Guess what? Sylvia Plath's son commited suicide.

[Ickyuck]

I am holding my acerbic tongue.

link. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7958876.stm)

[SHELLEY]

the apple doesn't fall too far from the crazy tree

[libertine]

Man, imagine growing up knowing your mom, one of the most acclaimed poets of that time, had stuck her head in an oven and deeply inhaled the fumes to grasp a desperately needed peace ten feet away from you in your kitchen's oven, that your genes carried the predisposition to perceive that life was so unbearable as to kill yourself in such an extreme method, I think one would be disadvantaged from the very beginning :(

[nick]

He was a professor of oceans and fisheries at the university of Alaska.........wonder what his folks would have thought of that.

Poor guy,hope he's found some kinda peace.

[stringbeanjeans]

Very sad. I hope he didn't do it to fufill some sort of family legacy though. His stepmother killed herself March 23rd, 1969.

[Narkotikon]

It didn't say how he did it I think. I want to know. Anyway, this is sad and interesting. I guess there's some truth to suicide being genetic.

I liked his mother's Juvenalia.

[nick]

It didn't say how he did it I think. I want to know. Anyway, this is sad and interesting. I guess there's some truth to suicide being genetic.

I liked his mother's Juvenalia.

I believe he hung himself......not that it really matters.

[EleusisII]

Suicide often "runs" in a family. Another one I can think of, off the top of my head is Milosevich, former Serbian dictator.

I guess part of it is, that you're in a family thats genetically predisposed to depression. And the knowledge of the familys "curse" makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy.


He was a professor of oceans and fisheries at the university of Alaska.
Oh lord! Poor soul. I guess you can't really blame him for taking the quick and easy way out then...

[nycjrt]

sad for him, his loved ones- may the people he left behind be at peace also.

I believe he hung himself......not that it really matters.
doesn't matter at all- but it is morbidly interesting...i can never understand why someone would choose hanging though- dope/drug od would be my preferred method, followed by carbon monoxide (leave a beautiful corpse, so i hear - dope, not so much, unfortunately from experience), shotgun in the mouth as # 3...

[EleusisII]

^^^^
Agree completely.
Or the old roman way of cutting your wrists in a warm bath. No pain, just the warm water, and slowly drifting away, as you get more and more tired.

Hanging is more effective though. With carbon monoxide or ODing yourself, you always run the risk of somebody finding you.
And if you didn't feel like a fuckup before, you sure as hell will when you wake up in the hospital, and realize you couldn't even do THAT right.

[taj]

when I was in the psych ward, one of the psychiatrists said having a parent that commits suicide greatly increases the risk that the child's manner of death would also be by suicide.

wow, that Ted Hughes must be the worlds shittiest husband(sort of kidding), or must have a thing for super depressed chicks or something

I do feel bad for his surviving family though

[resorcinol]

I personally agree that suicidal tendencies are probably partly genetic like any other mental disorders. I feel bad for the guy... some of the heavy shit that depression can lay on makes it hard to resist the permanent end-of-suffering option. I think it's tragic that suicide causes a wave of sadness through all of the person's friends and family, but I disagree with the notion that suicide is a purely selfish act. If somebody is so horrifically depressed or otherwise mentally ill as to not be able to even enjoy life a LITTLE BIT --- why is it so awful for them to choose to end the suffering?

On a ligher note: If I ever was to commit suicide (not that I would... I've considered it many times and never came even close to actually starting to execute a plan, so I'm confident that I can cope with my problems without resorting to death) it would definitely be by drug overdose (first choice) or non-painful poison (second choice). Drug OD would be by far preferred. I have almost killed myself ACCIDENTALLY twice maybe at the height of my drug use where I was totally out of control.

[ka11ink]

sad for him, his loved ones- may the people he left behind be at peace also.

doesn't matter at all- but it is morbidly interesting...i can never understand why someone would choose hanging though- dope/drug od would be my preferred method, followed by carbon monoxide (leave a beautiful corpse, so i hear - dope, not so much, unfortunately from experience), shotgun in the mouth as # 3...

