April 13, 2008...9:54 am
more on suicidal “gestures”
fellow blogger and really cool person katrin left a, to me, thought-provoking comment to my post on incompleters, and as my reply to it was getting longer and more and more expressive of some thoughts i hold very dear, i decided to put it in a post.
speaking only for myself, i can say that the “gestures” you refer to are just about as much out of my control as, say, crying when i feel very sad or eating when i feel very hungry. one can be starving, have a plate of food in front of her, and still not eat it — but it’s very, very hard. there’s something heroic in such restraint, though of course heroism should be judged on motivation as well as willpower and execution. i think those of us who LIVE with a powerful urge to death are much more heroic than many highly touted “heroes.” one does get tired of being quietly heroic, though, and wants to be loudly unheroic, once in a while, once in a while. it is in fact very rare for people to commit suicidal gestures, complete or otherwise, and immensely more common to stand the pain quietly and with immense strength. this strength is, however, mostly invisible and almost invariably unrecognized. one doesn’t get credit for it, in other words, which is unfair, given the contempt one gets when he or she can’t stand the quiet courage any longer and gives in to unquiet despair.
it is, i think, in the nature of human pain to want to be shared — same as human joy. these are the things we communicate to each other: things that make us happy, things that make us sad. at the end of the day, what this is is language, except, for some reasons having nothing to do with bio-chemistry and all to do with the vicissitudes of one’s personal life and communal culture, these particular “linguistic” expressions come out not in words but in gestures.
how does one go, anyway, about saying “i am so entirely overwhelmed by the pain that fills my life that i want to extinguish this very life?” i mean, isn’t there something entirely appropriate in wanting to express this feeling through a partial (non-completed) or non-partial (completed) extinction of this life? how does language adequately convey a pain so deep that it pushes one to the very edge of nothingness? isn’t nothingness the very extinction of language? isn’t language an expression of life? how do you express your desire for your own extinction if not by extinguishing, first of all, that central manifestation of life, language?
this, and many other things besides (someone care to chime in?), is what is contained in those deep deep acts we dismissively package and toss on a shelf with the phrase “suicidal gestures.”
the paradoxical nature of a suicidal gesture is the stuff of deep analysis, not easy labeling. maybe the reaction of ER doctors and other labelers reflect as much their disinclination to think as it does their disinclination to feel, listen, be attentive, and care.
so this is my answer to you, katrin. thank you for making me articulate this stuff.
10 Comments
April 13, 2008 at 10:54 am
“and immensely more common to stand the pain quietly and with immense strength. this strength is, however, mostly invisible and almost invariably unrecognized. one doesn’t get credit for it, in other words, which is unfair, given the contempt one gets when he or she can’t stand the quiet courage any longer and gives in to unquiet despair.”
yes. its expected (by I have no idea who made that ‘rule’
that one ‘grin and bear it’ (quite literally) until one just can’t (and ‘one just can’t’ is supposed to come out in an ‘acceptable’ manner like a heart attack). at least that is what I have found. and it has never made sense, one of those ‘rules’ that never has made sense to me and still doesn’t.
there are no words. or at least that I have found that come anywhere near to describing it, communicating it, to anyone.
“i can say that the “gestures” you refer to are just about as much out of my control as, say, crying when i feel very sad or eating when i feel very hungry”
thank you for saying this. that is a part I never really understood and that makes sense. thank you.
it is different how I see it for me- I can find myself crying, not knowing when it started. But I don’t find myself trying to die, not knowing when I started acting on that desire. The thoughts of needing to die I can’t control any more than I can control tears, but the action I, to more of an extent, can or at least when/where/how. On some level I feel like I have more control over that action than I do of say crying. I don’t know if that is the way it is for others, from what you said I’m not sure.
and I’m sorry if my comment upset, it wasn’t my intent, I shouldn’t have written it so late. Hopefully this one will be ok.
April 13, 2008 at 11:00 am
katrin, first of all, i just edited this a bit, took out all the personal bits about you. since you commented before i edited them, you must have read them, and that makes me happy.
secondly, noooo, you didn’t upset me at all. quite the opposite!
yes, fair enough, crying is maybe a bad example, since it’s almost involuntary. but how about my other example, about eating a plate of succulent food when one is very hungry?
the example of the heart attack made me smile. very acceptable, indeed! haha.
April 13, 2008 at 11:16 am
the food one is hard for me to relate too since it is so rare that I am ever hungy. I mean, I can have not eaten for 24+hrs and not feel what others tell me should be described as ‘hungry’. I will have a migraine and be in pain and probably shaking uncontrollable and in the middle of a massive panic attack, but I wouldn’t be what others describe to me as ‘feeling hungry’ or having a desire to eat, actually at that point I would probably have no desire to eat due to overwhleming nausea, but I have learned that if I do eat, I would probably feel better in the long run. Eating is something I to consiously think about and remember to do or else I forget. Which is why I didn’t compare to that portion, I don’t really have anything to compare it to. If that makes sense.
glad I didn’t upset.
April 13, 2008 at 1:58 pm
H’m. I think it was somewhat different for us, in that our brushes with death were more about getting that feeling to pipe down a bit… but I find I cannot explain this well, as it never made all that much sense to me anyway.
It was like… offering a white lamb to a god who was getting pushy, and thereby convincing that god to leave us alone for awhile. If that metaphor flows for anybody.
April 15, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I relate to Roses’ brushes with death as a kind of offering.
I also do things like a risky gesture that sort of makes dying a bit more likely, and with these and with minor self-induced physical harms, I feel like I’m offering these actions–offering them to some presence that’s telling me I should die in the hopes of staving off that voice or placating it.
And the issue of the relationship of the feelings/state that drives non-complete suicidal gestures to language interested me, ama. I think that part of the issue is that language is somehow failing–or maybe not language itself, but my ability to have a voice and use it–and that the impulse to a partial/almost-suicidal action sort of takes over–it speaks when I can’t anymore. And it’s not only the lack of voice, it’s the lack of audience–not many people can stand to listen to this stuff. I’m so glad to be able to talk with you all about it here.
April 17, 2008 at 10:51 am
when i read it i found this comment very moving, eeabee, and i do still as i reread it now. i wish i had answered sooner. time is slipping through my fingers like water.
this seems crucial to me, the fact of not being listened to. it greatly contributes, maybe is by itself sufficient to the notion some of us have that words are not good enough. and it’s not just the fact that people are not that willing to listen at any given time to difficult utterances such as “i am in so much pain i want to die” but, also, that someone did not listen at some crucial time when it would have made all the difference in the world. distrust of language is historical.
i hope you come back. talking about these things, even in the very limited forum of a blog, seems crucial to me.
April 21, 2008 at 10:09 am
The act of simply listening to someone and sharing yourself is one of the greatest gift you can give them.
April 21, 2008 at 10:13 am
i couldn’t agree more.
April 23, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Listening! One of the great kindnesses. The kind of listening that hears, that gets it, that wants to know, that cares, not just information processing, not half-hearted.
I want more of it for myself, but I confess I am very limited in my capacity for doing it for others.
May 15, 2008 at 11:13 am
This has got me thinking. I don’t know if I am making gestures or completing. I have obviously never completed. I don’t know if there is a distinction to be made- I know that I classify my gestures as impulsive or planned but in both cases that want to die was real. I marvel at the duality of some folk struck with depression, continuing to deal with life and maintaining a public stoicism. I have sat in emergency rooms and think it only natural that given I have arrived there I should diligently follow prescribed treatment and not make a fuss. Perhaps that’s the crux, that it is not the noise you make but words you speak, maybe Eliot had it right about the world ending.
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