DFW kill
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You are currently reading a thread in /lit/ - Literature
You are currently reading a thread in /lit/ - Literature
Why did he do it, why did he fucking do it? was it because >tfw no gf? was it because he smoked weed? was it autism?
yes. now fuck off
>>8230622
You write, but he's writer.
>>8230622
>tfw no gf?
He had a wife and could get pussy anytime he wanted. He even fucked his students a few times
>>8230622
He wanted literary immortality so decided to kill himself
>>8230622
More than likely the insecurities he felt. Watch an interview with him and he reeks of it. I think he didn't want to see his books reviewed and see what his reputation became.
>>8230657
Do you think next generations will be able to relate to his work?
>>8230622
he was butthurt that franzen was better at prose
>>8230660
So is he like Kurt Cobain?
>>8230668
Don't know enough about Cobain to make a call. I just think he was more scared of hearing people tell him his art sucks than of death.
Granted his art doesn't suffer fro. expressing our zeitgeist, but it's a damn sci fi novel that is based in a nonexistent time period(IF), which is hard to call literature.
>>8230668
>kurt cobain
>suicide
lol
>>8230678
fuck off
>>8230652
>He even fucked his students a few times
Got what he deserved then.
>>8230706
Weren't they both on heroin or something when they were fucking?
>>8230706
>Wallace once threw a coffee table at her[38] and attempted to push her out of a car
What did he mean by this?
>>8230622
Dude was fucked since inception. he just happened to con a bunch of hipsters into thinking that he could write.
>>8230727
kek
>>8230724
Was DFW a degenerate?
>>8230724
what's the story with him and dope?
Did he have any kind of political agenda?
>>8230748
>waaah life sucks, depression :DDD
>eats heroin to scape pain
>>8230668
No, more like Hitler but with less power
>>8230751
but i mean, was he addicted, and if so for how long? is that where the aa shit in ij comes from?
>>8230622
There's one thing and one thing only that the mods could do to immensely improve the board, instantly, overnight, and that's facilitate more threads about David Foster Wallace. Create them, nurture the ones that exist, guide the discussions, and make sure they stay on track. If we're here to discuss literature, ultimately, we are here to discuss David Foster Wallace. There is no way for a person to grasp the full implications of Infinite Jest and not realize this. We're talking about the smartest man who ever lived. You must realize this. It's not a joke anymore. We're seeing the world degenerate further and further into chaos, and we're standing by and watching it happen. You want to fix this board? You want to fix the world? You want to fix your life? You need only take one step: read Infinite Jest. There is no substitute for hard work, and that's what Wallace requires of you if you are to understand him. If you are to understand not just him, but the world. We're not talking about escapist literature, fan fiction, genre nonsense. We're talking about saving our lives. We're talking about meditating on God. We're talking about communing with the primary presence. This is not an issue to be treated lightly.
>>8230757
9/10
176/180
>>8230706
>Wallace got her name tattooed on his body[
That's major league retarded. Where exactly is that tattoo located, I wonder?
whats the name of this hairdo
>>8230755
idk im not his dad
>>8230773
It's called the just fuck my shit up fampai.
>>8230772
It was on his chest from what I recall. Also he later had it modified to cross her name out and add a footnote with his wife's name on it.
>>8230773
>give me the 'mandingo took my wife away'
>say no more senpai
>>8230769
theres another pasta thats pretty much 10/10
dont know where to find it
>>8230622
He knew he was too close to the line between being a genius and being a hack.
>>8230772
>That's major league retarded.
What a Wallacesque turn of phrase.
>>8230773
>hit me with the '1st grader after gym'
he was torn between wanting to have kids and not wanting to deal with all the anxiety/responsibility
>>8230802
You can be both a genius and a hack, as most post-modern writers prove time and again. Just because you're really smart doesn't mean you can write a novel worth reading.
>>8230652
>He even fucked his students a few times
But did he remember to shave balls?
because he was on meds and then he wasnt on medsgood riddance
>>8230668
no because dfw wasn't murdered by courtney love
>>8230975
they stopped working :(
>>8230773
The Big Tuna
>>8230975
Basically this. He was neurochemically fucked in the head, heavy drug use and drinking throughout his life exacerbated that. It's not shit about fame, girlfriends, or etc. in his life (although those may have helped), he just seemed to have been fucked with possibly a genetic predisposition to depression then neurochemical fuckery with drugs and drink.
>>8231066
omg same ;_;7
>>8231090
>omg same ;_;7
kill yourself, my man
>>8231091
haha i know that meme :)
le viper:)
>>8231096
What the fuck do memes have to do with this, you subhuman mouthbreathing semicomprehensible mongoloid? Fucking kill yourself.
>>8231066
you can be depressed and not kill yourself
what could bring him so much pain?
maybe he found out about /lit/ and saw a bunch of memes about him and IJ
>>8231102
>fucking kill yourself
Yes, this another one I see meme scholars quibble over.
I am on the side of Rodger here, though, and will merely laugh it off.
>>8231109
Saying "fuck you" is not a meme, it's an insult. Likewise, kill yourself, idiot. :^)
>>8230773
the sam hyde
>>8231113
Rodger also posits that those who are willing and troubled enough to tell someone else to "kill yourself or McFucking kill yourself" will continue replying, because really, they are telling themselves. They like being reminded of their cowardice, how they struggle with suicide moment to moment yet never give in. They, in hope of wish fulfillment, ask someone anonymously to do so.
>>8231102
kill yourself my man is a famous meme you dip
>>8231102
i breath with my nose
was DFW a twink?
