Joshua Zader writes: ❝In the coming months and years we will hear about suicides that have been brought on by Covid-19, and especially by the economic shutdown.
On this subject, I was deeply impacted by an excellent book written several years ago by my friend Sarah Perry.
It has some of the freshest writing and thinking I've ever encountered, about a topic commonly shrouded in taboo and in patronizing and shaming cultural homilies.
The book subtly shifted my relationship to death, and thus to life. And it gave me far more understanding and compassion for why someone might reasonably want to end their life.
It helped me understand how important it is to support, and even and honor, someone's decision to end their life – even while doing everything we can to support their happiness and wellbeing, and sense of belonging, while they live.
It helped recover something of the sacred, in me: The truth about life and about death.
The first review on Amazon offers more insight:
# # #
The Misery of Many
The late Jean Amery, in his masterful work On Suicide, claimed that the majority of the population progresses through their decision making with the "logic of life" in mind. That is, they begin from a conditioned supposition that having a life is good and so maintaining one and keeping one at all costs is sacred. This is not simply in a religious context, but down to the core of the very values that keep our species, its hierarchies and systems, its family units and social circles, churning along.
Anti-suicide crusaders are not uniformly right wing loons. In fact, it is likely that one would not encounter any more conservatives than liberals within the ranks of such organizations. And yet, from these widely respected tanks of thought one is treated to the same sort of data skewing and guilt pushing found at pro-life rallies.
With regard to suicide, this community works together through enormous political divides to take away a person's ability to quickly and safely end their own life. They have decided for you that your life is worth keeping whether you think so or not, no matter how sick you are, no matter how lonely or grief-stricken you are, no matter, no matter. The executive decision works to take away your greatest liberty, which is an individual's choice to discontinue being.
Perry accurately points out that this prohibition is not directly carried out by jail sentences and fines. Rather, we have subtly given the reigns to the medical complex who, working in conjunction with officials, confines and medicates a potential suicide against his will (or, later, confines and medicates him post-attempt).
Operating from the assumption that taking one's life is inherently irrational, the suicide is automatically given the status of an insane person. For me, this is the crux of the entire debate. The majority of people, drilled with lay speak about the sanctity of life from the time of birth, cannot extract themselves from that cocoon of thought.
In this country and beyond, how are we to have an intelligent discussion about suicide when it is so broadly looked at as an act of insanity? Collectively, we are so wounded by the prospect of death that we cannot fathom another's desire for it. We cannot accept that many people choose non-existence while sound of mind. This places us, intellectually, in about the sixth grade.
And your antiquated statistics? Depression is the leading cause of suicide? Suicide contagion prevails? Debunked piece by piece. Perry makes especially resonant points about predictors for taking one's life, and they are not the nice and neat ones we've tied with a bow.
For instance, social death, or the shunning of one by others, is far more likely to lead to a suicide than is generalized depression. I recall reading something to this effect in the nineties in a psych periodical, but it was poorly elucidated and passed over for more shocking (and less accurate) data. Social withdraw, which is not necessarily chemical depression, can potentially lead to a rational state of hopelessness.
If the human experience is that we are most content in the company and acceptance of others, then it is possible that in the absence of those things we become rationally desperate. Can we accept that a suicide is often done logically, thoughtfully, as an antidote to being cast out?
Your ability to relate to this book is dependent on your ability to shed some very common misconceptions. For most, it will entail disregarding the stock quotes and armchair optimism that swirled around your childhood and adolescent environments.
Even for those who attended college and felt themselves in the presence of free thought, these are perspectives likely never addressed. Under it all, though, is compassion for the very real misery of many.❞
On this subject, I was deeply impacted by an excellent book written several years ago by my friend Sarah Perry.
It has some of the freshest writing and thinking I've ever encountered, about a topic commonly shrouded in taboo and in patronizing and shaming cultural homilies.
The book subtly shifted my relationship to death, and thus to life. And it gave me far more understanding and compassion for why someone might reasonably want to end their life.
It helped me understand how important it is to support, and even and honor, someone's decision to end their life – even while doing everything we can to support their happiness and wellbeing, and sense of belonging, while they live.
It helped recover something of the sacred, in me: The truth about life and about death.
The first review on Amazon offers more insight:
# # #
The Misery of Many
The late Jean Amery, in his masterful work On Suicide, claimed that the majority of the population progresses through their decision making with the "logic of life" in mind. That is, they begin from a conditioned supposition that having a life is good and so maintaining one and keeping one at all costs is sacred. This is not simply in a religious context, but down to the core of the very values that keep our species, its hierarchies and systems, its family units and social circles, churning along.
Anti-suicide crusaders are not uniformly right wing loons. In fact, it is likely that one would not encounter any more conservatives than liberals within the ranks of such organizations. And yet, from these widely respected tanks of thought one is treated to the same sort of data skewing and guilt pushing found at pro-life rallies.
With regard to suicide, this community works together through enormous political divides to take away a person's ability to quickly and safely end their own life. They have decided for you that your life is worth keeping whether you think so or not, no matter how sick you are, no matter how lonely or grief-stricken you are, no matter, no matter. The executive decision works to take away your greatest liberty, which is an individual's choice to discontinue being.
Perry accurately points out that this prohibition is not directly carried out by jail sentences and fines. Rather, we have subtly given the reigns to the medical complex who, working in conjunction with officials, confines and medicates a potential suicide against his will (or, later, confines and medicates him post-attempt).
Operating from the assumption that taking one's life is inherently irrational, the suicide is automatically given the status of an insane person. For me, this is the crux of the entire debate. The majority of people, drilled with lay speak about the sanctity of life from the time of birth, cannot extract themselves from that cocoon of thought.
In this country and beyond, how are we to have an intelligent discussion about suicide when it is so broadly looked at as an act of insanity? Collectively, we are so wounded by the prospect of death that we cannot fathom another's desire for it. We cannot accept that many people choose non-existence while sound of mind. This places us, intellectually, in about the sixth grade.
And your antiquated statistics? Depression is the leading cause of suicide? Suicide contagion prevails? Debunked piece by piece. Perry makes especially resonant points about predictors for taking one's life, and they are not the nice and neat ones we've tied with a bow.
For instance, social death, or the shunning of one by others, is far more likely to lead to a suicide than is generalized depression. I recall reading something to this effect in the nineties in a psych periodical, but it was poorly elucidated and passed over for more shocking (and less accurate) data. Social withdraw, which is not necessarily chemical depression, can potentially lead to a rational state of hopelessness.
If the human experience is that we are most content in the company and acceptance of others, then it is possible that in the absence of those things we become rationally desperate. Can we accept that a suicide is often done logically, thoughtfully, as an antidote to being cast out?
Your ability to relate to this book is dependent on your ability to shed some very common misconceptions. For most, it will entail disregarding the stock quotes and armchair optimism that swirled around your childhood and adolescent environments.
Even for those who attended college and felt themselves in the presence of free thought, these are perspectives likely never addressed. Under it all, though, is compassion for the very real misery of many.❞