RIP Bill Zeller
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The old town drunk died. His two sons, the bank president and the new town drunk were at his funeral. An onlooker, surprised at how different the two sons were, asked each one how he turned out the way he did.
The bank president responded, "With a father like that, how else could I turn out?"
The new town drunk responded, "With a father like that, how else could I turn out?"
FWIW, I am like the bank president. I have no idea why. All I know is that no matter whatever anyone ever did to me, it didn't matter. I have no idea if someone who turned out like the new town drunk can change (although I imagine it happens all the time). All I do know is that it is possible for a victim to succeed and overcome all of his "darkness".
If anyone has any history remotely close to OP's and is entertaining similar thoughts, feel free to contact me off-line. I will tell you right now what I'll respond with: absolutely nothing. Because I don't know what to tell you. I don't know how to become successful after being abused. But I do know that it's possible; I am living proof. Sometimes, just knowing that something is possible is enough to pursue it until you get it.
I'm truly sorry that OP's story ended like it did. Especially sorry because I know it could have been different. I just don't know how. Now no one will.
Also carrying a shadow, and I tried to say what you've managed to say so well.
Also available for out-of-the-blue emails should anyone want to chat.
Don't get me wrong ignoring things is also a useful technique for short term pain. However, it's best used for things like planing the funeral etc and if you are still using it after a few years it's really time to try something else / seek help.
I run a successful web firm, and am outwardly a happy-go-lucky manic-type person - out of public view, I drink and brood.
Conversely, my younger brother, who lives with me, is a melodramatic, miserable guy outwardly, but has this inner happiness and contentedness that I've never understood, and have always both envied and feared.
We balance.
We both had equally fucked up childhoods in different ways - I had a father who would beat me and lock me outside in the snow, naked, on Christmas - he had no father of which to speak. I had a cowed, frightened animal of a mother, who'd claw and shriek, he had a mother so fucked up on christ knows what that she just didn't care.
Anyway - went on more of a tangent there than I intended - my point is that more people than you can ever possibly know are "damaged" in one way or another, but their incompleteness can be at least balanced by other people - what seems like meagre support can change someone's life.
http://www.soku.com/search_video/q_tal%20ben%20shahar
I highly recommend learning more about positive psychology and reading Dr. Ben-Shahar's book, "Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment" (2007)
I did not feel sad as much as disgusted that, through our politicians, we have:
A) made illegal the most effective treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder : MDMA
B) continue to support the primary generator of new PTSD cases: war
If you want to do something other than sit around feeling sad for a while, help address one of the above problems and prevent the situation from happening again.
[further reading]
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/artic...
>Ecstasy is the key to treating PTSD At last the incurably traumatised may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And controversially, the key to taming their demons is the ‘killer’ drug Ecstasy
http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/
>For-profit pharmaceutical companies are not interested in developing MDMA into a medicine, because the patent for MDMA has expired. Companies cannot profit off of MDMA because it is only administered a limited number of times, unlike most medications for mental illnesses that are taken on a daily basis. Consequently MAPS is the only organization funding clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in the world
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5334479/ns/health-mental_health/
>1 in 8 returning soldiers suffers from PTSD But less than half with problems seek help, report finds
That said, standing on a political soap box about drug laws and war when Mr. Zeller's primary problem was obviously having been molested is ridiculous. Yes, it's possible that ecstasy in a clinical setting may have helped him, but he was let down in a lot more ways than an inability to get that particular treatment (as he says in the note, he wasn't even seeking treatment).
It's disrespectful to pin this political issue to a man's final note to the world. Even if this was an issue Mr. Zeller felt strongly about, he obviously didn't mean to be some kind of martyr for it.
edited to add: I don't disagree with your point, I just think your timing is awful.
A) You're going to have to do better than The Times, MSNBC, and a pro-psychedelic-legalization think tank to say MDMA is the most effective treatment. I'm not closed-minded to the idea that psychedelic drugs have positive psychiatric applications or that they should be legalized, but there's a lot of literature about treatments overall, and you've offered no comparative studies measuring the difference between MDMA and, for instance, cognitive behavioral therapy.
B) The stereotypical PTSD case is a returning war veteran. If you hadn't noticed, though, wars also tend to kill people and destroy things, and the added weight of PTSD among veterans doesn't change the essential moral calculus that much. Participating in the Vietnam War wouldn't have become a good idea if it wasn't for PTSD, and participating in the Second World War doesn't become a bad idea just because of PTSD.
But there's also no quantification of whether warfare is indeed the primary generator of PTSD cases; it's hard to find reliable statistics about it, but I would bet that most PTSD sufferers in the US are victims of sexual abuse rather than war veterans, since it's probably far, far more common for an American to be raped or sexually assaulted than for an American to join the military, go overseas, and actually participate in combat. Of course, rape isn't something we talk about much.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjvNCijeYlI
They even interview former rape victims and the affect it had on them.