>>8231252
oh god no
>>8231307
>he was a big guy
for you
>>8230622
probably was just some bad persian food that made him sick, not his Nardil, and he shouldn't have stopped his medication. And certainly someone should have explained to him just how horrible withdrawal from antidepressants really is and how "discontinuation syndrome" is not any different from recovering from addiction to any other substance, other than the fact that no one will admit you are an addict. They should also have put him in the hospital for a very long time, but I wouldn't be surprised if his psychiatrist grossly underestimated the duration and severity of his withdrawal. Personally, I've had psychiatrists flat-out lie to me about the purpose and side effects of medications in attempts to enforce compliance--like telling me that Seroquel can't cause extra pyramidal (while it's a signature side effect of pretty much every antipsychotic) and another try to convince me an antipsychotic was merely a "mood stabilizer." It's not unethical because they're crazy!
The addict to socially unacceptable street drugs knows they are withdrawing from something bad; the psychiatric patient believes that his or her illness is coming back, never considers that withdrawal might be severe enough to make it feel like the illness is worse than ever. Too bad he didn't live long enough to read stuff like Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic.
I also think that if things like ketamine infusion therapy and various psychedelic therapies had been available and socially acceptable at the time he might have had a shot. Somewhat ironically, Bill W of AA fame was a big advocate of LSD as a way of having the sort of spiritual experience he felt was prerequisite to achieving sobriety, but I'm pretty sure there's no footnote in IJ about THAT. I can't believe people think that a little acid is worse than getting your brain lightly fried with electricity or the side effects of a lifetime of antispychotics.
I also wonder if he was one of those dudes whose guilt and anxiety over using pot was more detrimental to his functionality than the drug itself. It seems like the people I know who have the biggest issues with weed all came from super-conservative, stringently anti-drug families. The kids from "hippie" families are potheads, but they're potheads with ontological security, sometimes an obnoxious amount of it ("it's like a cure for cancer, man.") I don't know. Maybe weed did make him retarded or shitty at writing. But contrast that with Pynchon who seems mostly of the weed lmao personality and weigh getting somewhat more commercial and off-your-game as you get older against being fucking dead.
All in all, he probably would have been better off trying to make peace with smoking himself retarded. There are people who, for whatever reason, either anxiety is actually that bad or they just get too addicted, wind up blotto on benzos for the rest of their lives and a lifetime barred-out is accepted as the only realistic treatment modality.
The Last Psychiatrist might not be very popular around here but I think this blog poist has a good point: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/04/how_dangerous_is_academic_psyc_1.html
Also, If one can describe, say, Bukowski prose as booze-soaked, why can't we describe DFW's writing as Nardil-soaked or "Nardil Lit?"
>>8231481
he didnt just stop, the meds stopped working for him.
and i can confirm LSD can get you out of the loop of depression.
Sadly for me, yeah it gave me a more postive point of view but also gave me extreme derealization and pretty much made me lost my mind for some months and now im not feeling so optimistic about existence again lol.
maybe i should trip again, in a better set and setting.
>I also wonder if he was one of those dudes whose guilt and anxiety over using pot was more detrimental to his functionality than the drug itself
kek, too close home
>>8230937
I guess killing yourself is as good a solution as any.
>>8231524
I got the details a bit mixed up, but I guess he went off nardil for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with feeling like it was blocking him creatively, but doesn't seem like it had stopped working: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/03/09/the-unfinished
I think we're both confusing his discontinuing the Nardil because it stopped working with the medication not working when he started it again. It's absolute torture to get meds right the first time and wouldn't be surprised if having to go through that painful period of trial-and-error after two decades of relatively stability could end somebody.
Part of me wants to go full Robert Whitaker and say that the Nardil made things worse than the would have been, but who knows? Would we have gotten Infinite Jest without it?
Also, why they didn't insist on him tapering it after fucking 22 years makes absolutely no sense to me. Again, ANYONE who is coming of antidepressants probably should be in a hospital but there are lots of reasons, not only financial, why we don't treat discontinuation syndrome very seriously. /s We don't want to scare people away from medication, do we?
/s
>>8231583
Also, sorry to hear about the derealization. Ironically, ketamine infusion therapy has been one of the only things that's given me relief and the derealization/depersonalization actually feels therapeutic for me. It's like I can convince myself of things which understand and even accept intellectually but am resistant to emotionally. IT felt like my depressed self had my depression proven to it. A lot of pessimistic thinking still makes logical sense but I'm able to see the more absurdist and freeing side of it rather than the completely depressing side. The feeling of being a little outside myself for once is soothing.
Personally the dissociation experience is generally less confusing and I don't feel as compelled to "make sense" of and overwhelming flow of information like with traditional psychdelics. Also, the infusion lasts only fifty minutes and you get back to baseline pretty quickly after they stop it so you don't have the stress, as with acid, of being high for twelve hours with no way to stop. On the other hand, the mental challenge and epiphanical potential of being out of your head for that long might be what some people need. I think doing acid probably would be best with a trained psychologist-shaman hybride rather than just a sitter who makes sure you stay safe.
There's also a compound with antidepressant effects that is one of the metabolite of ketamine they're working on, but a lot of people, myself included obviously, think the dissociative experience is a necessary part of the therapy.
>>8230622
its because life is nothing more than an accumulation of negative utility, he already made his contribution to humanity and living the rest of his drug-addled life would have in fact been beneath him
>>8230751
There is no difference between the love a father has for his son and the love a junkie has for heroin. The only distinction is the mythology of these proclivities. Eventually we will come to realize that all human endeavour is a cycle of addictive self-flagellation. Then we will die
>>8231623
You mean the "derealization" during the trip? Because thats fine, my problem was that it stock with me for months.
