I am not the type to be given to suicide. That is not my nature. I do not blame anybody who would take their life given the circumstances I find myself in, but as I say, that is not my nature.

Play It Out

As I write this, I recall the recent victory of Gukesh in the chess world championship in 2024, becoming the youngest world champion in chess history. In the last of the 14 games with classical time controls, Gukesh played out a position which every commentator said was a dead draw. It was, except that his opponent, Ding, made a mistake. That mistake lost the match. My nature is to be like Gukesh, and to play out the game come what may.

Generalised Suicide

Now the purpose of this section is not suicide per se, but is motivated by the words of a letter my then counsellor wrote when I was admitted to hospital for the first of two admissions in 2017. She wrote along the lines of 'fears he may commit suicide if forced to take anti-psychotic medication again'. This was not quite accurate, but was the best I could communicate at the time. Given time to think things over in the years after, I have found recourse to define the notion of generalised suicide. So a genuine suicide is also a generalised suicide, but a generalised suicide may not be a genuine suicide.

What Is and Isn't Suicide?

If a person deliberately chooses a course of action that leads directly to their death, that is a genuine suicide. But if a person had the option to choose a course that didn't lead directly to their death, but by not choosing that course met their death, is that still a 'genuine suicide'? And if we replace 'directly' with 'indirectly', what then? If a person smokes like a chimney and that causes them to die of lung cancer, is that suicide? And if a person is on a path that will likely lead to death, but is for some reason mentally incapable of directing themselves away from it, is that suicide?

Anxiety Avoidance and Generalised Suicide

This last one is the point: with an oversensitive Anxiety Avoidance instinct, and with medication to control the Bipolar Disorder damping my brain and with it my capacity to force myself to do things, there arises the possibility that: I may have warning signs for which I need to seek help, but due to the brain-damping effects of medication, may lack the capacity to overcome the Anxiety Avoidance that the implications of those warning signs may give rise to. I may be on a 'train track to destruction', may know I likely am, may know that I actually am, may want to turn away, but may be mentally incapable due to the brain-damping effects of medication. This kind of thing scares me, but alas in 2018, having tried and failed to live without anti-psychotic medication, I had to reluctantly accept that I need them. But in doing so, I had to accept the possibility of this kind of nightmare scenario. I may or may not be in one as I write this, who knows? Anxiety Avoidance and brain-damping mean that I lack the capacity to find out, even if I suspect. (And it mildly triggers anxiety just to write this.)

To bring things back to that letter from a counsellor I mentioned, it wasn't fear of what we would consider 'deliberate suicide' that I was worried about. As I say, that is not my nature. It is the risk of falling victim to what I call 'generalised suicide' that worries me. The pervasive nature of Anxiety Avoidance means that I may be incapable of telling somebody directly, or even giving warning signs. That's just how this Maze works. The Maze, as I say, isn't rational, doesn't listen to reason, just marks out what is Anxiety or Potential Anxiety, and builds walls between me and it, trying to block any and all routes that lead me from where I am to where there is Potential Anxiety. Frustrating, this Maze is, but that's the hand life has dealt me to play, play it I must, and as I say at the top of this page, it is my nature to play the game out to its conclusion, whatever that may be.