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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Suicide ends pain of depression, but scars loved ones left behind

By David McElroy · September 16, 2019

From the outside, everything looked perfect for the family. The 32-year-old husband and his 28-year-old wife had three beautiful little girls. They had a nice house in an affluent suburb of Mobile, Ala. He was a well-paid management employee at a manufacturing plant. They seemed to have everything.

And then everything changed about a week ago.

Early one morning, he took his two older daughters — 7 years old and 4 years old — to a dental appointment and then took them to school. He came home, where his wife was taking care of the 8-month-old.

He got something to drink. He ate something. He told his wife he loved her. And then he left the room.

Moments later, his wife heard a gunshot. She ran to a bedroom and discovered her dead husband. He had gone into a closet and shot himself.

I heard this story Monday afternoon from a distraught man who I ran into as I waited for something at a hardware store. When he came in, he told a clerk his business, but he seemed somber.

The clerk obviously knew him and asked how his daughters were doing. One of his adult daughters was fine, he said, but the other was having a rough time.

And then he told us the story. It hurt him to talk about it, but it seemed as though he needed to talk, too.

The man doesn’t know why his son-in-law killed himself. He just knows that the younger man had been struggling with depression. It’s not clear whether it was situational depression or something more fundamental. At a birthday party for the 4-year-old daughter just days before the suicide, the man had been “out of it,” as though he had lost his interest in living.

The man’s story took me back to a period about six or seven years ago when someone I used to know was struggling with depression and threatening suicide. For more than a year, I was her long-distance support. It was a complicated relationship with someone I once loved.

There were many nights when we talked for hours. She would call because she wanted to die and I was the only one she talked with about it. Sometimes she even know what she was planning to do. But we would talk for hours — until the demons were held at bay enough for her conscious mind to take control once again.

I tried to understand what she was feeling and why she wanted to die. It wasn’t just a matter of feeling she had nothing to live for. She was in immense pain that she couldn’t explain. She just wanted the pain to stop — and she believed death was the only thing that would give her permanent relief.

I once wrote about the last time she and I ever talked. She had gone to a bridge where she planned to kill herself, but she started worrying about how I would take her death. She started texting me and we eventually talked on the phone for most of the night.

We haven’t spoken since that night six years ago, but she’s still alive and well. I hope she’s happier.

There was a time when I would have called suicide a very selfish thing. From the outside — with no understanding of what the inner pain does — I can see how others would still think that.

The man who killed himself last week left a 28-year-old wife with three tiny young girls who now have no father. I don’t believe I could ever do that, but I’ve come to understand that psychological issues can be severe enough that a person loses control of his or her rational decision-making.

As much as the pain of suicide hurts those left behind, it’s ultimately no more selfish than the same person who dies of a physical ailment. Nobody has control of whether he’s struck by cancer or some other fatal disease — and nobody has any control of whether he’s going to come under the control of a monstrous depression that causes so much inner pain that death seems like the only way out.

A lot of people suffer terribly from serious depression, but not enough people take it seriously. On the outside, nothing appears wrong. But on the inside, everything is wrong. It only makes matters worse when unthinking people say, “Well, there’s nothing really wrong with you, is there?”

It seems to me that humans have a built-in suicide switch of some sort. Most people never see that, because they have enough reasons to live that the switch remains hidden. But when people lose their reasons for living — and when there’s enough pain inside — it seems that it’s very easy for us to become self-destructive.

We don’t need to shame those who kill themselves or those who suffer from depression. We need to love them and try to understand them and hold onto them tightly. They might not always appreciate the love when they’re going through the valley of suicidal thoughts, but my experience is that they eventually appreciate that someone is trying to save them.

I have no solutions and I don’t pretend to be an expert. I just know that we humans are prone to self-destruction that we never see coming until it’s too late.

I hate it for those who suffer. I hate it for those who lose the battle. And I really hate it for the people who are left behind in pain when they leave.

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This was the Monday evening sunset. While I was wa This was the Monday evening sunset. While I was waiting for the right color and light, a swarm of gnats descended on my car. It was like the Hitchcock film “The Birds,” except they were gnats. So I got out of there before things could get ugly. 😺 #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
I normally get home by the quickest path that will I normally get home by the quickest path that will take me there, but I wasn’t in the mood today to deal with lots of other drivers. So I skipped I-459 and went across the slower two-lane route of Alabama 119. The drive didn’t cure me of all that ails me, but it was a more pleasant and humane experience, at least for me. #nature #naturephotography #trees #countryroad #birmingham #alabama
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I caught the last little bit of light Saturday eve I caught the last little bit of light Saturday even just after the sun had gone beneath the horizon. When you watch something such as this, it’s easy to understand why early humans assumed that the sun revolved around us instead of the other way around. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
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For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to Sam. In 2009, I took in a young feral cat who I named for the early American revolutionary Samuel Adams. He was one of the most confident — downright arrogant, in fact — cats I’ve ever been around. He had an amazing personality and I immediately loved him. He was no more than 8 or 9 months old when he suddenly died for reasons that my vet couldn’t explain. Even though I had him only a short time, he was one of my all-time favorites. #tbt #cats #tabby #feral #birmingham #alabama
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Lucy has been happily rolling around in the freshl Lucy has been happily rolling around in the freshly cut grass of the back yard Wednesday evening. #dog #dogs #dogstagram #dogsofinstagram #cute #cutedog #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instadog #ilovedogs #birmingham #alabama
Thomas believes that he is the Most Interesting Ca Thomas believes that he is the Most Interesting Cat in the World — and I can’t say he’s wrong tonight. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
Merlin is ready for me to turn the last of the off Merlin is ready for me to turn the last of the office lights off so he and Thomas can sleep peacefully without me muttering to myself as I write. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #merlin2024 #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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Except when he’s asleep, Thomas always looks as Except when he’s asleep, Thomas always looks as though he’s on high alert and ready to run away from danger. His feral early years still dominate his internal programming. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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My favorite photos of Merlin tend to be those — My favorite photos of Merlin tend to be those — such as this one — in which he seems to be contemplating difficult issues. Feline philosophy or quantum physics or something else that he figures I wouldn’t understand. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #merlin2024 #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama #caturday
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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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