Elliott Smith is dead.

Elliott Smith had a gorgeous voice.

I'll never get used to hearing news like this, regardless of who is involved.

http://www.sweetadeline.net/

Looks bad.

rip

RIP Elliott Smith?

If it's true, then RIP. 34 is way, way too young.

He shall be missed. What a fucking waste.

i was just told that elliot smith stabbed himself in the stomach and
killed himself.

Anyone heard otherwise ?

http://www.sweetadeline.net/ - Official Fansite

I guess the fact he won't be around to read that serves as some sort of consolation.

What Nate said about that moment in Tennenbaums = totally right on and holy shit I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it through that scene in that film again for a long time.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1479869/20031022/smith_elliott.jhtml?headlines=true

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/SHOWBIZ/Movies/10/22/obit.elam.ap/story.elam.ap.jpg

Jack Elam died.

"Smith (real name Steven Paul Smith) had battled drug and alcohol addition throughout his career."

I have to say, the only time I saw Elliott Smith was at the Mid East in Boston in 1996 I think, and he was amazing, just captivating. I guess he had a reputation for sucking live, but he didn't suck when I saw him.

I'm really bummed.

elliot smith is a bit of a wuss
elliot smith is purely coincidental
elliot smith is one of the year's most important discoveries
elliot smith is still musing in the shade of an afternoon bar with a soft
elliot smith is looking for an indie label to record new material after working out an agreement with current label dreamworks
elliot smith is wearing a t
elliot smith is out
elliot smith is that his own lyrics are intensely personal
elliot smith is the most brilliant songwriter to come along since a guy named bob dylan
elliot smith is that none of the songs on the album may ever be played on commercial radio
elliot smith is happy right where he is
elliot smith is sorrow and love
elliot smith is the perfect acoustic martyr
elliot smith is that if you've never seen him
elliot smith is getting old
elliot smith is doing it now
elliot smith is still his old indy
elliot smith is playing "rose parade
elliot smith is starting in fifteen minutes in key arena
elliot smith is a multiple
elliot smith is really great
elliot smith is probably a name youíre going to hear a lot from
elliot smith is the king of the world
elliot smith is supposed to be so good
elliot smith is most definitely an acquired taste
elliot smith is kind of pretentious but i hear he's good live
elliot smith is representative of the lovemint view of females and the world
elliot smith is an excellent songwriter
elliot smith is a kindred spirit
elliot smith is the name chosen by airman 1st class glen and kimberly smith for their son
elliot smith is plain
elliot smith is an extraordinary singer/songwriter
elliot smith is capable of
elliot smith is to red stripe as guided by voices is to pabst blueribbon? hmmm
elliot smith is working hard in long beach
elliot smith is a prime example of that sort of thing
elliot smith is nearing completion of his next album
elliot smith is great
elliot smith is in complete accord
elliot smith is not afraid to admit that he is what they are best known for
elliot smith is my favorite
elliot smith is on it's way
elliot smith is one of my favorite musicians
elliot smith is a tough tough man
elliot smith is working on a
elliot smith is an acquaintance
elliot smith is one of my favorite songwriters
elliot smith is a really quiet singer and it was annoying because you could hear them talk over the music
elliot smith is not
elliot smith is signed to
elliot smith is good
elliot smith is on the cards? d
elliot smith is here
elliot smith is on alternative radio and birddog got himself a band and a record on sugar free
elliot smith is a kind of real loser lost in hollywood but however
elliot smith is great for the daytime drives
elliot smith is recording his fourth solo album
elliot smith is fast becoming one of my favorite artists out there
elliot smith is always my big favorite
elliot smith is playing the trombone
elliot smith is a god and anyone who doesn't agree needs to
elliot smith is a beautiful guy
elliot smith is such a genius cos this is
elliot smith is an impressive songwriter
elliot smith is the evil kate abusing me song
elliot smith is a fucking
elliot smith is the celebrity that i have a crush on
elliot smith is searching for a true representation of the brain
elliot smith is doing his best to overcome them
elliot smith is
elliot smith is one groovy cat
elliot smith is a couch surfer complaining that you don't get hbo
elliot smith is on 88
elliot smith is selling his 1984 2+ 2 300zx asking $2
elliot smith is definitely good
elliot smith is leather love
elliot smith is in mine
elliot smith is rapidly becoming a modern day pop legend
elliot smith is an amazing performer
elliot smith is currently studying english at cambridge university

It was cute the way he cut all the songs short halfway because he was too embarassed to play the solo.

