so against pyschiatric medication, but now i'm alll for it. i realize now that my depression led to so much delusional thinking (like, if someone were nice to me, i'd think they were making fun of me, knowing what a loser i actually am and trying to humor me or see my reaction to their kindness so they could laugh about it later)--and prozac/klonopin have seriously reduced my ruminating/paranoid thoughts and have led me to hermit to social butterfly, and now so uncomfortable with the responsibility of the transition that i find myself hermitting up again.
> > i feel so weird. i feel like my views are just completely socially unacceptable, stop eating meat and allow people to die.
>
> not at all! I'm only wanting to understand better, and yeah, stop eating meat and allow people to die sounds ok, I'm not calling these things socially unacceptable. I'm sorry if you took it that way.i was just hesitant to discuss suicide in a practical, honest way because it is taboo, & i've no desire to freak anyone out. Another thing I admired about Jah is one post (awhile back) in which he said he was suicidal; another (new) poster accused him of "crying wolf" and not to mention it again if he didn't immediately mean it or some such, and his rebuke was that his chronically suicidal feelings legitimately made him a suicidal person without cries for help or what have you. all regrets if i'm somehow misinterpreting the exchange between Jah and the other poster, I just haven't got it in me to search the archives.
i hope this doesn't sound too pessimistic, but plenty of people live 75 years worth of shit then die of cancer. in a nursing home eating creamed corn.
i'd rather (if i don't rebound from all of this) take a massive morphine overdose and not deal with 50 years of frowns.
i've got hope. a decent job, supportive parents, a few kind friends...admittance to excellent college, nice shoes...
it's my moods that bring me down. the loserish feeling. insecurity. no romantic love, the ones i love never love me back. existentialism. the craving for self-destructive activity--drunk driving, any drug, danger etc--
> > thanks Wendy, and hugs to you too.
>
> I'm behind you, for whatever that's worth...It's worth a lot, and I thank you for it. I remember you posting much more often when I fist began visiting PSB back in Feb or so~where have you gone? Give us a shout out, chick, and let us know how you are.
Warmly,
sar> xox,
> Wendy
poster:sar
thread:7857
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010726/msgs/8250.html