Night Falls Fast

by Kay Redfield Jamison

  54 The reasons for this: D. Lester, “The Distribution of Sex and Age Among Completed Suicides,” International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 28 (1982): 256–260; A. R. Rich, J. Kirkpatrick-Smith, R. L. Bonner, and F. Jans, “Gender Differences in the Psychosocial Correlates of Suicidal Ideation Among Adolescents,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 22 (1992): 364–373; E. K. Moscicki, “Gender Differences in Completed and Attempted Suicides,” Annals of Epidemiology, 4 (1994): 152–158; M. A. Young, L. F. Fogg, W. A. Scheftner, and J. A. Fawcett, “Interactions of Risk Factors in Predicting Suicide,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 151 (1994): 434–435; Silva Sara Canetto and David Lester, eds., Women and Suicidal Behavior (New York: Springer, 1995); S. S. Canetto, “Gender and Suicidal Behavior: Theories and Evidence,” in R. W. Maris, M. M. Silverman, and S. S. Canetto, eds., Review of Suicidology (New York: Guilford, 1997), pp. 138–167; G. E. Murphy, “Why Women Are Less Likely Than Men to Commit Suicide,” Comprehensive Psychiatry, 39 (1998): 165–175.

  55 Women and girls, for example: M. M. Weissman, P. J. Leaf, C. E. Holzer III, J. K. Myers, and G. L. Tischler, “The Epidemiology of Depression: An Update on Sex Differences in Rates,” Journal of Affective Disorders, 7 (1984): 179–188; J. E. Fleming, D. R. Offord, and M. H. Boyle, “The Ontario Child Health Study: Prevalence of Childhood and Adolescent Depression in the Community,” British Journal of Psychiatry, 155 (1989): 647–654; C. Z. Garrison, K. L. Jackson, F. Marsteller, R. McKeown, and C. Addy, “A Longitudinal Study of Depressive Symptomatology in Young Adolescents,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 29 (1990): 581–585.

  56 This higher rate of depression: M. Weissman and M. Olfson, “Depression in Women: Implications for Health Care Research,” Science, 269 (1995): 799–801; M. Weissman, R. C. Bland, G. J. Canino, C. Faravelli, S. Greenwald, H.-G. Hwu, P. R. Joyce, E. G. Karam. C.-K. Lee, J. Lellouch, J.-P. Lépine, S. C. Newman, M. Rubio-Stipec, J. E. Wells, P. J. Wickramaratne, H.-U. Wittehen, and E.-K. Yeh, “Cross-National Epidemiology of Major Depression and Bipolar Disorder,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 276 (1996): 293–299.

  57 There is also evidence: H. White and J. M. Stillion, “Sex Differences in Attitudes Toward Suicide: Do Males Stigmatize Males?” Psychology of Women Quarterly, 12 (1988): 357–366.

  58 American Journal of Insanity: E. K. Hunt, “Statistics of Suicide in the United States,” American Journal of Insanity, 1 (1845): 225–234.

  59 between those who attempt suicide: E. Robins, G. E. Murphy, R. H. Wilkinson Jr., S. Gassner, and J. Kays, “Some Clinical Considerations in the Prevention of Suicide Based on a Study of 134 Successful Suicides,” American Journal of Public Health, 49 (1959): 888–899; T. L. Dorpat and H. S. Ripley, “A Study of Suicide in the Seattle Area,” Comprehensive Psychiatry, 1 (1960): 349–359; B. Barraclough, J. Bunch, B. Nelson, and P. Sainsbury, “A Hundred Cases of Suicide: Clinical Aspects,” British Journal of Psychiatry, 125 (1974): 355–373; I. M. K. Ovenstone and N. Kreitman, “Two Syndromes of Suicide,” British Journal of Psychiatry, 124 (1974): 336–345.

