Annie RUOK? RUOK Annie?
The fallout from recent celebrity suicides of designer Kate Spade and culinary thinkmaster Anthony Bourdain has stirred an odd assortment of ingredients in the cultural stew. First is the genuine sorrow, sometimes bordering on agony, expressed by those who loved one or both of what these two people stood for in the cultural mind.
Having experienced my own version of this turmoil in May following lead singer for Frightened Rabbit Scott Hutchinson’s suicide, there’s something outsized and inexplicable about how connected we can feel to people we’ve never actually met but whom we feel we know on a deeper level.
Reflecting back on it, I sometimes feel like I was one of the Stasi. Here I know so many details, some trivial and some intimate, about a rock musician from Scotland who could walk past me on the street without so much as a glance my way. It’s a strange imbalance, yet one we as a culture are comfortable with. We might even like it that way.
One of the more well-intentioned if awkward expressions of sorrow on social media following the recent suicides has been the confessions/”I’m Here” posts. Someone will share their own past moment when they were especially depressed or even suicidal, express their gratitude for someone who helped them through that darkness or at least didn’t abandon them, and then offer themselves up as someone who is available and willing to be that midnight call or chat window for anyone in their friend group.
I’m here. I’ve been there. I get it. You’re not alone. Use me if you need to.
That’s the general gist.
What is crystal clear is that we have no real idea how to save people from themselves. It’s like we’re all sidling up to the Ring Toss game at the state fair and thinking if we just keep buying more rings, and just keep tossing them into the pile of milk bottles, surely we’ll land one. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, right?
I’ve been a bit angry for the last few weeks, at levels I’m not generally accustomed to or comfortable with, so I’m seeing our cultural response to these suicides and the assumed depression that brought it on as a sort of farce, a comedy of best intentions where no one laughs.
Are we doing it just so we can feel like we’re more in control than we are? From what I’ve read on it, it seems like the path to greater happiness is to have a healthy understanding of how much we don’t and can’t control, allowing more of our attention and energy to go towards the small number of things we actually can.
When I’m not down for the full two-hour anger-and-despair immersion of The Fragile, I have dipped instead into the adolescent Fireball shot of anger and despair known as “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” by My Chemical Romance. It contains one of humanity’s greatest true lies, punctuated with one of the best F-bombs in music history.
But you really need to listen to me
I’m telling you the truth
I mean it
I’m OK
(trust me)
I’m not OK I’m not OK Well I’m not OK
I’m not O f**king K.
Beyond depression and suicide, both of which deserve more words and energy than this entry or 100 entries could muster, the heart of this matter is something bigger and more vague: is there a single person amongst us who has not said — albeit in a less screamy, less screechy, less need-to-be clever way — these very words, in this very order, to someone or many someones around us?
I really mean it. Trust me. I’m OK.
Except sometimes we’re not O f**king K.
And if you keep asking me if I’m OK, I’ll probably tell you that you wear me out. And 99 times out of 100, you’ll take that last response personally, and you’ll take it as a sign that you’re not wanted. And you’ll shrug, throw your hands up, and walk away. This is just what we do. Sorry not sorry, but this is how most relationships — acquaintances, friendships, loved ones — work.
You tried. You gave it your best shot. And, if you’re really being honest, there might even be a “well screw you, too” in there.
We cannot simply fix people. People are not clocks or carburetors. We look under the hood. We check the oil. We move a few wires or thingamabobs, and then we shrug. The balm for anguish is rarely as easy as a single hug or a sympathetic glance, and certainly not as easy as a Facebook chat window, although all of these are rings that could land on the milk bottle.
But when we throw our rings and nothing lands, we shrug and move on. We tried. Onto the next game.
YEAR: 2004
