I Know Why

There is an article in today's New York Times written by Patricia Cohen and entitled 'Midlife Suicide Rises, Puzzling Researchers'. There has been, she writes, "an unusually large increase in suicides among middle-aged Americans in recent years. Just why thousands of men and women have crossed the line between enduring life’s burdens and surrendering to them is a painful question for their loved ones. But for officials, it is a surprising and baffling public health mystery."

Remember a few posts back when I talked about how I used to wonder why Virginia Woolf killed herself at middle age, because when I was young I always thought if you could make it this far, you had somehow made it? Read on.

"Linda Cronin was 43 and working in a gym when she gulped down a lethal dose of prescription drugs in her Denver apartment in 2006, after battling eating disorders and depression for years."

"Ms. Cronin explained in a note that she had struggled with an inexplicable gloom that would leave her cowering tearfully in a closet as early as age 9. After attempting suicide before, she had checked into a residential treatment program not long before she died, but after a month, her insurance ran out. Her parents had offered to continue the payments, but her sister, Kelly Gifford, said Ms. Cronin did not want to burden them.

Ms. Gifford added, “I think she just got sick of trying to get better.”'

"For women 45 to 54, the (suicide) rate leapt 31 percent."

"Without a “psychological autopsy” into someone’s mental health, Dr. Caine said, “we’re kind of in the dark.”

"And although an unusual event might cause the suicide rate to spike, like in Thailand after Asia’s economic collapse in 1997, suicide much more frequently punctuates a long series of troubles — mental illness, substance abuse, unemployment, failed romances."

Many depressives appear very competent on the surface, and are often very accomplished people. What with the stigma surrounding mental health issues (the nice way to say mental illness), most of us have learned to conceal as much as possible the times when we are feeling bad--to put a good face on things. Until our energy runs out and the depression gets too strong, that is, and we can't keep up the facade anymore.

People who have not themselves suffered from true chronic depression simply do not know what it is like to have yourself taken over by this dark monster that numbs sensation, turns a regular day into an endurance event, saps your vitality, makes you crabby and irritable and unable to enjoy life or to believe you are worthy of love. I even know that that monster could lead me to my death and that my loving friends would feel sad and bad and wonder what more they could have done for me. And the answer would be: "Nothing! You did your best for me!" They just don't understand the power of depression.

I have recently been absolutely surrounded by loving friends, eager to show me kindness and affection. And the hardest thing is, when I feel bad like I have been feeling, I really cannot comprehend their loving words or their affectionate efforts on my behalf. I keep thinking they will one day see the 'real me' and realize they should never have wasted their time on me. As if I am the monster, living behind a solid dark grey rock wall, somewhere behind my heart, somewhere in the center of my brain, and their loving attentions are waves of sound and light reverberating against that rock. Or, it is like I am trapped behind a wall of ice and their kind words are pebbles tossed at the ice. I can only hear the ticking of the pebbles striking the ice, I cannot comprehend the heat of the love and affection inside them.

My hope is always for the day when I begin to feel better and those walls begin to fall down.

But I also know that even when the walls fall down, they never stay down, and eventually I am trapped back behind them again.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai

(Photo: 'Star' by Rozenkraai)