Henry Rollins: Fuck Suicide
August 22, 2014 7:31 AM   Subscribe

This post was deleted for the following reason: This seems like a shitty op-ed by Henry Rollins that is trolling everyone. -- mathowie



 
The article doesn't start out too bad. I can even understand someone not being able to rap their head around how someone can commit suicide if they have kids. I'll even largely agree with this bit:

I know some people will disagree. And I get that you can’t understand anyone else’s torment. All that “I feel your pain” stuff is bullshit and disrespectful. You can appreciate it, listen and support someone as best you can, but you can’t understand it. Depression is so personal and so unique to each of us that when you’re in its teeth, you think you invented it. You can understand your own, but that’s it. When you are severely depressed, it can be more isolating than anything else you have ever experienced. In trying to make someone understand, you can only speak in approximation. You are truly on your own.


But then he follows this up by saying it's impossible to feel bad for them? And implies that if they'd just take life by the neck and drag it along like he does, they'd all be okay.

I guess not everyone is as tough as you, Henry.
posted by adamp88 at 7:35 AM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


I hate that this is the subject of my first post to Metafilter. I am a fan of both Henry Rollins and Robin Williams. I also suffer from depression. I felt it was worth sharing, but my apologies if the post is too lacking in content.
posted by tehjoel at 7:35 AM on August 22, 2014


Man, the change was nearly imperceptible, but Henry Rollins at some point has gone from Punk Rock Yellin' to Old Coot Yellin'.

"Almost 40,000 people a year kill themselves in America, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In my opinion, that is 40,000 people who blew it."

Look at this tough guy speaking truth to power. And by "power" I mean "the bereaved families of 40,000 people." You hear that, grievers and mourners? You're mourning a loser. How d'you like them apples?
posted by griphus at 7:36 AM on August 22, 2014 [18 favorites]


Fuck Henry Rollins.
posted by divabat at 7:37 AM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


OK, Henry. Let's start at the beginning. So there's this thing called depression that a lot of people deal with....
posted by mochapickle at 7:37 AM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah, see, opinions like this are why I feel like I can't talk to people about depression. Fuck off, Henry Rollins.
posted by pemberkins at 7:38 AM on August 22, 2014 [4 favorites]


Read it yesterday. I see no reason to give this piece any of our attention whatsoever.
posted by naju at 7:39 AM on August 22, 2014


Oh good, another entry in the "once you become a parent, you are no longer a person, for the entire rest of your life, even when your 'children' are 23 or 47 or 82" sweepstakes.

Y'know, people do the best they can with what they have for as long as they can. My sister committed suicide, and if Henry Fucking Rollins really wants to stand there and tell me to my face that I would somehow have been less traumatized or miss her less if she had been hit by a truck instead, he can kiss my ass.
posted by FelliniBlank at 7:41 AM on August 22, 2014 [4 favorites]


I would like to hear what Hank thinks of someone like Gillian Bennett (recently), or the openly spoken plans of Terry Pratchett WHO ATEN'T DED YET but who is adamant on checking out gracefully once disease has robbed him sufficiently of himself.
posted by delfin at 7:41 AM on August 22, 2014


You know, I totally get what he's saying, and there is a part of me that is always just *angry* whenever I hear about a suicide. It's painful, it hurts, it makes me angry. That's the feeling, yeah, I get it.

But this is all wrong. This doesn't do anything, this diatribe. This is Henry Rollins spitting out his lazy opinion to the world and it's really rather limp.

I mean, what the fuck does he think suicidal people are going to do, read this piece and be like, "well, Henry Rollins takes life by the neck and drags it along and so fuck it I'm not going out like that BYE BYE DEPRESSION..." Yeah, no, that's not how it works Henry, and if you'd have bothered to think about the purpose of your piece and the effect it may have had maybe you wouldn't have written it, but I guess that wouldn't be taking life by the FUCKING NECK AND DRAGGING IT ALONG
posted by dubitable at 7:49 AM on August 22, 2014


It's a more painful read than some of the overly-romanticised nonsense served up by the rest of the media I guess. Probably better for that.