No open casket for Kurt Cobain....shotgun would NOT leave a very nice corpse :rolleyes:

Suicide defintely hurts the family an awful lot, but I dont rly like it when people talk shit about suicides saying they were selfish. If there in enough pain that they despise life they probably aren't very active with the family anyway. Somee people just can't b happy, and it should b up to them if they want to end it. The people that talk shit about them don't know what they're going through so how can they judge.

[Poppylvr]

Ugh. As the daughter of a suicide this is sad news.
It reinforces that old saw that children of suicides are more likely than others to kill themselves.
Not me, thanks.
I have lived with the agony it causes even the most peripheral of the suicide's victims, from daughter of one to nurse of some to friend/AA sponsor of one.
Nearly 15 years out I am OK with my mother's suicide. My sister still isn't. I have promised her I will Never Ever do to her what our mother did to us, and that promise has saved my life once already.
The anger and the feeling of "you chickenshit, all the help we poured into you and you still chose the cowards way out" was my residual from the patient. That and a sadness that nothing we could say or do could save him from himself.
TYhe bafflement and pain and what if's of Mary's (friend's) suicide. What if she had told me her doc gave her that oxy script and we had volunteered to hold on to it & dole out daily doses.
Argh.
Understandably I have very strong feelings about suicide and they go all around the circle. I am grateful that my mother's has somehwat innoculated me against the delusion that suicide is the "golden door" the peaceful release from all worldly cares.
Just remember this, those thinking suicidally.: What if God's retribution for such a sin is that you spend eternity in the mental state you were in just before you did the act?
And know that the pain you feel doesn't go away. Your death amplifies your pain in every single person who knew you, raging agony in those closest to you to forever sadness in those on the periphery of your life.
And parents........no one is surprised that Sylvia Plath's son suicided. What a legacy for your children.
Enough. Yes. sometimes suicide IS the only answer - but not for well over 90% of them. That's a lot of damned suffering to release on the world just so you don't have to feel any more.

[SHELLEY]

hah, i'm not allowed to say how i would off myself if i wanted to
apparently its too disturbing for opiophile :confused:

[Indy]

hah, i'm not allowed to say how i would off myself if i wanted to
apparently its too disturbing for opiophile :confused:

Are we thinking the same thing? Super glue and a strong wire?

As for suicide being selfish, it's not IMO. It hurts people around you, yea, but so does death period. If it's selfish to commit suicide because of the pain it brings others, isn't it selfish to say that someone HAS to keep living in severe pain just to avoid the pain that comes with their death? It's like saying, I don't want to get hurt when you die, so instead i'm going to let YOU live with the pain instead.

IMO it's only selfish if in committing suicide you're leaving responsibilities to someone else: namely children, but there are others. So i think if your life is that bad, you should be able to kill yourself, but not after you've already made the decision to have sex, and then have kids.

[SHELLEY]

not even close...

there was a thread a whiles back
about if you were gonna off yourself, what method would you use
predictably, most everyone said drug od
me, i'm a little more creative than that, so i posted my method like everyone else
mine got deleted because i suppose it was too disturbing or easy or who fucking knows

it's nice to know that i have the power to disturb a buncha junkies who are talking about suicide :)

[ZodiacKiller]

^ It wasn't that it was too disturbing, Shelley, it was just that you were way too descriptive in the actual methodology----so if someone wanted to do it, all they would've had to do was read your post.

For those that are just morbidly curious, though, it had something to do with injecting a caustic substance into your jugular....


ZK

[SHELLEY]

ha ha, you said it :D

[Cherry's Jubilee]

it's really disturbing how many people douse themselves with gasoline and set themselves on fire as their method of choice. something like 75-100 people a year in the U.S. WTF? and a good percentage of them don't succeed so they're just all burned and fucked up forever. why? when there are guns and drugs, WHY?