Ego death was the shit.
And yeah i agree it need to be done with someone who is a little more than "wow u seeing weird shit bro XD".
Gotta try ketamine some time.
About DFW, you are probably right, it seems like people around him didnt really give a fuck lol, but i dont think he would have been able to do all the stuff he did without the meds.
Anti-depressants are pretty much stims, right?
>>8231639
I screwed up this post. This should have been the last half:
> The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.
>>8231639
He was just trying to sell some books lad, suicide is logical.
Throughout his childhood, David was psychologically and emotionally abused by his mother. He was led to believe that being the smartest guy in the room was all that mattered to the moms, and once he got to Amherst he realized he could not be numero uno forever. His worth was 'performing' intellectually for his family, and this really fucked him up.
He tried to piece together an ad hoc life philosophy from AA and self help books that (obviously) would ultimately fail. This required him to make a villain out of something (irony) and paint it as the ultimate debilitating evil. The only problem is that his self-image as this aww shucks midwest everyman was a lie. Irony v. sincerity is not a real problem for your average suburbanite. So DFW is writing this big long book to perform for mommy and maybe figure out how all these people in the world manage to make it past age 50, waging war against some distorted boogeyman of a literary device, and fuck it you know the rest
>>8231646
>people are perfectly rational beings who only make logical choices
Suicide can never be a logical choice except in the case of terminal illness. The opportunity cost of suicide will always outweight any anticipated pain.
>>8231650
Not bad
>>8231650
Freud, pls go
>>8231654
>implying implications
>>8231670
>implying I'm implying implications
>>8231673
I never said humans were 100% logical beings you fartbrain.
>>8231650
damn fampai, cuts deep
>>8231639
Its never a logical decision because DFW said so?
>>8231642
>>8231642
Meant to say "somewhat persistent derealization." The ketamine lasted a couple days after the last treatment and faded, so I guess it was way more manageable than feeling that way for months. But it wasn’t distressing either--it was like , “Things don’t feel real and I’m OK with that” rather than feeling worried about it.
I actually got the existential crisis version of it the first time I smoked weed and it did last quite a while--kept on asking people "are you real" and stuff the next day and it was distressing. I was also very drunk on Jagermeister the first time I smoked and have sometimes suspected there was some cross-reactivity of botanicals that made me feel like I was seriously tripping. But I'm not really sure if I got over it or if I've just smoked so much weed since then that it stopped bothering me.
I don’t think antidepressants are really stimulants, but many of them have stimulating effects, especially in the most severely depressed. I think that's why energy level improves before anything else changes, and it seems to me like it can happen faster than the medical community believes. On Paxil I definitely had a boost of energy after the first dose. Didn't happen with any other antidepressant, and at this time I was pretty jaded about medications so I think my personal placebo syndrome had weakened.
Later that energy turned into really bad hypomania and borderline psychotic paranoia which DID feel similar to going crazy from too much Ritalin in college. Instead of making my OCD better, like antidepressants often do, it made all my fears seem more real, especially weirder stuff like fear of conspiracies and secret societies. Good thing I wasn’t on 4chan at the time--just youtube shit of Alex Jones was enough to make me think I had morgellon’s fibers in my face and stuff. Bad times, especially since there’s always a risk of someone giving you a bipolar diagnosis if you have a manic reaction on antidepressants, even though it’s entirely possible that some extreme reactions are not indicative of any other disorder.
>>8231689
>implying DFW didnt know everything and wasnt right even when he was wrong
When will this meme end?
>>8231695
No, because rather I think most suicide done in earnest good faith and following careful consideration is a manifestation of that simple truth, realized however explicitly.
>>8231709
Have you ever been involved in the subject matter? My own experience is incredibly consistent with DFW's analogy.
>>8231712
I am not in disagreement with the analogy though. I just look at the flames licking at our heels as the ubiquitous mutifarious perills and encumberances that beset even the most basic of day to day existence. When I think about it, I'd really have to be an idiot to go on like this.
>>8231650
This is very plausible. Would only add
>neglected
That would contribute to a strong "must perform intellectualism for mommy." His insecurity is obvious in the form and structure of IJ, not to mention its matter.
All those self help books suggest a pathological striving for self-sufficiency. What he needed to do was reach out to others, but he felt that he couldn't because when he cried and cried as an infant in his crib, mommy never came.
>>8231727
>All those self help books suggest a pathological striving for self-sufficiency.
It's almsot could be considered a type of pathological American-ness.
>His insecurity is obvious in the form and structure of IJ, not to mention its matter.
And now I'm kind of seeing the footnoting as literary version of a nerd who tells a joke and when no one laughs he has to explain it and then explain the explanation, all the meanwhile digging himself deeper into a whole and alienating himself further from his audience.
>>8230746
have you fucking read IJ?
>>8231744
Infinite Jest was a bestseller though so if anything he was dumbing the joke down so that plebs would like him and it worked.
>>8231727
>All those self help books suggest a pathological striving for self-sufficiency. What he needed to do was reach out to others, but he felt that he couldn't because when he cried and cried as an infant in his crib, mommy never came.
lol fag
>Friedrich Nietzsche
>>8231753
I thought he was just memeing
>>8231650
Also, he didn't have the balls to rub the obvious autobiographical stuff in his family's face because he made everything weird and allusive and science fictiony enough to have a sort of plausible deniability for the roman a clef elements so people wouldn't get too mad at him.
I think that was also part of his obsession with sincerity---he couldn't sincerely say how he felt about his family so he had to coat it in fiction and irony to make it safe but that obviously felt cheap compared to someone who was brave enough to be purely confessional.
