6 ms·

My god this is awful. He was brilliant, accomplished, and kind. A few days ago he announced his 'permanent rest' (https://twitter.com/ChrisGSeaton/status/159910

My god this is awful. He was brilliant, accomplished, and kind. A few days ago he announced his 'permanent rest' (https://twitter.com/ChrisGSeaton/status/1599108759183577088 https://twitter.com/ChrisGSeaton/status/1599108759183577088). I'd thought it meant from the Ruby community and that the replies asking if he needed help were reading too much into the wording.

swader999 4y ago
The outpouring of love in the replies on that thread. It is tough to comprehend how that wasn't enough to prevent this.
- paufernandez 4y ago
  The depressed sees the same events quite differently, that's why it is so difficult to understand for many people (I can though).
  - swader999 4y ago
    Right, I've read that for them its not even seen as making a choice. Earth is too freaking hard sometimes.
    - sasattack 4y ago
      It's not a choice. It's not seen as a choice. The Choice is not between life-and-death but between suffering and ending your suffering. This is how the suicidal mind thinks. When suffering becomes greater than any other emotion it It's like a pressure that has to be relieved
      - colossal 4y ago
        "The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling." - David Foster Wallace
        TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
        The problem with this analogy is that it, in life, any problem representing fire is going to change. Aside from terminal illness. Wallace didn’t have the perspective to see that.
      - dikaio 4y ago
        I would have to agree with you, from personal experience. About 5 years ago I believe I might have overdosed by mixing OTC medication by accident, it was a combination of neurotropics and other focus medicine or at least after reflecting on the whole ordeal I believe this to be the case. I’ve never been one to consider suicide, never understood how someone could take their own life but at that specific moment in my life I felt that I was literally losing my mind and at any moment could go crazy and I would rather kill myself than to go crazy. So to touch on what you said, even a person that would never, ever do that under any circumstances within a sound mind can absolutely do it if the pain or suffering is so severe that killing one’s self is the only way one can save one’s self from what they’re going through. I learned through that experience that the mind can be so fragile. My situation was induced from over the counter medicine. My heart goes out to individuals that have to deal with something like this due to mental disease… it really is something that affects everyone one way or another.
  - freedomben 4y ago
    Indeed. The human mind is wildly talented at lying to us in sometimes sinister ways. It's hard to imagine if you haven't been there, but in the moment you are seriously thinking about it, your mind can truly convince you that your family/spouse/kids/friends/work/church/etc will all be better off without you, even though that is virtually never true. Don't trust your mind when it tells you things like that.
  - djur 4y ago
    When I've been in that place, other people's kindness can feel like evidence that I'm hurting them -- that I'm drawing energy from them, that I'm a hole in the world that needs to be repaired but can't, that kind of thing. (That isn't to say that such displays of appreciation and love can't also be helpful and welcomed.)
- munificent 4y ago
  Like many mental illnesses, depression interferes with your perceptions. It's not that that love "wasn't enough", it's that a person deep in depression can't even accurately see or feel that love.
  - swader999 4y ago
    Yeah and it is especially hard for high achievers to ask for help or even consider that they should ask for help. I think its completely foreign to them.
