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Kurt Cobain’s Suicide Note on a T-Shirt

Online marketplace Etsy caused a kerfuffle recently by selling shirts emblazoned with the suicide note of the late Kurt Cobain.

Etsy and other e-commerce sites have since pulled the shirts from their virtual shelves, but the big question remains: Who in their right mind would wear such a thing?

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/jDyvClUsCJU

To be fair, some would wear it to make a statement about depression. But most kids just want to shock people.

I know, because I was one of those rebellious kids. Let’s go back about 23 years.

It’s 1992, I am in my early 20s and am pretty much pissed at the world. I have a chip on my shoulder the size of a bowling ball and harbor immature notions of what is cool.

At that time I was all about shocking people. Shocking people is a good way to change the subject, especially when the subject is why you’re such a fuck up. Of course, wearing the shirt proved I was just that.

I thought it would be a cool statement if I went around in a Charles Manson T-shirt. Guns ‘N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose was wearing one on stage, so I knew it was the cool thing to do.

My stupidity hit me clearer a few years ago, after I read Restless Souls: The Sharon Tate Family’s Account of Stardom, the Manson Murders, and a Crusade for Justice, written by Tate family friend Alisa Statman and Brie Tate, niece of Sharon Tate.

Patti Tate picked up the crusade against the Manson killers when her mom, Doris, passed away in 1992. In the book, she recalls seeing Rose in a video on MTV, sporting the infamous T-shirt. Here was a guy reaching millions of kids every day, essentially telling them that Manson was cool, a guy to look up to.

Fast-forward to 2015. With the Cobain suicide shirt, some worry that those wearing it are sending the message that suicide is cool. Cobain gave us important music, and there are far better ways to honor the man than wearing the symbol of his lost fight against the demons.

Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, has spoken out against the romanticizing of suicide in recent months. Shirts like this further illustrate the problem she has tried to address.

suicide-630x420

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18 Years After the Suicide

I’m doing the “Walk All Night Against Suicide Walk” in June to raise funds for suicide prevention programs. If you wish to donate, go here.

Eighteen years ago my best friend killed himself.

I knew he was badly depressed. I even had a feeling he harbored suicidal thoughts. I just never thought he’d do it.

I was wrapped up in my own world as he deteriorated. I was binge eating and working 80 hours a week, too worried about my career to see much else around me. Had I not been, I might have been able to make a difference. That’s what I believed for years after, at least.

Mood music:

On November 15, 1996, Sean Marley decided he’d had enough.

It was a sparkling, autumn Friday and I was having a great morning at work. But early that afternoon, I got a call at work from my mother. She had driven by Sean’s house and saw police cars and ambulances and all kinds of commotion on the front lawn. I called his sister and she put his wife on the phone. She told me he was dead.

I hated him for years after that, failing to comprehend why he would leave us that way, especially since he knew suicide meant a damned soul. That’s what we were taught. I thought he was a selfish fuck who took the easy way out.

I was especially angry because after my older brother died in 1984, Sean had become another older brother.

It took more than a decade before I was able to make peace with my friend and what he did.

I suffered through my own bouts of depression and started getting therapy. During therapy, I began to understand some important things about myself and about my friend.

Depression robbed me of the ability to see straight. Bad thoughts felt like reality, even though I knew better. Even now, 18 years later, that still happens. I’m going through a bout of depression right now, and I feel alone, unappreciated, and worthless. The reality is precisely the opposite. I have many blessings and a lot of people love me and need me around. And still, when the depression is at it’s worst, I feel like a zero.

That’s something people who don’t suffer from mental illness fail to understand. A cold blanket covers the mind and starts to suffocate it. In the process, you lose the ability to see the real around you and start to see the fake as truth.

That’s what my friend experienced. I get it now.

Why am I still here and he’s not?

Because he never got the chance to put depression into the right perspective and learn the tools to get beyond it. I did.

He also lived in a time when depression was stigmatized, misunderstood and not really talked about. Today, the fight is much more in the open.

I wish he could have lived to see that and benefit from it. But I’m mostly grateful that I’ve been able to benefit from it. I’ve learned a lot about depression and suicide, and I have the tools to get through it.

In a sick way, I think I was required to lose someone to suicide to help push me to where I am right now.

Halloween 1990: Sean Marley and Bill BrennerSean Marley and me, Halloween 1990.

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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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A (Small) Defense of Shepard Smith

A lot of people are incensed with Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, who suggested Robin Williams was a coward for killing himself this week.

My first instinct was to call him out for being an idiot, an enabler of insensitive motormouths uninterested in learning about how depression really ticks. But I’m going to take the road less expected.

I’m going to defend the guy a little bit.