You'll see that the government study listing its negative effects was false, disproved by several independent studies and later withdrawn bu the author, apologizing for his mistakes, like giving meth to his mice, instead of MDMA, oops.
Also, he unintentionally perhaps shed light on programming which a lot of us could relate to,
At times growing up I would feel inconsolable rage, but I never connected this to what happened until puberty. I was able to keep the darkness at bay for a few hours at a time by doing things that required intense concentration, but it would always come back. Programming appealed to me for this reason.
I thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would feel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was in any way fulfilling.
Like Bill Zeller, I retreated into programming at an early age to right a wrong and while programming is a lot of fun; I hid behind a screen to escape personal problems that I thought that the coding marathon high, money & prestige would solve. And the more fun programming got, the worse the issues got and the more I dived into my rabbit-hole.
This is not to take away anything from Bill Zeller; he is an incredible brave man alive and dead. Anyone who went to Trinity knows that it's a very hostile environment for coming out. The fact that he kept coding software then and beyond and kept a completely normal pretense is incredible to me. And I want to thank him for his iTunes ripping software, his inspiration to me when I was at undergrad and his brutal honesty in his suicide note.
I disagree. Maybe it's possible to understand some of what he felt from his eloquent explanation, but I don't think suicide is ever the only solution.
There will be other people reading this, who will be in similar situations. It fills me with so much sadness to think that there might be one who reads this and thinks .. 'yep, that was the right thing to do'.
There isn't anything brave about taking your own life.
I think he lived an extremely difficult life - and I think it ended in tragedy.
It's a tragedy that he was subjected to abuse, it's a tragedy that he wasn't able to ask for (or receive) help and it's a complete and utter tragedy that he ended up taking his life.
It was like a real-life version of a Chalker novel, without the escape of knowing it's just fiction. Horrible to read, given that his extreme eloquence and rationality make it crystal clear what was going on in his mind.
I don't think he was brave to take his life. I think he was brave to continue living it as long as he managed to do so.
What do you base this on? Wishful thinking about the capability of modern medicine? Or a belief that it's a person's duty to live through intolerable pain for the sake of others?
> It fills me with so much sadness to think that there might be one who reads this and thinks .. 'yep, that was the right thing to do'.
It annoys me that so many people will take a person who finally found peace from a life of intolerable pain, and have no thought but 'I would prefer they hadn't done that, to satisfy my abstract beliefs about right and wrong.'
I think the whole thing is very sad, but I feel very gratified to know that he is free of his demons forever.
It could be a personal belief, just like your belief that "he is free of this demons forever" or the fact that he somehow "found peace". I don't see anything wrong with someone believing that suicide is never a good solution.
> It annoys me that so many people will take a person who finally found peace from a life of intolerable pain.
There is something about that statement that is bothering me and again, it is just probably because it clashes against my belief on life, death, etc. matters (so don't take this as a valid reasonable disagreement, just another point of view). The idea that somehow "he" is better now. I emphasize "he" because somehow it implies his continued existence, and that is quite strange. What if "he" doesn't exist anymore so there is nobody to feel at peace?
Does that mean that I would have preferred for him to still be alive and be suffering? Would have that been a better way? I don't think so either, so I am just another confused person.
I guess the best scenario would have been been if he sent out what he sent out but he didn't actually kill himself.
Perhaps naively, I believe that would have helped him, it would have let others know about his problem, and others , maybe even strangers like us, discussing his actions here, could have shared our stories or tried to do something to help.
When I was in college a girl who was a close friend of a close friend killed herself, and I remember experiencing the same kinds of regrets that you are expressing. Wasn't there anything else she could have done? Didn't she know how much people cared about her?
Since then I've experienced things that have given me a different perspective, namely how a person's mind can be a prison of pain that all the external love in the world is a weak opponent against. I feel like Bill captured that when he described how even a relationship with a wonderful person whom he liked very much was sabotaged by his "darkness."
Maybe there is a drug that could have given Bill peace in life, but reading his note I feel almost certain that nothing anyone could say or do would have soothed his torment.
I don't dislike the idea of suicide because of a sense of morality. I think suicide should be avoided because it's so utterly final.
Your opinion also involves an abstract belief, don't forget that.
I'm an atheist - I don't think that heaven or hell awaits us when we die. I believe, when we die we cease to exist.
Your point of view only makes sense if one accepts the idea that nothing can be improved. If we accept that there's no hope left in the world - why bother at all?
