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Suicide Is Not a Rational Act

As this week has gone on, we’ve seen discussion continue about suicide and depression as more details about Robin Williams‘ death are made public.

Two conversations in particular highlight an important fact.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/ATsP7WlZ7i4

The first is a comment someone made regarding my post on Shepard Smith calling Williams’ suicide a cowardly act. Bert Knabe wote:

Looking at his words, I don’t think [Smith] was calling Williams a coward, he was saying one of those two things happens and you kill yourself. He’s probably right. In some cases it probably is a cowardly act – but those aren’t depression suicides. Those are ‘death is better than facing the consequences’ suicides – like when people leapt out of windows because of the stock market crash in 1929. Most of those are spur of the moment reactions without thought.

That’s an important point. There are spur-of-the-moment suicides instigated by shock and fear so intense that they overwhelm the person. There’s an inability to see life on the other side of the fresh calamity, 1929 being a pretty good example.

Suicide that comes at the end of a long struggle with depression is different. The depression is like a cancer, eating away at the sufferers mental ability to process information and confront realities for what they are and simply sucking the life force out of them.

In my opinion, both cases deal with people who no longer have the ability to think and act rationally. Their tether to reality is sliced away.

Need to talk? Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline:
1-800-273-8255
You can talk to a trained counselor 24/7.

The other conversation started with something KISS bassist Gene Simmons said about depression. Simmons made this ridiculous comment:

For a putz 20-year-old kid to say, ‘I’m depressed. I live in Seattle.’ F– you, then kill yourself. I never understand, because I always call them on their bluff. I’m the guy who says ‘Jump’ when there’s a guy on top of a building who says, ‘That’s it, I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to jump.’ Are you kidding? Why are you announcing it. Shut the f— up, have some dignity and jump! You’ve got the crowd. By the way, you walk up to the same guy on a ledge who threatens to jump and put a gun to his head, ‘I’m going to blow your f—in’ head off.’ He’ll go, ‘Please don’t.’ It’s true. He’s not that insane.

Mötley Crüe/SIXX AM bassist Nikki Sixx responded with his own story of addiction and depression:

It’s pretty moronic because [Gene] thinks everybody listens to him, that he is the god of thunder. He will tell you he is the greatest man on earth, and to be honest with you, I like Gene. But in this situation, I don’t like Gene. I don’t like Gene’s words, because … there is a 20-year-old kid out there who is a KISS fan and reads this and goes, ‘You know what? He’s right. I should just kill myself.’

Good on you, Nikki.

I like KISS and have a lot of respect for you, Gene. But all too often, you’re an asshole.

Suicide isn’t a rational choice, but that doesn’t mean we should give up on people who are suicidal.

Nikki Sixx and Gene Simmons

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Frances Bean Cobain Gets It Right

Update: Frances Bean Cobain threw more cold water on the romanticism of her dad’s life and death in this Rolling Stone interview.

Until now, we hadn’t heard much about Frances Bean Cobain, daughter of Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain. Now she’s getting headlines, and it appears the young lady has a good head on her shoulders despite a tumultuous childhood.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/5wev8W9PDAg

She’s getting the headlines for telling another young star that her talk of dying young is misguided. Cobain should know. She never got to know her father, who killed himself 20 years ago.

Specifically, Cobain responded to Lana Del Rey’s recent “I wish I was dead already” proclamation, which came after an interviewer mentioned Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011. If she’s to be believed, Del Ray harbors a serious death wish, telling The Guardian that she sees an early death as glamorous. “I don’t want to have to keep doing this. But I am.”

Cobain’s response, according to Rolling Stone and other publications:

The death of young musicians isn’t something to romanticize. I’ll never know my father because he died young, and it becomes a desirable feat because people like you think it’s “cool.” Well, it’s fucking not. Embrace life, because you only get one life. The people you mentioned wasted that life. Don’t be one of those people.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I know what it’s like to watch loved ones die young, by intent and from illness.

I do find myself wondering if Del Ray is serious or if she’s just saying it for attention. She wouldn’t be the first star to carry on that way. If she is serious, that interview could be her cry for help. If so, I hope she gets what she needs.

Some will say she’s being a snot, because here she has all the success and fame, and she’s saying she doesn’t want to live long. I remember hearing that kind of talk from bands like Mötley Crüe in the 1980s. There was the whole “live fast, die young” romanticism. Fortunately, the Mötley guys got beyond that, grew up and have lived full, meaningful lives — especially Nikki Sixx, who has four kids and too many successful business ventures to count on one hand.

Hopefully, Del Ray will grow up in similar fashion.

Maybe Cobain’s words of wisdom will help in that regard.

Frances Bean CobainImage by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images