What a shame. Never a fan of Figure 8, but I kept checking the 'net to find out when the new one was coming out.

:(

I'm filing through my Elliot Smith memories now. All the times I've ever said his name to anyone, or vice versa. They're all positive.

I wonder where he was. I've been in some rotten moods in my day, and have imagined slipping away into calm oblivion, but not once EVER have I thought that things might be better if I STABBED MYSELF IN THE FUCKING HEART! And what the fuck kind of knife gets through a breastbone? Did he take a running start? That's extreme violence, extreme pain, extreme punishment. It's so grim, it's fascinating.

i shared a smoke with him once, then went inside the venue to realize --hey thats elliot smith, i guess he doesnt have bleached hair anymore. it was a small going away gig for lou barlow moving to la. 75 people there maybe. everyone sitting on the ground. acoustic set. heavy metal horns, then elliott. he kept skrewing up chord shifts. but it didnt matter.
mark p on the money. his guitar playing was so fucking out there.
a very sad day.

RIP.

It's unreal that he is gone. I didn't know him. But it feels like I did.

You should calm the fuck down, oh brave anonymous poster. Ned was answering a question which I thought was valid to answer, and just left it at that, and then responded to J0hn's followup. Or do you prefer that no one is allowed to express polite dissent anymore? Ned did NOT just pop in unprovoked and go "Ho ho! well sad that he died, but i never cared for him. so nyah". (for the record, i never really cared too much for elliott smith's music at all -- but this event makes me incredibly sad and nervous and sickened nonetheless).

1. He voiced his opinion with a sickly false respect for the dead. If he really didn't want to be "crass" he wouldn't have said anything at all. His post made the exact same point as saying "hey, i don't like elliott smith". It just reeked of "no thread is complete without my two cents" egotism.

2. This isn't a classic/dud thread. Every other post is pretty much just people expressing their positive feelings for the man and his music, and it was amazingly refreshing and suprising to see such heartfelt discussion is possible in this forum.

All your presumptions (which i disagree with) about Ned's statement and attack came off as far more crass than Ned could ever be accused of in this thread. And I forgot that opinions were only allowed on C/D threads. How could i have forgotten?

And don't get me started about the irony of you accusing people of "two cents egoism". If you were really concerned and hurt, you would have emailed Ned off-thread about this instead. (and maybe you did), of course you'd have to take the brave step of actually faking a new anonymous email account for that to remain anonymous for, ur, important reasons, I'm sure.

As for Smith himself, I'm in complete shock. This is the most "out of leftfield" music thing to happen in a long, long time. The thing that gets me is that in like the last six weeks, we've lost Warren Zevon, Johnny Cash, and now Elliot Smith.

I spent a long time living with that
never could give it a name
and when you don't know what you're looking at
makes it much harder to tame
mostly they'd meet when he was asleep and
have some sick exchange
that struck him as wrong
and moved him along closer to division day

I can't make an exception for a bad connection
that only goes one way
sell out for a song where I don't belong
with you on division day

the moon stood up on the ridge
looking down where the water shines
and a man looking over the bridge
like he'd done so many times
thinking about how to stay out
out of trouble's way
flying to fall away from you all
it's over division day
beautiful division day

His recording techniques were obviously very influential. Alot of dry, double tracked vocals, four-track sounding records came in his wake.

And I'm sadder still when I realized we were born about two month away; he started his first band at almost exactly the time I started mine... It makes me feel old, which might be what he was feeling. Still, I'll just drink a bunch of Michelob and get up tomorrow to do it all again.

rest in peace, elliott.

still not sure what you're asking me though.

Anyway, I owned the grand total of one Elliott Smith CD (XO), and I can't say I either loved or hated his music, but this is just plain fucking awful and sad.

don't tell me to Shut Up.

Here's something my friend Julia wrote. I think it's pretty important.
********
We have all of this euphamistic, false language that we use surrounding suicide so that we don't have to talk about mental illness as a true illness. To me, saying "he killed himself" is really odd, because it implies a lot of free will and many many people who "kill themselves" are suffering from addiction, depression, or psychosis that keeps them from logically deciding to die. Suicide victims often suffer from diseases that have the common symptom of death.

Saying "he took his own life" is also really weird to me. It makes it sound like now he possesses his life, like he wrestled it from the hands of an oppressor and now has it to do what he likes with it. Suicide victims don't take their lives, they have them taken by horrible debilitating diseases.