There are whole fields of science dedicated to helping people improve their outlook on life after living with abuse. It's irresponsible to dismiss the options that are available.
I still feel suicide isn't the only - or best - solution.
How, really?
Also, he unintentionally perhaps shed light on programming
By killing himself?
Like Bill Zeller, I retreated into programming
Did you kill yourself?
It's difficult to read what you have to say as anything but self-absorbed wankery but perhaps I've got it totally wrong.
I don't think the OP was trying to be insensitive - but it's not possible to take anything good from this act alone. The only possible positive thing that can result is increased personal understanding of the challenges that our own friends and acquaintances might be going through.
---
There's something that we need to understand about depression, suicidal depression: a depressed person can commit all their intellectual powers to rationalizing the awful feelings they have about themselves and the future. Someone sufficiently sharp can make an almost impenetrable cage out of these arguments. Their ideas can have the force of fact, of truth itself.
We find what we look for. Even the arguments we make to ourselves have their stakes and motivations. Mr. Zeller's written a great defense here of the futility of his own existence. He was apparently a smart guy; had I been there myself, I doubt I'd have been able to refute him. However, that he wins the argument doesn't mean that what he believes is true. It doesn't mean that he gets to have me respect his decision.
This is a hard thing, and ever so important for people dealing with someone who is depressed to this degree. Depressed folks can be very sharp, so we shouldn't let this kind of logic take us in. There is something deep and fundamental about life or death that an argument cannot sway; if my friend just can't go on and I can't find a problem with their reasoning, that doesn't mean I have to respect their decision. I just haven't found why they are wrong yet.
I don't believe that suicide is always wrong. I do believe that the lives we value should not be given up easily, and that we should not be easily swayed by the death wish words of the departed who we so dearly miss, mourn, and respect.
As for finding a reason where he is wrong, I'd say his dismissal of the counseling community was a bit swift because I know the difference between a good therapist and a bad therapist; but really that's beside the point.
The bottom line isn't about the acceptance of some "objective" truth. The only thing that would have mattered is if you could have guaranteed to Bill that there was a way for him to fix the problem and feel better. If there wasn't a way, then it's cruel of you to think he should have forced himself to endure a tortured existence just because you have an axiomatic objection to suicide. The truth is no one can say for sure whether there was a better solution for Bill, but since he spent 23 years dealing with it and wrote a pretty compelling piece, I'm gonna take his word over yours.
The real burn is that he not only didn't want to put his rapist in jail, but was terrified of any steps that might remotely end up in that possibility. It's certainly very sad, but it's also, not to mince words, fucking cowardice that might even lead to seeing this tragedy repeated.
I don't want to be harsh, but we cannot cannot cannot talk about this stuff as positive or rational at all. Because it not only isn't, but these patterns of thought are extraordinarily dangerous to someone who might think they are rational.
Having grown up abused by my own parents (in all ways except sexually), I identify with a lot of what he says. I used to think of suicide daily, now I just think of death. Counseling (sans drugs) is what helped me get there. It's good and bad now, but there's a positive trend.
I think what saddens me most about this note is his experience with counseling professionals (though he does use the word doctor, so "counselor" might not be totally accurate). My counselor's office is where I most feel like myself, it's where I feel safe. If only Bill had a situation like that, he might still be here today.
I didn't know the guy personally, but I've read stories like this before, and one thing that stands out to me is how amazing some people that have been through trauma like this are. He went through all the hell that he did, dealt with it on a daily basis, yet still had the capacity to do great work, to make people laugh, to attract others to him, and to generally do awesome things (http://blog.from.bz/2009/03/01/sudo-make-me-a-sandwich-stub-...).
Do yourself a favor and read the note all the way through. Pass it around. Remember that in general, half of the people you see every day have it shittier than you do. Try not to be a jerk.
He said he never talked to nobody about his situation, but it's impossible to have a good relationship with a great secret like that. He mentions his darkness, but I don't think that's what ended his relationships.
He also mentions counselors reading notes from previous sessions, but to me that's a sign they were doing their job properly; as they say "the devil's in the details".
I replied to you, seeing that you've got the same problems. I've suffered depression at some point, I can relate (somewhat), and I've gotten over it by being sincere about my problems with everybody and by fixing whatever I could fix (instead of hiding / ignoring them).
I've never had a counselor actually read notes in front of me. They do have notes, and they do read them, but not while we're in a session. When that happened to him I imagine he felt more like a patient than a peer (for lack of a better word). It's disappointing to me because that's what counselors are for — they're supposed to create an opportunity for someone like Bill to open up. It's clear to me he didn't like holding his trauma as a secret but was afraid of it being used against him somehow.
