7 ms·
The best quote on this topic that I know of is terrifying: The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote
by rcpt 12y ago
The best quote on this topic that I know of is terrifying:
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, Infinite Jest
- AceJohnny2 12y agoHe would know, he ended up committing suicide after spending most of his life battling depression :(
- jacques_chester 12y agoI've been suicidally depressed. It was never the balance of fears. It was pure exhaustion. As time goes on, the doorways in your life seem to close and the only one left is marked "stop". Everything else is just ... ugh ... so tiring. This feeling is an illusion. It's not real. But depression is a disease that attacks the mechanism that enables you to understand the world.
- throwaway234567 12y agoI've been depressed recently -- maybe not suicidally depressed, but depressed enough to think about it a lot* -- and for me it's absolutely a balance of fears. The weights of past regrets and past failures, the fear of facing them, the fear of future failure (I'm co-founding a slowly failing startup now), the fear of disappointing or alienating loved ones -- they all gang up and become completely overwhelming. The passage above captures it pretty well, though I haven't ever gotten to the extreme it's describing. Exercise and sleep help. *I have enough people who love me and depend on me that I know I'll never act on it, but it has become something I fantasize about probably a couple times a day, and many times more on bad days.
- SiVal 12y agoI don't have a solution, just an observation. I think your mention of the word "overwhelming" is very important. If there is a solution, I think it will be found in non-destructive (not drugs, not sleeping all day, etc.) changes in lifestyle, values, and focus--things that vary a lot from person to person and probably require experimentation--that prove effective at reducing the emotional feeling of being overwhelmed. Also, it seems that "overwhelm" is what happens when we combine several bad things that don't have to be combined (various fears, various regrets, disappointments, etc.) into a single, nasty package viewed all at once. Finding a way to focus on them separately really reduces the magnitude of the overwhelm.
- jacques_chester 12y agoI should've pointed out that the experience of depression varies from person to person, there's a set of symptoms of which only a subset might be experienced. For most people depression is treatable and manageable. Make time to see a doctor. Simply not having to keep yourself afloat in tar is worth it.
- coldtea 12y agoThe problem is that the flames are real and unavoidable, while the metaphorical flames of those commiting suicide could be some BS easily overcome and forgotten later, like the bad grades in TFA (a lot of the people commiting suicide do it starting with similar BS reasons, not because they are "medically depressed"). Besides, Wallace wouldn't be the best advisor on the matter.
- Mz 12y agoI'm someone who does not appear to be biologically predisposed to depression. I have attempted suicide (at age 17), I have been hospitalized for being suicidal (in my twenties) and I do still sometimes become suddenly suicidal. I have a medical condition that sometimes suddenly and dramatically negatively impacts my brain chemistry. I also have a great many very serious problems that are hard to overcome. They aren't "easily overcome BS." For some people, the metaphorical flames are a very serious matter. Not everyone has a cushy life where a bad grade is their biggest fear.
- hyperpape 12y agoWe shouldn't think that having a cushy life makes anything less real. By some people's standards, DFW's life was pretty cushy, but his suffering sounds real to me.
- munificent 12y agoWow, this is a truly breathtaking lack of empathy.
- coldtea 12y agoEmpathy is feeling bad for those in that situation. Not about justyfing their stupid reasons as legit. Note (and everybody sidestepped it) that I specified that I'm not talking about the clinically depressed.
- throwaway158458 12y ago
- jd3 12y agoThe fact that DFW killed himself makes this quote all the more haunting.