>>8231766
maybe he should have just written a direct memoir about his family life and his time as an addict and it would have been more therapeutic. Could have even been after infinite jest as a companion piece.
>>8231766
I think The Broom of The System was his most honest book, even in terms of his familial relationships. That's probably the real reason why he was so embarrassed by it later on.
>>8230787
>footnote with his wife's name on it.
Fucking lost holy shit
Could DFW have been schizoid?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder#Akhtar.27s_phenomenological_profile
He had a very obvious need to attain "greatness," while at the same time he was trying to cover up/repair his struggle with the feelings of inauthenticity and cynicism (muh new sincerity). Many of the other traits listed fit; then again could be confirmation bias.
>>8231813
i'd advise against attempting to diagnose people you don't really know based on your wikipedia knowledge of psychiatric disorders
>>8231813
It does seem like a lot of his crazy stalking behavior and stuff might be part of some other disorder which was underlying his depression. OBsessing over killing someone's husband is or the tattoo thing is not plain old depression, and I doubt it was drugs. Who teh fuck knows though...there are diagnoses like "mood Disorder: not otherwise specified" which could basically mean any mood variance that fucks your shit up.
>>8231827
source: lots of time in mental hospitals getting tons of different diagnoses . Even doctros can't agree so yeah, there's no hope for us figuring it out. Though I think it's safe to say again that some of the stuff he did doesn't sound like plain ol' depression.
>>8231813
I have pretty much all of these symptoms on either side of the spectrum (i.e. if I don't have one on the covert side, I have them on the other) and I think this is just retarded. I'm completely happy with my life and think psychiatry is just an apparatus of social control and turning people into retarded homogenized castrated sheep. But that's just what a schizoid would think...
>>8231832
*tons of different conflicting diagnoses from different doctors
>>8231826
That's fair enough.
Still, the "tortured genius" archetype is relatively rare IRL.
>>8231836
it's only really an illness if you suffer from it--that's why people who would be considered sociopaths don't go see psychiatrists. Why would you when your "illness" makes your life awesome?
>>8231832
That's because doctors are retarded and what we call psychology is so subjective and worthless that it doesn't deserve to be called science. If they just renamed it "Social Control", that would at least be honest.
>>8231847
True that. But the fear I find in this is that by curing people of your suffering, you can slip into them the fact (unseen by them) that you're making them more robotic and inhuman and general. What if suffering is a valid reaction to an insane society? (I say this not as a histrionic emo, but pretty happy person in general).
>>8231832
I've been in a psych ward for "uncharacterized psychosis" once. Retards wanted me to stay on risperdal after I got out but I just flushed that shit straight down the toilet as soon as I got home. If anything, it was giving me mood swings.
Honestly, I wouldn't trust the average psychiatrist as far as I could throw them. I saw five different ones in that hospital and none of them really knew what the fuck was wrong with me.
>>8231850
For instance, let's say some kid is suicidally depressed because, eh, I dunno, their mother is an abusive freak. Nothing to do with this thread. Suppose this person gets doped up and pretty much taught how to be chiller and more obedient. Because the mother isn't physically, only extremely aggressively and psychologically, abusive, what happens is the kid becomes a nice and obedient sheep and the mother goes unpunished, able to continue psychologically abusing their child and be a general asshole while the docile child takes it in good stead.
Basically, Brave New World not on a massive but an atomized level.
>>8231848
I do agree that a distressing number of diagnoses really do seem like they exist merely as tools of social control. I think the eoverdiagnosis of ADD is definitely one of those.
Also, paraphilias that could be expressed harmlessly being included as illnesses is kind of an extension of homosexuality having once been considered a mental disorder-- being into BDSM is pretty much considered a disorder like homosexuality used to be. There isn't the idea that people can take potentially destructive fetishes and find healthy outlets for them.
I find it most nefarious that while all sorts of crazy medications are used off-label for depression (antipsychotics as boosters! jesus...) people still pussy-foot around using "street" drugs to treat mental illness. If they knew about the side effects of some of this shit a little neurotoxicity from doing molly in a therapeutic setting a few times a year wouldn't seem so bad. Especialyl not compared to fucking tardive dyskinesia.
>>8231850
>But the fear I find in this is that by curing people of your suffering, you can slip into them the fact (unseen by them) that you're making them more robotic and inhuman and general.
I do have this concern sometimes. It seems to me like even some talk therapies like CBT have the potential to do this by trying to define what is "normal" thinking and deny that it's possible to be pessimistic because for carefully considered reasons rather than "I'm depressed so I think this way." Although personal temperament is obviously going to influence philosophy, how do you help people make peace with their natural inclinations rather than pathologize and eliminate them>?
>>8231851
>Honestly, I wouldn't trust the average psychiatrist as far as I could throw them. I saw five different ones in that hospital and none of them really knew what the fuck was wrong with me.
No argument from me there...can't think of one who really seemed competent. I think a "genius" psychiatrist is merely someone who got lucky with their prescriptions. I mean, if someone fills out a depression inventory scores high on it and the first antidepressant you give them works they will probably consider you a genius even though it was just dumb luck.
Fuck antipsychotics...no one needs to be on that shit forever. If you're seriously having an episode that's one thing, but long term use of any of this shit is really cruel, as is the idea in general that people need to be on meds forever and can't be given a chance without them. Although on the other hand people do need supervision getting off of shit they've been using long-term...to bring it back to how DFW wound up dead.
