Dear Paul, we met last May when I brought students from the US to meet with you for a short seminar. I’ve been following your updates after Bart Wilson informed me of your accident. I have no words to express my sorrow, and I know any attempt to express sympathy will be trite and seemingly insincere. But your thoughts, wisdom, and intellect continue to have a profound impact on the world. Your books are masterpieces. Your posts here are so meaningful. We met once and your impact on me has been immense. I imagine for friends, family, and even casual acquaintances the impact is indescribable. You continue to make the world a better place. - Cort Rodet
Long time reader, feeling moved to comment today. I’m familiar with the distinction between ideation and actualisation.
There’s a particularly dark place you go when told your child has been born with the worst disability still compatible with life.
I know exactly where I was standing when I calculated whether launching myself and my newborn from a window would be end it all for both of us or merely create a whole new world of suffering.
Since I couldn’t be sure it would be the former, I decided to give it another day and possibly a better chance of success elsewhere.
There are mental calculations that are done in what seems to be a dispassionate fashion, about the benefit of ending everything for that child, the siblings and remaining parent that ultimately led me to conclude that even if the mission was successful, the burden of me dying (and stigma of having a parent who committed suicide) was heavier and more damaging.
I had to accept that our future was not going to be easy and at times it has been almost more than is humanly bearable. Almost.
We’ve gone through very hard times as a family, supported each other and strengthened our relationships and perhaps even our ‘character’.
We are no less happy than most other humans on the planet- much happier in fact, and much more fortunate in so far as the unfair distribution of resources is concerned.
I now believe my initial reaction to an adverse situation would have had far more damaging than sticking with the situation we were all landed in.
Be strong, Paul.
Sometimes a superhuman effort is needed to resist the pull of the precipice.
Yes, I see your posts as cries for help and all I can offer you from this distance is understanding and moral support. Still here, still listening, still caring. I don't know if that can ever be enough, but please know that it's sincere.
Suicide is a topic for which I am too familiar. Last week was the 6th anniversary of finding my healthy, smart barely 17-year-old son hanged in his bedroom on a sunny afternoon. His last words before he went upstairs to kill himself were, "The Christmas tree is really beautiful." I am glad you are struggling to stick it out to see if things improve. Although I'm not dealing with your trauma, I have struggled to stay alive after losing my only child. His dad and I divorced when he was only 2, so for most his life ir was just the two of us. So much of my past died with him -- places we went, shows we watched, holidays -- are now gone for me too. It's too painful to remember much of my life with my son. Each day is a struggle as it is for you. Each morning I awake to another day without my child in the world like a sudden, horrible shock. I lost my job when I couldn't return to work a month after my son's death. I gave up spending time with most my friends because it's too exhausting to pretend I'm the same person I was before my son's suicide. Even relationships with family have changed for the worse My entire family ignores me every Mother's Day, reminding me I am no longer a parent so why should I be included? While I am not disabled, my previous life ended the day my son's life ended.
There have been good and beautiful things in these 6 years, but the grief and PTSD are permanent. I can't imagine how hard your life is now. I appreciate you sharing your pain, struggles and depression. I am sick of pretending around others that I'm a happy bereaved parent and there is anything positive that came from my son's death. There's something very disingenuous and distasteful about the pressure to put on a happy face after enduring life-changing trauma.
I too have thought about suicide many times as I fear life now is just one loss after another (there have been a lot of other bad things that happened since my son died). I think it's natural after a terrible trauma that permanently alters one's life.
I hope things get a little easier for you. I have good days and bad days. I hope you start having more
good days soon. Your writing and honesty help me navigate my own pain better.
I hope you don’t mind me intruding? Have you ever read the “Wave” by Sonali Deraniygala? She writes on her experience of losing her entire family : her parents, her children and her husband, in the 2004 tsunami that hit Sri Lanka and other countries in South Asia on Dec 26 th. It is a terrifying and Heart inspiring book of how to survive a traumatic life experience.
Your courage in facing these difficult questions is remarkable and inspiring. While the tempo of your new life ‘post-accident’ seems excruciatingly slow to you, it also allows for the deep consideration of profound questions.
I applaud your generosity in sharing your thoughts and changing perspectives. You’re very brave!
In a couple of weeks time, a memorial will likely appear on the website of my local paper, as it has done every February since I was 19 years old. It marks the anniversary of the death of a friend of mine who committed suicide at the age of 20, along with another man who I did not know. Their bodies were found surrounded by occult paraphernalia in a car, parked in a service road behind a multi-storey. The cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning.