Mood music:

First, let me clarify three things:

  • I hate  Fox News. It’s not a political thing. I hate CNN and MSNBC, too. These networks are more interested in infotainment than enlightenment. Most of the anchors say poorly thought-out things on a daily basis, and no one bats an eye.
  • I’m a fierce advocate for breaking the stigma and misunderstandings around depression. I’ve lived through it. I’ve watched friends die from it. If you think suicide is cowardly, you have absolutely no idea how the depressed mind works. It doesn’t make you an asshole. It just makes you uninformed. Unless you do know how the depressed mind works and you still think it’s a cowardly move. Then you’re an asshole.
  • I consider Robin Williams a hero. It saddens me that depression got the better of him, but his acting roles have done more to enhance understanding of the human condition than myriad research studies that have been done over the years. Tragic? Yes. Cowardly? No.

That said, Smith was stupid to call Williams a coward. But I don’t think he meant it that way in his heart. I watched a playback and read the transcript, and I think he fell into the trap many TV personalities fall into when speaking off the cuff. A lousy word choice dropped from his lips. If he weren’t live on air and had had the time to consider his words, I doubt coward is the word he would have chosen.

His actual words:

It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? You could love three little things [Williams’ children] so much, watch them grow, and they’re in their mid-20s and they’re inspiring you and exciting you and they fill you up with a kind of joy you can never have known. Yet something inside you is so horrible, or you’re such a coward, or whatever the reason that you decide have you to end it. Robin Williams, at 63, did that today.

I’ve seen Smith’s work over the years, and while I think he has a tendency to be overly dramatic and excitable, I also think he’s one of the more balanced anchors on a network that is anything but “fair and balanced.” I also noticed the pain in his eyes when reporting Williams’ death. I think the pain was genuine, that he was honestly distressed by the end of such a bright star.

Now that I’ve said all that, maybe Shep will bring some real depression sufferers and survivors onto his show so they can educate us — and him — on what this shit is really about.

screen shot of Fox News anchor Shepard Smith

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Was Robin Williams Suicide a Selfish Act?

The death of actor Robin Williams has left many in shock, myself included. I can’t imagine a world without his talents, and the nature of his death has brought all my old memories of depression and suicide back into focus.

A couple friends have suggested that Williams committed a selfish act that will ravage his friends and family for years to come. I can see where that line of thinking comes from. After my best friend killed himself in 1996, I felt the same way. I resented and hated him for doing it. But my perspective is different today.

Mood music:

My friend’s suicide and my own struggle with depression over the years compelled me to do a lot of research about what makes the brain tick. One lesson: Those who commit suicide are under such distress that they are essentially severed from reality. Much like an addict feeds the demon because they can’t help it, even though they know they could die, people with severe depression are compelled to throw the kill switch because they are blinded to everything around them. The brain is essentially broken, no longer able to process things as they really are.

I have no idea what Williams was going through in recent months, but I suspect this is what was happening to him.

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

Was he selfish for wanting to end it? To the extent that he wanted peace for himself and to escape the noise in his head, yes. Was he selfish to his family and friends for forcing them to deal with the pain his passing will cause? That’s a lot harder to parse.

I don’t think anyone with depression sets out to hurt people and leave them behind. When pain overwhelms and chokes off reason, you tend to lose the ability to see those around you.

I’ve never contemplated suicide, but I’ve been depressed enough that I couldn’t see the people in my presence. They could be there talking to me, but all I’d hear is the wind. The brain completely turns in on itself, causing a destructive, sometimes unstoppable chain reaction.

Only Williams knows what was going through his head at the time of death, so I’m not going to judge.

I’m just going to appreciate the life I have today and live it to the full. That will include the regular enjoyment of all the great movies the actor left behind.

robin williams in the fisher kingRobin Williams in The Fisher King, one of my favorites among his movies.

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Binge Eating, Heroin Overdoses and Suicide

My first full-time reporting gig was for The Stoneham Sun newspaper, part of what was then Community Newspaper Company. (It’s now Gatehouse Media.) It was a fun job, giving me a priceless education in local politics, public safety and criminal court proceedings. But in some ways, it was the darkest year of my 20s.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/1e3m_T-NMOs

It was a year of vicious binge eating, 80-hour workweeks for little money, depression, anxiety and the suicide of my best friend, who slowly fell into madness while I was too busy working to pay attention.

I remember feeling relieved on Fridays because it was the start of the weekend and depressed as hell on Sunday mornings because it meant I’d soon be diving back into late nights of selectmen meetings, ambulance chasing and writing deadlines. I comforted myself with multiple daily visits to the McDonald’s drive-through and the various gas stations along my driving routes where I could tank up on candy bars and Hostess products.

I wanted to show everyone how badass my work ethic was, and I never seemed to leave the newsroom, except for my forays into Stoneham to collect police and fire logs and find people to interview for stories important and insignificant.