>>8231860
There are people with perfectly alright lives from infancy on who still get depressed. I DO think that psychiatry is widely abused as a tool of social control, sometimes unwittingly because the doctors are just too burned out to care, and sometimes actively maliciously. I can't go as far as saying there's no such thing as mental illness, or that it's all environmental, but I will say that when I hear people say "depression is just like diabetes" I want to kick their ass.
>>8230652
>audience pussy
all the hangups of religion and none of the faith. I think AA, self-help books, and the aforementioned toxic obsession with self-sufficiency were like a religion without any of the ecstatic spiritual experiences and epiphanies.
>>8231878
he did say Taylor Hayes was one of the only legitimately attractive porn stars so I have to give him points for his particular taste in >audience pussy
>>8231868
CBT functions by trying to provide tools which could help the person to change their behavior, it's not (or at least shouldn't be) based on some preconception of "normal." There is an assumption that the individual receiving CBT wants to help themselves, only they might not be able to with the emotional and cognitive tools they have. Individuals who don't want to help themselves are beyond CBT to help anyway. As such, pathologization is not inherent to CBT, although it is a possible error.
Psychiatrists have a really tough job. The system needs to be reformed so that skilled nurses are able to authorize and oversee prescription management: for me, I only really need a refill for my lithium (bipolar type 1). Same with cases of depression, which will involve making guesses and then making adjustments based on reaction. Some mood disorders are quite easy to diagnose. (Hell, I diagnosed my bipolar and went to see a psychiatrist in order to get treatment.)
There's no reason for the scarce time of psychiatrists to be placed under such a burden by making them the choke point for *all* psychiatric medications. Essentially makes them just drug dealers with a fancy title.
All that given, psychiatrists do serve an essential purpose. I put more blame on the psycho-medical system for turning it into a tool of control rather than the profession.
>>8230903
>top kek
>>8231481
somehow you are ahead of the times even today
>>8231722
>the ubiquitous mutifarious perills and encumberances
absolute memedman!
>>8231797
what a nerd
>>8231826
good one
>>8231846
...and you know this how?
Let us rise above the topic at hand and talk about something completely different.
Who is the superior i/lit/erate memelord? Wallace, Pynchon, Joyce,... Or, well, ... Dostoevsky?
>>8231898
>i/lit/erate
I know because geniuses are rare, by definition. Many people are tortured, I grant that... but few genius. And geniuses tend to to have better mental health than those of moderate or low intelligence. Hence, my conclusion that tortured geniuses are rare. They make a large impact, this is true, but often because their self-destruction manifests in grandiose, and noticeable, ways. You don't really notice all the stupid self-destructive people, because how often do you make note of the bum shooting up on the street?
>>8231481
>worse than getting your brain lightly fried with electricity
muh it sounds bad so it must be bad
>>8231654
>Suicide can never be a logical choice except in the case of terminal illness
What the fuck do you even mean by 'logical'?
>>8230622
It's because he knew he was a bad writer.
>>8230622
The IRS had him killed
>>8232349
>it is never the case that someone sits down and balances life's debts and assets like a bookkeeper, deciding on suicide at the moment that its debts outweight its assets
citation needed
>>8231481
you're an idiot and actually crazy aswell
psychiatrists aren't demons, you psychotic faggot
>>8232433
There will never be a citation that proves this. It is based on my personal experience and the experience of those I've read. Nobody sits down and writes out a balance sheet of life's debts and assets. There are incredibly few decisions that are made this way.
Emotion is the driving force behind suicide, namely the strong feeling of despair for the future.
>was it because >tfw no gf?
He had a fucking wife
>>8231481
When I stopped taking Paxil cold turkey after 60mg a day for three years it was like a 24/7 month long alcohol hangover but much much worse and my bitch psychiatrist never warned me I would become an addict when she prescribed them.
>>8232456
doesn't answer the question
>>8231868
I agree about supervision being required for ending long-term use, but in my case it was a one-time episode and they were covering their asses for insurance purposes by telling me I needed to stay on that shit or needed to consult another shrink if I wanted to get off it.
I absolutely knew they were full of shit because the whole thing was caused by a highly unique set of circumstances that had zero chances of repeating in my day to day life. It's been several years since then and nothing like that has happened.
>>8232450
Lol...what part of the post is demonizing psychiatrists?
>>8230706
What a fucking retarded creep
>>8232203
Was Exagerrating somewhat for comic effect and out of bitterness...but put the side effects of ect against even those of occasional mdma use and teller me which sounds worse.
>>8230787
kek
>>8232465
They never do, not even with "traditionally " addictive stuff like benzos. A lot of informed consent seems to be glossed over for fear of creating noncompliance. LIke if they told you everything you'd be too scared to take it. Medical ethics are apparently much less restrictive when dealing with mentally ill patirnts. Most psych professionals probably don't like crazy people any more than your average citizen, or so it's seemed in my experience.
>>8232607
*any more than your average person does. I.e. in spite of professional training there is persisting contempt for the mentally ill. And the sort of arrogance many doctors have but turned up to 11.
>>8232450
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement
>>8232607
Funnily enough I was also prescribed Ativan and it had absolutely no effect on me and I experienced no withdrawals from it. The fucking SSRI had me hooked like a fucking junkie.
>>8230706
Wonder if Nardil helped with depression but made him crazy in other ways. I know a dude who took Lexapro and went from squeezing to obsessed with gore in a matter on months.
>>8232692
What would you consider some reasonable criticisms of psychiatry?
Have you read Anatomy of an Epidemic? To me that seemed the most balanced effort, although unfortunately the Mad In America website the author is involved with has a lot of extremist types.
I don't like antipsychiatry either and certainly don't agree with its premises, but there has to be some balance between "mental illness no real" and "any criticism of psychiatry results in tons of homelessness and suicide." Psych meds are either tools of control or miracle drugs, not merely chemicals that can be used for good or bad.
