When suicide is not the answer…

Posted by Haricharan on Mar 12, 2011 in Random | 23 comments

Come March and suddenly all I see are serious looking parents and more serious looking school-kids. Then I realize, the exams are round the corner. Not some random annual exams. The Board Exams. The one decider that will turn the course of their destiny, or that’s what they’d like to think. The month surprisingly also registers the highest suicide count in the country.

Parental pressure, Peer pressure, Work related pressure, Problems with Spouse, Legal issues (yes!!) are all factors in a suicide.

Have you ever felt like “I am not happy with my life? I’d like to end it right away?” Hold that thought. I am going to narrate some extraordinary stories about some great (living) people, who parked that thought aside and moved ahead in life

But before we get to the list, here is the reason, why I wanted to write about suicides in the first place.

Have you used MyTunes?

If yes, then, did you know that the man responsible for creating MyTunes committed suicide?

His name was Bill Ziller. An extremely talented programmer who wrote some mind-blowing software, and also co-authored a highly influential paper called “Government Data and the Invisible Hand”. The paper dealt with how the governments can release public data in a way that is useful for programmers. He committed suicide in the early hours of January 2^nd this year. He left behind a 4000 worded suicide note and requested that the note be forwarded as much as possible. We would not be going into the details of the note here, but what is clear is that he was a victim of sexual and psychological abuse. Programming was a solace to him and though it was temporary, perhaps Zeller felt he could never escape the darkness in his life.

The programming world lost one more icon to suicide.

Now coming back to our list.

First on our list is Robert Scoble

His Bio reads, A Tech-Enthusiast, Video-Blogger, Media-Innovator, Startup-Helper. Scours the web for life-changing technologies at Rackspace.  He is perhaps the most followed person on Quora. Has authored a book and written a foreword for one. Is credited for the invention of a new word on the Internet – The Milliscoble.

WoW, that’s impressive, isn’t it. And come to think of it. He is just 43 years old.

During a six month period in 2001-2002, a lot of dramatic events unfolded. For all of us. Especially for Robert Scoble. 9/11 happened. He got involved in a car-crash. Not only was he mentally shaken, the Car was completely tinned out. He got divorced. He shipped a product that didn’t actually set the market on fire. His Grand mom died. He quit his job and the economy wasn’t looking pretty rosy.

But he knew better than just to give up. He worked on the hope that it would eventually get better. In his own words,

“Just don’t expect miracles, don’t unfairly burden the people around you with your troubles … and don’t expect the change to happen overnight…”

He says find ways to have fun every day.

Next on our list is Damien Basile. He is the founder of Addieu.com, a social networking website. He was clinically diagnosed as manic depressive and bipolar with suicidal tendencies. He was treated with 4 high-profile drugs.  He says, “(suicidal thoughts) and mental conditions afflict everyone across all ranges regardless of mental capacity”

For the record, Damien is in MENSA. Damien says he woke up one day and decided that he did not want to be that anymore. He learnt that suicide is never the answer.

“There is a fine line between genius and madness”

Gary Stein, a retired CTO has a fantastic story to tell. Diagnosed with an advanced level of AIDS in 1995. Doctors gave up hope on him and quoted only a few months. He thought, instead of staying in the hospital and ending his life in a labored ugly death, he could “buy some drugs and end his life happily stoned and out of (my) pain”

Gary spoke to friend whom he respected a lot. His friend advised him against it. Over the next few months, he had three cases of PCP, a fungal pneumonia that almost took his life away. But he stayed on. After this there was a needle biopsy of his right lung (I am leaving out the graphical details here) and he survived. The doctors then asked him if he wanted to take part in a drug trial for a new AIDS drug type. He reportedly said, “…what the heck I’ve got little to lose why not try it…”

That was 15 years ago. He says, No matter how dark and hopeless things seem, there can be a reason to keep trying.

Christine Lu, Co-Founder & CEO, Affinity China has a different story to tell.

Five years back she moved back to US after a burn-out caused due to living and working in China. She found someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

Three days after she got married, her sister committed suicide at the age of 30, barely a month after her own wedding. Lu became pregnant just when her husband was deployed on an aircraft carrier for 6 months. Her marriage fell apart during the second deployment of her (ex) husband and she was in the middle of launching her first startup.

To put it in her own words, “Failed at preventing my sister’s suicide. Failed at marriage. Failed at my first startup…”

She hung out, because of her son. She also says that, this alone wasn’t a reason to stay alive. After almost 6 years, she is happy with how things are. And at the risk to sounding totally cliché, time really does heal.

Justin Cambria is a web/mobile marketing whiz who blogs, does yoga, plays squash and loves dogs. He lost two of his friends to suicides and concedes it is heartbreaking, considering that both of them had much to live for.

“I’m just sad that their feelings were too overwhelming for them to get the chance to see that.”

All of us are talented people. All of us have the same 24 hours. All of us have the same brains. Then why do we have such narrow minded tendencies? Why does suicide always seem to be the easier option? Why can’t we, just for once, fight it out for the tougher option- that to live and to give it one more day?

Anybody who feels the way Zeller felt about life, I have to tell you something. You cannot do anything about your past. It has happened. Now look to how you can correct it. The Present is something you can deal with. Contextualize the present. Look at how far you can go with what you have right now. Learn how to prepare for the times you feel can happen, and leave you with a big scar.

Most importantly – Talk to someone you love. Someone who cares for you. Most of our problems are not because of lack of love. It’s because of lack of expression of love.

Bottom line:

Just don’t do the irreversible. And don’t put the people – no matter how few – who love you through the hell of losing you.