I wish that msn.com and mtv.com would run stories that said "Singer-songwriter Elliot Smith died today of knife wounds associated wiht drug-addiction and depression, two diseases that our culture refuses to effectively treat or recognize as pathologies rather than personal flaws. As a result of our culture's refusal to take mental illness seriously, we have lost an influential young artist."

The cruelty of depression is that part of initiating a cure has to be the courage and self-love to recognize and admit that you are ill, but those are the very properties of which the disease robs you. We don't expect people with tuberculosis to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, we call ambulences, feed them soup and antibiotics, hold the bloody rag into which they are coughing, and recognize that they are victims. This is (figuratively) how we need to treat victims of depression.

I guess one point made by Kevin Erickson is that part and parcel of depressive mental illnesses is that you can lack the desire or ability to help yourself.

I don't. That's opinion, not news.

oh now that's classic

I am very angry at Elliott Smith today.

xpost: Dadaismus, ES had received v. expensive tx for alcoholism, and everybody said/assumed that there was always an opiate component to his self-medicating.

oh now that's classic

[Actually I would quite like that if it was read out on the news Kent Brockman style, especially if he then pondered whether it was time for citizens to crowbar open each other's heads and feast on the goo inside]

I agree, but I'm not sure what the answer is. Imagine if everyone receiving an SSRI now were in psychotherapy. We would need to quadruple the number of therapists.

+++The confusing thing for me was that the Under the Radar article gave me the impression he was doing a lot better.
agreed! he had his new studio, plans to donate all new tour money to the abused kids foundation, 10 hour interview...

Fair enough. Actually I do remember hearing that he was hospitalized against his will sometime pre-XO, and was very unhappy about it. But I'm wondering WHY sick people sometimes refuse to get help. If we didn't stigmatize depression and addiction, perhaps it would be easier to accept help when it's available and offered? I'm not interested in "blaming" society or anyone else. I share John's anger at Elliott, but it seems like the best way for the music community to deal with this terrible loss would be to think about how we can keep it from happening again.

Imagine if everyone receiving an SSRI now were in psychotherapy. We would need to quadruple the number of therapists.

Actually the nice thing about therapy is that when it runs its course, you theoretically don't need it anymore. With SSRIs you have to keep taking them or you feel shitty again. That's why the prescription drug companies love them. SSRIs can definitely be helpful but they work best when used in conjunction with regular counseling. These days they're often handed out by general practitioners. If we had a TV commercial for the Society of Counseling Psychologists for every Prozac or Paxil commercial, I think a lot of people would be healthier.

"Theoretically" is the key word there. I'm an advocate for therapy over drugs any day, but the field of psychology could use some tough love. As a science, it doesn't hold up particularly well. The success rate of psychotherapy is low compared to physical medicine. At this point, unfortunately, drugs hold up better under scientific scrutiny.

"You can check out any time you like, but you may never leave".

Just my opinion. I do think this attitude has a big impact on the whole issue. It's easy to blame the victim but you never really know what state of mind someone is in with whatever disorder or problem they are dealing with. They might be capable of understanding it, but they might be in too deep to see the light. I never attempted suicide but there were times when I lost so much hope I literally didn't know what to do with myself anymore, and looking back with hindsight I don't think I was actually capable of seeing clearly at the time.

this is awful.

rip.

(also not everyone on meds or in therapy is neccessarily suffering from a chronic mental illness. These are common treatments for many different troubles in life.)

And again, plenty of people try to get help and don't perservere, because another counterintuitive aspect rarely mentioned is - it's very tough to start feeling better even if that's the goal, 'cause there is always the ease with which one can fall back into familiar depressive patterns. Getting well is hard if you're not used to being well, basically!

I consider myself lucky to have never been addicted to anything as it seems that addiction + depression is a doubly hard thing to get free of. I am sorry Elliott Smith quit fighting it.. and that they left knives around.. reminded me of telling a friend lately, dude, if you really feel like crashing yr car into a tree, hide your keys and don't get behind the wheel that day!

I ask, 'cos this is a pretty thoughtful (and lengthy) discussion. Perhaps airing these views has been therapeutic for ILMers themselves?

My experience is that mental illness is somewhat stigmatised (and that generation and, yes, geography can be influencing factors in this regard), but there are degrees of illness. I wouldn't hold someone who was severely psychotic accountable, but a mild clinical depression? I was diagnosed with PTSD and depression, and it was very difficult -- but with meds (initially -- try to get off of those suckers as early as possible unless you want your brain to feel like taffy) and simultaneous counseling, it's possible to beat it. But, then, subsequent vigilance has to be lifelong, and it can be exhausting.

