hunter s. thompson
02.21.05 (3:33 pm) [edit]
i just got an email that included a link to a reuter's story about hunter s. thompson's suicide. it was entitled "hunter s. thompson goes out with a bang." that's just great. it makes me want to go track down the ignorant assholes who composed that headline and beat the snot out of them. you can not possibly know what impact reading that would have on his son and wife. my guess, though, is that it won't be good.
it doesn't matter that he was 67. though he was in the very highest risk group, knowing that someone you love went into the kitchen with a handgun and shot himself is unbearably painful. even when you know the person has been suffering and that, by committing suicide, they free themselves from suffering, it is still unbearable. even if he had been 90, it would still be terrible.
when my father committed suicide, i was plunged into a kind of nuclear winter in my head. it blasted out all thought. i was left with nothing but pain. you know that incessant patter that goes on in your head all of the time? well it was gone. you might think this sounds like a good thing, but it's not. i tried to remember what kind of things i thought about before his suicide, but nothing seemed worth thinking about. i just kept coming back to this mental blank. it makes time stand still. you have nothing to entertain yourself with while you're sitting at traffic lights or taking a shower or any of the other mundane things that you do during your day. that went on for two years. two years. i didn't even much like my dad.
ithe only thing left to pay attention to was the unbearable pain i was in. remember clearly standing in the shower and telling myself that all i had to do was get through the next 60 seconds. after that, i just tried to get through the next 60 seconds. there isn't any respite from the pain which is so large and terrible that i felt my body was too small to contain it.
in short, i feel so sad for his wife and son. his wife has to continue to live in that house where the kitchen walls are bloodstained. "going out with a bang." very fucking funny.
here's the quote of the day:
"As anyone who has been close to someone that has committed suicide knows, there is no other pain like that felt after the incident" ~Peter Greene
america held hostage day 1867
bushism of the day:
"I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun."
website of the day: Centre for Suicide Prevention
http://www.suicideinfo.ca/" title="http://www.suicideinfo.ca/" target="_blank"http://www.suicideinfo.ca/
it doesn't matter that he was 67. though he was in the very highest risk group, knowing that someone you love went into the kitchen with a handgun and shot himself is unbearably painful. even when you know the person has been suffering and that, by committing suicide, they free themselves from suffering, it is still unbearable. even if he had been 90, it would still be terrible.
when my father committed suicide, i was plunged into a kind of nuclear winter in my head. it blasted out all thought. i was left with nothing but pain. you know that incessant patter that goes on in your head all of the time? well it was gone. you might think this sounds like a good thing, but it's not. i tried to remember what kind of things i thought about before his suicide, but nothing seemed worth thinking about. i just kept coming back to this mental blank. it makes time stand still. you have nothing to entertain yourself with while you're sitting at traffic lights or taking a shower or any of the other mundane things that you do during your day. that went on for two years. two years. i didn't even much like my dad.
ithe only thing left to pay attention to was the unbearable pain i was in. remember clearly standing in the shower and telling myself that all i had to do was get through the next 60 seconds. after that, i just tried to get through the next 60 seconds. there isn't any respite from the pain which is so large and terrible that i felt my body was too small to contain it.
in short, i feel so sad for his wife and son. his wife has to continue to live in that house where the kitchen walls are bloodstained. "going out with a bang." very fucking funny.
here's the quote of the day:
"As anyone who has been close to someone that has committed suicide knows, there is no other pain like that felt after the incident" ~Peter Greene
america held hostage day 1867
bushism of the day:
"I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun."
website of the day: Centre for Suicide Prevention
http://www.suicideinfo.ca/" title="http://www.suicideinfo.ca/" target="_blank"http://www.suicideinfo.ca/
