First in response to Diana, I do not know that suicide can ever be a
rational act, except in cases where the person is terminally ill or in
continuous pain. However, there are people who have committed suicide
impulsively, and if they had only had a good dinner and a few hours sleep . .
. . . these are not the people with deep mental illness. They may have
been reacting to an event, a young person whose boyfriend texted her his
desire to break up with her, etc. But, still, for a person in this
situation to go through with it, there was definitely a problem with the
person's self-defense mechanisms.
Now, Carrol, I would not think any person with depression to be
crazy. Crazy is college kids engaging in a drinking contest and one of
them ends up in the hospital or dead. Crazy is Colbert. But,
depression is not crazy. Mental illness is not crazy. And I certainly
know there is a difference between clinical depression and a period of
depression someone may experience after losing a job . . .or a father.
I told you about my sister, who was worried since the day her daughter
was born over 20 years ago that she would inherit mental illness from her
grandmother, my sister's ex-husband's mother, diagnosed with
schizophrenia. I'll always remember this one day when my sister called
me, several years ago now. My niece would have been 14/15 or
so. My sister sounded upset and I asked what was wrong and she said that
she and my niece had a fight the evening before. I was not
very concerned, of course, a mother and teenage daughter at odds. Then,
she told me what she said to her. She said that "You are going to end up
just like your crazy grandmother." I was so angry at my sister that
I had to hang up the phone and call her back later when I had calmed
down. My sister was taking her pent up fears and hitting her
daughter over the head with them, and setting up a self-prophesy type of
scenario for my niece. My niece, fortunately, does not have her
grandmother's condition, but she does experience anxiety.
Since that day, Aunt Kate has kept in close contact with her niece, although a
million miles separates us, her in CA and me in FL. When she was
floundering after high school, I encouraged her to go to college, even though
she didn't know what she wanted to do and the world scared her. I tried to
find out what would be good for her, and she mentioned the Peace Corps and she
mentioned doing something important and I suggested nursing. She's now
almost through with the pre-requisites and will be able to enter nursing
school in the fall. She's a good artist, but she wants to be
independent financially, and so we talked about career. She thought
doctor, too, but wishes to pursue her art still, and decided upon becoming a
nurse, maybe traveling after. She talks to me about her anxiety. I
tell her that many young women her age have like feelings, about
being scared of the future, not fitting in, her looks, her looks (and she's
very pretty), being afraid to venture from the house sometimes, finding the
right man, etc, etc. etc and I tell her to try to strengthen her
self-defense mechanisms. I tell her to enjoy life. I tell her
it's good to think, but not about herself, not to analyze her every
move, her every conversation. She's been on and off meds for the
anxiety. She's doing good in school. She has a part time
job. She has a boyfriend. I just hope that she can overcome
the anxiety. Aunt Kate has done her best, Carrol and she's
never once thought her or anybody like her crazy.
Kate
In a message dated 3/31/2009 12:27:14 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Diana
Manister wrote:
>
> Dear Kate,
>
> Your statement
"then she was certainly mentally ill, going beyond
> depression" is
apparently based on the assumption that depression is
> not mental
illness. Major depressive episodes, whether part of the
> bipolar
cycle or not, are certainly mental illness. An agitated
> depression
includes a nearly unbearable level of anxiety as well as
> depression.
What would you label mental illness if not that?
>
> I do think
suicide is not always the result of mental illness; it can
> be a
rational act.
I think Kate really wants to say "crazy," but knowing
that that is no
longer socially acceptable tries to make the respectable
term "mental
illness" do the work for her. Kate, you are obviously
intelligent and
know how to think, but mere intelligence simply cannot by
itself make up
for profound ignorance.
Kate probably also confuses
clinical depression with "depression" as
used by those who say to a
sufferer from depression, "I know just how
you feel. I really went into a
funk after I lost my job or after my wife
died." Those who so speak
probably never know how close they have come
to losing a few teeth. And
as Diana notes, there are many features of
depressiosive illness other
than what I call "plain vanilla depression,"
intense anxiety being only
one of them. One can be deprived of sleep or,
on the contrary, be unable
to do anything but sleep.. . . Or suppose
that in Eliot's case there had
been a trivial error of phrasing which in
memory might seem portentious
in his last letter to Verdenal -- looming
ever larger and more
oppressively in his memory as a profound wrong that
could never be set
right! And so forth. I could go on for some length.
Or profound
self-depreciation: in 1958 it came back to me through the
grapevine that
Austen Wrren had been praising me highly behnd my back,
resulting not in
pleasure but in some loss of respect for Warren's
judgment (as in Groucho
Marx's "I would not belong to a club that would
have me as a
member").
Carrol