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He may be a legend to some, I'd consider him a cautionary tale. He had one child, who called him a "basket case" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/12
by Danihan 9y ago
He may be a legend to some, I'd consider him a cautionary tale.
He had one child, who called him a "basket case"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/12/juan-thompson-book-hunter-s-thompson-stories-i-tell-myself https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/12/juan-thompson-...
His resulting memoir nonetheless gives the impression that the good man in Hunter S Thompson was sometimes hard to find. There were long, late-at-night arguments that he, as a child, would try to mediate. Mostly, he writes in the book, he ended up taking his mother, Sandy’s, side. “[My father] didn’t care what she was trying to say, he cared about breaking her,” he said. In the book, Thompson recalls his father’s “deliberate distortions and carefully chosen words that would inflict maximum hurt”.
Hunter killed himself while his only son and only grandson were visiting. Disgusting and traumatizing.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago> Disgusting and traumatizing. People have mental health issues sometimes. Sad, not disgusting.
- taternuts 9y agoIt's incredibly selfish to do that. Leave a note and go into the woods and blow your brains out so your last act isn't traumatizing your family with the sight of your gruesome corpse.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- walterstucco 9y agoThat's the sad part: if you are mentally ill you're incapable of that kind of reasoning.
- SirensOfTitan 9y agoThis post really highlights a deep level of ignorance mental health issues that's quite common in western society. Similar to depression, where a person just can't "think happier thoughts," a mentally distressed person in many cases cannot just suddenly get out of their own head enough to feel empathy for others.
- J-dawg 9y agoThis can't be emphasised enough. It's utterly unfair to describe a victim of depression as "selfish". I'm curious, was there a reason you specifically mentioned western society? Is there another region of the world that handles it better?
- SirensOfTitan 9y agoNo reason other than I haven't experienced non-western cultures enough to know how their attitudes differ around mental health.
- Danihan 9y agoLife isn't fair, and is full of "victims," real and perceived. Doesn't it grow tiring, constantly making excuses for people?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 9y ago> Doesn't it grow tiring, constantly making excuses for people? Not if you're a compassionate person. If not, some bitterness may apply, but its only going to eat you.
- taternuts 9y agoI've struggled with mental health issues my whole life, including depression. It's anecdotal but my feelings of hopelessness and pain were not something I wanted to share and burden anyone else with unless they were professionals. I've had these thoughts, and would never do this in front of family no matter how down I was. Edit: I've also been on the other side of this. Seeing loved ones and family in this situation is _fucked up_, and leaves lasting emotional damage.
- lvh 9y agoI agree with your point, but which societies other than western have a better understanding of mental health? China, for example, has a huge stigma around it that I would argue is significantly worse than any country in the west, certainly Europe.
- dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y agoIs disgust not ultimately subjective? Who are we to choose what disgusts us.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoDisgust implies judgement (IMHO). Would you judge someone who ruins their family because they had cancer or AIDS? Probably not. Mental health is no different.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dgfgfdagasdfgfa 9y agoI don't think disgust implies judgement at all.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago"a feeling of revulsion or profound disapproval aroused by something unpleasant or offensive." Half credit? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- stronglikedan 9y agoPedantic, but "legend" isn't subjective. A legend to some is a legend to all. What is subjective is what each person thinks of legendary people.
- blazespin 9y agoThe guy was the ultimate narcissist. "Living on his own terms", indeed.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rmason 9y agoHe was a truly great writer who was a flawed human being. An awful lot of great artists are mentally unstable people. I'm not making excuses for him, but simply making an observation. Hunter Thompson had a very rare talent, I often found his writings hilarious even when I didn't agree with the views he articulated.
- dang 9y agoFrom the same article: “It was really important to me that people understood that this was absolutely not a story about my rotten dad and the terrible things he did,” Thompson also said. “I don’t think there’s anything really special [in my story] in that aspect. Probably lots and lots of fathers and sons go through the same kind of process, it’s just their dads aren’t famous.”