Henry
Rollins is man I admire. You can even leave Black flag out of it. He is a great,
storyteller, writer, introspective thinker, generous with his time, and he takes
his work and us very seriously. We are truly fortunate to have a person of admiration put out so much energy and send it our way. Now, here are the reasons for
this post. My thoughts on mental health are intense and for many reasons. Two that I
feel I can disclose are that 1) I had a friend who took his life and 2) I work in a psych
hospital with people whom I consider to be my heroes and sheroes.
Below you’ll find two posts that H. Rollins
wrote about suicide. One crushing and the other is redeeming. Make your own decision.
Henry Rollins: More Thoughts on Suicide
Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 4:14 AM
Categories: Henry Rollins!
[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Sunday KCRW broadcast.]
As you might imagine, I got a few letters about my
recent column about suicide.
Actually, it was a lot of letters. For days. I read them. No matter how
angry or instructive, I appreciate them all because they were written
with complete sincerity, even if some had only two words, the second
being “you.”
After reading carefully and responding as best I could, it was obvious
that I had some work to do in order to educate myself further on this
very complex and painful issue. I am quite thick-headed, but not so much
that things don’t occasionally permeate.
In the piece, I said there are some things I obviously don’t get. So I
would like to thank you for taking the time to let me know where you’re
coming from. None of it was lost upon me.
I cannot defend the views I expressed. I think that would be taking an
easy out. I put them out there plainly and must suffer the slings and
arrows — fair enough. I won’t attempt to dodge them. However, that
doesn’t mean that I can’t be taught a thing or two. I have no love for a
fixed position on most things. I am always eager to learn something. I
promise that I will dig in and educate myself on this and do my best to
evolve. Again, thank you.
In the short amount of space afforded here, hear me out. Like a lot of
people, I have battled depression all my life. It’s nothing special, in
that it’s too common to be considered unique. This state has made me
have to do things in a certain way to remain operational. There have
been some truly awful stretches, as I am sure there have been for anyone
who deals with depression, that have at times rendered me almost
paralytic. Hours pass and I slow-cook on a cold spit. I have likened it
to being a peach in a can of syrup yet fully conscious. In an attempt to
keep moving along, I must stay in the immediate present tense, acutely
aware of everything happening, like driving a car on a highway. If I
conclude that I am not citizen grade, I do my best to avoid people so I
do not act unpleasantly. No one deserves it. This has kept me in hotel
rooms, my kitchen and the corners of gyms. When I have a show that
night, it’s minute-to-minute.
One of the only things that gives me a breather is music. I medicate with it.
What has perhaps kept me from seeing things differently about severe depression is that I am sure I don’t have it.
But the power of severe depression was brought up quite a bit in the
letters I received. Your anger toward me on this, believe me, I got it.
I serve. That is what I do. It is, to me, the most fortunate position
to be in. I have an audience. It is because of them that I get to eat,
move — everything. Each member of this audience is better than I am.
Braver and more real than I see myself. The only thing I fear besides
being misunderstood, which would be my fault anyway, is failing these
people.
For decades I have talked to and gotten letters from people who tell
me that something I did helped them, or saved them from killing
themselves, helped them get clean, stay clean or come out. Never once do
I really think that I had anything to do with anyone staying alive, but
I get where they’re coming from. All of them are better than I am and
it is them I serve.
In my mind, all of this is mine to screw up. While I don’t take myself
seriously, I take them with a frightening degree of seriousness. They
can take or leave me at any time; they have options. They are all I have
and, beyond that, I feel I have a duty to serve them because they have
made me better.
I guess this is what makes me wrestle with the issue of suicide, when
it pertains to those who have an audience, or kids, or both. I feel
nothing but debt to my audience. I will try my hardest, but I will never
be able to even the books. If I checked out, I would be running out on
the bill.
Like I said, I am trying to evolve on this. I have a picture in my
mind. There is a person — one with a family and a huge audience — who is
on one side of a seesaw. The family and the audience are on the other
side. This person’s condition makes him heavy enough to tilt all of them
up in the air and send him to the ground. He didn’t want to go, but the
condition outweighed all of them and even he couldn’t stop it. Is that,
albeit crudely drawn, basically it?
I understand it is my task to learn about this. It might take a while,
but I will get on it. It is my belief about an ingrained sense of duty
that will make this challenging, but I am always up for improvement.
I got several letters thanking me for what I said. However, it was the ones that took me to task that made me think the most.
To those I offended, I believe you and I apologize. If what I wrote
causes you to toss me out of your boat, it is to my great regret, but I
understand and thank you for your thoughts.