So yeah, Fuck Suicide.

Or, if you prefer,

It is important not to brush over the complex realities of suicide and its devastating impact on those left behind.

I'd like to hear from someone who actually knows about this to tell us if categorising suicide as a selfish cowardly act is a good or a bad thing and if it reduces the chance of people comitting suicides. As a categorisation, it's certainly not mentioned in any guidelines I've read - so I'd hazard a guess that it's not as damaging as say - detailing why or how someone killed themselves.
posted by zoo at 7:50 AM on August 22, 2014


I wonder if 10 years from now, this will be the exact point in time that we look back on to remember where Henry Rollins metamorphosed from erratic left-wing mouthpiece to resident Fox News contributor.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:51 AM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


The only quotes from the article that make any sense:

"But I simply cannot understand..."

"And I get that you can’t understand anyone else’s torment."

"In trying to make someone understand, you can only speak in approximation. You are truly on your own."

"Everyone handles their emotional vicissitudes in their own ways."

"I am no doctor..."

"I get it, but then again, maybe I don’t."

He spends the rest of the article contradicting those quotes. It's like my favorite quote from Futurama: "No offense, Fry, but you've turned into a fat sack of crap." Only it's more like, "I don't understand depression at all, but depression is X, Y, and Z, and shouldn't have effects A, B. or C."
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:52 AM on August 22, 2014


As ever, the sensitive Rollins, the poet's soul.
posted by clvrmnky at 7:52 AM on August 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


I've never been someone who was on the Henry Rollins train (didn't have a negative opinion, just neutral), but this ensures that I never will get on it. I read this last night and said out loud "What is wrong with you?!"
posted by cosmicbeast at 7:54 AM on August 22, 2014


He vacillates so wildly from paragraph to paragraph that without the headline I'm not sure if I'd be able to understand his point. Do you have to respect the choice people made to end their life or did they blow it? You said both things, guy.
posted by Caduceus at 7:54 AM on August 22, 2014


Henry Rollins obviously wins at life. Everyone else is just a big loser.
posted by mudpuppie at 7:55 AM on August 22, 2014


I wonder if 10 years from now, this will be the exact point in time that we look back on to remember where Henry Rollins metamorphosed from erratic left-wing mouthpiece to resident Fox News contributor.

Feelings about suicide come down on political lines?
posted by josher71 at 7:56 AM on August 22, 2014


As always, Henry Rollins proves that profundity and volume are not the same thing.
posted by OmieWise at 7:57 AM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Life isn’t anything but what you make it.

Talk about tone deaf. Man.
Henry...fuck you and your self-impressed-libertarianism-camouflaged-as-raw-naked-truth bullshit.
What advice next? "Just get over it?"
posted by Thorzdad at 7:57 AM on August 22, 2014


The article doesn't start out too bad. I can even understand someone not being able to rap their head around how someone can commit suicide if they have kids.

It might be a lot easier to understand if you had kids and just got handed a Parkinson's Disease diagnosis like Williams did. He was already a goner, really, it was never a question he would cause his kids a great deal of pain, it was just a question of whether his kids would have to watch him die slowly and agonizingly a little at a time over a period of many painful years or not.

Ever since I learned about the Parkinson's diagnosis I've seen Williams' suicide in a completely different light--as a compassionate act for his loved ones. You and I might not agree whether it's better to spread the grief out over a period of many years or not, but there was no end to Williams' life in the offering that wouldn't have taken a great emotional toll on the people who loved him, and that was not due to Williams' choice.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:59 AM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


I don't think even Rollins knows the difference between when he's really laying down "truth" and when he's just seeking attention by courting controversy, and I definitely can't.
posted by saulgoodman at 8:01 AM on August 22, 2014


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