The discussion of these two memoirs is personally relevant and timely; today is the one year anniversary of my friend's suicide at 43. He was a carrier of the "blue gene" and is buried in a family plot along with his paternal grandmother who also killed herself in her 40's. My friend was actually born the year she died. It's eerie to read their names and dates written on the same stone.

Many of the excerpted thoughts from Wickersham's book rang true to me; for example, that suicide is an accusation. Many times my friend would become so sullen and angry (he was bipolar) he would simply stop talking to others as if we were dead or deserved to be. Of course, suicide is the ultimate silent treatment.

On the other hand, my friend was very fond of the quote, "when you point a finger, you've got three more fingers pointing back at you." He knew, as Wickersham notes, that the real blame lay within himself, and this made him so angry and disgusted and despondent he decided, "I don't want to be here anymore." Death, for him, was a dark, peaceful place with nobody around, not even himself.

Another passage that hit home was, "If you had the chance to scold him about the havoc his actions will wreak on his loved ones, he'd only assure you that, after an initial sadness, they'll be much better off without them."

One time, when my friend was talking in earnest about suicide and I was explaining what this would do to his parents (among others), he answered curtly, "they'll get over it." I informed him that my father had died over twenty years ago of natural causes and that I still wasn't over it. He was not impressed. His pain took up so much space he had no room for anybody else's.

I then tried the "suicide is the most selfish act" argument, but as Wickersham knows, the suicidal person doesn't dispute this. My friend acknowledged how self-absorbed and selfish he was and decided one day (after a series of devastating setbacks to his already difficult life) that it was high time he did something about himself.

But the line that made me cry, that made me feel as though my friend were talking to me, was neither from Wickersham or Lukas. It was the quote from the Italian writer, Cesare Pavese, who killed himself at 42: "I forgive all, and to you all I ask for me is forgiveness."

Pain is pain, whether psychological or physical, and while I don't condone or encourage suicide, I understand it. I can forgive rather than judge. Ultimately, my friend didn't want to hurt anybody. He just wanted to stop hurting.

Rest easy, Tom. We're still not over it and never will be.

Unchecked clinical depression is a dark sinking hole that causes the sufferer see the world as an alien and hostile place and, yes, if it continues its trajectory it leaves that soul with only one sane choice--self destruction. To add things like "accusation" and "rage" on the part of the sufferer to the discussion is, to me, extraordinarily beyond the point, so much so, as to be trivial. This is something bigger and more insidious than that. I suspect that people as bright as Wallace and Lukas tried to fight their dark, out of control thoughts with that intellect. Sadly, such a strategy has rarely if ever worked. And it is why you will find some of the most haunted and depressed people are also the most intelligent and sensitive. They place too much of a premium on this intelligence...but no intellect has that capacity. And that, for you people who rate humans on intellect, should be humbling.

My heart goes out to you--my mother also suicided, back in 1990. And what was an absolute slap in the face was how many people just HAD to say how selfish she was. Or else they had to blame someone. I could understand that people often didn't know what to say in such a situation, but a simple, "I'm thinking of you--and of your mother--at this time" would have been a comfort.

So...I'm thinking of you, and your mother. I wish you and yours peace and happiness.

re: letter writers in Salon on your David Foster Wallace article.

Nonsensical? Well, gee, thanks from the people who maybe have been touched by suicide or depression for trying to shed some possible light on the situation to be so casually dismissed. Wow, we are all in awe of you self-assuredness. Wish we had it.

But seriously, if you read these letters on this subject please try to understand that some of us (and there are some fantastic letters attached to this story) are trying to give you some insight based on our personal experiences. A little more listening and a little less snap judgment might go a long way to really getting closer to an understanding of suicide.

But then again, that's probably my overly sensitive side reading too much into what you wrote. See how that works? :)

And I agree with figgirl's critique of your you judgment that 'the "fuse" for suicide is blame.' I hope you read her excellent letter carefully - there's great wisdom there and in Osama's too, among others.

Having dispensed with the preliminaries there does seem to be a fascination with finding the one causal factor that can explain a suicide. You mention three rationales people gave for why Wallace might have killed himself. The probable answer is it could have been any or all three of the factors mentioned plus many more perceived and imperceptible.

Try this: instead of looking for the one trigger or one thought pattern consider this -- start with people born with either an overly sensitive nature and/or, for some reason known only to their creator and psychiatry, ineffective coping mechanisms to handle life stressors that most people can handle without falling into deep depressions and/or killing themselves.

Add to that a long string of life incidents that pile up one by one, brick by brick, or perhaps more allegorically, like Marley's chain woven link by link in life. Once that wall or that chain reaches a certain length, height or weight, the tipping point of suicide can occur. Not that it will, but enough pain has built up to finally make the deed a reality.

Sometimes therapy can help unlink the chains or bust some of the bricks down. Whether they are rebuilt enough to cause suicidal action is dependent on too many factors to get into here. But many people with suicidal tendencies from an early age tend to construct elaborate flow charts using if/then thinking to guide their eventual decision to be or not to be, as it were. Many of the letter writers here allude to this. Sometimes the knowledge that suicide is part of a life plan is actually a comfort to the person afflicted. That this is incredible for the non-affected person to understand only points out the very significant differences in thought patterns between suicidal people and those not afflicted.

How does this work?

David Foster Wallace gave a commencement speech at Kenyon College 5/21/05. You can read it at this link: http://tinyurl.com/9j8d3

In it he said the following:

"As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger."

What is so ironic about the essay is that Wallace was giving these young minds a clue to living free of the tyranny of the 'terrible master' whose constant reminders of inadequacy can spiral people toward self-destructive behavior. Wallace knew what the answer was and even he, with his masterful intellect, in some way shape or form which we will probably never know, could not endure. So now I reread his essay every now and then, hoping the lesson might stick.

So many otherwise intelligent and rational people completely understand what is happening to them but become gradually powerless to stop the chain reaction. I KNOW when I'm spiraling downward. No amount of sheer willpower seems to help. It's like being overcome by some kind of 'depression gas.'

But in the end, figgirl is right - the bottom line is pain. And it can be a giant wall or chain of pain so great and so pervasive that one struggles to name it so as to possibly explain it to others but it cannot be explained or described. It simply has to be endured or not. This pain is created, in many cases, by a lifetime' worth of disappointments, losses, grief and inadequacies that our mind has labored to remember and rehash whether we want it to or not - over and over.

I wish people would understand this simple cliche "so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth:" depression hurts - terribly. And sometimes kills.