The Teen Who Broadcast His Suicide: Why Are So Many Angry At Him?

Besides the overt comments about how he could kill himself while children are starving in China (so to speak), I got the sense that people couldn't understand how he could retain the faculties to plan carefully to "go out in a big way" and yet still be depressed enough to genuinely have the desire to kill oneself.

I have bipolar disorder. And trust me, if you have BP, there is no contradiction between intelligence -- even the ability to plan -- and horrendous mood swings. None at all.

(In fact, the ability to plan is what makes suicide all the more likely when BP is untreated or at least poorly treated, as seems to have been the case for the Florida boy.)

Larry Parker above adds some important information to our understanding of Abraham Biggs' situation.

It is difficult to impossible for those who've never lived with someone afflicted with bipolar disorder to understand that such people can think very logically when it comes to planning and carrying out a suicide. What they often cannot do when in the "down" phase of moodcycling is to see that things can get better. The intensity of happiness in the "up" portion can be just as extreme as being convinced that suicide is the only solution.

Actress Patty Duke wrote about her struggles with moodswings and how they nearly ruined her career and her life before she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It's a very challenging disease to live with, and sometimes controlling the symptoms with medication so that the person can live normally is difficult to do. I have a close relative who had to apply for permanent disability a few years ago when his doctors were no longer able to find a combination of medications that would permit him to function well enough to continue working. Up until that point, he'd been able to lead a pretty normal life for decades. Why the medications that had controlled his symptoms well for so long were no longer effective is not known.

It's sad that so many people still regard suicide as a sign of cowardice and weakness when so often it is the result of mental illness that isn't or cannot be effectively treated.

IS HUMANITY REALLY LOST?
The Unseen Enemy of Humanity
Humanity has but one enemy: it is when self-interest marries ignorance. For out of this unholy wedlock is born the imagined right to do wrong to others, strengthened by the sick belief that the suffering now induced is for their own good.
There is one essential reason why there is so much constant heartache and war on this earth, and why conflict has continued as it has down through the ages. The answer may surprise you. We do not understand our own pain -- our suffering. Six-and-a-half billion human beings live in ignorance of their pain. But this is not to say that we live pain-free.

In fact, without exception, human beings carry on their shoulders and in their hearts massive amounts of pain. No matter what religion you are, you have pain. No matter what part of the world you live in, no matter your economic condition, no matter your social conditioning, no matter the color of your skin -- you have pain. All human beings have pain.

It is because we are presently not aware of most of it, and because we do not understand anything about the nature of it, that ignorance of our pain manifests itself in war. So, even though it isn't a popular topic of conversation among human beings, we must examine our pain if we are ever to gain the understanding to end war for good.

Everything created is born from opposition. Everything destroyed (incidentally, so that something new can be created), is done so by opposition. This is true inside of us just as it is true outside of us in the world and in the greater universe.

Where there is opposition, there is always a form of conflict. In the physical world, this state of conflict is natural and accepted. After the winds pass, and the trees return to their normal state, the trees don't sit and hate the wind. Bacteria don't complain, "I hate the immune system because it wouldn't let me in."

But human beings are different. When we experience opposition and conflict, we resist it. We think about it. We hate the things that we are opposed to. Conflict inside of a human being creates pain. What we fail to realize, however, is that without those opposing forces working their way in us, we could not change. We could not grow. It would be impossible. All things would stop because nothing would be created or destroyed.

So, we must ask: "What is it about this human nature that is different from the nature of the wind and the tree? What is it inside of me that turns what is natural opposition into hate, anxiety, frustration, depression, and pain?" When we look closely at ourselves, we see that all of these negative states find a home and their expression in us due to opposition to what "I want" in any given moment.

For example, one person wants all human beings to be Jewish or Muslim, while another insists they all be Christian or Buddhist. This group wants more money and that group stands in the way. You want me to love you and I am not acting very loving at the moment. I want to be left alone and you won't be quiet. So can we see the real root of conflict here?

I want what I see as necessary for my "peace" of mind, and when you don't want that same peace, in the same way, what happens to me? I get frustrated. And what follows frustration? Anger. And what follows anger? Violence. War. This is why before there can be peace on earth we must learn to see what makes us warring!

These wants -- these unconscious desires -- are the root cause of pain, and thus the root cause of war. We couldn't be frustrated, hateful, or angry because things didn't go our way unless we had a desire -- a picture in our mind -- of how they should go. So we rarely see the world around us as it is. We only see things in relation to how they fit in with our desires.

When the world that we have imagined in our mind does not match the world of reality, we get frustrated. We feel pain. We get angry. We blame things outside of ourselves for the pain we feel inside. And we never see that it isn't the things outside of us that make us feel bad; it is the mechanism of unconscious desire inside of us that is the real cause of our pain.

You do the "math" given what we have discovered. No unconscious frustrated desire, no pain; no pain from frustration, no anger; no anger, no one to blame; no one to blame for my pain, no war.

-- Guy Finley