My friend's father blamed the suicide on the film 'Flatliners'. I have my own theories, both of which run counter to each other, both of which are speculation. I won't put words in the mouths of the dead.
When this happened, me and my friend had naturally drifted apart and hadn't spoken to each other for several months. He had become sporadically violent and sadistic and had alienated a lot of people. Obviously his death greatly impacted his family who continue to keep his memory alive. I try to focus on the good times.
When I think of friends and family who have passed away, it is the deaths that strike me as being unfair that affect me the most; the people who, through no great fault of their own, were taken too early, or who were dealt a bad hand, and who I feel deserved better than what they got. I would shake my fist at the sky if I thought anybody was watching.
I have known two suicides and another that might plausibly have been an accident. After the shock wore off, even if I couldn't quite grasp the nuances of the decision to leave one's future on the table and call it a day, I could at least accept that person's judgement. It seems arrogant, narcissistic, and perhaps a little possessive and selfish to presume that an individual whose mind I did not fully know, and whose suffering I had not directly experienced, would still be alive, if they had only listened to my superior take on their problems and how to deal with them. Everyone has their own, mostly incompetent and uninformed, idea on how to get another man's donkey to the market.
I also believe that suicide can be a rational act. I know the circumstances that will lead me to draw the line on my own illness. I know the where and the how of what comes after I draw that line, and that there is an extraordinarily minimal chance of it going wrong. There is no tragedy in moving towards death on one's own terms. I have this notion of the importance of being master of one's own end; a revulsion for conveyor belts like Dignitas or Canada's vile MAID program, which as it expands the pool of potential candidates for state-sponsored euthanasia, is beginning to assume the dimensions of one of those purges of persons regarded as burdens to society that were undertaken by various unpleasant 20th century regimes.
All that is not to say that a person who regards their life as having no value does not have value. A part of our development as individuals arises from others seeing value in us that we are unable to perceive in ourselves, whether that is a parent, a teacher, a friend, a romantic partner, or even a pet or an AI girlfriend, etc. It is how we grow.
My frame of reference for you are the entries you post on this Substack. Clearly your thoughts and your ability to articulate them are of value to me, or I wouldn't read them and reply to them. They must also be of value to you or else you would not take the time to set them down and send them out into the digital void for perusal. Your family, your close friends, and maybe even your enemies, if you are lucky to have any, all likely see value in you in your present state. In circumstances where everything is uncertain and up in the air, their perception of your worth can act as guiding lights that might lead you somewhere better.
Hey Paul, I wouldn't say I enjoyed reading this post due to the suffering ypu articulate but I was very moved by it and it iliicted the following...
I have practiced meditation for years. When I meditate, not every time but often enough, I experience a place of great space and perfect peace. There can be degrees of absorption into it. Sometimes a moment's contact, sometimes a prolonged visit. Visit is actually the wrong word. To begin with it felt like I was visiting this place, after a while it has became clear that I am this place. It is always there and feels like home. Many of the ancient meditation traditions point towards this place and suggest it is the universal experience of everyone - simply existing, beyond thought and feeling and bodily sensation. How can it not be, for to experience anything you have to be there to experience it? Nothing mystical, perfectly experiential.
We think this place is a void and might fear to be there. It is the mind that fears to be there. With good reason, because the mind can't exist there.
It allows for perfect honesty and humility because, having a place to be beyond the mind, it is possible to let go of any opinion or position which is within the mind as you have shown here so courageously.
That's what I sense when I read this. Honesty and courage. And that is very beautiful.
With you in spirit, hang in there!
P.s. you can't shuffle off this mortal coil till you've bought me that pint for returning your cam! ;)
As one of the people who did take your suicide talk seriously, it's good to be reassured (I think) that is isn't to be taken seriously (I think). The dilemma for anyone, well forget anyone, the dilemma for me, is that I cannot ignore any invitation - the hint that someone is feeling bad and so on. Because I had training in this, I stand in my own light there. So (I think) I'm going to bow out gracefully here - realising that you need to use this diary to express all the hopelessness and despair without people ( me and others maybe) leaping onto that with too much concern. Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling myself off and certainly not you - but this is important that you use this space to go where you want right now. That chap dying must have given you a right shock - you just don't expect death not even when it is to be expected. On the up side you sound really together which is brilliant - and I do think you're going to be ok. With lots of love and good wishes Maddi from that little village Seamer in North Yorkshire.
