On brittle autumn night, I got into my car and drove. I leapt out into the night, a wingless, hopeless bird. I ventured forth, not to kill time or to escape the reek of the dishes piled in our kitchen (which was considerable) but to decide whether or not my life should continue. My motivations were manifold, but thinking back to that portentous night, I begin to recognize the theme of my despair – a perceived inability to connect and communicate with the world enveloping me.
In an attempt to classify and understand my plight, I thought back to a sociology course. Although I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to determine if my professor had teeth, I did remember distinctly a lecture concerning sociological explanations for suicide. Pioneering Sociologist Emile Durkheim was one of the first to look at suicide as the result of societal influences rather than individual weakness or dementia (Emile-Durkheim.com).
"Collective tendencies have an existence of their own;” Durkheim wrote, “they are forces as real as cosmic forces, though of another sort; they, likewise, affect the individual from without..." (Thompson 109 [excerpt from Durkheim’s Suicide])
Durkheim set forth several empirically based explanations for how collective tendencies affected suicidal motivations. They are organized into four major categories, subdivided into two spectrums – social integration and moral regulation (Archive). The first is designated as altruistic suicide. According to our friend Emile, altruistic suicides occur when an individual is over-integrated into a society or group. This type of suicide is associated with self sacrifice, and often occurs when an individual feels that the needs of the pertinent group outweigh his/her own needs (Dunman). On the opposite end of the social integration spectrum is egoistic suicide. When an individual feels that he has no ties to a group, the perception of social cause and effect diminishes. If choices are inefficacious, suicide loses its repercussive weight. An individual asks the question, “If nobody will miss me, why should I stay?”
The morally regulated designations of suicide are anomic and fatalistic. Anomic suicides were of particular interest to Durkheim since they dealt with the inability of social institutions to meet the needs of individuals (Dunman). Subgroups of anomie include a general loss of satisfaction with social institutions such as religion, changes in a micro-social position, as in widowhood, and long term dissolution of traditional stabilizers, caused by a long-term societal shift such as revolution (Dunham).
The last of Durkheim’s suicidal designation is fatalistic, which stems from an over-regulated, under-fulfilling life. Fatalistic lives are perceptually rife with process and devoid of progress; Durkheim cited slaves, childless young wives, and young husbands (Dunham).
Wandering through the still and frigid air on an October night, which of Emile’s categories was I languishing in? As with any case of depression or suicidal thought, it’s impossible to perfectly define strife. However, as an adolescent living away from home, I did feel isolated. As a college student, I felt ineffectual, effectively immobile – Cache Valley’s own overweight Holden Caulfield. As a failing member of a pervasive religion, I felt like a broken toy.
Having grown in up in the heart of the Promised Land, I was well aware of the distance and dissatisfaction brought on by disobedience to the socio-religious norms of the area. This is feeling shared by many, and its effects are visibly documented. Utah boasts significantly higher suicide rates than is nationally typical, and suicide rates are inversely associated with activity in church activity (Hilton 413).
I was a disturbed sampler plate of a whole buffet of sociological ills, and I had had enough. I turned my distressed attention to the burning aftermath of my decision. How will I go about this? I’d prefer not to put my brains on a wall, but I do want it to be quick. Who will find my body? Will it ruin them?
I did my best to press those thoughts into the overstuffed closet of my subconscious and twisted my focus onto more feasibly answerable queries. If I end up pushing daisies, what will I leave behind? A ridiculous pile of free t-shirts, horded like some people collect stamps, boxes of knick-knacks, an unmade bed, atrophied friendships, and wasted potential, and a note.
The last was already taken care of. I had written a suicide note long before I thought of suicide. A death-note, rather. Nothing particularly morbid, just a list of things I’d like to pass on if were suddenly snuffed out, the victim of a broken roller-coaster track or a divine lightning bolt. It was on the night before a minor surgical procedure that I first stood on the edge of the world and looked into the gaping abyss beyond. What if I don’t come out of anesthesia? What if instead of thrashing into consciousness in a stiff-sheeted bed, I bumped my elbows on pitch black silk? Would I be greeted by the kind and sterile faces of orderlies, or winged cherubim, or cackling imps...or worst of all...Nothing?
Confronted with such existential terrors for the first time in my life, I asked myself the best questions I could conjure, and recorded the answer. What did I know that would be useful to others? What message could I leave my family to help them through life's rigors? Above all, why did I feel the need to impart something meaningful?
I collapsed next to my car with a tattered notebook, and made some additions to my postmortem address. I spoke of my frustrations, of insolvable questions, of insurmountable guilt,
of nameless desperations. And I decided that it was not my time to go.
Since that time I found ways to overcome such thoughts, to do battle with the forces that would have me on my way. I have spent many a sleepless night coming to terms with the reasons for my cosmic near-miss. I have come to the conclusion that I fit into a category of my own creation – communicative suicide. As I reread the contents of my declaration, I realized that part of the grim glamour of taking my life was in the note itself. I was poised to blow out my candle because there were things penned in my darkest hour that I felt unable to communicate in any other medium but blood.
My father, a police officer for almost a decade, responded personally to approximately a dozen suicides. Of those poor souls, only one crossed Styx without leaving some sort of message (Roden). Regardless of one’s motivation, a suicide message makes sense. To leave something when you go seems natural. I argue though, that that communication can be a factor in the mortal decision itself. Perhaps for some individuals, the only way to combat egoistic and anomic influence, the only way to make oneself known, and thusly find one’s place, is to leave a trail of breadcrumbs into the world beyond.
Any form of sadness, whether or not it culminates in loss of life, is the product of unmet needs. The challenge for individuals like me is realizing that there are open ears and open hearts – validation and expression are indeed possible above ground. In days before I flirted with Hela I scoffed at the idea of talk, writing it off as worthless emotional catharsis. However, it is therein is in care and question that healing can be found. Much of my recovery has been verbal. I realized that my deepest, darkest thoughts could indeed by conveyed by my mouth rather than my shroud.
“But since it falls unto my lot,
that I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly callGood night and joy be with you all. (Ren Faire)”
I know now that I when I finally leave this place, I need not leave desperation. I hope to raise the parting glass, free of regret, knowing that my life has sent a message that my demise never could.
There you have it...I'm laying it on a bit thick there at the end…these Honors dudes love it