I'm mad at Elliott Smith, I empathize with Elliott Smith, I feel sorry for Elliott Smith. All now pointless, because he's dead and doesn't care any more. It's complicated. I guess what I'm saying is: judging people is pointless... and yet, what else are we supposed to do?

daria OTM about how easy it is to revert to familiar patterns.

It does hit home for me because I've dealt with depression in varying degrees since childhood, and though I'd say my situation has improved a lot, it's something that's always there. And sometimes it's hard to stay completely in control, you have to be constantly aware of the patterns you're indulging in without realizing. (not to be exhibitionist, but none of you know who I am and vice versa, and I'm not necessarily ashamed that I've been in therapy before.)

Therapy is nothing to be ashamed of; more people should be willing to attempt it. Unfortunately, it still carries a stigma that scares people out of getting help. For instance, one of the better things I'm decent at is helping mates (even the odd stranger) by giving them a listening ear.

Sometimes, all you will want is to be heard. Who knows whether Smith had that?

(1) if Smith's surrounding circumstances had been different -- he had someone to talk to, he didn't feel stigmatized for depression, he took medicine, he was in therapy, he had healthcare, people had different attitudes about artists -- then he might be alive today; or

(2) he was so miserable, was in such a terrible amount of emotional pain, and was so bent on killing himself (he tried before, right?) that there was no way to stop him.

I don't know Elliot Smith so I will never know which is true.

Oh fuck off with this Nick Drake BULLSHIT

Somewhere back, someone (possibly Kenan) called ES's manner of suicide "punk rock" — that being because it was believed then that he stabbed himself in his stomach. So what is it then, now that it seems that he stabbed himself in his heart? MOR orchestral ballad-esque?

So you're not one of the "sensitive people," I take it?

He's still alive and posting on ILM, isn't he?

You were supposed to save pop music. Remember that LA Weekly cover? Your face on the front, looking scared and beautiful, and I am sorry, so so so very sorry that you are gone. What happened? I guess it doesn't matter now and nothing does really. I just feel sorry and bad that we couldn't do anything to help. That all the people that loved you really didn't make much of a difference. That our love wasn't enough, or didn't reach you, or put you off, that you were unhappy anyway. But maybe your unhappiness was what we loved about you, so that our love was a constant reminder of how much unhappiness you had. I understand. We were selfish then, and for that I am angry for you. Mad for you. Sad for you. Loving you from here on the earth where things aren't so great, not at all, but fuck you made things a lot better and now that you are not here we just all have to act like life goes on and there goes another rock star and its better to burn out instead of fade away and whatever the fuck - whatever the fuck. All I can say is that I am crying as I write this, as I listen to your secretly sorry voice on Either/Or and I am wondering if you are hovering in the air above your house, watching the grief stricken fans and old friends walking wounded trying to understand where you went, why you went. If they can reach you now, with their thoughts, their hearts, their love. Can you see them? Does it make anything better? A whole shitload of hipsters are crying right now, hiding behind their ironic 70s sunglasses and vintage western snap front shirts. Legions of girls with scars from cutting themselves and dyed black hair are lighting candles and contemplating joining you today. Thirtysomething dudes with dirty shag haircuts are shaking their heads, looking down at their big jokey belt buckles, thinking about having a beer before the sun goes down, because it isn't a good day for any of us, because you aren't here to represent.

One time I was in Portland on tour, an early morning before I was about to leave for home and I walked into a bagel shop. You were there, not in person, but your record was playing. The sleepy, baby cute hippie kid behind the counter was singing along to you, quiet just like you, and he knew every word. There was another raggedy girl cleaning up tables behind me, and she was singing too. Then this other kid came into the shop, and waited in line, and he was singing - as if on cue, a little off key, but almost in harmony. Pretty soon, so was I. But we were all in our own private worlds, our voices barely audible, singing only for ourselves. Were you singing for yourself? I hope so. I hope that you could love your music like it was loved by everyone else.

Goodbye gentle soul. Goodnight. How sorry I am to see you go. But you were maybe too beautiful for this world. So beautiful that it hurt to be in it. I hope that you are not hurting anymore. I hope everything is good wherever you are. I hope that you are happy. Everything reminds me of you.

Most addicts also suffer from other chemical imbalances that usually manifest as depression, often in its bi-polar form. Not having known the guy, and only going by interviews, I’d guess bi-polar.

