Hunter S. Thompson suicide

[shereads]

I won't even wish for you to rest in peace. What a hideous waste. You bastard.

 

[Guest]

when i worked in the ER, i refused to take patients who tried to commit suicide. while i understand that there can sometimes be mitigating circumstance...it has always...always been a selfish act in my eyes.

 

[NoJo]

when i worked in the ER, i refused to take patients who tried to commit suicide. while i understand that there can sometimes be mitigating circumstance...it has always...always been a selfish act in my eyes.

That's why it's important to be selfish sometimes. For some unfortunates, suicide is the final desperate attempt to assert ourselves.

 

[wornoutkeyboard]

Hmpf....

Another one goes the way of Hemmingway....

Not a big fan of suicide....but not against it either. Seems to be the preferred method of exceptional personalities. I can't even pull a sliver out of my finger...hence further proof that I am no exceptional personality.


~WOK

 

[Guest]

That's why it's important to be selfish sometimes. For some unfortunates, suicide is the final desperate attempt to assert ourselves.

you know
i cant pretend to understand it, joe. i try, i really do...i just know how horrid it feels to be the one left behind. that ache is gut wrenching. i cant condone it, i can only try to be empathetic to the ones who deal with the aftermath.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I won't even wish for you to rest in peace. What a hideous waste. You bastard.

Most people take the same view of suicide: that it’s always a hateful and angry act, but I don’t necessarily agree. If Thompson were in his thirties or even his fifties, you would think there had to be something terribly wrong with him: that he had lost all hope or was mentally ill. But at 67 the adnventure of your life is essentially over, and what you have to look forward to is what they used to charitably call your “dotage”. 67 is also a likely age to find out you have terminal lung cancer or something unpleasant like that, and that all the future holds is pain and an inevitable slide into senescence. It’s certainly an age where your body simply will no longer do what you ask of it and you can see the writing on the wall: it’s not going to be getting any better. I imagine for someone of HST's temperament, that would hve been a death sentence right there.

He might have become impotent. Personally, I’m pretty sure that’s why Hemingway killed himself, and I think he was 65 when he did it. I know women find that male obsession with getting it up incomprehensible, but for a hard-on writer like Hemingway or Thompson, I think that could have done it. It totally destroys the way you relate to everything. The fact that it seems silly doesn’t make it any less devastating.

Funny that Zack had just posted that piece about shotgun golf too. It looked like HST was gracefully transitioning into gonzo old age, and now this.

I seem to remember too that somewhere Thompson said he was bipolar. That might have had something to do with it too.

In any case, it’s sad. It makes everything he said now look like the ravings of a madman: an object lesson in how not to live your life, because look where it led him.

On the other hand, he does get to go out on his own terms, and so there’s that bit of dignity. I don’t know what his family situation was, if he had people around him who loved him, or if he was isolated and alone, a kind of resident freak on his ranch. That would say a lot about why he might have done it.

If he had people around him who loved him, then it’s unconscionably cruel to them and terribly selfish. Or is it more selfish to take your loved ones with you as you descend into illness and the helplessness of age, with the endless visits to the hospital, the wheelchairs and weakness and bedpans? At what point do you cry “Enough”?

As they say, when your burden of pain becomes greater than your ability to bear it, suicide seems like a viable option. It’s something we don’t like to hear. We like to believe that pain can be helped by sharing it or “getting help”, and we don’t want to face the fact that that this isn’t always true, because it makes the world seem a terrible place, where people can hurt beyond our ability to help, where all the hugs and love we can muster just aren’t enough.

Old age is no joke. I can kind of see it from here: the loss of stength, the powers of perception and expression slipping away, the diminution of hope and the exhaustion of dreams. For a man of Thompson’s passions, I imagine that’s what got to him.

 

[Boota]

I understand suicide. I can't bring myself to look down on someone who didn't make it. If you don't understand it, consider yourself lucky, but you should try to realize how quickly that can change.

I know the feeling. Sometimes the best things in life... just aren't good enough.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

My life has been touched by suicide several times. The only time it ever made sense to me was when my uncle's terminal cancer became so violent that he was on the verge of becoming completely incapacitated and in unrelenting pain. The question for him was only a matter of 'when' and not 'if'. All other cases lacked the terminal aspect and I choose not to make excuses for suicide. From what I can tell, it is frequently motivated by selfishness. There are always exceptions, but I'd rather see the masses stand up for choosing life instead of making so many allowances for self-inflicted death. Even in my uncle's case, where the majority of his reasoning was valid, a large part of it was also motivated by his want to ease things for his family. Sadly, his suicide brought on the exact opposite and their struggles afterward have far exceeded any amount of effort and care his natural decline may have brought.