Relationships are just an escape. He was aware of himself enough to know that, which is (was) a good sign. Darkness like his allows you to feel like you're head over heels in love in one moment, and then in another wonder WTF the point is if we're just going to die anyway. It's as if it were a drug. And like a drug, its efficacy fades over time.
Good for you for being able to be honest and open about your problems! That takes balls.
One technique that's worked while I'm in a depressed state is to just expect & accept it. When I get into a funk and think about how all I do is feel depressed, I tell myself, "No shit Yogi, of course you're going to feel this way, look at all the crap you have to deal with". Those few words don't get rid of the sad feeling, but it helps me get past it. I feel like that's all most people need, a way to get on with it.
Even after years of therapy, I'm still amazed at how trained our brains can become. Unfortunately for many, that hard wiring forces them into a downward spiral, where from it's harder and harder to recover.
Sometimes I wonder how my counselor deals with telling me the same thing again and again for months. And then I sign her check :)
Seems like this is a book worth checking out, thanks!
> "I will never know what uncontimated intimacy is like. I will never have an exclusive bond with someone, someone who can be the recipient of all the love I have to give."
So much of what he talks of, even i have suffered _without_ having been sexually abused. He did not realize that many feeling/thoughts he had, come and go in all humans, if they come to his mind. It's fine to just ignore them like all the dust that flies about us.
Please also check out the youtubes of one Mooji. They have greatly deepened my practice.
I can relate to that part of the note. With one (minor?) exception, I've never seen a proper doctor about my issues, but I've been to a number of counselors over the years. Almost all of them have been completely useless to me, because I can clearly see that I'm not safe there.
I think it's a bit like the situation Mr. Zeller faced. I don't want to go far into my issues, because this isn't the place for that and, even if it were, my issues are nothing compared to his, but suffice it to say that in high school I was pretty concerned about my ability to manage my anger. I managed to tell a guidance counselor this, one I'd known since I started high school (she had first been my French teacher, then was assigned to me when she transitioned into counseling), and asked to be referred to a counselor before I hurt someone.
When I was with the counselor, however, although I was there explicitly because I was worried about hurting people, I was always measured in my responses. I limited what I said because I was always trying to determine where exactly the line was where a counselor becomes legally obligated to report me to someone, and I tried my damnedest to stay on my side of that line. It limited what I said, and it limited how much I could get out of the experience, and so ultimately everything broke down and the counselor more or less told me to come back when I was willing to actually talk. I ended up getting basically nothing out of the experience, except for some extra time with my grandparents since they lived near the counselors office. Considering my grandfather died in April, and I still think of him every day, I suppose I should be grateful for the experience because even if I got fuck all out of the actual counseling, I still got to see my grandparents more.
Getting over any recurrent destructive mood is much like a war. First you need to go to war, then you need strategies, you need to work on it and there's going to be pain involved, with multiple battles won and lost.
Going to counseling is one way to do it, another would be medication, or support groups or just good friends that care. Either way you have to deal with it and it isn't warm and cozy.
For a person dealing with trust issues, this sort of realization shatters any chance of progress, at least in my personal experience.
I can't feel safe if I think I could say the wrong word and have the cops drag me off for questioning. That's why I never got anywhere with counseling. For a person with trust issues, it's extremely important that you feel safe in counseling since you're making yourself extremely vulnerable by exposing yourself to them.
I've since dealt with a lot of my issues on my own. I haven't hurt myself intentionally in over two years, and that was an anomaly. It had been over two years since I had last hurt myself at that point.
The point is that these aren't easy problems, and there are no easy solutions.
I've had a couple really good counselors, and the sense of trust and genuine caring is actually better than with most friends. Part of it is that there are no social dynamics to worry about within a group of friends, and another is that this person is a professional who has a much greater chance of having the tools and experience to deal with what are very difficult and private issues.
Now my issues were not with trust, so I'm not trying to say that trust is easy. All I'm saying is that there are counselors out there who are worthy of your trust.
Depending on the situation, it can take a patient a lot of time to even begin to have this thought.
But — obviously nothing is that black and white, especially not after just a few sentences of background information. Just as there are crap professors, there are crap counselors. If you ever give it another shot, I'd suggest seeing a few of them (first sessions can usually be free) and finding one you feel comfortable with.
I agree that it might not be the right place to get really deep into this. Feel free to email me.
I have trust issues in addition to the anger issues (the anger issues are mostly controlled now, though the trust issues remain) and so I could never feel free to open up to a counselor because that would make me vulnerable. If you have a minor problem but opening up leaves you vulnerable to major complications, then you're understandably less likely to open up because the risk isn't worth the reward.
Counselors are a bit like HR. In theory, they can help you, but in practice they're often not worth the risk since putting anything into "official channels" makes everything formal and there are rigid procedures to follow. I'd rather talk to a friend than a counselor, just like it's often better to informally take problems up with your manager rather than reporting the issue to HR.