Which means he’d have needed a mood stabilizer—depakote, lithium or something similar.

If depakote, he could suffer a serious relapse just by missing a day’s dose. If lithium, he’d have to have his blood serum levels checked every three or so weeks, with dosage possibly re-adjusted.

On top of that, he’d need an anti-depressant, SSRI or some sort of atypical. In either case, the side-effect profile has a tendency to morph, causing further dosage readjustments and possibly the addition of another medication. All of which need to be taken at specific times of the day for maximum effect, while it’s essential that a psychopharmacologist is visited on a weekly basis to keep all the aforementioned in line.

Obviously, getting better is a pretty demanding enterprise. Often, those in ones’ social circle are invested, if only by sadly fucked up default, in the person remaining ill. Whether Dreamland did anything healthcare wise for him is something about which I won’t conjecture. Okay, I will. He was a guy who made whatever money he made from being a wreck.

A really awful possible ‘upside’: he may have felt a terrible relief upon wounding himself, as anything is preferable to the depressive downswing a bi-polar suffers.

I’m amazed he lasted this long.

Even if he was unipolar, his suffering was probably pretty profound. d'oh

re: treating bipolar

Which means he’d have needed a mood stabilizer—depakote, lithium or something similar.

If depakote, he could suffer a serious relapse just by missing a day’s dose. If lithium, he’d have to have his blood serum levels checked every three or so weeks, with dosage possibly re-adjusted.

These are both pretty old school MS. Yes they are still prescribed but are now last resort. Most bipolars these days are on more modern medicines with less side-effects and less maintnence.

On top of that, he’d need an anti-depressant, SSRI or some sort of atypical.

sometimes. . .not all bipolars need an AD. not all are as depressive and ADs can actually make you manic so are often ill-advised for bipolars.

another medication. All of which need to be taken at specific times of the day for maximum effect, while it’s essential that a psychopharmacologist is visited on a weekly basis to keep all the aforementioned in line.

This really isn't true. The only reason specific times would be neccesary would to be control side effects like sleepiness. The only drug that requires such strict maintainence is, like you said, Lithium. Even then I think serum levels are only required about once a month. For all other meds the average doctor visit cycle is every three months.

Like I said, I've never seen any evidence that he was bipolar. Even if he was all this discussion would be kind of irrevelant since it does seem that he was resistant to this kind of treatment. And then there's the addiction which is a completely different issue.

i'm tired. need to go to bed.

She was being funny! She's a friggin' comedian, for cryin' out loud.

And I thought M. Cho was mocking these people who are expressing their feelings honestly. What Francis said, except I don't think it's too funny.

(and for what it's worth I don't believe he wanted to.)

sam: 1. i don't understand your first sentence. if people could find relief they would need to kill themselves? don't you mean the opposite that they wouldn't need to kill themselves?
2. why do you think that he didn't want to kill himself? he tried to kill himself several times. do you think it was an accident? or do you think that he was crazy or something? doing things he didn't want to do?

Gotcha.

Your post above seems to want to reduce the suicidal mindset to a rather simpler thing than it actually is. The "bullshit pills" reference a few posts up seems misguided at best: lots of people who don't take antidepressants wrongly think of them as "happy pills." What they do is address the biochemical issues that are thought by many to have at least partial responsibility for chronic depression that hasn't responded to therapy. E.S. had suffered from both depression and addiction for ages. Neither condition is a simple thing: it's not like E.S. woke up one fine Portland day and said "Fuck it! I'm gonna be a depressed guy, 'cause that's how I like it!" Treatment for this condition isn't "bullshit," nor is refusing to get treated "keeping it real" by any stretch of the imagination.

To use a related example. When I was a psych nurse I had a bunch of patients who were dispomaniacs i.e. who couldn't stop drinking water. You find this thing a lot with chronic schizophrenics, which is what most of my patients were. One guy we had was so far gone that if you let him shower alone, he'd just stand underneath the shower head and drink everything that came out. EVERYTHING. Which will kill you pretty quick, as your electrolyte balance'll get all thrown outta whack and then your blood pressure gets so low that it makes your heart work too heart and kablooey. So, under doctor's orders, we nurses did everything we could to stop him, including restricting his water intake and monitoring his intake & output of all fluids.

