“The so-called â€˜psychotically depressedâ€™ person who tries to kill herself doesnâ€™t do so out of quote â€˜hopelessnessâ€™ or any abstract conviction that lifeâ€™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 fireâ€™s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. Itâ€™s not desiring the fall; itâ€™s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling â€˜Donâ€™t!â€™ and â€˜Hang on!â€™, can understand the jump. Not really. Youâ€™d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”
— David Foster Wallace
Tags: depression, suicide