Reminds of an unattributed quote I heard somewhere:
Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.
I was luckier in a way that altered the course of my life, I let slip to a friend in college that I had a secret. I had no intention of telling him of course, but then he went ahead listing dozens and dozens of possible secrets until he skipped over mine. So I took a chance and I told him and he accepted me.
Looking back, that was the first crack in the darkness. People like me and Bill Zeller might only drop a hint that something is wrong once in our lives, don't be afraid to go chasing after it.
Thanks for finally sharing Bill, rest in peace now.
What I'm saying is: seek professional help. If you feel like you can't go on anymore, seek professional help. Talking helps. Let go of the secrets that keep eating you up alive. Share them with at least one person, be it a friend or a professional. But under no circumstance keep them to yourself until they kill you. Some of them weigh too much too carry them alone. Let someone help you.
He tried to trust people at Trinity but they spread his secrets. He knows that doctors and counselors have allowances for when they can disclose information. He probably floated personal information his whole life to people to see if they could be trusted. I bet each secret came back to him from another party. He couldn't find a person to trust so he didn't disclose his ultimate secret.
He only wanted 1 person. He could deal with 1. Maybe years later 2 people, but for now just 1. Not 1 in an anonymous posting online. Not 1 in a chat room. 1 right in front of you.
The problem is that there isn't 1. Some people can deal with that, being open and all. For some, the quest for 1 is the goal, and realization that there isn't 1 is hard to take. It doesn't help.
I read a lot of me in that letter. I am 29 now. Will I make it to 30? Yes. 35? Maybe. 40? ...
This is true, but I think that it would be possible to find a counselor that would not disclose any information, even if they were technically allowed to do so. Furthermore, it seems possible to me that such secrets could be partially disclosed to a counselor in a way in which there would be no incentive for that counselor to pass along the information to another party.
Not having been in this kind of situation before, I can't imagine how horrible it would be to harbor such a secret for a lifetime, and perhaps for Bill the sheer weight of it made it impossible for him to tell anyone. But, I would just like to try to make the point that there are viable options other than keeping secrets bottled up.
As for your final comment, I sincerely hope that you can find the help that you need to make it through whatever it is that is distressing you.
To understand where Bill is coming from you really need to hop into his shoes. He tried to trust people but they violated that trust. Regardless of the reasons for doing that, they didn't keep his secret. What he told them was much less important to him than his ultimate secret. If they can't keep those smaller secrets, why can they keep the big one?
For better or worse all of the other things he told people were tests. Who can keep this secret? You, ok, I will let you in on a little more, then a little more, then a little more. But no one kept all of them, so no one could complete the journey to the last one.
Bill had no reason to trust a doctor. Everything in his life confirmed the exact opposite - no one is to be trusted, everyone will tell your secrets. Everyone always has that one person that they want to tell, but no worries, it's ok, that person won't tell anyone.
Yup, but everyone has that person. And unfortunately for Bill, he wasn't able to find someone to tell, and have their "one person" be Bill, thus keeping his secret between two, and only two, people in this world.
Besides, I don't think contemporary community standards would consider coming out as gay as being a small secret.
Generalizing further, it really isn't fair for me to classify any of these as big or small. One person may consider coming out as gay as no big deal and hide past sexual abuse, while another may consider disclosing past sexual abuse as no big deal and not disclose sexual orientation. It isn't for me to decide which is bigger than the other.
> Besides, I don't think contemporary community standards
> would consider coming out as gay as being a small secret.
I think that might only affect the number of people that are told, though. Rumor mill will spread like wildfire. Trauma will be told to one other person, and the one other person will probably keep it to himself.
It is possible that the first person won't disclose further. Bill seems to have made a general social commentary about finding that person is very difficult. He couldn't trust his family. He tried friends and that didn't work. Counselors wouldn't work.
How many people do you have to try? Many people say try until you die of natural causes. Others say this was enough.
But I do believe that it is much more probable that everyone has a personal outlet with whom they speak. Life is hard. (Can I even say that absolutely? Although completely foreign to me, I suppose there are people out there that don't have hardships in life.) People need to vent to someone, share some close or special with someone, and make a connection.
Without that people explode. This is one way people without that outlet explode.
"How do you know? How do you really know you can trust me?"
"I don't. That's what trust is."
We had mutual friends and I met him a few times. He had his own "darkness" just like Bill Zeller.
I do wonder if places like Princeton bring out the darkness in people there. I enjoyed my time there but spent the last year of it in and out of counseling and more depressed than I ever hope to be again.
There were some good counselors there in the health center who were kind and patient. It's too bad Bill wasn't able to connect with one of them.
