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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

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The Addict Still Has a Responsibility

Mötley Crüe and Sixx AM bassist Nikki Sixx has always been a hero of mine, largely because of the raw honesty he displays when writing about his addictions. Yesterday on his radio show, he discussed the death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Mood music:

The hardest thing for Sixx to swallow is that Hoffman was clean and sober for more than 20 years before he relapsed. Sixx has been sober since 2001. Before that, he had slipped on drugs several times after having been clean for a few years.

I’m sure it also wasn’t easy to hear that Hoffman died with a needle still in his arm. Sixx was fortunate enough to wake up with the needle in his arm in 1987, when he finally decided he couldn’t take it anymore.

Indeed, Hoffman’s death has generated a lot of discussion. Yesterday I wrote about how addiction was a disease that many people don’t understand.

Yet I don’t believe addicts should be blithely excused for every failure because they have this monkey on their back.

Actions have consequences. Hoffman leaves behind three kids who needed him and an army of people who were heavily invested in him. People have a right to be angry about that.

Sometimes we’re so beaten down that we’re no longer in our right mind. That’s when we make sorry, costly choices. And as anyone who has cleaned up after addiction knows, the only right path is the one where personal responsibility is everything.

Addicts shouldn’t get a free pass. It’s quite the opposite, really. If you can’t be real with yourself about your demons, you’re doomed to make bad choices, including the deadly ones. 

But as I said yesterday, we also need to understand that this is a battle. No matter how strong you are, it only takes a second to let your guard down. That’s when the fatal bullet hits you between the eyes.

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Nikki Sixx, Michael Jackson and Pedophiles, Part 2

Last year, Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx created a Twitter shitstorm when he opined about Michael Jackson being an alleged pedophile. At the time, I wrote a blog post about it being a fascinating case study in human nature. This week marks the third anniversary of Jackson’s death, and the case study has taken an interesting turn.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:1S3Bc6pVYOmzad7d1WiQO7]

I knew something was up when my post from last year started getting a ton of traffic. I also started getting fresh comments on the post, all of it defending Jackson and panning Mötley Crüe’s chief songwriter. So I explored Google and found another interesting Twitter exchange, this time between Jackson’s daughter, Paris, and Sixx.

Jackson sent him this tweet: “Heyy quick question dude – and this is coming from a huge fan of motley crue – but why do u feel the need to hate on talented ppl [people]?”

To which Sixx replied: “Hello parisJackson. My snarky humor and sarcasm sometimes gets the best of me. I sincerely apologize to you and your family. God Bless.”

According to published reports, she accepted his apology and he invited her to come on his radio show. “If ya ever wanna come on SixxSense and talk about what Your working on would love [to] have you on,” he tweeted.

I had forgotten about my post from last year, so I went back and read it. It mostly stands the test of time in terms of how I feel about the subject. I think Jackson did a lot of good in his life but that the cloud hanging over him was hard to dismiss.

True, he was never convicted of being a pedophile, but the reports of what went on in his home still make me uneasy.

Watching a childhood friend become a pedophile definitely colored my reaction to the Sixx-Jackson controversy. But I fully admit that I’m basing my views on all the things that were reported in the media. For all I know, everything that happened behind closed doors was harmless. The media has a long history of getting it wrong.

I still find it curious how the masses were ready to tear Jackson down at the time of the allegations yet conveniently forgot about all them when he died. I guess we all suffer from varying degrees of hypocrisy.

One thing’s for certain: Nikki Sixx seems to have had a change of heart — at least in how he chose to give his opinion on the King of Pop.

I’m glad Paris Jackson challenged Sixx the way she did. And I’m glad he apologized.

Nikkie Sixx