So very pleased to read this - I was a bit panicked when I found myself continuously checking for an update and having to consider an awful possibility that there wasn’t one coming! So not only was I thrilled to see this post popping up but the content was great context for some of your very understandable musings on suicide.
I always thought of suicide as an extremely tough decision. I also used to wonder what on earth would push people to do it.
But now I understand.
For me thinking of "suicide serves as a form of coping mechanism, an escape route." It's indeed a secret weapon against the trap that my body and my life have become. I think about it and I know how to do it (I think). But i just cannot cope with the idea of hurting my husband or not saying proper goodbye. I should do it properly, assisted suicide rather than an impulsive act. This takes courage and support. That's why right now I work so hard on rehab, I guess.
Work hard, keep your options open, do things the right way involving the person(s) you really love.
9 months ago I nearly died also through no fault if my own. I have chronic fatigue and pain but full functionality of my body. Yet I still craved to not be here. What worth or value is my life that cannot work, look after the house or go out to exercise etc Thank you for sharing your journey because in reading yours it helped me realise what worth I still have because you are providing so much by writing as you do. Your writing is insightful and helpful. Thank you for explaining the difference between suicidal ideation and action above. The difference is real and important to recognise.
Suicide is never a selfish act, it is most always the result of Depression which is a disease of the mind. It's causes are far from fully understood but it is not an act most have any real control over. Nobody knows why one person reacts to something like you experienced in one way rather than the other, it is certainly beyond your control. Suicidal ideation can be a way for you to hold onto the sense of control we all need. I'm sure your caregivers know all this and know when you might need increased counseling. Hang in there and vent here all you want about suicide, yes, that will make some uncomfortable, but that's not your problem. Be strong.
But still, as Nietzsche put it, “The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.”
Sorry to have only recently learned of your accident Paul, but I am reading your posts with a kind of grim admiration and a desire to hope that you find a way to keep going and value what you can do. best wishes David Owen
I applaud your capacity to differentiate between nuances of feeling and make sense. I have restarted a short form of daily meditation in which i bow to thoughts as they go through my mind during the practise.
I regularly bow to you -and as i notice what that looks like written here, i want to tell you i now, consciously bow deeply to you as you continue your daily challenges.
Wishing many blessings to you and your care team.💚
Dear Paul, we met last May when I brought students from the US to meet with you for a short seminar. I’ve been following your updates after Bart Wilson informed me of your accident. I have no words to express my sorrow, and I know any attempt to express sympathy will be trite and seemingly insincere. But your thoughts, wisdom, and intellect continue to have a profound impact on the world. Your books are masterpieces. Your posts here are so meaningful. We met once and your impact on me has been immense. I imagine for friends, family, and even casual acquaintances the impact is indescribable. You continue to make the world a better place. - Cort Rodet
Hello Paul,
Long time reader, feeling moved to comment today. I’m familiar with the distinction between ideation and actualisation.
There’s a particularly dark place you go when told your child has been born with the worst disability still compatible with life.
I know exactly where I was standing when I calculated whether launching myself and my newborn from a window would be end it all for both of us or merely create a whole new world of suffering.
Since I couldn’t be sure it would be the former, I decided to give it another day and possibly a better chance of success elsewhere.
There are mental calculations that are done in what seems to be a dispassionate fashion, about the benefit of ending everything for that child, the siblings and remaining parent that ultimately led me to conclude that even if the mission was successful, the burden of me dying (and stigma of having a parent who committed suicide) was heavier and more damaging.
I had to accept that our future was not going to be easy and at times it has been almost more than is humanly bearable. Almost.
We’ve gone through very hard times as a family, supported each other and strengthened our relationships and perhaps even our ‘character’.
We are no less happy than most other humans on the planet- much happier in fact, and much more fortunate in so far as the unfair distribution of resources is concerned.
I now believe my initial reaction to an adverse situation would have had far more damaging than sticking with the situation we were all landed in.
Be strong, Paul.
Sometimes a superhuman effort is needed to resist the pull of the precipice.
But I believe you can. And will.
Yes, I see your posts as cries for help and all I can offer you from this distance is understanding and moral support. Still here, still listening, still caring. I don't know if that can ever be enough, but please know that it's sincere.