A lot of the problem is with the town. The "town" of Princeton is a sham propped up to impress visiting students. There's really not a whole lot there. Meanwhile, students are required to live in dorms all 4 years, which gives them a really artificial "home life" that doesn't help ground you very much either.
I lived and worked in the town of Princeton for two years after graduation and it was a thoroughly depressing and isolating experience. Unless you're a member of the university community, there's just nothing there to get excited about. You have to leave on the train for the day to do anything interesting.
As to your contention that there is "not a whole lot there", I would just give you Labyrinth Books as Exhibit A: one of the best bookstores on the East Coast IMO.
I'm a little more open to your feeling that Princeton is isolated, but originally there was a reason for that. A lot of American schools are in the middle of nowhere. At one time this was a selling point for parents: they felt better sending their kids to schools where there was little chance of big-city trouble to get into like NY or Chicago (for example). It is a genuine tragedy if Bill Zeller fell victim to isolation that was originally planned to protect students, not psychologically alienate them.
I hate that word 'actionable'. Every time I hear it used it is with the implicit assumption that the only information of value is information that is directly 'actionable', which is completely false.
There is also information that enlightens, that expands our understanding of ourselves, other people, or the world, that changes our perspective, or answers why things are the way they are, that is equally or more valuable. That kind of knowledge is not directly 'actionable', but often shows the way forward.
The psychologist Milton Erickson showed that people innately know what they need to do overcome internal problems, but sometimes need an external impetus to realize and do it. Erickson found ways of providing that impetus with mirroring, indirect logic, and reframing, among others. Too bad Bill never found someone like that.
I wish he would have left a note like this behind to know why he did it.
I realize this comment doesn't add much value to the conversation, I'm just thinking out loud. Thanks.
While it is a shame to see someone take their life, I can't help but agree that it is not selfish to commit suicide, but rather it is selfish to make someone live with the pain they are enduring. This doesn't make it OK, nor should people take that route, and at all costs should someone do their best to get the help they need - because no matter what, there is someone who can and will listen to you when it comes down to it. In the end though, don't hold it against the person if this is their ultimate decision - and think about try to remember them for the positive things that they stand for. When my best friend killed himself in front of me, I didn't know what to do, or how to react - I now understand and forgive him for everything, even though I think it could have been better for him in the long run if we had spent 15 minutes talking about his problems...
My condolences to his family and friends. I wish him peace and serenity - he deserves it.
Thanks for doing that much. A lot of people would be frozen in shock upon receiving something like that.
He was so afraid to let the secret out... maybe that needs to be made easier...?
I have no idea--I can't even begin to empathize with how difficult that must have been to live with.
If anything, this letter, and any suicide, can have the positive influence on the rest of us, encouraging us to reach out to those around us who are pained or troubled in anyway to just kind of try and lift their burdens for a moment.
Sorry if that sounds unrealistic, but there's been two suicides in my neighborhood in the last 6 months, and in both cases I think if there'd been more public discussion of options, more open discussion in society about feeling like there's no way out and what you can do when you feel that way, if there had been people who had been willing to tell people, "Hey, I know you've got issues, but I'm willing to be your friend anyway..." that in some way their lives perhaps could have been altered.
So the lawyer may have kept his confidence, but may have had the option to disclose.
Unfortunately, not the steel trap that Bill was looking for.
A catholic priest may not reveal anything he learned during the confession, no exceptions. That's the only "profession" I know with such a strong promise of confidentiality.
"Can. 983 §1. The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason." http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P3G.HTM
And then make sure that people with trust issues find them. This would surely save many lifes. Why aren't we doing this?
(Assuming that wasn't rhetorical): By treating people with real respect and gentleness. You never know whom you are dealing with or how your behavior will impact them.
I was molested and raped as a child, something I'm pretty open about. For me, a big deal moment was after the birth of my second child when the doctor took off his gown and, apparently without really thinking about it, gently wiped some of the blood off of me. I have no idea what his name was. The birth of my second child happened pretty fast, so I interacted with this man for probably 15 minutes or less. I had never known a man to be that gentle or considerate before. I have no reason to think he ever had any idea how big of a deal that one action was to me. It made a big psychological and emotional impact and I still remember it with some clarity -- how startled I was and how strange and wondrous it seemed -- more than 21 years later (even in spite of the 9 or 10 years I was doped to the gills on prescription and non-prescription medication for a serious medical crisis, which has left me with "swiss cheese for brains"). It occupied my mind for some weeks afterwards, if not longer.
Peace.
I don't know. I just can't comprehend it.
I know I will be.
That's the majority of them. Sadly.
