Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

In 2001, I hiked from Florida to Quebec with a group of five others, to raise money for a hunger charity. When we passed through Boston, a friend of mine loaned me this book. This book is a history of suicide, written by someone who has been manic-depressive and suicidal. The history is well-researched, complex, extensive, and disturbing. At times, reading this book was like wrapping my mouth around the exhaust pipe of a truck, with clouds of soul-corroding blackness filling every corner of my being. The book just contains so much sadness and grief: the sadness of the depressed people who have taken their own lives...the grief of their families...and the seemingly unreconcilable wrongness of a world where these sort of things happen all the time. When I read it, everything I read seemed to be about my older sister, LeeAnne. The descriptions of depression all seemed to be about her, about how she behaved and talked, and in all of the accounts, the depressed people then killed themselves, or tried to. They died, and were gone forever. It terrified me, but I was relieved to have read this, and I felt like I'd read it just in time. Night fell fast, the other hikers and I made camp in a rainstorm in a dense, wet grove of trees in New Brunswick, Canada. I left my tent and gear to go find a payphone at the flooded parking lot of a nearby truckstop. I called my sister and left a message; I told her I loved her, and told I would call her back that week. In hindsight, I should have called every hour of every day until I reached her. In hindsight, I should have called every family member and had them call her too. Because, two days later, my sister was dead. Dead from too many Ibuprofen and sleeping pills. Dead for the rest of my life. Dead forever. This book is a warning, a thoroughly researched, scientifically and emotionally valid look at depression and suicide. Anyone who has a depressed family member or friend needs to read this. So does anyone who has been depressed themselves--though maybe not while depressed, as it might give you ideas. Your soul will darken for a while after reading this, but you will also become more aware. My family and I use to joke about how my sister was always so gloomy, but this book will show you that depression is not something to laugh about. It's serious. This book could save your life, or the life of someone you love...if you read it soon enough...if you act on what you've read. If you act now.

It was a little over a month ago that I attempted to take my own life. In my recovery, I've found Dr. Jamison's study of the history and science behind suicide a great comfort. This is not a self-help book. However, it has helped me in gaining understanding behind the reasons why I did attempt suicide. Dr. Jamison also brings to her writing a very personal understanding of the subject. A psychiatrist, she not only has dealt with suicide on a clinical level, but also a personal level. She herself attempted suicide as a young adult and has experienced depression, and she recounts her experience in dealing with a close friend who killed himself.As noted in other reviews, there are many facts and statistics presented. This is important, as it dispels many myths regarding suicide, and brings attention to a true public health issue.

This was a wonderfully informative book to help people with mental illness and their families understand what is going on in the mind. It was very helpful to read when not depressed, but I question the safety of reading it if someone is seriously contemplating suicide. This book leaves nothing to the imagination of exactly how to kill yourself. It is very descriptive. It could not have been written by anyone who had not actually walked the halls of depression. I found it interesting that this person (Kay Readfield Jamison) was and is a mental health professional. I also find it interesting that she made a pact of no self harm with another professional and he was not able to keep that contract. She definately writes from the heart and did some pretty hair-raising research for this book.

This book isn't an easy read: some chapters are heavy on statistics, while her stories of people who committed suicide (ranging from the explorer Meriwether Lewis to some equally dashing contemporaries) are often painful to read. Still, it's a vitally important book for two reasons. In spite of the immense advances made in the mental health field in recent decades, the subject of suicide, and the depressive illnesses that precede it, is still surrounded by misinformation and veiled in shame. Jamison's courageous discussion of her own struggles with depression, and the information she assembles in this book, are helping to dispel some of the fog. In addition, as she points out, depressive illnesses are a major public health problem (especially in the young) and are often misdiagnosed and undertreated; removing the stigma and raising people's awareness of the prevalence of these illnesses are major steps towards solving the problem. As someone who went through several deeply depressed, suicidal phases in my teens, I know that the hardest part is the feeling of isolation: I believed that I was the only person who felt this way, so it must stem from something wrong with ME; but when I told the adults around me that I was depressed, they'd laugh and say I had no reason for it and was just being melodramatic, and that made me feel even more depressed. (The only reason I'm alive today is that, at my lowest times, I had no access to a sure-fire method of doing myself in.) If I'd known at the time that my problem was solvable and not at all unique, my teen years would have been considerably less agonized. My only quibble with the book is that she seems to argue that suicidal depression ALWAYS and ONLY results from physical causes, whereas I know of several cases (my own included) in which an individual's inborn tendency towards depressive thinking was aggravated into full-blown depression by his/her circumstances. Again, depression isn't an on/off switch -- there are degrees of depression, some amenable to a "talking cure" while others require medication -- and I feel she focuses too intensely on the latter, although, from her statistics, that seems to be the kind that often leads to suicide. But these are minor quibbles; in general, the book is convincing and rather scary, and I feel that everyone in the helping professions (from high school teachers to psychiatrists) should read it.

Not since "The Savage God" by A. Alvarez has a book covered such a difficult subject with compassionate insight and personalized depth. Doctor Jamison writes about her own attempt at suicide due to continuing and maddening bouts with manic-depressive illness. She then continues and opens a window to allow the reader to observe the misconceptions and myths surrounding the issues of suicide. Her concerns and critiques on suicide are remarkably objective considering all she had to go through personally and professionally to write this book. It was also written with insight that transends personal experience, and written without judgement on those who have committed or attempted suicide. I would recommend that one read "The Unquiet Mind" first by Dr. Jamison in order to gain a insight into the background of "Night Falls Fast". To me, Dr. Jamison's books have dislodged my own misplaced notions of suicide and mental illness and have allowed me to understand that compassion and open-mindedness are strong allies that can be used to begin to rid the world of this terrible affliction.