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Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Denton Memorial

Nancy Hopkins, a biology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology … recalled a telephone conversation this month in which Dr. Denton did not sound like herself.

"The person on the phone was almost gone," Dr. Hopkins said. "I almost couldn't recognize her. It was very upsetting."




This comment was part of an interview Nancy Hopkins gave around the time of Denton's memorial service. It's included in the New York Times account of the service. And it points to the immense difficulty of suicidal situations, especially those involving people one‘s accustomed to thinking of as strong and independent.

In an opinion piece about Denton’s death, and suicide in general, a Santa Cruz-based mental health director writes:

Each of us can help, by not falling for the false representations of psychiatric treatment, by checking in with those who may be at risk, and by acknowledging in ourselves when we may need assistance.


Hopkins is a professor of biology, so presumably she's educated in the outward signs of suicide risk. Even in a mere phone conversation, she noted Denton’s dire condition and found it “very upsetting.” I’m guessing that, in the weeks before that conversation, a number of people who dealt directly with Denton at Santa Cruz picked up plenty of still more upsetting signs.

What did Hopkins do? What did anyone do? Denton’s own partner apparently felt Denton was well enough for the partner to leave her in order to go on a business trip.



Hopkins recognized in Denton what Boris Pasternak recognized in the suicides he knew in his day:

[W]e have no conception of the inner torture which precedes suicide. … The continuity of … inner life is broken… personality is at an end. … What is certain is that they all suffered beyond description, to the point where suffering had become a mental sickness. And, as we bow in homage to their gifts and to their bright memory, we should bow compassionately before their suffering.