  60 long-term (ten- to forty-year) follow-up studies: P. B. Schneider, La Tentative de suicide: Étude statistique, clinique, psychologique et catamnestique (Neuchâtel and Paris: Delachauz et Niestlé, 1954); O Otto, “Suicidal Acts by Children and Adolescents,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 233 (Suppl.), 1972; K. G. Dahlgren, “Attempted Suicides—35 Years Afterwards,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 7 (1977): 75–79; O. Ekeberg, O. Ellingsen, and D. Jacobsen, “Mortality and Causes of Death in a 10-Year Follow-up of Patients Treated for Self-Poisonings in Oslo,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 24 (1994): 398–405.

  61 Predicting who: J. A. Motto, “Suicide Attempts: A Longitudinal View,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 13 (1965): 516–520; S. Greer and H. A. Lee, “Subsequent Progress of Potentially Lethal Suicide Attempts,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 43 (1967): 361–371; J. Tuckman and W. F. Youngman, “Assessment of Suicide Risk in Attempted Suicides,” in H. L. P. Resnik, ed., Suicidal Behaviors: Diagnosis and Management (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), pp. 190–197; J. Lönnqvist, P. Niskanen, K. A. Achte, and L. Ginman, “Self-Poisoning with Follow-up Considerations,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 5 (1975): 39–46; G. Paerregaard, “Suicide Among Attempted Suicides: A 10-Year Follow-up,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 5 (1975): 140–144; A. T. Beck, R. A. Steer, M. Kovacs, and B. Garrison, “Hopelessness and Eventual Suicide: A 10 Year Prospective Study of Patients Hospitalized with Suicidal Ideation,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 142 (1985): 559–563; J. Cullberg, D. Wasserman, and C. G. Stefansson, “Who Commits Suicide After a Suicide Attempt?” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 77 (1988): 598–603.

  62 “Do I deserve credit”: Robert Lowell, “Suicide,” lines 46–55; Day by Day (London: Faber and Faber, 1978), p. 16.

  63 Suicide, which kills: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 46 (1997), p. 942.

  64 A recent World Health Organization report: World Health Organization, The World Health Report 1999 (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1999).

  65 British researchers: P. Sainsbury, J. Jenkins, and A. Levey, “The Social Correlates of Suicide in Europe,” in R. D. T. Farmer and S. R. Hirsch, eds., The Suicide Syndrome (London: Croom Helm, 1980), pp. 38–53; U. Åsgård, P. Nordström, and G. Råbäck, “Birth Cohort Analysis of Changing Suicide Risk by Sex and Age in Sweden 1952 to 1981,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 76 (1987): 456–463; S. P. Kachur, L. B. Potter, S. P. James, and K. E. Powell, Suicide in the United States, 1980–1992 (Atlanta, Ga.: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 1995).

  66 The strong trend toward higher: E. M. Brooke, Suicide and Attempted Suicide, Public Health Paper No. 58 (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1974); C. Jennings and B. Barraclough, “Legal and Administrative Influences on the English Suicide Rate Since 1900,” Psychological Medicine, 10 (1980): 407–418; G. E. Murphy and R. D. Wetzel, “Suicide Risk by Birth Cohort in the United States, 1949 to 1974,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 37 (1980): 519–523; O. Hagnell, J. Lanke, B. Rorsman, and L. Ojesjo, “Are We Entering an Age of Melancholy? Depressive Illness in a Prospective Epidemiological Study over 25 Years: The Lundby Study, Sweden,” Psychological Medicine, 12 (1982): 279–289; G. L. Klerman, P. W. Lavori, J. Rice, T. Reich, J. Endicott, N. C. Andreasen, M. B. Keller, and R. M. A. Hirschfeld, “Birth Cohort Trends in Rates of Major Depressive Disorder Among Relatives of Patients with Affective Disorder,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 42 (1985): 689–695; R. T. Rubin, “Mood Changes During Adolescence,” in J. Bancroft and J. Reinisch, eds., Adolescence and Puberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); L. N. Robins and D. A. Regier, eds., Psychiatric Disorders in America: The Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study (New York: Free Press, 1991); N. D. Ryan, D. E. Williamson, S. Iyengar, H. Orvaschel, T. Reich, R. E. Dahl, and J. Puig-Antich, “A Secular Increase in Child and Adolescent Onset Affective Disorder,” Journal of American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 31 (1992): 600–605; J. L. McIntosh, “Generational Analyses of Suicide: Baby Boomers and 13ers,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 24 (1994): 334–342; C. Pritchard, “New Patterns of Suicide by Age and Gender in the United Kingdom and the Western World 1974–1992: An Indicator of Social Change?” Social Psychiatry Psychiatric Epidemiology, 31 (1996): 227–234.