Suicide is a topic for which I am too familiar. Last week was the 6th anniversary of finding my healthy, smart barely 17-year-old son hanged in his bedroom on a sunny afternoon. His last words before he went upstairs to kill himself were, "The Christmas tree is really beautiful." I am glad you are struggling to stick it out to see if things improve. Although I'm not dealing with your trauma, I have struggled to stay alive after losing my only child. His dad and I divorced when he was only 2, so for most his life ir was just the two of us. So much of my past died with him -- places we went, shows we watched, holidays -- are now gone for me too. It's too painful to remember much of my life with my son. Each day is a struggle as it is for you. Each morning I awake to another day without my child in the world like a sudden, horrible shock. I lost my job when I couldn't return to work a month after my son's death. I gave up spending time with most my friends because it's too exhausting to pretend I'm the same person I was before my son's suicide. Even relationships with family have changed for the worse My entire family ignores me every Mother's Day, reminding me I am no longer a parent so why should I be included? While I am not disabled, my previous life ended the day my son's life ended.
There have been good and beautiful things in these 6 years, but the grief and PTSD are permanent. I can't imagine how hard your life is now. I appreciate you sharing your pain, struggles and depression. I am sick of pretending around others that I'm a happy bereaved parent and there is anything positive that came from my son's death. There's something very disingenuous and distasteful about the pressure to put on a happy face after enduring life-changing trauma.
I too have thought about suicide many times as I fear life now is just one loss after another (there have been a lot of other bad things that happened since my son died). I think it's natural after a terrible trauma that permanently alters one's life.
I hope things get a little easier for you. I have good days and bad days. I hope you start having more
good days soon. Your writing and honesty help me navigate my own pain better.
I hope you don’t mind me intruding? Have you ever read the “Wave” by Sonali Deraniygala? She writes on her experience of losing her entire family : her parents, her children and her husband, in the 2004 tsunami that hit Sri Lanka and other countries in South Asia on Dec 26 th. It is a terrifying and Heart inspiring book of how to survive a traumatic life experience.
Your courage in facing these difficult questions is remarkable and inspiring. While the tempo of your new life ‘post-accident’ seems excruciatingly slow to you, it also allows for the deep consideration of profound questions.
I applaud your generosity in sharing your thoughts and changing perspectives. You’re very brave!
In a couple of weeks time, a memorial will likely appear on the website of my local paper, as it has done every February since I was 19 years old. It marks the anniversary of the death of a friend of mine who committed suicide at the age of 20, along with another man who I did not know. Their bodies were found surrounded by occult paraphernalia in a car, parked in a service road behind a multi-storey. The cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning.
My friend's father blamed the suicide on the film 'Flatliners'. I have my own theories, both of which run counter to each other, both of which are speculation. I won't put words in the mouths of the dead.
When this happened, me and my friend had naturally drifted apart and hadn't spoken to each other for several months. He had become sporadically violent and sadistic and had alienated a lot of people. Obviously his death greatly impacted his family who continue to keep his memory alive. I try to focus on the good times.
When I think of friends and family who have passed away, it is the deaths that strike me as being unfair that affect me the most; the people who, through no great fault of their own, were taken too early, or who were dealt a bad hand, and who I feel deserved better than what they got. I would shake my fist at the sky if I thought anybody was watching.
I have known two suicides and another that might plausibly have been an accident. After the shock wore off, even if I couldn't quite grasp the nuances of the decision to leave one's future on the table and call it a day, I could at least accept that person's judgement. It seems arrogant, narcissistic, and perhaps a little possessive and selfish to presume that an individual whose mind I did not fully know, and whose suffering I had not directly experienced, would still be alive, if they had only listened to my superior take on their problems and how to deal with them. Everyone has their own, mostly incompetent and uninformed, idea on how to get another man's donkey to the market.
I also believe that suicide can be a rational act. I know the circumstances that will lead me to draw the line on my own illness. I know the where and the how of what comes after I draw that line, and that there is an extraordinarily minimal chance of it going wrong. There is no tragedy in moving towards death on one's own terms. I have this notion of the importance of being master of one's own end; a revulsion for conveyor belts like Dignitas or Canada's vile MAID program, which as it expands the pool of potential candidates for state-sponsored euthanasia, is beginning to assume the dimensions of one of those purges of persons regarded as burdens to society that were undertaken by various unpleasant 20th century regimes.
All that is not to say that a person who regards their life as having no value does not have value. A part of our development as individuals arises from others seeing value in us that we are unable to perceive in ourselves, whether that is a parent, a teacher, a friend, a romantic partner, or even a pet or an AI girlfriend, etc. It is how we grow.
My frame of reference for you are the entries you post on this Substack. Clearly your thoughts and your ability to articulate them are of value to me, or I wouldn't read them and reply to them. They must also be of value to you or else you would not take the time to set them down and send them out into the digital void for perusal. Your family, your close friends, and maybe even your enemies, if you are lucky to have any, all likely see value in you in your present state. In circumstances where everything is uncertain and up in the air, their perception of your worth can act as guiding lights that might lead you somewhere better.