From the sounds of it, you'd say we were "restricting his freedom" or something. But he didn't wanna die! Something was wrong with his brain! And depression, despite the way western countries romanticize the hell out of it, isn't some deeper metaphysical understanding of the universe. It's a malfunction of the organism. Sometimes a little of it can be healthy: adversity breeds character! When it makes you wanna kill yourself, then it's time to call it what it is: an ILLNESS. And treat it, regardless of whether or not "alternative" types might sneer as how "false" one is being by choosing happiness over despair.

in the sense that depression doesn't do any good to your organism this is certainly true. but somehow i don't buy this reduction of a psychic problem which a depression obviously is to purely physical causes. those antidepressants seem to me like a treatment of the organic symptoms and not the real causes which are psychic. i am no expert on this and i am certainly depressive too at times but i would get very angry if someone forced me to take pills or whatever to cure my so-called depression.

what i don't like about this discussion is that suicide per se seems to be interpreted as the final effect of an illness. and that's certainly not correct. nobody has chosen to live in this world. so everybody is free to take his life. of course there might be cases of people who would kill themselves without wanting it and need help like the water drinker you mentioned but that certainly must be pretty rare.

"Depressive at times" - as I say, this can be quite healthy! For people who suffer CHRONIC depression, though, it's a whole different ballgame. Their ability to act in their own interest suffers. I mean, look: if you bought a car, and the car's CPU caused it to drive into a wall every time its tank was a little low, you'd get it fixed, right? I think you have a romantic idea about how psychotropic medications work & about what they do. NB I'm not saying they're not overprescribed - they are - but overprescription doesn't equal "they are horrible," and they certainly don't "change" people's personalities.

X with John, who, once again, I agree with.

as for him not wanting to. . .it's just my gut feeling here. Attempts don't always mean you want to die just that you don't see other options. Sometimes these attempts reveal other options you were missing all along.

I don't want to speculate on or discuss this individual anymore. It's too heartbreaking for me.

Actually, this is precisely what I suspected - the accounts of recent performances suggested an increasing loosening of associations, etc.

Grieving does nothing for the dead. We grieve for ourselves, for what we can no longer have. Elliott Smith got exactly what he wanted, and we can give and take nothing else from the man. Because it provided a sense of approval and connection, Smith's old concerts can now be remembered as sacred events. But what a failure of the imagination: all moments are equally rare, whether someone is playing a guitar or not, whether Smith is alive or dead. Those on the message boards who are grateful they saw him perform live are fully vested in the lie that somehow the story, the man, and the experience of the music are all bound together, that the aggregate pleasure of thousands can be summed up into one living soul, one ex-addict with a beating heart, and now his entirely solitary act—seppuku without the second—can be seen as some kind of communion, a concluding act to his oeuvre of bitter depression. A pair of round cracked eyeglasses on an album cover, and a ticket stub from 1998. A bit of cloth dipped in his blood, a fragment of the true cross. It's all about
taking
the easy way out
for you,
I suppose.

(yes the 14 year old is back)

Everyone says they’re happy pills. They’re not. If I’m having a shit day I still have a shit day. But it’s not like a shit day/week/month/half-a-fucking year like I used to have. I used to wake up every morning thinking about death.

Not in a wanky self-absorbed romanticised ‘everyone will miss me when I’m gone’ kind of way. More like an animal that knows it’s gonna die soon. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, be around a dying dog.

My conscious mind was in denial about suicide, my unconscious mind was running amok. I was dreaming about how I was gonna go. I had preferred method, location, time – all ‘hypothetical’ of course. The shadows that took me at night were always present in my waking time. Turning ‘the act’ over and over. Refining. Planning. Don’t tell me that‘s a fucking normal state of mind,

People think of suicide like an act. It’s more like an unstoppable motion, a whirlpool event that becomes irreversible at a certain point down the spiral wall. You can see clearly where it all went wrong, back at the outer reaches before you went down the flume. At this point you’re at the mercy of the beast. It either spins itself out or you go down the hole. Depression is cyclical. Next time round it may not be so benevolent.

I was lucky. I got help in time and made it through the potentially dangerous first 2 weeks of treatment. My dosage is now reduced although I accept that I may have to be on medication for the rest of my life. Life still has it’s attendant miseries and humiliations – ho, ho. Still,I can deal with them better without this dark ambient noise that drowns out everything else.

ten years gone

47 minutes gone hahahahaha never change ILX

maybe i was a little misguided upthread. i don't think i would romanticize suicide as much anymore. in any case i still believe there are situations where suicide may be a relief. like when you have a tumor which eats up your brain. like this guy for example.

Would have been 50. RIP.

Man everyone was so mean 15 years ago

I knew better than to read posts, this was just the first non album Smith thread I saw.