  67 Data for graphs: World Bank, World Development Report 1993: Investing in Health (New York: Oxford University Press for the World Bank, 1993); C. J. L. Murray and A. D. Lopez, The Global Burden of Disease (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996).

  68 American and Finnish studies: P. Räsänen, H. Hakko, M. Isohanni, S. Hodgins, M.-R. Järvelin, and J. Tiihonen, “Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy and Risk of Criminal Behavior Among Adult Male Offspring in the Northern Finland 1966 Birth Cohort,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 156 (1999): 857–862; M. M. Weissman, V. Warner, P. J. Wickramartne, and D. B. Kandel, “Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy and Psychopathology in Offspring Followed to Adulthood,”
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 38 (1999): 892–899.

  ESSAY • THIS LIFE, THIS DEATH

  1 “Minds of men fashioned”: “The U.S. Air Force Song,” ll. 10–13, 15–16, 28. Words and music by Robert Crawford. (Copyright © 1939, 1942, 1951 by Carl Fischer, Inc.)

  2 “And He will raise you”: from “On Eagle’s Wings,” refrain and l. 1 of verse 3. Text and music, 1979, New Dawn Music. Lyrics by Michael Joncas (adapted from Psalm 91).

  3 “As we soar”: from “One More Roll,” by Commander Jerry Coffee (Hanoi, 1968).

  4 “We will run”: “We Will Rise Again,” refrain. Text and music by David Haas, text based upon Isaiah 40, 41. OCP Publications, 1985.

  3 • TAKE OFF THE AMBER, PUT OUT THE LAMP

  1 “It is time”: Quoted in Viktoria Schweitzer, Tsvetaeva (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992), p. 377. Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva (1892–1941) wrote these lines six months before she killed herself. Her friend Boris Pasternak said of her that she was “determined, militant, indomitable. In her life and in her work she rushed impetuously, eagerly, and almost rapaciously toward the achievement of finality and definiteness.” Her work, he wrote, was “immense, violent” and a “great triumph for Russian poetry.” Boris Pasternak, I Remember: Sketches for an Autobiography (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 109–110.

  2 “Suicide notes,” he writes: E. Shneidman, Voices of Death (New York: Bantam Books, 1980), p. 58.

  3 Perhaps one in four does: A review of sixteen studies of rates of suicide notes finds that the percentage of those leaving notes ranges between 10 and 42; the three largest studies of suicides (sample sizes 3,127, 1,418, and 1,033) report rates of 30, 23, and 21 percent, respectively. The most frequently cited study of suicide notes (E. S. Shneidman and N. L. Farberow, “Some Comparisons Between Genuine and Simulated Suicide Notes in Terms of Mowrer’s Concepts of Discomfort and Relief,” Journal of General Psychology, 56 [1957]: 251–256) found that 15 percent of the 721 suicides had left notes. See also J. Tuckman, R. J. Kleiner, and M. Lavell, “Emotional Content of Suicide Notes,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 116 (1959): 59–63; L. B. Bourque, B. Cosand, and J. Kraus, “Comparison of Male and Female Suicide in a Defined Community,” Journal of Community Health, 9 (1983): 7–17; J. A. Posener, A. LaHaye, and P. N. Cheifetz, “Suicide Notes in Adolescence,” Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 1989 (34): 171–176; N. Heim and D. Lester, “Do Suicides Who Write Notes Differ from Those Who Do Not? A Study of Suicides in West Berlin,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 82 (1990): 372–373; R. Chynoweth, “The Significance of Suicide Notes,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 11 (1997): 197–200.