I gained about 40 pounds in that one year alone.

That summer, my friend wound up in the mental hospital. I visited him once or twice, then got wrapped up in my work again. Through much of that year I took Sunday-morning walks with him and another friend. But I was so anxious over the next story that my head wasn’t really there. I usually walked a few steps behind them, lost in thought.

He got out of the hospital but never shook his depression. I knew it was there but figured it would pass. That November, he proved me wrong.

I only took a few days off before returning to work. My first assignment upon returning was to get to the bottom of a heroin death. It took a few years for police to figure out that the overdose was part of a larger plot by some thugs to silence a few kids who knew too much about their gun-running enterprise. They gave one boy a fatal overdose of smack and later murdered a girl whose remains eluded the authorities for years.

At the time, though, all I knew was that a seemingly all-American boy with everything going for him was dead. He wasn’t the type to try heroin. I interviewed his family and, with my friend’s suicide still eating at me, I decided to write about what I was feeling. Specifically, I tried to answer the question: Why do good people step down dark and deadly avenues? An editor wanted to publish it. I said OK. I put things in that column that never should have been revealed. It was deeply personal stuff that wounded a family already mired in grief. They won’t speak to me to this day. I don’t blame them.

By year’s end, I had proposed to Erin and by January 1997, I was on to a new post covering Lynn, Mass. But it would be another couple years before I pulled myself from the mental abyss. By the time that happened, I was 280 pounds.

It took another 15 years to fully make peace with that part of my past.

Lettin___It_Out___Ink_by_EddieTheYeti

“Lettin’ it Out,” by Eddie Mize. Go to his website to see more.

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The Semicolon As Anti-Suicide Symbol

I’ve never been a fan of the semicolon. I always identify it as punctuation used by people clinically incapable of writing the short, crisp sentences I prefer. Who knew it would become a symbol of hope — a battle cry to resist suicidal thoughts and get on with life.

Mood music:

That’s the mission of The Semicolon Project: to turn a piece of punctuation into something new and powerful. A Tumblr blog explains:

The semicolon is used when a sentence could have ended, but didn’t. The movement is for anyone who has ever self-harmed, has a personality disorder, or has tried to commit suicide. The semicolon is a sign of hope. Your sentence is not over yet. If you have ever harmed yourself, attempted suicide, or just want to support the cause, put a semicolon on your wrist or wherever you feel would mean the most. Every time you see it, think of something that makes life worth living.

The movement appears to be catching on, with people even getting the punctuation mark tattooed to wrists and other body parts.

I believe in symbols. They are no replacement for therapy and, as needed, medication. But symbols do something just as important, if not more so: They give the suffer something positive to fixate on, shapes that are as powerful as entire sentences and songs. When life kicks you in the nuts, the right symbolic image seared into the brain can steer you back toward the will to live.

For myself, the Superman S has always been a powerful symbol. The image has surfaced in my mind’s eye whenever I’ve reached low points and realized it was time for a turnaround. I love how, in last year’s Man of Steel movie, Jor-El specifically describes it as the symbol of hope.

But as symbols go, this semicolon idea is growing on me. And I only heard about it a couple days ago.

So here it is, the image to picture when you are at your lowest. May it inspire you to keep your sentence moving.

semi-colon

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Seven Insights into Dealing with Depression

I got this question from a reader over the weekend, after he read my “Suicide in the Blood” post:

I was just curious after reading this article: As much as I think about suicide and sometimes homicide, am I capable of carrying this out? I’m bipolar and have very serious depression also. Bipolar personality disorder and ADHD make it very hard to keep my mood swings down and my mind focused. I really need some perspective on this. Please help. Thanks.

It’s not an easy question to answer, as no two head cases are the same. I have my own experiences but what worked for me won’t necessarily help everyone. Still, those personal accounts are what I have to offer. These are my experiences with depression, from the circumstances and feelings to the tools I acquired for coping with the demons.

May it help you find some answers.

Mood music:

Depressed But OK With It: You can learn to keep living even when depression bears down hard.

Happily Ever After Is Bullshit & That’s OK: When depression slaps me upside the head, it’s on the heels of a prolonged period of good feelings and positive energy. These setbacks can be discouraging, but you can survive them with the right perspective.

The Mood Swing: When moods shift with little warning, the risks are severe. As with most problems, knowing you have one is the first step to better management.

Metal Saved Me: Hard rock is one of my most powerful coping tools. It’s not for everyone, but there’s a common element: Music heals.

The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill: I resisted medication for a long time. Here’s why I finally took the leap of faith. Most importantly, here’s what I’ve gained as a result.

Debunking the Shrink Stigma: Many people resist the idea of getting therapy. But in the battle over one’s demons, a shrink is a powerful ally.

