*Depression & Suicide*

He was about 7 years old. It was after dinner, and the evening sun of midsummer still hung low in the sky. Suddenly, he ran into the house and threw himself onto his bed, crying, saying, over and over through his tears, “I wish I were dead.”

Dr. Raymond Lloyd Richmond continues to write: ... As I look back on this event, I can now also recall the rest of the story. My mother had denied me something I wanted (though what it was is long forgotten), I felt unrecognized and unloved, and I was angry at her. In my mind, I began to wish she were dead—but only for a split second, because on the edge of consciousness it occurred to me that if she were to die, I would have no mother and that I would be left all alone in the world with no one to take care of me. So my mind quickly turned away from that wish for her death, with all of it’s lonely implications, and, feeling quite guilty about the whole thing, I began to wish for my own death. After all, what kind of a person could be so dependent on someone else, so helpless and afraid? A no good piece of nothing, that’s who, and he deserves to die.

In psychological terms, I repressed my anger for my mother and ended up turning my frustration against myself. The proverb “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you” sums this up nicely. It’s a terrible bind for a child. And, if it happens often enough, it can prevent the child from being able to express emotions appropriately—because with every angry thought comes the fear of losing someone’s love or protection.

In my own life, beginning with my psychoanalysis as a student, I have had to come to terms with this event and how it has affected my life. I, like many of my own patients, have been forced as an adult to learn how to come to terms honestly with feelings of insult and hurt.

Now, the fleeting suicidal fantasy that I encountered in that moment of childhood frustration was not a clinical case of suicidal depression. Nevertheless, in my professional experience I have seen the dynamic of suppressed anger as a major motive behind clinical depression, and ultimately, as the unconscious motive for serious suicidal thoughts. Someone close to you hurts you, and “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you” kicks in from childhood. Fearing the loss of that person’s love, you keep silent about your feelings and ultimately—as a way to escape the guilt of your dependency—you begin wishing for your own destruction. (Which, as an adult, you actually have the power to bring about.)

But there is one other element to the process.

It isn’t just that a person fails to communicate with others honestly. If you are hurt often enough, in keeping silent about it, and in feeling guilty about being so dependent on someone’s love, you can begin to believe not just that you are unloved but that you are despised. If you ever reach this point you then seemingly become a “partner” in your own destruction.

In fact, some persons will even kill themselves to avoid admitting that their parents did not love them—that is, that the parents did not acknowledge the child’s individual needs with true love.

Has anyone ever pushed you away when you wanted to be held? Has anyone ever given more attention to a bottle of alcohol than to you? Has anyone ever laughed at you when you were hurt? Has anyone ever told you that you were too dumb to succeed? Has anyone ever refused you help when you asked for it? Do you get the idea? No one may have actually told you to kill yourself, but all these sorts of behavioral cues give a clear impression: “You are of no importance to me.” “I have no concern for you.” “You’re not special.” “You don’t deserve to be alive.” “You are garbage.”

So, to the “Other,” you (and all of us, for that matter) are just an object to be manipulated to satisfy someone else. It’s a losing game to try to make the “Other” love you. It’s a losing game to make the “Other” say you’re special. Sure, you can try to do all the right things, like drink the right brand of cola, eat at the right fast-food place, wear the right jeans, expose all the right pieces of flesh, pierce and tattoo yourself in the right places, use the right lingo, work for the right company—but once you slip up, then it’s the garbage can for you.

Thus you can “tune in” to the resentment of others subliminally, and, if you’re not psychologically aware, you can come to believe that these perceptions you receive from others are truth and reality about your personal value—or lack of it.

I’m not trying to tell you here that no one feels affection for you. You can argue all you want that your mother and father care about you somehow, and I won’t object, because on some level they do care about you. The real point is that many persons who claim to care about you also give indications, through behaviors and things they say and think, that their affection for you is mixed with resentment. Thus, instead of teaching you how to love by the example of true love, they “infect” you emotionally with a fear of love. It’s not pretty to see this directly, so that’s why you have defenses that blind you to it. But it’s real. At the core, that’s where suicidal feelings originate. Not that anyone is necessarily literally wishing you to die, but that the feeling of resentment that they project can get so strong that you end up feeling like garbage. And from there it is only one small step to make yourself garbage.

So, once your psychotherapy drags you through the pain of this realization about human nature—and you accept it all without defense and resistance—you will then have the strength to “see through” the illusions of the “Other” and claim your own right to exist.

(For the above quote, go to Depression And Suicide by Dr. Raymond Lloyd Richmond.)