  4 Lo, my name is abhorred: C. Thomas, “First Suicide Note?” British Medical Journal, July 26, 1980, pp. 284–285.

  5 Goodbye, my friend: Sergei Esenin, quoted in Gordon McVay, Esenin: A Life (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1976), p. 288.

  6 Paul Celan, for example: Quoted in J. Felstiner, Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 287.

  7 “The cadence of suffering”: Quoted in D. Lajolo, An Absurd Vice: A Biography of Cesare Pavese (New York: New Directions, 1983), p. 238.

  8 notes ranged in length: I. O’Donnell, R. Farmer, and J. Catalan, “Suicide Notes,” British Journal of Psychiatry, 163 (1993): 45–48, p. 47.

  9 only an explicit warning: A. Leenaars, Suicide Notes: Predictive Clues and Patterns (New York: Human Sciences Press, 1988), pp. 232, 255.

  10 The reasons given: A. Capstick, “Recognition of Emotional Disturbance and the Prevention of Suicide,” British Medical Journal, 1 (1960): 1179–1181; S. L. Cohen and J. E. Fiedler, “Content Analysis of Multiple Messages in Suicide Notes,” Life-Threatening Behavior, 4 (1974) 75–95.

  11 Young children are less specific: J. A. Posener, A. LaHaye, and P. N. Cheifetz, “Suicide Notes in Adolescence”; B. Grøholt, Ø. Ekeberg, L. Wichstrøm, and T. Haldorsen, “Youth Suicide in Norway, 1990–1992: A Comparison Between Children and Adolescents Completing Suicide and Age- and Gender-Matched Controls,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 27 (1997): 250–263.

  12 “No one is to blame”: Quoted in E. R. Ellis and G. N. Allen, Traitor Within: Our Suicide Problem (New York: Doubleday, 1961), p. 183.

  13 The majority of all suicide notes: J. Tuckman, R. J. Kleiner, and M. Lavell, “Emotional Content of Suicide Notes,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 116 (1959): 59–63.

  14 “I used to love you”: Cited in H. Wolf, “Suicide Notes,” American Mercury, 24 (1931): 264–272, p. 265.

  15 “I hate you”: Tuckman et al., “Emotional Content of Suicide Notes,” p. 60.

  16 Suicide notes in general: E. S. Shneidman and N. L. Farberow, “Some Comparisons Between Genuine and Simulated Suicide Notes in Terms of Mowrer’s Concepts of Discomfort and Relief,” Journal of General Psychology, 56 (1957): 251–256; L. A. Gottschalk and G. C. Gleser, “An Analysis of the Verbal Content of Suicide Notes,” British Journal of Medical Psychology, 33 (1960): 195; D. E. Spiegel and C. Neuringer, “Role of Dread in Suicidal Behavior,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 66 (1963): 507–511; D. M. Ogilvie, P. J. Stone, and E. S. Shneidman, “Some Characteristics of Genuine Versus Simulated Suicide Notes,” Bulletin of Suicidology, March 1969, 27–32; R. I. Yufit, B. Benzies, M. E. Fonte, and J. A. Fawcett, “Suicide Potential and Time Perspective,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 23 (1970): 158–163; S. Arbeit and S. J. Blatt, “Differentiation of Simulated and Genuine Suicide Notes,” Psychological Reports, 33 (1973): 283–297; D. Lester, “Temporal Perspective and Completed Suicide,” Perceptual and Motor Skills, 36 (1973): 760; A. A. Leenaars and W. D. G. Balance, “A Predictive Approach to Freud’s Formulations Regarding Suicide,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 14 (1984): 275–283; D. Lester, “Can Suicidologists Distinguish Between Suicide Notes from Completers and Attempters?” Perceptual and Motor Skills, 79 (1994): 1498.

  17 “To whom it may concern”: Quoted in Ellis and Allen, Traitor Within, p. 62.

  18 “Dear Dear Betty”: Wolf, “Suicide Notes,” p. 264.

  19 “I am known to Mr. Herschell”: Anonymous, American Journal of Insanity, 13 (1857): 401–402, p. 401.

