Help me help them understand this feeling

November 18, 2015 6:16 PM

I am looking for excerpts or entire works that describe as viscerally as possible the feeling of wanting to die (not necessarily being suicidal but not necessarily not).

If there could be a slant in which chronic or terminal illness or intense suffering is the driving force of the feeling, or a sense of danger or being trapped in a situation that will never end or may never end i.e. POW camps or hostage situations that would be perfect.

(This isn't for any suicidal reason but to help others who have never been there understand the intensity and nature of this particular struggle, especially suicidal feelings related to real life events rather than emotional imbalance - not because of any reason other than its just not applicable to the situation which I am trying to facilitate understanding of).

posted by jitterbug perfume to Writing & Language (15 answers total)

Best answer: In the first part of 'Steppenwolf' by Hermann Hesse, the protagonist talks at length about his isolation, desperation, and despair, and how he considers suicide to be an option.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 6:30 PM on November 18, 2015

Best answer: From D. F. Wallace's Infinite Jest, not exactly what you want but still relevant.

The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. Yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don‘t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

posted by mbrock at 7:30 PM on November 18, 2015 [17 favorites]

Best answer: Cartoonist Allie Brosh has well-regarded and accessible essay about her experiences with depression that might be useful to you located on her blog and first book, both titled "Hyperbole and a Half."
posted by thebrokedown at 7:33 PM on November 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

The book "Cocktail" by Heywood Gould starts with the main character expecting to commit suicide, and a giant middle section where he's like, "Welp, gonna jump off the Brooklyn Bridge," and the plot hinges on his walk to the bridge.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 8:33 PM on November 18, 2015

I always found the novel "Leaving Las Vegas" (also a movie with Nic Cage) a very poignant work. The main character's very matter-of-fact attitude is chilling.
posted by Melismata at 8:36 PM on November 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

How do you feel about movies? It's been a while since I watched the movie, but The Sea Inside is about a man who is a quadriplegic and launches a multi decade campaign for his right to euthanasia. (It's in Spanish, fwiw, so it's subtitled, but you can find it on netflix streaming.) I believe it's based on a true story, at least to a certain extent. I don't remember everything well enough to say for sure whether it will capture the visceral feeling you're looking for, though.

Also, I'll second Hyperbole and a Half. In particular, this post. She really does an amazing job of putting into words (and pictures!) what being suicidally depressed felt like, not just from an emotional standpoint, but also how it affects your interactions with other people.
posted by litera scripta manet at 8:41 PM on November 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have cancer and this Anne Lamott quote describes the feeling pretty accurately.

"And I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real joy again, that at best there might eventually be a little contentment. Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn’t have to anymore."
posted by MsMolly at 8:45 PM on November 18, 2015 [5 favorites]

Best answer: I have seen pain scales with descriptions attached to each point of the scale. The two extreme points say things like "can only take for a short time before wanting to die" and "would die immediately if possible to make the pain stop" or something to that effect. In context it makes it very clear why someone would want to die in that circumstance. Unfortunately some googling hasn't turned it up, but I'll try again when I have more time.
posted by alms at 9:16 PM on November 18, 2015

This comic by Erika Moen describe her desire to not exsit.
posted by lepus at 9:22 PM on November 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

The Bell Jar, maybe?
posted by LoonyLovegood at 10:01 PM on November 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Warren Zevon's Shit's Fucked Up, a song about his own terminal illness.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 11:41 PM on November 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is something of a theme in the Iain M Banks novel 'Look to Windward'.
posted by biffa at 1:09 AM on November 19, 2015

Slaughterhouse Five: "Billy Pilgrim was unenthusiastic about life."
posted by jgirl at 5:21 AM on November 19, 2015

How Doctors Die

Almost all medical professionals have seen too much of what we call “futile care” being performed on people. That’s when doctors bring the cutting edge of technology to bear on a grievously ill person near the end of life. The patient will get cut open, perforated with tubes, hooked up to machines, and assaulted with drugs. All of this occurs in the Intensive Care Unit at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a day. What it buys is misery we would not inflict on a terrorist. I cannot count the number of times fellow physicians have told me, in words that vary only slightly, “Promise me if you find me like this that you’ll kill me.” They mean it. Some medical personnel wear medallions stamped “NO CODE” to tell physicians not to perform CPR on them. I have even seen it as a tattoo.

Who By Very Slow Decay (graphic)

I was sitting in an ICU room yesterday where a patient’s body had just been brought out after their death. My attending was taking care of the paperwork in the other room, and I was sitting there reflecting, and I started thinking about what it would be like to die in that room. There was a big window, and it was a sunny day, and although I mostly had a spectacular view of the hospital parking lot, a bit further in the distance I could see a park full of really big trees. And I knew that if I were dying in that room my last thought would be that I wanted to be outside.

I think if I were very debilitated and knew I would die soon, I would want to go to that park or one like it on a very sunny day, surround myself with my friends and family, say some last words, and give myself an injection of potassium chloride.

posted by rollick at 6:56 AM on November 19, 2015

Response by poster: Yes movies are great too! Anything really. Thanks so much for all the amazing ideas and if anyone has any more please feel free to share.
posted by jitterbug perfume at 3:13 PM on November 20, 2015