How Not to Kill Yourself

Review

I first read about Clancy Martin’s memoir sitting at the breakfast bar of a local restaurant. At the time I went every Sunday and read the New York Times Book Review. Whatever Sunday that happened to be, I read Alexandra Jacobs’ review and added it to my to-be-read list. I haven’t thought about the book much even as I’ve read several other texts on suicide and suicidal ideation over the few years since. Having now read it, I can scratch my head at Jacobs’ review and wonder: is this, in fact, a review?

Martin divides the text into three parts: Suicidal Tendencies, One Foot in the Grace, and The Long Road Back. The hardback is about 330 pages, followed by a big chunk of appendixes and notes. I think I went into this book expecting it to be much more about suicide as an ontological exploration, a meditation on what it feels like to be in the grip of a suicidal aura and what it looks like to perhaps leave those feelings behind. To be clear, I did not open the book expecting a step-by-step guide, nor did I go looking for one. However, it is clear that for Martin, suicide and alcohol and other substance addiction is so heavily entwined with suicidal urge as to be inseparable. As a result, huge chunks of this book feel more about alcoholism, AA, and addiction than suicidality.

A contributor may be that Martin views (at least his) suicidal ideation as a kind of addiction. In that light, the long explorations of AA meetings, recovery, substance use, etc., feel more thematically integrated. On one hand, I recognize the siren song of suicidal thoughts and the way that a mind feels when it has dug itself into them. They do become a sort of ‘safe’ place that a mind goes under extreme stress or fear, and I think addiction works in a similar way. But, I think this text is much more of a memoir than I expected, and as a result I struggled to keep focus for long chunks. In fact, for much of part 2 and 3, I skimmed across the many pages focused more on alcohol than suicidality. I don’t blame Martin for this, and I think in a different academic mindset, I would feel more drawn to these. But these sections do not speak to my experience or struggles (except to the extent that I can empathize with them via the memories of my father, who was a severe substance user).

The chapters that drew most of my attention were “Philosophical Suicide” and “The Sickness unto Death: Observations from Édouard Levé, David Foster Wallace, and Nelly Arcan.” I have a lot of tabs/notes throughout the book (too many to transcribe in one sitting, though I will probably update this eventually with all of them), but these are the chapters where most of them live. These chapters include some discussion of historical ideas about suicide, more contemporary events (including a reference to Robin Williams’ interview with Marc Maron that I found very sad), and then three literary suicides separated by a few years.

I will almost certainly re-read “The Sickness unto Death” — if only because I have read Levé’s “Suicide” twice and like it (to the extent that one can like such a deeply sad book). Martin starts out this chapter encouraging readers to skip it if they are feeling suicidal, which I think is probably good advice. Though, I don’t agree with some of his interpretation’s of Levé’s work and the character actions/mindsets within, hence my need to re-read. Levé’s “Suicide” is something like 80 pages, and sparse ones at that, so it is something I will eventually re-read and then revisit with this side-by-side. I haven’t read the DFW or Arcan texts.

Martin’s contempt for psychiatric wards radiates from the page, and unfortunately many of his written experiences ring true for me, as someone that has not been on the ward as a patient, but has worked one as a provider. They are not good places, and I have long thought they probably traumatize and harm people more than they benefit, beyond the simple benefit of forcing the prolongation of life (though whether I believe in a right to suicide and what that looks like should not be inferred by that statement). Still, Martin’s hatred goes beyond what I think is common. But perhaps I am sensitive to this as a social worker.

It isn’t until nearly 290 pages in that the book delivers on its title, “How Not to Kill Yourself.” Everything before this is an exploration of Martin’s various suicide attempts, family history, experiences, and then some philosophical thoughts that I think are just a tad underdeveloped. I don’t know how I would ask Martin to improve this. I think trying to write about suicide without exploring the personal aspect of it is a fool’s errand. Perhaps part that throws me off is the extent to which Buddhism is discussed, my allergy to mysticism/spirituality and religious arguments against suicide making my eyes water a bit through those pages. I have tried and am trying to be less dogmatic about things like this, but at the end of the day, spirituality is not something that helps me, so those sections didn’t work for me. They probably would for others.

Martin’s memoir is a fine read for someone more interested in memoir than a sturdy attempt at a philosophical treatise against suicide. I think my favorite (odd word for this) text in this vein is Jennifer Michael Hecht’s “Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It.” I discovered this book in 2013 or 2014 when I was feeling suicidal, and it very probably saved my life. I particularly appreciated its secular approach to anti-suicide philosophies. I am not sure that my thoughts on the book are quite the same as they were a decade ago, but it is a book I would return to. I have had moments of deep despair in the intervening years. Something Martin describes so well is the pressure that builds, how the walls close in, and you feel pressure drilling down on your head, caught in a panic, imagining the delight with which those you love might welcome your death (reality has little to do with these intrusions), replaying every moment of imperfection (real and imagined), and the urgent sense that the only way to stop it—and the thing that you deserve—is eradication.

In a way, I think Martin’s capturing of that feeling is one of the most important parts of the book. When in those spirals, one feels utterly alone. It is nice to feel a sense of commonality with others, and to have that commonality treated with respect and love. That can only start with compassion and empathy, two things that I feel Martin demonstrates bounds of in these pages.

Notes

(Possibly coming soon.)