    - khazhoux 4y ago
      Citation needed Sorry, not trying to be a jerk, but unless there is actual comparative evidence, I don't think one can just assert that high achievers struggle in getting help any more than others.
      - tutmeister 4y ago
        It should be common knowledge by now, as the problem has been documented for decades and discussed here many times.[1][2][3][4] As far as an actual citation: "Studies from Kjølseth et al. (2009), and our own findings (Szücs et al., 2020), suggest that older adults who die by suicide or have late-onset (mostly high-medical lethality) suicide attempts are often high-functioning throughout most of their life, and characterized as controlling, rigid, high-achievers, also high on orderliness (a conscientiousness subcomponent)."[5] [1]https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/01/us/higher-suicide-risk-for-perfectionists.html https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/01/us/higher-suicide-risk-fo... [2]https://www.deseret.com/1988/9/13/18777827/30-percent-of-teens-who-are-high-achievers-have-thought-about-suicide-poll-says https://www.deseret.com/1988/9/13/18777827/30-percent-of-tee... [3]https://www.depts.ttu.edu/research/scholarly-messenger/2016/September/rcr-asking-for-help.php https://www.depts.ttu.edu/research/scholarly-messenger/2016/... [4]https://everymindatwork.com/high-achievers-and-mental-health/ https://everymindatwork.com/high-achievers-and-mental-health... [5]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7655527/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7655527/
- bluerooibos 4y ago
  Yeah. The guy had what appears to be a pretty great life. Looking through twitter, there's photos of him with his kids and wife. I just can't comprehend how someone can arrive at the decision to commit suicide, especially when you have a wife and children, and to then tweet about it. The human mind is an odd thing.
  - projektfu 4y ago
    When I had refractory major depression it felt like a terminal illness. I often hoped I'd get hit by a car or someone would kill me in a mugging. When you're depressed, people also often treat you like you have leprosy. However, now I struggle to empathize with others who are going through the same thing. Thankfully I found medication and life changes that worked, especially moving to a sunny climate. I also recommend sobriety, it stops a vicious cycle with depression and dependence.
  - mlambie 4y ago
    Suicide is not a decision. It’s not something you commit, like a crime. Our phrasing needs to reflect this. It’s a disease. Chris died of suicide.
    - avg_dev 4y ago
      thanks for saying this. i believe it to be an important comment and it has helped me.
  - bookofjoe 4y ago
    Trust me, been there tried to do that (June 1977 — I woke up several days later intubated/on a ventilator in the ICU). It's completely logical when you're profoundly depressed. If you haven't been there then you "just can't comprehend..."
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - jamestimmins 4y ago
- blindriver 4y ago
  My friend who suffers from depression said it was basically being in emotional pain all the time. She said she has thought a few times that ending her life would stop the pain. It's a horrible form of mental illness. It's pervasive and while she has a grip on it now, it's something she struggles with often. I also have a friend who committed suicide a few years ago. He had 2 kids but as his other friends described, he had his demons since he was a kid. I wish I could have helped him more.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kunalgupta 4y ago
Oh no. I read the initially and thought it was about twitter. :( rest in peace.
ashconnor 4y ago
I replied to that tweet not long after he made it. I didn't read between the lines of what it could have meant.

