[sammalloy]

I’m sad to say that I had never heard of her, but it sounds like she was influential and made her mark and had a way with words. One thing that struck me is how she was suffering from depression for years and committed suicide, leaving her partner and children behind. I’ve only met one other person who was facing this kind of scenario and it has left me endlessly questioning how they could do this and if there is a known etiology that could lead to such decisions like this, such as the much talked about and popularized parasitic fungus that hijacks insect brains and causes them to kill themselves.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I've dealt with many folks like this. Some have found treatment and support, and others have Gone And Done It.

When we reach that point, it's pretty much impossible to escape the singularity of self-centeredness, and we sometimes delude ourselves into thinking that "we're doing them a favor, because they are better off without us."

I have never encountered anyone close to someone that has killed themselves, that has ever thought they were "better off" without their friend/partner/parent/child.

It's completely devastating, and often triggers a corrosion of families and communities.

My heart breaks for her, and for those she left behind.

[prawn]

I can only imagine that struggling daily, the burden feels overwhelming. We're an evolved, tuned and balanced creature and out-of-kilter can be tough to regain composure. Especially when alcoholism is in the mix, people in this situation can become somewhat distanced from family (and children) and feel they are a risk/weight? It is a rough combination, and it's unlikely to be abrupt but something that builds over years. An in-law took her life late last year, leaving her young children behind with her estranged partner and family. In the years prior, it felt very difficult to support or address a combination of alcohol and depression.

[peepee1982]

When you're depressed you're in pain.

Try to think of the most shameful, heartbreaking moment in your life, and then imagine reliving those feelings every day of your life.

It gets tiring.

[ksaun]

Yes, it is a very selfish act.

Imagine how must pain they must be in to act in this way, to dismiss or not realize how much harm they will cause.

Imagine how much pain they must be in to demonstrate such extreme selfishness. To behave in a way that seems so out of character, so different from how they'd treated their loved ones prior to that act.

And consider how selfless they must have been to have held off as long as they did. To have endured the immense pain and struggled to resist the escape of suicide, until that time when they were finally overcome and capitulated.

[vile_wretch]

It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames.

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/200381-the-so-called-psycho...

[altacc]

Hi. This is a common but incorrect opinion, so you're going to get down voted. You are using your frame of reference to imagine how somebody with severe mental health difficulties was thinking at the worst time of their life. Empathy is trying to understand the feelings of another based on their life situation and who they are, not your own.

[peepee1982]

You don't make rational decisions when you're clinically depressed. It's a form of cognitive malfunction.

[phone[phone]]

Another way to look at this is that their brains are so broken chemically that they actually believe the world, including their family, is better off without them.

[datavirtue]

You are confused about depression. They are suffering and they want it to end. Would you be this judgemental if someone was experiencing continual, debilitating gut pain day in and day out for years where nothing worked to relieve it?

After about 24 hours of serious pain everyone is thinking suicide. Your existence becomes pain. No fun projects, no relationships, no hobbies, nothing but pain and pain management. Everything else sinks below the surface and disappears.