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“I had originally planned to kill myself last winter but never got around to it.”

A graduate student at Princeton University kills himself. Before doing so, he writes a long note of explanation.

It’s here.

He was 27. He spent his life trying to lull himself out of feelings of having been deeply and permanently contaminated by a series of rapes he endured when he was a child.

I never liked what alcohol did to me, but it was better than facing my existence honestly. I haven’t touched alcohol or any other drug in over seven months (and no drugs or alcohol will be involved when I do this) and this has forced me to evaluate my life in an honest and clear way. There’s no future here. The darkness will always be with me.

He tried various worthy pursuits.

[N]othing I did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was in any way fulfilling.

Freud suggests that many suicides represent homicidal aggression against others turned against the self, and that seems borne out to some extent here.

I feel an evil inside me. An evil that makes me want to end life. I need to stop this. I need to make sure I don’t kill someone, which is not something that can be easily undone. I don’t know if this is related to what happened to me or something different. I recognize the irony of killing myself to prevent myself from killing someone else, but this decision should indicate what I’m capable of.

In his note, Bill Zeller repeatedly calls himself a “broken” person, and he’s right. Broken long ago, he was never able to put himself back together again.

Margaret Soltan, January 7, 2011 3:47PM
Posted in: STUDENTS

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2 Responses to ““I had originally planned to kill myself last winter but never got around to it.””

  1. Michael Tinkler Says:

    Gosh – that is one messed up story. Zeller’s note is VERY sad, and it is remarkable how well he covered everything up. I guess that goes to show that some folks are not willing to accept ANY help (as his skepticism about counseling professionals and doctors shows). Sad sad sad.

  2. Sia Says:

    Regarding Michael Tinkler’s comment:

    “I guess that goes to show that some folks are not willing to accept ANY help . . .”

    “[T]hat” demonstrates nothing of the kind.

    I can tell you from personal experience that effective “help” from “counseling professionals and doctors” for the kinds of problems from which Zeller suffered is almost non-existent, for all of the reasons Zeller cites, and more.

    “Accepting” help is NOT necessarily the issue. Finding it is. If there is a more screwed-up professional field than medicine, I have yet to find it. Academia included. Zeller’s terrible, moving exit letter makes it very clear that I am not alone, and suggests that there are more than two of us who “cover” well.

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