swader999 4y ago

The outpouring of love in the replies on that thread. It is tough to comprehend how that wasn't enough to prevent this.

paufernandez 4y ago
The depressed sees the same events quite differently, that's why it is so difficult to understand for many people (I can though).
- swader999 4y ago
  Right, I've read that for them its not even seen as making a choice. Earth is too freaking hard sometimes.
  - sasattack 4y ago
    It's not a choice. It's not seen as a choice. The Choice is not between life-and-death but between suffering and ending your suffering. This is how the suicidal mind thinks. When suffering becomes greater than any other emotion it It's like a pressure that has to be relieved
    - colossal 4y ago
      "The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling." - David Foster Wallace
      - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
        The problem with this analogy is that it, in life, any problem representing fire is going to change. Aside from terminal illness. Wallace didn’t have the perspective to see that.
    - dikaio 4y ago
      I would have to agree with you, from personal experience. About 5 years ago I believe I might have overdosed by mixing OTC medication by accident, it was a combination of neurotropics and other focus medicine or at least after reflecting on the whole ordeal I believe this to be the case. I’ve never been one to consider suicide, never understood how someone could take their own life but at that specific moment in my life I felt that I was literally losing my mind and at any moment could go crazy and I would rather kill myself than to go crazy. So to touch on what you said, even a person that would never, ever do that under any circumstances within a sound mind can absolutely do it if the pain or suffering is so severe that killing one’s self is the only way one can save one’s self from what they’re going through. I learned through that experience that the mind can be so fragile. My situation was induced from over the counter medicine. My heart goes out to individuals that have to deal with something like this due to mental disease… it really is something that affects everyone one way or another.
- freedomben 4y ago
  Indeed. The human mind is wildly talented at lying to us in sometimes sinister ways. It's hard to imagine if you haven't been there, but in the moment you are seriously thinking about it, your mind can truly convince you that your family/spouse/kids/friends/work/church/etc will all be better off without you, even though that is virtually never true. Don't trust your mind when it tells you things like that.
- djur 4y ago
  When I've been in that place, other people's kindness can feel like evidence that I'm hurting them -- that I'm drawing energy from them, that I'm a hole in the world that needs to be repaired but can't, that kind of thing. (That isn't to say that such displays of appreciation and love can't also be helpful and welcomed.)
munificent 4y ago
Like many mental illnesses, depression interferes with your perceptions. It's not that that love "wasn't enough", it's that a person deep in depression can't even accurately see or feel that love.
- swader999 4y ago
  Yeah and it is especially hard for high achievers to ask for help or even consider that they should ask for help. I think its completely foreign to them.
  - khazhoux 4y ago
    Citation needed Sorry, not trying to be a jerk, but unless there is actual comparative evidence, I don't think one can just assert that high achievers struggle in getting help any more than others.
    - tutmeister 4y ago
      It should be common knowledge by now, as the problem has been documented for decades and discussed here many times.[1][2][3][4] As far as an actual citation: "Studies from Kjølseth et al. (2009), and our own findings (Szücs et al., 2020), suggest that older adults who die by suicide or have late-onset (mostly high-medical lethality) suicide attempts are often high-functioning throughout most of their life, and characterized as controlling, rigid, high-achievers, also high on orderliness (a conscientiousness subcomponent)."[5] [1]https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/01/us/higher-suicide-risk-for-perfectionists.html https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/01/us/higher-suicide-risk-fo... [2]https://www.deseret.com/1988/9/13/18777827/30-percent-of-teens-who-are-high-achievers-have-thought-about-suicide-poll-says https://www.deseret.com/1988/9/13/18777827/30-percent-of-tee... [3]https://www.depts.ttu.edu/research/scholarly-messenger/2016/September/rcr-asking-for-help.php https://www.depts.ttu.edu/research/scholarly-messenger/2016/... [4]https://everymindatwork.com/high-achievers-and-mental-health/ https://everymindatwork.com/high-achievers-and-mental-health... [5]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7655527/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7655527/
bluerooibos 4y ago
Yeah. The guy had what appears to be a pretty great life. Looking through twitter, there's photos of him with his kids and wife. I just can't comprehend how someone can arrive at the decision to commit suicide, especially when you have a wife and children, and to then tweet about it. The human mind is an odd thing.
- projektfu 4y ago
  When I had refractory major depression it felt like a terminal illness. I often hoped I'd get hit by a car or someone would kill me in a mugging. When you're depressed, people also often treat you like you have leprosy. However, now I struggle to empathize with others who are going through the same thing. Thankfully I found medication and life changes that worked, especially moving to a sunny climate. I also recommend sobriety, it stops a vicious cycle with depression and dependence.
- mlambie 4y ago
  Suicide is not a decision. It’s not something you commit, like a crime. Our phrasing needs to reflect this. It’s a disease. Chris died of suicide.
  - avg_dev 4y ago
    thanks for saying this. i believe it to be an important comment and it has helped me.
- bookofjoe 4y ago
  Trust me, been there tried to do that (June 1977 — I woke up several days later intubated/on a ventilator in the ICU). It's completely logical when you're profoundly depressed. If you haven't been there then you "just can't comprehend..."
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jamestimmins 4y ago
blindriver 4y ago
My friend who suffers from depression said it was basically being in emotional pain all the time. She said she has thought a few times that ending her life would stop the pain. It's a horrible form of mental illness. It's pervasive and while she has a grip on it now, it's something she struggles with often. I also have a friend who committed suicide a few years ago. He had 2 kids but as his other friends described, he had his demons since he was a kid. I wish I could have helped him more.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kunalgupta 4y ago

Oh no. I read the initially and thought it was about twitter. :( rest in peace.

ashconnor 4y ago

I replied to that tweet not long after he made it. I didn't read between the lines of what it could have meant.