I'm going to guess that you or someone you know was lucky enough to find a treatment regimen that worked and, as a result, are somewhat defensive.
Now imagine someone whose life was made undeniably worse by psychiatric iatrogenesis and who, let's face it, is crazy to begin with, and consider how difficult it would be for that person to maintain a balanced picture of the good and bad or psychiatry.
>>8232737
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_settlements
>>8231639
>Suicide is never a logical decision
You're an idiot
>>8232737
>What would you consider some reasonable criticisms of psychiatry?
I wouldn't consider any criticism of psychiatry reasonable that doesn't try to slander it or deny it's inherent value, since mental illness is clearly real and trying to treat and cure the mentally ill is noble and stressful for those involved.
Like I heard someone say, like there's no atheists in foxholes, nobody that's even seen a teenager in a psychotic episode rolled into a psychward believes that psychiatry is a control mechanism to indoctrinate you into bourgeois family structure
>Have you read Anatomy of an Epidemic?
no, seems like the notorious type of anti-psychiatry.
>I don't like antipsychiatry either and certainly don't agree with its premises, but there has to be some balance between "mental illness no real" and "any criticism of psychiatry results in tons of homelessness and suicide."
Of course, psychiatry has a troubled history and I'm glad that decades long confinements and lobotomies etc. are over.
> Psych meds are either tools of control or miracle drugs, not merely chemicals that can be used for good or bad.
before the introduction of lithium and thorazine there was basically nothing that could be done for the seriously mentally ill apart from psychoanalysis, which was obviously not pratical for the manic and the psychotic (treatment of the psychotic in analysis was rejected by Freud and was only developed fairly recently), that's why people would stay in clinics their whole life as vegetables or menaces to society, just as something to be experimented upon. That's how lobotomies and even less effective methods came about. If you had been there when someone that had been in psychotic throes for decades was first introduced to thorazine in ~1960 you would have called it a miracle. That's what enabled out-patient treatment in the first place
>I'm going to guess that you or someone you know was lucky enough to find a treatment regimen that worked and, as a result, are somewhat defensive.
My personal experience with psychiatrists isn't exactly a success story, but I don't know where I'd be without my anti-depressants, probably dead.
>how difficult it would be for that person to maintain a balanced picture of the good and bad or psychiatry
I know, but you shouldn't support people's delusions, especially when the public already thinks of psych-wards as basically One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (a book many anti-psychiatry people consider an important source), when in reality it's just a place with overworked, underpayed people that only want to help whoever comes in, not abuse you so you "fit in" or pharma companies can make some money.
>>8232892
>I wouldn't consider any criticism of psychiatry reasonable that doesn't try to slander it
>>8232896
yeah, post was too long so I didn't proofread at all.
probably was phrasing my thoughts differently there at first and forgot to change it
excuse my english, not my native language
>>8231109
>meme scholars
let me off this car mom im not over
>>8232892
Not all psychiatry is universally bad, but a lot of it these days is just tossing pills at people and hoping something works. While it has a veneer of sounding "medical" or "scientific", a lot of it is essentially a guessing game.
I'm not the guy you were talking to, but you'd be surprised by how unsure psychiatrists are when dealing with anything that doesn't conform to what they've been taught to expect. Pills may be "miracle cures" for certain conditions and people while being completely useless or worse than useless for others. A lot of the science behind antidepressants is very shaky, for example. If they work for you, great. That's not the case for everyone who uses them.
>>8230724
Oh, well it was probably the heroin then
It makes you really negative and angry, and drains your will to live.
People end up wanting to quit but then you get unbelievably sick and can't, so you kill yourself to escape
>>8232979
>It makes you really negative and angry
spoken like a true opioid naive.
>>8230622
the crack genius, the absolute madman to do it! he was an hero to tie that rope and leave us all behind. Truly, his death became a permanent tribute, an infinite gesture if you will, to the sincerity he unleashed upon the world.
>>8231813
Shit famalam. Think I might be schizoid. Interesting.
>>8233016
I thought he used a belt.
>>8232831
Very few decisions are logical. Even large financial purchases such as buying a house or car, or investing your retirement fund is almost never logical. To assume that suicide, an inherently emotionally charged decision, is logical is absurd.
>>8233866
Don't smoke weed unless you're the kind of person who will be turned into a some kind supergenius by weed, like Pinecone or Snoop Dogg. Especially don't smoke it if you're the . Maybe smoke it if you're the kind of person who can handle their shit and not puff it 24/7, or who doesn't care about wasting away their life baked all the time and not achieving any of the goals they once had. Definitely smoke it if it's keeping you from having seizures or side effects from chemo. Rel medical issues with accepted uses. POssibly smoke it if it's keeping you from killing yourself...but don't smoke it because it just makes you more depressed. Feel guilty about smoking it and wonder if it's you or the pot that is to blame for being a loser. Can't admit you might not be as good as you thought you were or thought you needed to be and blame smoking it for all your failures. Easier than admitting your mediocrity. Either kill yourself or smoke until you sort of don't care anymore. If you try to quit, have everyone telling you, even educated people, "no one can get addicted to pot," or, only slightly better, "it's not a real addiction, just a psychological one." Or worst of all "you would quit if you had any willpower. I can quit and I'm superior because of it." Smoke some more. Either keep on smoking or kill yourself at this point because withdrawal is completely impossible. Only thing that gives you any comfort in life. Maybe you did somethign horrible to drive them all away, maybe you just didn't care enough to write or call anyone back. But they're gone, and even when they reach out to you it feels like there's no point because too much time has passed and you feel like an eight grader hanging out with college seniors because you haven't done anything with your life. Look at other people smoke and become supergeniuses like Pinecone and wonder if he would have done better without the weed like DFW seems to think. How do we know that's true? Maybe it is the obession with cleanliness and sobriety as a type of perfection that kills people like various anons above suggested. I don't know. can't stop smokin' now!
