I find it hard to accept how close I came to being swallowed alive by the force of despair.
It is not some exaggeration to say that on one occasion, I felt the life I take for granted coming to a stop in the middle of a conversation with my wife. The things we had in common and the lovely things that gave me strength and peace seemed suddenly trivial and ridiculous. I could feel a hollow I had never felt before forming in my heart and slowing it, and I felt ready to pass out. I harnessed my anger to conquer it and used it to express myself to keep the fire burning, and I will never undervalue the power of anger again.
Anger was given to me to protect myself from simply walking into my extinction in a state of hypnosis, which causes a mind to literally "think itself to death." It is known as Psychogenic Death or "Voodoo Death," and we are just now learning how to combat it. If you've ever seen a whackier episode of "Star Trek" in which Captain Kirk slaps and beats a crewman into returning to his senses, you see how anger can force a man from the fugue state to the fight or flight state that saves him.
This year, a friend of twenty years felt so hopeless that his head fell back, the light went from his eyes, and he gave up. The actual suicide was a formality, but he most certainly felt a surge of adrenalin to do it, a sense of conclusion to the pain, however wrongly directed it was. It is very much like a concentration camp prisoner who decides to smoke his last cigarette, the last happiness he enjoys, before he gives up and dies.
This phenomenon is somewhat biochemical in origin. A breakthrough in 2016 about psychogenic death linked the prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia, and dopamine production to the feeling of hopelessness. Humans respond to threats in various ways: facing them, running away, or freezing. When a threat seems inescapable, a person can lose hope, leading to a decrease in dopamine production and a "spiral of disengagement," resulting in withdrawal, apathy, aboulia, and akinesia.
In my friend's instance, he froze. He could not go to jail for six years after committing the unintentional manslaughter of his girlfriend in a DUI traffic accident, could not accept that he killed her, and could not forgive himself. Eventually, he formed an idea that he would go to jail, but he would never come out. He became increasingly demoralized until the "solution" was to leave Earth before the sentencing. That was the only time in his madness that I saw evidence of his former winning sly smile, the day he told me he was going to take himself out. That was the only time he seemed in control of his fate and at peace. No matter what we did to prevent it, which included calling the cops and trying to get him into rehab, he found a way past us and did it anyway. He lied, was misdirected, gave false assurance, and did secret suicide research on the Internet until the day came when he would no longer talk to me or take my calls. He gave his money away, wiped his data, and took his life.
The majority of individuals caught in this neurological downward spiral manage to pull themselves out before reaching rock bottom. They absorb and process new information, adapting to their changed circumstances. However, the minority who cannot overcome this may progress to stage five: psychogenic death. At this point, the light fades from their eyes, they bid farewells, and sometimes exhibit a brief flicker of energy as if they have finally found a purpose––their new goal being death. Within a day or so, they succumb to this tragic outcome.
It happens to entire nations. Look at how we, as citizens of the mighty United States, became demoralized during the pandemic and went along with everything our government told us to do without any pushback. It was here that I had my breakdown. My hair turned white. Others had similar experiences.
My wife returned from Beirut this weekend to tell me how her family is still living their lives in stage two of psychogenic death, a withdrawal and apathy in which she could not tell them anything about her marriage or her life in the United States without them changing the subject in mid-sentence. The Lebanese National Government grabbed everyone's bank accounts, giving their citizens an IOU for hundreds of millions of dollars and loops of excuses as to why they can neither withdraw nor deposit money into their accounts now. With no way of changing things, the Lebanese have begun as a people to die the psychogenic death. My wife could feel it while she was among them, a demoralizing paralysis that prevented them from even imagining a future where they could control their lives. False to facts arguments. Fake smiles.
So, how do we oppose this? I will tell you next time. Your Grizzled Angeleno looked into the matter. There is a way to do it. Think of those who survive shipwrecks and prison camps. Some do, some don't.
We must.