The Last Taboo?

Last week, I posted about depression on Facebook. I expected a few “likes” but was surprised by the response – several people shared my post, and two people I had not heard from in years emailed me privately to tell me they suffered from depression. Others commented more openly beneath the original post.

There’s a real need to post about mental illness, to be more open and sensible about it. If we did that, perhaps people would feel more able to ask for help, and more supported; perhaps it would even be an impetus to make services better. The post was this:

When you suffer from depression, you’re familiar with the feeling that the world is sinking beneath your feet, taking you with it into the darkness below, and there’s very little you can do about it; when you suffer from depression, you understand that even a small task can feel like climbing a mountain in a blizzard; when you suffer from depression, you’re familiar with that feeling that life is simply a series of activities to pass the time, but any passion you once derived from those activities has gone; when you suffer from depression, you are swamped by exhaustion, you make little mistakes from within the fog of tiredness and kick your useless, worthless self for your inadequacy; when you suffer from depression, you know that it will never truly disappear, and that in the good times it’s still there, stalking you, watching you, waiting to make its move when you’re at your most vulnerable; when you suffer from depression, you know people will tell you to just cheer up, because you have no reason to be depressed; when you suffer from depression, the idea that the world would be better off without you is a very real one. When you don’t suffer from depression, this can all be very hard to understand; when you don’t suffer from depression, you will never truly know what this is like; but any attempts to do so, to just accept, and to just be there are truly appreciated, even though it might not seem so at a time.

The response encouraged me once again to talk about depression. I’ve noticed that people do seem to be becoming more open – recently a number of sports people have spoken candidly about their experiences. But there is still one huge, terrifying taboo (and understandably so): suicide.

When Robin Williams died, I was bereft. I dabble in stand-up comedy, and he is probably my favourite stand-up of all time. I love his energy, his seeming spontaneity, his many silly voices, his creativity. After he died, the media was full of stories about this good, kind, talented man, and yet here was someone who, despite his genius, and despite being loved by so many people who had never even met him, took the decision to take his own life. Only one positive came out of it: we began to talk about suicide.

There were, of course, the sneeringly nasty, judgemental, high-horse remarks littering the social media pages and newspaper “comments” sections, the people who branded him selfish and said he was going to Hell. “Good riddance”, one said. But to me, to brand suicide a “selfish” act seems lunacy in itself. Suicide isn’t “selfish”. If you think about it logically, it’s actually quite bizarre.

As humans, we are innately programmed to survive. We have all sorts of internal mechanisms to prevent us from doing harm to ourselves, from the ability to feel pain and disgust as a warning that something could be harmful to us, right up to the “fight or flight” mechanisms that guide us how to respond in a potentially hairy situation. Suicide goes against all of this. To want to take your own life is in effect overriding our natural programming. To label it “selfish” is simplistic, and meaningless. Can you imagine taking your own life? Think of the enormity of it: actively deciding to do something that will probably cause you physical pain, and, when it’s over, will mean you are simply no longer there any more. Ever. There’s no going back, you have made the decision that there will no longer be a You. I assume that, for anyone in a “normal” state of mind, this is unimaginable.

If you have felt suicidal (though I’m sure some experiences are different), this bizarre, unimaginable act will suddenly seem like the most logical thing in the world. Far from selfish, it can feel like you’re doing the world a favour. If you are seriously depressed and have reached rock bottom, it can seem entirely sensible that you should not exist any more. After all, you believe yourself to be a worthless, terrible person. You reason that, OK, people will be angry and upset at first, and you may go to the utmost lengths to stop this from happening, such as ending your life somewhere away from everyone, or using the least “messy” method possible) but, ultimately, they will be better off without you; they will get over it, they will move on, and the world will be a better place. You truly believe this. Add to this the intense, unending pain that depression causes, the complete despair, and suicide is not so incomprehensible after all: you can choose fight or flight, and there comes a time when you just can’t fight any more, and cannot see any benefits of doing so.

I’m not sure what the purpose of this post is, except to try to get people to stop and think before leaping to criticise, or judging what is, literally, a truly insane act against the comfort and security of their own sanity. People need help and (as far as possible) understanding, not scorn and stigmatising. If you can, try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, walk a while weighed down in agony with their backpack, feet blistered and bleeding. Then, you will maybe be able to walk alongside them, an enlightened companion.

And finally, because I'm British and find all this incredibly awkward, here's some Bad Taxidermy all the way from Sydney: