76 The Darkness of Suicide -- What Do the Secular Experts Say?

Jul 12, 2021

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Storytime
1. I want to take you back, back in time to a hot June night in 1980 and tell you a story about that time. [cue sound effect] I’m 11 years old and I'm recovering from a third spinal surgery after two previous cervical fusions failed. I’m feeling terrible. I'm in a dark, cold hospital room in a university hospital, just out of post-op and back on the pediatric unit 104 miles from home, immobilized in a full body cast and halo brace, recovering from puking from the general anesthetic, afraid that this surgery failed like the other two. My confidence in surgeons is at a low ebb. The room smells of antiseptic and isolation.
2. Back in those unenlightened days, visiting hours were really limited, so my parents aren't there. But I'm not alone. My sick toddler roommate is lying face down in his crib, sobbing inconsolably. No one comes for him. “Nothing can be done for him -- this will pass,” the professionals had told me when I pressed the call button for him. So I don’t bother with the call button anymore. I can’t think of anything to do for him either. I feel like he does. We're both miserable. I am in the darkest hour of my life to that point. I'm beginning to wonder if the rest of my life will be a series of horrible, painful, failed surgeries, nighttime isolation and helplessness.
3. So what does little Petey Guy do at the point? My aunt Marlene always used to call me Petey Guy when I was that age. Petey Guy starts to sing. Yes, that's right, I start singing. Do you know what I was singing?
  1. Was the 1959 Julie Andrews version of "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music? No it wasn't.
  2. The Beatles" 1969 classic "Here comes the Sun" by George Harrison? It was not.
  3. Was it the 1977 show tune "The Sun will Come out Tomorrow" from the musical Annie? Nope. Guess again.
  4. Gloria Gaynor's smash hit in 1977 "I will survive"? Wrong.
  5. "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac, also in 1977? No.
  6. How about "Don't Stop Believin" by Journey -- that was it, right. Come on, people. "Don't Stop Believin" came out in 1981. We're in 1980. So chronologically, that wouldn't make sense.
4. No, I was singing a different song, a darker song than any of those, a 1970 song with lyrics written by 14 year old Michael Altman, put to music by his father Robert Altman and sung by Johnny Mandel. A song written for the 1970 movie MASH. Some of you may be following this now. I was singing a song called Suicide is Painless.
5. You're probably familiar with the tune. After the surprise success of the movie, Robert Altman chose it to be the instrumental opening for the hugely popular MASH comedy-drama series that ran on CBS from 1972 to 1983. So even though you know the tune, you might not be familiar with the gaunt, haunting, despairing lyrics. Here's the opening stanza:
  1. Through early morning fog I see

Visions of the things to be

The pains that are withheld for me

I realize and I can see

That suicide is painless

It brings on many changes

And I can take or leave it if I please

So a little backstory. My Grandpa Roberts had a magnus chord organ
1. 1960's very popular, lots on the second hand market. Chords press a button with left hand, keyboard with the right. We had one too.
2. Grandpa Roberts had a songbook of popular tune to play on the Magnus Chord Organ --- including Suicide is Painless
3. I recognized the theme from MASH, and it was one of very few songs I learned to play on the Magnus Chord Organ, and I sang the lyrics as I played. But they didn't particularly resonate with me until that post-surgical night in 1980, in the dark, sick, and alone with the crying toddler when my 11 year old heart was so burdened and breaking.
Nobody noticed my singing about suicide in the night -- my toddler roommate didn't seem to care. And it wasn't until almost 40 years later that I ever told anyone about it.
Intro
1. Welcome to the podcast Interior Integration for Catholics, thank you for being here with me.
1. I no longer go by "Petey Guy," I am better known as clinical psychologist Peter Malinoski
1. The reason this Interior Integration for Catholics podcasts exists is to help you toward loving God, neighbor and yourself in an ordered, healthy, holy way. -- It's about tolerating being loved, and about loving about living out the two great commandments to the hilt, with all of our being, it's about overcoming the natural obstacles to reaching more of our potential, both in the natural and the spiritual realms.
1. Because we take on the tough topics in this podcast, today we are getting into the difficult and complex topic of suicide/ Suicide. Even the word can send shivers up the spine.
1. This episode is titled IIC 76 The Black of Suicide -- What Do the Secular Experts Say? and it's released on July 12, 2021
Today we are looking at the best of current psychological and sociological research --
1. Episode 73. St. Augustine De Doctrina Christiana. Chapter 40 is a theological text on how to interpret and teach the Scriptures.
  1. Moreover, if those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have said anything that is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use.
2. 1. all branches of heathen learning have not only false and superstitious fancies and heavy burdens of unnecessary toil, which we ought to abhor and avoid; but they contain also liberal instruction which is better adapted to the use of the truth, and some most excellent precepts of morality; and some truths in regard even to the worship of the One God are found among them. Now these are, so to speak, their gold and silver, which they did not create themselves, but dug out of the mines of God's providence which are everywhere scattered abroad
4. In future episode, we will bring in a lot more of the wisdom of the Catholic Church .
5. And in future episodes, we will bring in more Internal Family Systems thinking about our parts and suicide, fascinating stuff there
6. And in future episodes we will be discussing the impact of suicide on parents, spouses, siblings, children and friends who experienced suicide through the death of a loved one.
7. So we are at the beginning of a series of episodes on suicide. This is a critical topic -- A 2017 Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey of 1000 American Adults finds that 55% know someone who has committed suicide.
  1. One from my 8th grade graduating class
8. 1. One for two classes behind me in high school

Let's do an etymological analysis of the word suicide -- you know how much I like to break down words on this podcast, so it's Time for Word Lore [cue sound effect]
1. Where does the English word Suicide come from?
2. "deliberate killing of oneself," 1650s, from Modern Latin suicidium "suicide," from Latin sui "of oneself" (genitive of se "self") + -cidium "a killing," from caedere "to slay" or to strike oneself.
How serious is suic...