Not Selfish, But Sick

And now we need to talk about Anthony Bourdain.

Trigger warning: The topic is suicide and suicidal ideation.

Well, shit. On Tuesday I wrote about why we need to talk about Kate Spade’s suicide, and here on Friday I’m writing about Anthony Bourdain, someone I seriously admire(d). This is not my idea of a good week.

I have zero interest in talking about how he killed himself or why. I can’t begin to speculate into his particular reasons. But I would like to acknowledge Bourdain as the badass and fighter he was because his death doesn’t change any of that. It doesn’t cancel out his badassery.

What bothers me about reading the news today aside from the fact that I’m sad, is the way people choose to talk about him, or even suicide in general.

Val Kilmer made headlines calling Bourdain selfish.

Rose McGowan made a video saying "I'm so mad at you."

Even his own mother said it wasn't like him and that he's the last person anyone would expect to commit suicide.

Look, I get each sentiment, but I think they're all missing a critical point.

It’s not about them. It’s not about the people who’ve been left behind. And I know it sucks to even say that. It sounds cold, and yes, there are conversations to be had about the pain of those who’ve lost loved ones to suicide. But...

Selfishness did not kill Anthony Bourdain.

Just like Kate Spade and Aviccii, Anthony Bourdain was killed by mental illness. He was killed by a serious and seemingly unmanageable pain.

And when someone succumbs to a physical illness like cancer, we don’t call them selfish, we don’t get mad at them. But when depression and suicide lead to death, we do.

I think that is some terribly stupid bullshit. It’s unhelpful to everyone else struggling with suicidal impulses because now it only reinforces the stigma of those suffering through suicidal thoughts. And I say this as a person with plenty of first-hand experience in suicidal ideation.

What most people don’t know about me is that I have spent actual years in suicidal depression. One serious stretch in my twenties and another in my thirties. I have spent a sum of at least five years, wanting to kill myself every single day.

Every. Single. Damn. Day. For. Five. Years.

And though I can’t begin to speculate about how long Anthony or Kate dealt with their suicidal thoughts, I know from experience that any day I held on and didn’t harm myself--that was my big win. That’s really as good as any day got because I lived through it.

I battled me on a daily basis and was honestly petrified that I would finally succumb to my thoughts and end my life.

Because committing suicide became a question mark for me.

I was never certain that I could hold on, but I would try to hang tight just long enough for the painful urgency to pass. Which was never an easy task.

At the absolute worst of my suicidal ideation, I was pregnant. Upon several occasions I took walks alone after dark, in the middle of winter (in the Midwest) with a knife in my pocket. I thought about how I could fall on the knife too far from anyone to call for help and too far to walk back alone. I would slowly walk into the street and pray for a car to hit me in the silent winter night. Sometimes I walked for miles, just hoping to get lost and freeze to death.

When I want to end my life, I feel such extraordinary guilt that I want to put myself in just enough danger to die but have it somehow not be completely my choice.

At my worst, not killing myself is a full-time job.

These days, I count myself lucky because suicidal thoughts are more few and far between. The last time I wanted to kill myself was about two weeks ago and before that... maybe six months.

My life has been filled with such stress lately that sometimes I want to quit waking up.

But of course, I'm a single mom. My four year old daughter is usually with me. So she honestly is my saving grace. Rationally and emotionally, I know I can't leave her like that--because she would be traumatized. But on the other hand, I can't always count on my mind to be reasonable. So I do reach out to a couple of people when things begin to go there again.

Somehow for me, letting other people know that I’m struggling with suicidal impulses helps take those thoughts out of the darkness and into the light where they are slightly less powerful.

And of course, if I were to end my life tomorrow, everyone would talk about how awful and selfish I was to leave my daughter like that. I’m sure they would call me ungrateful and have much to say about my mothering skills. No one would even think about the fact that I had ALL THESE OTHER DAYS WHERE I FOUGHT MYSELF AND WON.

Can you feel me? We rarely count the victories when it comes to mental health because suicide is final. So we think, they lost.

But suicide is not selfishness--it’s mental illness. And a significant part of mental illness exhibits a negative and inaccurate perspective.

We would do well as a society to remember that instead of applying some moral judgment against the person who has suffered, fought, and died battling their demons.

The truth is that Anthony Bourdain fought those demons so hard that his own mother never even guessed he was the kind of person to commit suicide.

Does that really sound like such a selfish person to you?

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