I know the intent is not to be disrespectful in any way, but the letters RIP just seem so inappropriate for such a serious and important sentiment.
I met Bill when we interned at the same company during the summer of 2009. He was a very reserved guy, not shy or introverted --or maybe a little--. During a boring afternoon, I remember googling him and finding out that he was the who wrote MyTunes.
This was then my first foray into the tech industry and right there I was chatting it up with the guy who wrote that random piece of software that became a hit at my school. It was very weird for me and I think I made it weird for Bill for a while too because I made such a big deal out of it.
I'd not say we became good friends but I became someone Bill would at least come say hi when we had stuff together as interns and that made me feel special. We talked about random things several times, we had one particular fun conversation about life in CT and another about deanonymizing data from AOL search results.
During that summer, Bill transformed from being a rather chubby guy to a decent looking man; I think he had put pictures of himself before and after the summer. It was kind of humbling as I was kind of trying to do the same but couldn't pull it off like he did.
Once the internship was over, we became friends on Facebook and talked randomly every once in a while. Maybe a few times at best. I liked his status updates, he liked mine. Stuff like that.
So few days ago, I woke up sick at 6AM (PST) and kind of involuntarily logged in to Facebook. I saw his status update which was just "Note: <link>". I clicked on it and there it was, that note. Sitting in my bed, reading the first paragraphs, I wasn't sure if this was something he wrote, something he wanted to share or some sort of random writing. It took me a few passes of the first few paragraphs to realize that this was what I thought it was.
Once I realized that, I started shivering. I knew I had to do something but wasn't sure what I had to do. I saw my RA from college was online; I told him that I think I saw a suicide note on Facebook and I was calling the police. He told me that I should first call my friend but I didn't have Bill's #.
So I looked up the Princeton PD's phone number and gave them a call. As soon as I mentioned "Bill Zeller", they transferred me first to a "safety official" and then to another.
The gentlemen on the phone told me that "someone has found him" and they "took him down for treatment". I asked him about his condition but all he'd say was "he is receiving treatment". They took down my phone number and my name and I hung up.
As a response to what I realized has happened, I sent Bill a pretty lengthy message on Facebook. I told "him" that I wasn't qualified to say anything about his pain but I would be very upset to see a man like him perish. I told him a part of the MyTunes story, probably the 10th time now. I told him that things, however shitty, might become would get better. I felt like I had to tell him that I cared. I told him to "hit me up" when he comes to SF. I think we had a brief conversation on Facebook when I posted something about moving to SF and how he'd say hi.
It feels very weird that I sent that message now. No idea if anyone is going to read it. If I believed in god or after-life, I would have hoped that he'd see it.
Now I saw the news, weirdly on HN before anywhere else. I read the MeFi link and all the comments here; I saw Karan's comments about how he called Princeton PD too. This is all weird to me and I have no idea why I am writing this. Some sort of self-help, I guess.
I checked his Facebook account. It's bizarre, it really is. This is not the first suicide of someone I knew or the first suicide of someone on Facebook whose profile I can see. People are commenting, posting things. There are a few comments like "I hope you can pull thru", posted around the time his condition become public and then it becomes all condolences as the news of his passing is heard.
It is weird to see him posting photos of a random desert he made a few days before he hung himself.
I don't want to turn this into a cheesy "how technology has life and death" thing so I'll stop here.
When I read the note, what stuck wasn't that he was abused but how big of a secret he had and still couldn't do anything about it. Or even more than that, how something like this ate him up from the inside, consumed him. That just makes me look at people around him and wonder. And then I feel childish, for wondering for things like that.
I had a really big mistrust for most people around me, caused by a rather traumatic incident. Nothing too extraordinary, I just took it badly. I felt like everyone around me was out to get each other. I don't think I ever considered suicide but I remember thinking that I'll carry that scar for the rest of my life.
I wish that Bill could get help. As others have said, there are people you can trust your secrets with, maybe not your friends but professional counselors. I cannot get myself to say "I respect his decision" as this is someone taking their life and I wish he didn't perish like this but part of me feels that at least he won't suffer the way he had been apparently.
I'll take a few moments today to think about my issues, things that make me upset and will try to talk to someone about them. Maybe I'll drink a bit, talk to some friends about some of my issues, most of which are admittedly minor. I hope everyone who reads the news of Bill takes a few moments to think about their life and how they can help themselves. Maybe that way, he'll have helped others handle their problems and not do what he did.
But No. I don't want to believe in that.
Also, I really don't understand his situation. Only the one with the injury knows how painful it is. But I really wish the nice people don't leave the world so soon for a stupid reason.
It was scary to read his explanations why he can not open up. We can send some peace Bill's soul's way if we learn the situation a bit better and try to be more helpful to people who might be in trouble.
see you some day bill.