>>8231748
>>8232979
t. someone who never even took a single vicodin
I was addicted to IV heroin for a few months a year or so ago, even at the worst point in the addiction I was far less negative and angry than I had been prior to starting. You do get sick as fuck when you try to quit, but if you do a proper buprenorphine taper it's not too bad once you can start taking the bupe
>>8233908
in the words of an hero himself
"marijuana destroys [the mind] slowly but thoroughly"
>>8233996
I wonder at what point one should just give oneself over to the void of the perpetually baked. Basically everyone I know who stopped smoking hasn't become any more interesting or ambitious. If anything, without the occasional pipe dreams of grandeur they seem more hollow than before. There probably is a point of chronic use when it's too late even if you have decades left of your life to "recover." Probably what an hero himself figured.
>>8234062
Fuck
>>8234072
I wonder who the Bukowski of weed is.
He's literally got a story that basically explains exactly why then gives a shitty reason why not at the end.
Go read Good Old Neon
>>8234089
>Good Old Neon
Too bad it didn't explain exactly why not and give a shitty reason why. That would have been helpful.
>>8234062
>implying "yolo420" fags would be any different if their drug of choice was anything else
Weed doesn't effect your ambition or motivation. It's practically non-addivtive, so if a person were to smoke all day, everyday it says more about them than it does the drug.
>>8234062
Do you smoke weed, bro?
>>8234089
His reason was pretty much
>baaaw no one understands my twisted dark mind why am i better than everyone else but at the same time worse ;_;
>>8234098
Not sure if trolling and parroting overly defensive legalization extremists (i'm for legalization but not pretending it doesn't have issues) or if you don't recognize how ridiculous and ironic it is to post such an argument in a DFW thread.
>>8234102
I smoke too much weed and feel sad about it but then I smoke more and kind of don't mind.
Everyone says I just have weak self-control and willpower even though I cold turkeyed off of benzos, cigarettes. EVen though I never got addicted to harder drugs like cocaine or opioids or speed (although I did cold turkey off of using way too much ritalin to power through the end of college and that was bad). Stopped drinking. STopped doing everything else but can't stop smoking weed. I'll admit that when I say "cold turkey" for those other drugs I meant "used tons of weed to get through the withdrawal." There's no other drug to switch to that's softer but underneath the soft bottom you're sunk in isn't your hard bottom, it's an endless hole.
>>8234098
+1
Blame the user, not the drug.
>>8234147
#truuu
>>8234147
BLame the user's inconvenient biochemistry in some cases? A drug is not even like a gun which has somewhat predictable results for its usage. If the effects of substances are so predictable, why is modern psychiatry so unreliable? Especially since the balance of chemicals in psych pills are way more reliable than the multifarious active compounds in weed whose distribution are completely unreliable.
Ever heard of a paradoxical reaction? Children who take phenobarbital often become hyperactive. Does that mean that we should blame those children for having a weird biochemistry that makes them have an unexpected reaction? Or blame anyone for not realizing what they were getting themselves into? Isn't it possible that the whole "blame the user" and "pot isn't addictive" attitude encourages people to overuse and might push some users who would otherwise be cautious over the line into some kind of an addiction? There are guidelines for how much alcohol you can drink before you are officially a "problem drinker." No such thing exists for pot--it's either "smoke it all day; it's not addictive and if there are problems it's the user to blame" or "pot is the devil." I understand because ofthe political climate people have to take extreme stands on the issue and use extreme language but it's really quite retarded.
A lot of people ignore the guidelines for alcohol use but at least there are SOME Kind of guidelines. Legalization extremists are perpetuating a culture that doesn't respect the power of a plant while pretending that it fixes everything. Again, people can do what they want but I don't think, at this point, there's a reason to keep lying in the name of legalization. The ball is already in motion and admitting that 9% of HEAVY users get addicted isn't that big of a deal. And it would be less if people didn't believe stupid shit and act on bad information.
Or statistical outliers? Chil
>>8234175
It was more of a generalization, i.e. Don't ban alcohol just because some get violent on it, or dont ban psychadelics just because some person with underlying genetical disorders fucked up on it, or dont ban *x drug* because ""muh it makes me stupid and lazy"".
Blame's a mean word though, true, but it's time for people to grow up and get smarter on drug policy.
>>8234205
I agree with legalizing pretty much everything as long as safe usage guidelines, which may involve requiring a therapeutic or professionally supervised setting, are in place.
We should at least try to get people to be aware of warning signs of problem usage that exist for pretty much everything fun in the world. I agree about smarter--if you don't admit a problem is even a possibility you won't know if you're developing a problem. SOme people will continue using and use the drug as a crutch to blame for their shortcomings--sometims I'm that person--but often I think that if I'd been more realistic about getting addicted I might have made some different life decisions. Probably would have still smoked but wouldn't have thought I could smoke all the time and still function as I had functioned without weed.
>>8234222
>prodegenereacy
>>8234286
>I think I have the right to force people to live by my morals
>>8234291
nice ideology
>>8234222
I'm the guy who was also saying we should legalize all drugs, just require stricter guidelines for some drugs. LIke people who want to take psychedelics should probably have to get professional sitters and therapists to watch their trip. I don't know if it would only be allowed as a "medicine."