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Henry Rollins: Fuck Suicide
Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 9:43 AM
Categories: Henry Rollins!
[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Sunday KCRW broadcast.]
Days after Robin Williams died, I kept seeing his face on the
Internet. His death seemed to have a momentum of its own. It went from a
sad death of a famous person to “a nation mourns” pitch, which I didn’t
quite understand. Sites such as Huffington Post swim in their own brand
of hyperbole. They call it news and culture, but often, it’s just
content.
I understand why people feel Williams’ loss so intensely. His talent as an actor is not in dispute. His performance in
Good Will Hunting is
unimpeachable. I wonder if he was tapping into his own deep trench of
personal pain to deliver some of those scenes. It was brave and
excellent work.
The more you think about it, the more you remember one great performance after another.
Good Morning Vietnam is a favorite of mine.
When someone with this level of exposure dies in this way, it is
confusing. An Oscar-winning actor, well-paid, with a career that most
performers could only dream of — how could anyone so well regarded and
seemingly fortunate have as much as even a single bad day, much less a
life so unendurable that it has to be voluntarily voided?
On more than one of my USO tours, Robin Williams had been on the same
stage a few days before me. That’s all I needed to know about him. As
far as I was concerned, he was a good man.
But it’s here where I step off the train. I am sure some will strongly
disagree with what I’m about to say. And I also understand that his
personal struggles were quite real. I can’t argue with that.
But I simply cannot understand how any parent could kill themselves.
How in the hell could you possibly do that to your children? I don’t
care how well adjusted your kid might be — choosing to kill yourself,
rather than to be there for that child, is every shade of awful,
traumatic and confusing. I think as soon as you have children, you waive
your right to take your own life. No matter what mistakes you make in
life, it should be your utmost goal not to traumatize your kids. So, you
don’t kill yourself.
I know some people will disagree. And I get that you can’t understand
anyone else’s torment. All that “I feel your pain” stuff is bullshit and
disrespectful. You can appreciate it, listen and support someone as
best you can, but you can’t understand it. Depression is so personal and
so unique to each of us that when you’re in its teeth, you think you
invented it. You can understand your own, but that’s it. When you are
severely depressed, it can be more isolating than anything else you have
ever experienced. In trying to make someone understand, you can only
speak in approximation. You are truly on your own.
Everyone handles their emotional vicissitudes in their own ways. I am no
doctor, but I think the brain is always looking for a sense of balance
and normal function so the body can operate efficiently. Some people
medicate accordingly, in an attempt to stay somewhat even. That pursuit
can lead one down some dark paths. Someone who is an addict might not be
an “addict” in the pejorative sense but merely trying to medicate and
balance themselves.
Many years ago, I lived in Silver Lake with a housemate who suffered
from severe bouts of depression. When she wasn’t in her small bedroom
with the lights off, crying for hours, she was bright and hilarious.
Anywhere we went, we laughed our asses off. She fought her depression
with everything from bike rides to drugs, prescribed and otherwise.
Years after the last time I saw her, I guess she could no longer keep up
the battle and killed herself. No one who knew her was surprised. When
she was in her deepest misery, she was unrecognizable.
The hardest part about being around her was you knew there was nothing you could do to help.
I get it, but then again, maybe I don’t.
When someone negates their existence, they cancel themselves out in my
mind. I have many records, books and films featuring people who have
taken their own lives, and I regard them all with a bit of disdain. When
someone commits this act, he or she is out of my analog world. I know
they existed, yet they have nullified their existence because they
willfully removed themselves from life. They were real but now they are
not.
I no longer take this person seriously. I may be able to appreciate what
he or she did artistically but it’s impossible to feel bad for them.
Their life wasn’t cut short — it was purposely abandoned. It’s hard to
feel bad when the person did what they wanted to. It sucks they are
gone, of course, but it’s the decision they made. I have to respect it
and move on.
A few years ago, a guy I’d known for many years hanged himself in a
basement. Weeks later, I went to the spot and picked up bits of plastic
coating from the cord he used, which were on the floor after he was cut
down. I liked the guy, but all I could think of then is all I can think
of now — the drawings his kids had made that were pasted up on the walls
of his kitchen.
Almost 40,000 people a year kill themselves in America, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In my opinion, that is
40,000 people who blew it.
Fuck suicide. Life isn’t anything but what you make it. For all the
people who walked from the grocery store back to their house, only to be
met by a robber who shot them in the head for nothing — you gotta hang
in there.
I have life by the neck and drag it along. Rarely does it move fast enough. Raw Power forever.
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