~lucky

 

[Guest]

I learned not to judge a suicide. When emotional pain is unbearable it doesn't matter how much you are loved or needed. Despair does not allow for love. Those who grieve a suicide, however painful, cannot begin to imagine his or her pain. If they can they won't judge.

Perdita

 

[rgraham666]

I learned not to judge a suicide. When emotional pain is unbearable it doesn't matter how much you are loved or needed. Despair does not allow for love. Those who grieve a suicide, however painful, cannot begin to imagine his or her pain. If they can they won't judge.

Perdita

Thank you perdita. Just to make it clear, I found myself hanging from the end of my belt once.

And what put me there wasn't pain, it was nothing. No hope, no joy, no future, absolutely nothing!

Until you've been there, please don't judge us.

 

[davidwatts]

I learned not to judge a suicide. When emotional pain is unbearable it doesn't matter how much you are loved or needed. Despair does not allow for love. Those who grieve a suicide, however painful, cannot begin to imagine his or her pain. If they can they won't judge.

Perdita

I agree.

The only things that bother me regarding suicide are:

1. taking others with you
2. doing it in a gruesome way that forces others to clean up a gruesome mess
3. doing it so loved ones discover you first

This one seems to have 2 and 3 covered.

I read a lot of Thompson's stuff when I was young, and got a real kick out of his work. I am a little shocked that people are surprised he went out this way. Clearly, he was someone that was far more likely to burn out than rust.

 

[oggbashan]

I cannot judge how a person feels from the externals.

I think that almost all suicides should be classed as 'while the balance of the mind is disturbed'. If you cannot trust your mind to be rational, how can committing suicide be judged as the deliberate and conscious act of the individual?

Mental illness does strange things to people. Maybe a few suicides are to punish others but if the person was rational would they go that far? Attempted suicide is often a cry for help from someone, such as the medical establishment who have underestimated the distress.

Suicide after committing murder or murders? I think those are different.

Og

 

[msboy8]

I try not to judge people either, but I think commiting suicide is such a waste. Even if it just means you won't be there to give someone a smile the next day.

I was wondering why we were blessed by having him on the home page. Life is not about what you can get, it's about what you can give!

 

[Guest]

I try not to judge people either, but I think commiting suicide is such a waste. Even if it just means you won't be there to give someone a smile the next day.

I'll ignore the smile bit. It's too facile to say suicide is a waste. Of what? Life? Is death a waste? For me, no, but that's a more profound discussion.

rhetorically, Perdita

 

[Boota]

I try not to judge people either, but I think commiting suicide is such a waste. Even if it just means you won't be there to give someone a smile the next day.

Sometimes you just don't have any smiles to give. You really can't make a judgment about something like this if you've never been there. You think about the people you love and you think about what it will do to them, but it just doesn't matter. Nothing matters. RG knows.

I was the same way for years. No hope, no joy, no future. I've been there. No one can save you from it, either. You either save yourself or you don't.

 

[msboy8]

Sometimes you just don't have any smiles to give. You really can't make a judgment about something like this if you've never been there. You think about the people you love and you think about what it will do to them, but it just doesn't matter. Nothing matters. RG knows.

I was the same way for years. No hope, no joy, no future. I've been there. No one can save you from it, either. You either save yourself or you don't.

Being a Klutz, I always have smiles to give. It just takes caring, and if you can't care about someone/something, you might as well be dead!

 

[Boota]

Being a Klutz, I always have smiles to give. It just takes caring, and if you can't care about someone/something, you might as well be dead!

Okay, I guess you do get it. Kind of. The exclamation point seems a bit aggressive, but you're on target. That is exactly how it is. You don't fucking care about anything. Not everybody lives in the same sunshiney world.

 

[msboy8]

Okay, I guess you do get it. Kind of. The exclamation point seems a bit aggressive, but you're on target. That is exactly how it is. You don't fucking care about anything. Not everybody lives in the same sunshiney world.

I'm gonna just say this, then I'll be quiet. I have MS, an incurable disease. I cou;d either piss and moan or make the best of it. And I'm making the best of it. Besides that Thompson guy is either already burning in Hell or on his way to Heaven.