Never said it was a gateway drug. Biggest gateway drug for me has been alcohol. IN fact, the first time I smoked pot was when I was already really drunk and it did not go well. I"m just saying I would have used more responsibly had I been around people and in a culture that wasn't all "smoke weed erryday it's not addictive at all to anyone ever lol."
It's like anyone says anything critical about and people bust out the "safer than alcohol" as if, indeed, a socially conservative person of the 1920s is the subject being addressed. Goddam...believe me, I would rather be addicted to pot than any of the psych meds I've been other. Except maybe Gabapentin. You were good to me, Gabapentin. Then again, ther are people who get hooked on Gabapentin and abuse it and everyone says "no, no...it's not addicting."
Saying weed can't be addicting and weed addiction and withdrawal serious issues for some people is as bad as psychiatry and drug companies trying to whitewash physical dependence on and, one might argue without too much exaggeration, addiction to antidepressants and even antipsychotics. When someone stops meds and has serious issues it's not always the disease coming back--sometimes it's drug withdrawal. It's very difficult, and quite conveniently so for some interests, to tell apart.
You can go argue about this with people at /r/leaves and see if they're all lying and are just weak-willed individuals.
>>8234219
I dont agree with needing supervision. But perhaps much better drug education starting in 5th grade to middle school or whatever.
Mature adults should be able to make their own, informed decisions.
>>8234319
Maybe have enough drug education that people can rely on their friends to be responsible sitters if they need it. And generally not take stupid risks. I guess make it like sex education where you're realistic about people doing it so you just want to make sure they do it responsible. Having standardized manufacturing procedures will help a lot too with people not overdosing, etc. and allow kids to know exactly what risks they're taking.
Also tell people that everything is addicting and what warning signs might be specific to that drug/habit.
Maybe strongly suggest/propagandize the idea of having sitters or therapists but not make any specific laws.
And how many people are going to choose shitty and dangerous drugs when much safer and more fun drugs are also legal and widely available? There's so much to do besides crack, heroin, and meth.
>>8234297
Professional therapists present during my acid trip? No thanks.
>>8234345
what about lonely people who have nobody to trip sit them? Or people who just don't want anyone to know but don't want to do it alone. At least have some kind of service available for people who want it.
YOU DID THIS
>>8234350
Your kind would be better dead.
>>8234351
>what about lonely people who have nobody to trip sit them
Don't do drugs then. It's not society's obligation to supply you with narcoticsfriends.
>>8234357
Your kind would be better dead.
>>8231691
I'm a pretty stable person but reading all the shit posted on /x/ and other /fringe/ chans by mentally ill people makes you feel a little crazy yourself.
>>8234351
If you're tripping on your own often i'd say there's a 90% chance you need professional help not a babysitter.
>>8234407
tripping alone is god-tier, just because you are a pussy doesnt mean i need professional help
i probably do tho, but not because of tripping alone
Terence McKenna liked to trip alone on 5g of shrooms and he was a completly fine frogman
>>8234407
Found the extrovert incapable of introspection
>>8234443
>Terence McKenna
>>8234449
ok whats the problem with terence mckenna
>>8230769
Is the second r8 an lsat score.?
>>8234459
>"Stoned ape" theory of human evolution
yeah what
>"Dogs played an important role in Wallace's life."
What did he mean by this?
>>8234350
Why is accurately warning people about the effects of drugs a bad thing?
There's a reason why straight edge DARE kids are the ones who slam the hardest when they eventually decide to try drugs. It's because their anti drug ideology is founded on faulty principles and emotional rhetoric instead of facts. This would be avoided if we were up front about the way the drugs actually worked from the beginning. This doesn't necessarily mean encouraging their use. The easiest way to convince someone not to take something is to scientifically explain exactly why it will fuck up their life instead of waving your finger and relying on social stigma.
>>8234535
>replacing morality with scientific utilitarianism
>>8234547
Yeah what's the problem?
>>8234637
Have you watched Akira?
>>8234547
I don't see how those two concepts are mutually exclusive.
>>8234471
he liked dogs
>>8234720
Well you're either fucking retarded or clinically retarded
>>8234740
Not a very compelling argument amigo
>>8234740
Not an argument. You're wrong.
>>8234446
>often
>>8234443
I have tripped alone and it was perfectly fine. But if you're doing it often it's likely problematic. It's much easier to become dependent on something you are willing to do alone.
this thread
>>8230622
clinical depression and interruption of his pharmacological routine
>>8235004
op here
it was all part of my plan
There's one thing and one thing only that the mods could do to immensely improve the board, instantly, overnight, and that's facilitate more threads about David Foster Wallace. Create them, nurture the ones that exist, guide the discussions, and make sure they stay on track. If we're here to discuss literature, ultimately, we are here to discuss David Foster Wallace. There is no way for a person to grasp the full implications of Infinite Jest and not realize this. We're talking about the smartest man who ever lived. You must realize this. It's not a joke anymore. We're seeing the world degenerate further and further into chaos, and we're standing by and watching it happen. You want to fix this board? You want to fix the world? You want to fix your life? You need only take one step: read Infinite Jest. There is no substitute for hard work, and that's what Wallace requires of you if you are to understand him. If you are to understand not just him, but the world. We're not talking about escapist literature, fan fiction, genre nonsense. We're talking about saving our lives. We're talking about meditating on God. We're talking about communing with the primary presence. This is not an issue to be treated lightly.
>>8234286
degeneracy is a jewish spook fampai
>>8234720
>I replaced the strawberry cake with a a marsipan cake
>"I don't see how those two concepts are mutually exclusive."
