Love, Like Life, Is Much Stranger And

We All Build Internal Sea Walls To Keep At Bay The Sadnesses Of Life And The Often Overwhelming Forces Within Our Minds. In Whatever Way We Do This—through Love, Work, Family, Faith, Friends, Denial, Alcohol, Drugs, Or Medication—we Build These Walls, Stone By Stone, Over A Lifetime. One Of The Most Difficult Problems Is To Construct These Barriers Of Such A Height And Strength That One Has A True Harbor, A Sanctuary Away From Crippling Turmoil And Pain, But Yet Low Enough, And Permeable Enough, To Let In Fresh Seawater That Will Fend Off The Inevitable Inclination Toward Brackishness.

Suicide Is A Particularly Awful Way To Die: The Mental Suffering Leading Up To It Is Usually Prolonged, Intense And Unpalliated. There Is No Morphine Equivalent To Ease The Acute Pain, And Death, Not Uncommonly, Is Violent And Grisly. The Suffering Of A Suicidal Is Private And Inexpressible, Leaving Family Members, Friends And Colleagues To Deal With An Almost Unfathomable Kind Of Loss, As Well As Guilt. Suicide Carries In Its Aftermath A Level Of Confusion And Devastation That Is, For The Most Part, Beyond Description.

We All Move Uneasily Within Our Restraints.

Manic-depression Distorts Moods And Thoughts, Incites Dreadful Behaviors, Destroys The Basis Of Rational Thought, And Too Often Erodes The Desire And Will To Live. It Is An Illness That Is Biological In Its Origins, Yet One That Feels Psychological In The Experience Of It, An Illness That Is Unique In Conferring Advantage And Pleasure, Yet One That Brings In Its Wake Almost Unendurable Suffering And, Not Infrequently, Suicide.

Looking At Suicide—the Sheer Numbers, The Pain Leading Up To It, And The Suffering Left Behind—is Harrowing. For Every Moment Of Exuberance In The Science, Or In The Success Of Governments, There Is A Matching And Terrible Reality Of The Deaths Themselves: The Young Deaths, The Violent Deaths, The Unnecessary Deaths