  20 “On the one hand”: Ibid., p. 402.

  21 “I wish I could explain it”: Suicide note reproduced in A. A. Leenaars, Suicide Notes: Predictive Clues and Patterns (New York: Human Sciences Press, 1988), pp. 247–248.

  22 “I will be of no use”: Wolf, “Suicide Notes,” p. 271.

  23 “21st.—Slept horribly”: Autobiography of Benjamin Robert Haydon, with an Introduction and Epilogue by Edmund Blunden (London: Oxford University Press, 1927; autobiography first published 1853), p. 399.

  24 “The world I am living in now”: Quoted in M. Iga, The Thorn in the Chrysanthemum: Suicide and Economic Success in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 82–83.

  25 “Do not grieve for me”: Quoted in James Curtis, James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1998), pp. 384–385.

  26 The awareness of the damage done: H. Warnes, “Suicide in Schizophrenics,” Diseases of the Nervous System, 29 (1968): 35–40; R. E. Drake, C. Gates, P. G. Cotton, and A. Whitaker, “Suicide Among Schizophrenics: Who Is at Risk?” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 172 (1984): 613–617; C. Dingman and T. McGlashan, “Discriminating Characteristics of Suicides: Chestnut Lodge Follow-up Sample Including Patients with Affective Disorder, Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorder,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 74 (1986): 91–97; A. Roy, “Suicide in Schizophrenia,” in A. Roy, ed., Suicide (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1986), pp. 97–112; A. A. Salama, “Depression and Suicide in Schizophrenic Patients,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 18 (1988): 379–384; J. F. Westermeyer, M. Harrow, and J. T. Marengo, “Risk for Suicide in Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic and Nonpsychotic Disorders,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disorders, 179 (1991): 259–266; X. F. Amador, J.
Harkavy Friedman, C. Kasapis, S. A. Yale, M. Flaum, and J. M. Gorman, “Suicidal Behavior in Schizophrenia and Its Relationship to Awareness of Illness,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 153 (1996): 1185–1188; K. J. Kaplan and M. Harrow, “Positive and Negative Symptoms as Risk Factors for Later Suicidal Activity in Schizophrenics Versus Depressives,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 26 (1996): 105–121; C. D. Rossau and P. B. Mortensen, “Risk Factors for Suicide in Patients with Schizophrenia: Nested Case-Control Study,” British Journal of Psychiatry, 171 (1997): 355–359.

  27 “It was so queer”: Quoted in Randall Jarrell’s Letters: An Autobiographical and Literary Selection (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985), Mary Jarrell, ed., p. 516.

  28 “I feel certain”: Virginia Woolf, March 18 (?), 1941, in Virginia Woolf, The Letters, vol. 6, eds. N. Nicolson and J. Trautman (London: Hogarth Press, 1975–1980), p. 481.

  29 “Dearest, I want to tell you”: Virginia Woolf, March 28, 1941, ibid., pp. 486–487.

  30 “Everyone who has known me”: Quoted in Bruce Kellner, The Last Dandy: Ralph Barton (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), p. 213.

  31 “A suicide’s excuses”: A. Alvarez, The Savage God: A Study of Suicide (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), p. 97.

  32 In classical antiquity: Anton van Hooff, From Autothanasia to Suicide: Self-Killing in Classical Antiquity (London: Routledge, 1990).

  33 By the nineteenth century, Bierre de Boismont: Data from Bierre de Boismont cited in Henry Romilly Fedden, Suicide: A Social and Historical Study (London: Peter Davies, 1938), p. 344.

  34 Tom Wehr and his colleagues: T. A. Wehr, D. A. Sack, and N. E. Rosenthal, “Sleep Reduction as a Final Common Pathway in the Genesis of Mania,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 144 (1987): 201–204; S. Malkoff-Schwartz, E. Frank, B. Anderson, J. T. Sherrill, L. Siegel, D. Patterson, and D. J. Kupfer, “Stressful Life Events and Social Rhythm Disruption in the Onset of Manic and Depressive Bipolar Episodes,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 55 (1998): 702–707.