(clearly the promoters of the comment above either didn't read the note, or have absolutely no sense of respect for what Bill said, ATROCIOUS)
More than anything, the next time I feel wronged or judgemental - I'm going to make more of an effort to give the benefit of the doubt. The world isn't black or white - the shades of grey seem to increase with every day.
Really, really sad.
http://1000Memories.com/BillZeller
If you knew Bill, please join his page.
What was most telling was his utter disgust for his parents, to the extent he loathed them even more than he loathed the person who molested him and caused darkness to reign over his life. And most ironic is that his parents believed abandoning him for the love of God was in their and his best interest. I am a Christian, and it sickens me what they have done because of what they believed as him not being "saved."
I want to believe him, that he took his life because of the "darkness" in his life, resulting from being molested as a child. But I am still puzzled that he never spoke a word of disgust about the person who molested him. This was shocking, considering he laid into his friends who couldn't keep a secret, he mercilessly criticized his parents, yet never mention a bad word about the molester, only the "darkness."
Unless, and this might be huge, the "darkness" is his father. He said his mother loves him at one point, but he never said a good word about his dad. He only criticized his father (while criticizing both parents). I am beginning to think his father is the one who molested him, considering everything in his letter.
The letter was very important, because it allows the reader to carefully study and try to understand what might have caused this young man to take his own life. Though being molested caused him much trouble and "darkness" throughout his life, I believe his parents are partly to be blame for his mindful decline into frightful and terrifying non-existence. And the big secret in his letter is probably that his father molested him.
I never met Bill in person, but we collaborated on a couple projects and used to exchange random e-mails and IMs. He was a bright guy and I enjoyed our correspondence. His note is heartbreaking, and I hope he has finally found peace.
I thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would feel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was in any way fulfilling.
I'm annoyed at how stupid it is. And how, until recently, I wouldn't even have noticed. Let me translate to illustrate:
I desperately wanted to see what was on top of that hill over there. I thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would find out what is at the top of the hill. But nothing I did made a dent in my knowledge
Wouldn't that be silly? Wouldn't that make you wonder what he was thinking? Wouldn't you say "so go climb the hill. That's what you need to do and that's all you need to do. Forget the distractions. Go over there. Climb the hill as high as you can and keep trying every few days until you build up the fitness to get to the top".
Yet you see the note of the guy and you feel sorry for him and how hard he tried to keep living and how much he struggled and what pain he was in and he missed this concept completely. If you want peace you need to work on peace and why you can't be at peace and changing yourself so you can. If you want to not be haunted you need to work on not being haunted and if you want to be happy you need to work on being happy and how you can be. Not on grad school or weight loss or gym work or anything else. Your life isn't unhappy, your thoughts are unhappy. Don't improve your life, improve your thoughts. It might not work, but the other way cannot work.
If your code isn't working right, you'll never ever ever fix it by going to the gym. You will only stand any chance of fixing it if you look for the bugs in the code that isn't working and out from there. If you have been hurt and can't be happy, you need to work out how to feel happy even though you got hurt. That's it. That mental adjustment is where the bulk of your energy should be going. Learning to change it and trying repeatedly until you succeed.
It's so frustrating to look at it and see him basically saying "I skirted around my problems all my life and suffered horribly, and when they didn't magically go away I decided they were completely unfixable".
You can feel however you like about whatever you like. This definitely extends to feeling good even when bad things happen. Maybe not all bad things, but many. It may not extend to PTSD. What's frustrating is that he believed he was unfixable without any solid basis for that belief - without talking to a single expert, even - then made the biggest and last decision of his life based on this conclusion.
It's not cowardly or morally inferior or anything like that, it's just ... a strategy that stands a low chance of helping.
No, not because of what happened to him, because almost nobody thinks that way in our society so there's no reason why he would.
Is there anything in your life which hurts to think about? Have you ever dedicated yourself to working out why it hurts and how to stop it hurting, or do you continually avoid thinking about it? I'm guessing that there is, and that you avoid it because it's never even crossed your mind that it might be fixable.
And that it's almost certainly not crossed your mind to start by assuming it is fixable and then try as many techniques as you can find and keep trying hard and practising them and looking for more and not giving up until you have found one that works. Because, you know, everyone suffers and suffering is normal. Isn't that sad?
And I do assume that it's fixable because, at one point, I was not bothered or unhappy or depressed. So I assume that whatever it is that's upsetting me, I can find out the cause, fix it, and return to being ok.
Edit: the source is available at https://github.com/zackster/CompassionPit - looking to add a few features... send me an email if you are available.
I welcome your thoughts
Rest well, Bill. I never knew you directly but after this insight into who you were, I do wish I had.