Hey Paul, I wouldn't say I enjoyed reading this post due to the suffering ypu articulate but I was very moved by it and it iliicted the following...
I have practiced meditation for years. When I meditate, not every time but often enough, I experience a place of great space and perfect peace. There can be degrees of absorption into it. Sometimes a moment's contact, sometimes a prolonged visit. Visit is actually the wrong word. To begin with it felt like I was visiting this place, after a while it has became clear that I am this place. It is always there and feels like home. Many of the ancient meditation traditions point towards this place and suggest it is the universal experience of everyone - simply existing, beyond thought and feeling and bodily sensation. How can it not be, for to experience anything you have to be there to experience it? Nothing mystical, perfectly experiential.
We think this place is a void and might fear to be there. It is the mind that fears to be there. With good reason, because the mind can't exist there.
It allows for perfect honesty and humility because, having a place to be beyond the mind, it is possible to let go of any opinion or position which is within the mind as you have shown here so courageously.
That's what I sense when I read this. Honesty and courage. And that is very beautiful.
With you in spirit, hang in there!
P.s. you can't shuffle off this mortal coil till you've bought me that pint for returning your cam! ;)
As one of the people who did take your suicide talk seriously, it's good to be reassured (I think) that is isn't to be taken seriously (I think). The dilemma for anyone, well forget anyone, the dilemma for me, is that I cannot ignore any invitation - the hint that someone is feeling bad and so on. Because I had training in this, I stand in my own light there. So (I think) I'm going to bow out gracefully here - realising that you need to use this diary to express all the hopelessness and despair without people ( me and others maybe) leaping onto that with too much concern. Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling myself off and certainly not you - but this is important that you use this space to go where you want right now. That chap dying must have given you a right shock - you just don't expect death not even when it is to be expected. On the up side you sound really together which is brilliant - and I do think you're going to be ok. With lots of love and good wishes Maddi from that little village Seamer in North Yorkshire.
This reconsideration will be good news for your parents and friends. Even distant readers like me are willing you to come through. 🤗
So very pleased to read this - I was a bit panicked when I found myself continuously checking for an update and having to consider an awful possibility that there wasn’t one coming! So not only was I thrilled to see this post popping up but the content was great context for some of your very understandable musings on suicide.
I always thought of suicide as an extremely tough decision. I also used to wonder what on earth would push people to do it.
But now I understand.
For me thinking of "suicide serves as a form of coping mechanism, an escape route." It's indeed a secret weapon against the trap that my body and my life have become. I think about it and I know how to do it (I think). But i just cannot cope with the idea of hurting my husband or not saying proper goodbye. I should do it properly, assisted suicide rather than an impulsive act. This takes courage and support. That's why right now I work so hard on rehab, I guess.
Work hard, keep your options open, do things the right way involving the person(s) you really love.
Stay strong!
9 months ago I nearly died also through no fault if my own. I have chronic fatigue and pain but full functionality of my body. Yet I still craved to not be here. What worth or value is my life that cannot work, look after the house or go out to exercise etc Thank you for sharing your journey because in reading yours it helped me realise what worth I still have because you are providing so much by writing as you do. Your writing is insightful and helpful. Thank you for explaining the difference between suicidal ideation and action above. The difference is real and important to recognise.
Suicide is never a selfish act, it is most always the result of Depression which is a disease of the mind. It's causes are far from fully understood but it is not an act most have any real control over. Nobody knows why one person reacts to something like you experienced in one way rather than the other, it is certainly beyond your control. Suicidal ideation can be a way for you to hold onto the sense of control we all need. I'm sure your caregivers know all this and know when you might need increased counseling. Hang in there and vent here all you want about suicide, yes, that will make some uncomfortable, but that's not your problem. Be strong.
WHERE ARE YOU?
But still, as Nietzsche put it, “The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.”
Sorry to have only recently learned of your accident Paul, but I am reading your posts with a kind of grim admiration and a desire to hope that you find a way to keep going and value what you can do. best wishes David Owen
Thanks Paul.
I applaud your capacity to differentiate between nuances of feeling and make sense. I have restarted a short form of daily meditation in which i bow to thoughts as they go through my mind during the practise.
I regularly bow to you -and as i notice what that looks like written here, i want to tell you i now, consciously bow deeply to you as you continue your daily challenges.
Wishing many blessings to you and your care team.💚