Happy Depression: Can you be depressed and happy at the same time? I can.

depression

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Depression Takes Another Friend

Thomas John “TJ” Leduc was a constant companion during my childhood in Revere. I swam in his pool and slept over his house. The first time I was weirded out by the sight and sound of Boy George, it was during one of those sleepovers, when we were eating popcorn and watching Solid Gold, puzzling over the girl on the screen who sounded like a man.

Mood music:

TJ had a sunny personality that was often tested by those who made jokes about his weight. TJ was a big guy. I was fat myself but still joked about his weight. Sometimes, I really earned my outcast status. More often than not, we were close buddies.

As we got older, I came to value TJ’s sense of humor. That dude could make people laugh. It was always small things, like referring to steroids as “roids.”

Over the years we lost touch, but I’d occasionally attempt to find him. I checked Facebook regularly, to no avail. It turns out he had moved to Groveton, NH, and was running a market with his father, who I knew well. Based on a news article from their local paper, the market was a popular hangout. TJ is described as a great storyteller with a bright personality and sharp sense of humor that kept customers coming back.

But somewhere along the way, things went horribly wrong. TJ’s dad was diagnosed with leukemia and was quickly slipping away. As the senior Leduc lay in a hospital bed, TJ apparently learned that his father had accumulated a mounting pile of overdue bills. Maybe discovering that debt made him snap. Maybe it was the trauma of losing a father and business partner. It was probably a combination of both.

TJ died on October 1 at the still-young age of 40. His father died the next day, apparently unaware of his son’s death hours earlier. The newspaper article quotes police officers who labeled the death as a probable suicide.

If true, that’s the third friend from the old neighborhood to die that way. Before him were Sean Marley and Zane Mead.

Sad as I feel right now, I don’t feel the gaping hole in the heart that was there after Sean and Zane died. Part of that is because I’ve gained a lot of perspective about depression and suicide over the years, especially in light of my own battles with the disease.

I wrote a list of things I always try to keep in mind when someone dies this way. If you need some guidance, I direct you to “Death of a Second Sibling.”

Sean and Zane died young, with dreams and potential unfulfilled. It looks like TJ lived a good life and made many in his community happy. That article describes him as someone who cared for his customers and always had a free ear for teenagers who needed someone to talk to.

It kills me to hear that his life ended in despair. I pray that he’ll find peace in the afterlife. But I’m very happy to see that he made a difference before he left.

1117264_profile_pic
TJ, with his dad.

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Suicide in the Blood

A friend sent me a fascinating article yesterday about medical advancements in which a person’s severe depression and suicide could possibly be predetermined by biomarkers in their blood.

Mood music:

The article in Nature outlines how six biomarkers in blood can conceivably identify people at risk of suicide. Indiana University psychiatrist Alexander Niculescu and six of his colleagues published their findings in Molecular Psychiatry.

They identified nine men with bipolar disorder who are part of a larger, separate study. Between testing visits, the men had gone from no suicidal thoughts to strong suicidal thoughts.

These men’s blood samples were compared to blood samples from nine men who had committed suicide. According to the article, “This enabled [the scientists] to narrow their list of candidate biomarkers from 41 to 13. After subjecting the biomarkers to more rigorous statistical tests, Niculescu’s team was left with six which they [were] reasonably confident were indicative of suicide risk.”

The researchers have a lot of work left before they can prove beyond reasonable doubt that suicidal tendencies are detectable through blood tests. Still, I’m for any medical research that might speed the process of identifying people before they’re too far along in their suffering to be helped.

I don’t think it’ll ever replace the hard work a person now goes through to achieve mental wellness. Imbalances in blood and brain chemistry are problems that must be addressed. But it’s just as important for someone to identify the environmental and historical triggers that put them at risk.

My own challenges with depression have been shaped by personal history. I went through stuff as a child and young adult that will forever color how my mind perceives and reacts to life’s everyday trials. To get to where I’m at today, I had to talk to therapists about what I was feeling and untangle the web of memories that left me prone to out-of-control OCD and long stretches of melancholy.

Changes in diet and medication were also required.

To be fair, despite vicious bouts of depression, I don’t recall ever being suicidal. Whether my blood had the warning signs is anyone’s guess. It could be that I was lucky enough to get help before my problems became suicidal material. Or it could be that suicide was never something I was at risk for. Between my depression and watching more than one friend’s life end by suicide, it is a subject I’ve become obsessive about.

Maybe a blood test could have found signs of trouble in my friends and me earlier on. I’m not sure we’d have escaped the hardships that developed, but maybe we could have gotten treated sooner. Either way, it doesn’t matter now for us. They’re gone and I’ve found ways to manage my mental health through other means.

But if it makes a difference for people in the future, then the work of these researchers is something to celebrate.

Blood Viscosity