TW: Suicide and suicidal thoughts ahead. Please do not proceed if this is triggering for you.
Please, this is not a call for comments about therapy...I am not in therapy nor do I see it in my future. It's a statement of something I go through and it's ok if you all you can do is read this and move on, I thank you in advance for that.
An actress whose work I enjoyed was found dead in her home today, it's suspected she died by suicide although no official cause of death has been reported. When this happens, I cannot stop thinking about offing myself, it's seeing a person with so much who still couldn't remain here and I have nothing like that and I start spiraling. Of course, I don't know what she was dealing with, she may have had a an underlying health condition that contributed to her death and/or she may have been truly suffering in other ways. It's just hard for me to process this without, of course, making it all about myself (Only child? Me? How did you guess?). I am ashamed to be this way, to be unable to grieve for someone I admired in a "normal" way and try to empathize with what her family must be feeling and I am sad for them. It's a loud voice yelling at me that I'm never going to amount to a quarter of what did so how much more misery do I want to endure?
7 Replies
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I think you are making yourself miserable. So what if you haven't accomplished what she did??? I'm sure in various ways you have touched other people around you for the better. It reminds me of the classic movie It's a Wonderful Life. Where George Bailey didn't realize how much he impacted people around him because he never was able to fulfill his dream of traveling. Don't compare yourself to this person who even though you know what she acted in, you have no idea what's going on in her personal life. You matter, we all matter, not just people who are celebrities.
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I stated that I did not know what she was dealing with. Thanks.
It’s only a suspected suicide, I know the actress you are referring to. There isn’t any details on how she lived her life, busy schedule, over worked, underlying health problems, high stress, etc. While it is possible she had mental health issues, it is possible she could have accidentally overdosed. I remember these same rumors flying when Heath Ledger died. He was desperate for sleep and accidentally overdosed. The actor that played Black Panther suffered colon cancer in secret for 4 years, I had no idea he was suffering cancer till they posted he died. You just never know the full circumstances, these are celebrities and most of their secret and private parts of their lives we never know about. Try not to jump to conclusions until there are known facts.
This one event has you ruminating your own mental health today, it’s possible for nothing. But in the event she did suicide, her accomplishments, high stress, high pressure on her to succeed (In her country I can see this) could have taken her life, what’s makes these good things? I’m speculating, but it is food for thought. I hope they rule her death an accident, shame someone so young gone too soon.
Your life is of high value, your life matters as mentioned above. I would do what I can to work and quiet that voice that tells you otherwise, that voice is lying to you.
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Thank you. This is not something that only happens when I like the celebrity, it's when anyone famous dies by suicide. I always have suicidal ideation, I thnk about it constantly, it becomes exacerbated when the person ends up in the news. I know that we need to talk more about mental health issues but also realize that talking about them triggers some people in a bad way. I wish I knew a magic solution to make both possible: open mental health talk sans triggering some but I don't have one.
I get the same way when pretty much any suicide makes it into the local or national news (and I actually manage to notice it for once). You said you're ashamed at not being able to grieve in a normal way... but to me, everything about your grief seems normal. Maybe having such persistent suicide ideation is abnormal *compared to neurotypical society,* but it's certainly not uncommon for people with depression or other mood disorders to internalize news of anyone from a friend to a famous person dying by suicide. You mentioned that you feel bad for their families--which shows your empathy and compassion--and you've noted that we never really do know everything that's going on in someone else's life or mind, which shows that you're keeping the news and public opinion and your own concerns about it all in their proper perspectives (as opposed to lots of people who hear about one of their favorite celebrities' deaths and immediately assume they know everything about the circumstances and that they themselves are in the most pain in the aftermath, like, "she was my favorite singer, *no one* is grieving her loss more than me, no one is suffering as much as me"--I've genuinely heard people say that kind of thing and it sort of makes me nauseous, I mean... grief isn't a contest, after all... @_@).
All that aside, I think it's also perfectly logical and understandable that the death of a celebrity whose work you admire can get you deeply upset, and that a lot of the distraught feeling is related to thoughts of your own mortality and imperfection. Most people (neurodivergent or not) make things like this about themselves in some way, it's an automatic response by our brains so that we can exercise compassion/empathy as well as understand the implications the event has on our own lives. Even if you didn't know them personally, they or their work made a meaningful impression on you and it's far healthier to allow yourself to be saddened by the loss than to try and ignore the (completely valid and rational) pain it's causing you. Death is terrifying, whether it's suicide or peaceful passing away in sleep from old age. Death is a personal thing for all of us, and more people think about it with much greater frequency than most are willing to admit. But for those of us who struggle with suicide ideation, or people who struggled with it in the past and recovered but might still be triggered by it, it's often just the s-word itself that can conjure up bad memories, panic attacks, descents down that spiral of negative thoughts and self-loathing. By the by, whether it eventually turns out to be only an alleged suicide or an actually confirmed suicide... it doesn't matter much in that first shocking moment that we hear of someone's death. As soon as the possibility is suggested, the thought is in our head and our own struggles with it are going to take the wheel from there. So even if this person's cause of death turns out to have been a drug overdose or foul play or anything else, the point is that suicide was considered plausible before all the facts were known--and that's all our brains need to fuel a fixation on that person's motivations, their "value" to the world, the private or silent agony they may have or must have gone through, as well as our *own* perceived "value" and struggles/health and grief and accomplishments and motivations.
Sorry for the super long comment!!! I've been doing a lot of work lately to try and better understand the concepts of "my feelings are valid" and "my life has value whether I 'contribute' to the world or not" so I've had a lot of these topics on my mind. I know it's far easier said than done, but please try to give yourself a break (you just lost someone important to you, after all). There's no right or wrong way to grieve, and there's no good that can come from beating yourself up for comparing yourself to others (another thing all humans do). What's important is allowing yourself to feel hurt, but also giving yourself credit for having the ability to consider and respect the pain others are going through as well. What's important is acknowledging that you're grieving, reminding yourself that every human life is valuable whether we're famous or "productive" or "successful" or not, and saying [out loud] to yourself, "That means *my* life is valuable too," because you *are* valuable, whether you believe it or not. Be kind to yourself, friend. 💜💞
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