 

[champagne1982]

I only pray that my life will never be so horrible that to not live it would be the preferred alternative.

suicide?

go your own way little seed
and take a spark of hope

extinguish memory in a flash
of bright light

Smoke at the end of a barrel
Off the blade of a knife
Seen behind bulging eyes

as your fingers tear at the rope
as you press towels to your wrists
as your fingers push the buttons

summon them in drops of red
splashes of red
flickers of red
call for help now

don't you see that
a life not loved
is a love not lived?

 

[yui]

"Between 2 and 4 percent of all people in the world open life's escape hatch with their own keys. That's one or two in every classroom, bus, neighborhood, or extended family of 50.
"Most of us have known someone who has sought, or bought, an early release. We have lost sleep wondering why. Or perhaps we've pulled at the lock ourselves, dug in our pockets, fingered the keys." -- William Wetherall excerpt from "Suicide Wonders"

The concept that suicide is life's escape hatch and we all carry the key to open the door has always been a very powerful and frightening image to me.

I wish peace to Thompson's family.

Luck,

Yui

 

[Goldie Munro]

I am not a great fan of R S Thomson's work - I don't think I was mature enough when I read 'Loathing' but I understand what he represented. I am not really surprised he went this way.

Who can say what demons or hopes drive any human being to take their own life? It is, however, their perogative.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

I'm not judging anyone here, I just don't agree that there is anything noble about taking your own life. I don't think that's what most here are advocating, but every time this topic comes up I walk away from it feeling that tone. I know the topic is intensely personal, but I always want to ask those speaking on behalf of suicide just how they feel about life. You're here now, so either you speak from experience of being on the verge of suicide or you've actually attempted it and lived through it. I have a difficult time wrapping my mind around the statements, "Don't judge me. You don't know what it's like." from someone who's experienced a change in perspective somehow to now be grateful enough about their life that they aren't trying again. I guess I just wonder what it is in you that changes and why you don't promote the hope of that happening for others instead of leaving it at, "Sometimes, you do what ya gotta do."

I realize this is a very simplistic way of looking at it, but I honestly wonder how people that have been there don't stand up and say, "Gawd, that was the most horrendous time of my life, but I'm here now and very glad I made it out. You can too. Look at all I would have missed out on, etc..." Every circumstance is different, but I know of many situations in which a little understanding could've meant the difference between life and death.

~lucky

 

[Guest]

Lucky, thanks for speaking up. I was only addressing the judgement of suicides. I do not at all think it noble and would not want to give that impression. I also do not have a cavalier attitude about it.

For me it was not a matter of experiencing a change of perspective. I love life and the time I was on the very edge of leaving it I knew I did not want to die, I merely couldn't bear the pain I was in. I was lucky, but I do credit myself with finally getting the courage to call someone who knew just what to say to make me go on another day, and another, etc.

I was never so frightened as I was before I made my call. I cannot begin to describe it but I really felt everything was out of my control, hardly less than if I'd been attacked by someone who wanted to murder me. That it was me was more frightening. Even thinking about it now scares me.

I do try to help others now. It's why I posted above, mainly to educate, and why I posted several times on the depression thread. I only hope I can say the right thing at any critical time.

Perdita

 

[rgraham666]

I guess that makes us even, lucky.

As I noted a few weeks ago, there are facets of your life that I have trouble comprehending and difficulty not judging.

And there are facets of mine where the same can be said for you.

Perdita, that was exactly how I felt when I made my attempt. I still have great problems with it. This is my major barrier to coming back to the world. Especially the work part of it. I fear I'll lose control yet again, that every facet of my life will once again be decided by people who have not the slightest interest in my well being. In the words of one writer, I will be at the mercy of merciless people.

Never going back to that place again.

 

[rgraham666]

Another thing.

When I tried to take my life, I was, I believed, merely accepting the fate the place I lived wanted for me.

At that point, death was inevitable. It seemed I could go out quietly and painlessly. Or I could freeze to death under a bridge, or knifed in a parking lot or any of the myriad ways the homeless can die.

The people responsible for the welfare of people as sick as I was had made it quite clear they didn't give a fuck. People like me were just 'welfare bums' and 'lacking in moral fibre'. If we were 'good, proper people' we would be rich and powerful.

The choice wasn't whether I should die, I was a useless piece of shit to most of the world in my eyes. The only choice was how.