[EleusisII]

Trying to make a statement?
Ever seen the picture of that buddhist munk from Vietnam?
Figure he started it...

[nick]

Trying to make a statement?
Ever seen the picture of that buddhist munk from Vietnam?
Figure he started it...

Yeah,self immolation is fascinating.It's seen as a pure/holy death by many religions and societies and hence if you were going to commit suicide as a protest-it's seen as the way to go.

Vietnamese monks got into it and it's spread from there,via Jan Pavlech in Czechoslovakia to a world of nuts.

[losangeleslifer]

You have to have a real set to burn yourself like that. Not to mention someone is going to try and put you out, then having to deal with the aftermath of all that tissue damage.

[pokergooch]

it's really disturbing how many people douse themselves with gasoline and set themselves on fire as their method of choice. something like 75-100 people a year in the U.S. WTF? and a good percentage of them don't succeed so they're just all burned and fucked up forever. why? when there are guns and drugs, WHY?

Here in Utah, there has been 3 separate and unrelated suicides that were done in the same fashion. They lit their car on fire with the help of natural gas tanks. These 3 happened within a few weeks of each other, until recently, the Police thought that their might be a serial killer. Fortunately, (or unfortunately) they were determined that they were all unrelated but very, very similar.

I just cant comprehend how much pain you would have to be in in order to actually take action. I have been depressed before and when I was at my worse, I would ponder if that would be the solution. The feeling would pass very quickly when I realized what It would do to my family and friends.

PG

[Raisin]

It's not that propensity for the act is passed on genetically. What's passed on are disorders who's symptoms make life seem to not be worth living. I was lucky enough to be born into just such a gene pool and it's been quite an interesting swim.

Before I was diagnosed I tried to OD but woke up 12 hours later alive, scared of the shit that was going on in my head and very pissed off. Six hours later I pulled the car in the garage and taped a hose to the tailpipe but someone broke into the house and found me in time. Yes I felt like a fuck up at that point.

After I was diagnosed as a result of that episode I was able to give a reason for the way I sometimes feel and I haven't since felt so overwhelmingly despondent that I felt like offing myself. I can see it for what it is and deal with it but when you don't know what is going on it's scary.

I can see why people think that it's selfish and cowardly but when you reach that point that you decide to actually do it you have to be in a lot of emotional pain to actually go through with it. The psychological conditions that often help lead to suicide often make you delusional as well. When you are having a hard time not believing the voices you are hearing in your head, your decision making skills are greatly diminished.

Being in a state where you're delusional and in that kind of pain is a scary fucking place and it's sad to watch. There's no amount of acerbity that can make it funny. Not for the person suffering or the family that has to suffer after.

[Deadfiend]

I heard about this a few days ago, it seems that depression runs though there family, and once there a suicide of one of the It reinforces that children of suicides are more likely than others to kill themselves then any others like Poppylvr said,
One odd fact about this all, is hat I have been reading a lot about ECT Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), also known as electroshock as of late and Sylvia Plath had electroshock before her suicide, as did Ernest Hemingway having try electroshock killed himself soon after. Ernest, committed suicide shortly after ECT at the Menninger Clinic in 1961. He is reported to have said to his biographer, "Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient

odd that they are still using this so called treatment, and still using forced ECT on patients.
http://www.ect.org/

[reddragon3668]

This is sad. Lately, I've taken to reading short biographies of some of the world's greatest thinkers, writers, etc. Its becoming more and more apparent that the line between genius and lunacy is a very thin one. Many of the world's literary giants and philosophical geniuses were absolutely crazy by most standards. I've often heard the story of Einstein walking across campus in the snow in bare feet because he forgot to put his shoes on... it amazes me. Until I read this thread I wasn't familiar with Plath. I am sorry about her son but it did give me an occasion to check out some of Plath's poetry, which I've enjoyed thus far.