Reflections

[stephbg]

Unless you are very unfortunate, the death of someone you know always comes as a shock. It's not always a surprise, but it's generally a shock. In the last week I've heard of two deaths by suicide, not by people close to me personally, but close enough to have stirred many thoughts. This post is in the service of those thoughts, which are unlikely to be organised but I need to get them out of my head.

The first case is that of M, a friend of many friends, a young and talented artist whose name I recognised but that is all. I can only gather from the reactions around me that her death was unexpected. I didn't know M, but I've been in the shoes of those friends, dealing with the massive shock and surprise of the suicide of a friend. What I remember chiefly about that time was the overwhelming sense of guilt that I hadn't known what was going to happen, that I hadn't somehow managed to prevent it. I came only as close to talking with a common friend that we were worried and were definitely going to "have a chat," but never did we consider the worst of possibilities. Less than a day, maybe less than 12 hours after that conversation, a young man was dead. We were too late. Close, but no cigar. I've since learned that I was not at fault.

Perhaps what I am trying to say here is that you can't read people's minds. You can't always see a suicide coming. There may be absolutely no warning whatsoever. It's not your fault. I know nothing of this friend-of-friends' death, but whatever the circumstances I'm sure that someone out there is blaming themselves when they are in fact blameless.

In my life and thanks primarily to medication, I have come closer to suicide than I ever imagined possible, and it was a frightening place. But it was a deep and personal place and it's entirely possible that I could maintain a functional even happy facade without really feeling like I was pretending. I could have "normal" conversations, do "normal" things, and crack "terrible" jokes as usual. Until very suddenly, and to the absolute surprise of all, I didn't. One very good and helpful thing these experiences taught me was that there was no shame in not seeing this in the friend that I lost all those years ago. Depression lies, not just to the sufferer, but to all around them.

This brings me to the recent suicide of Perth fashion designer Ruth Tarvydas. I don't claim to know her or her mind, and all that follows is pure conjecture. I'm getting tired of all this conjecture banging around in my head so I thought it might help to get it out in the open. Most of what I know about Ruth (I hope she will forgive the familiarity) I learned while watching an ABC documentary series Boomtown which followed her and other Perth prominent people for a year. I take media coverage with a grain of salt, but I believe Ruth to have been an immensely talented creative person who cared deeply about many things, and who was a hard worker and a fighter. None of this was sufficient to fight off commercial pressure, however, and for the last couple of years she'd been fighting a losing financial battle.

On May 16 2014, Ruth Tarvydas was found at the base of her apartment building having fallen 16 floors to her death.

No-one will ever really know exactly what sent her to that fall (if there was a suicide note I am not privy to it), but I know many people are tempted to say that she had huge debts that she couldn't pay and just wanted to get away from them. That maybe she saw that she had no other choice, that she was compelled to it by circumstances. That she was so wracked by grief at the death of her dreams that she flung herself into the void to follow them. Drama, wild emotion, theatrical despair.

I see a different story--for all I know just as fanciful--but it's resonated with me too uncomfortably these last few days to leave to my own thoughts. Ruth had a huge creative talent, but she was also a businesswoman. Having these two competing elements in your life can be deeply uncomfortable, but what makes it worthwhile is the opportunity to create beauty. I could never afford nor wear a Tarvydas dress, but I acknowledge them as beautiful things it must have been a joy to create.

On the surface it seemed as though the fighter in Ruth was carrying on. She had business dealings in progress all over the world, and in one report, Ms Tarvydas’ business partner Jeremy Balius spoke to TV crews outside the designer’s apartment block.

“When I spoke with her yesterday we laughed and talked at length about what the future holds and the bright horizon we could see,” he said.

Depression steals that future from you. Real despair is not wild, but intensely, eerily calm. Whether Ruth had depression or not she may have had that feeling. In the bright light of day she may have kept up the fight and willed herself to believe there were still worlds to conquer. Maybe she did believe it, in the bright light of day. But in the darkness, and alone, maybe the stark reality of the numbers hit. Maybe there were not enough beautiful gowns and wealthy buyers in the world to make the balance sheet come clean. Maybe the numbers meant that she really couldn't afford to even create another collection, or chase yet another market. Maybe she could no longer find that beauty within herself to create that collection in the first place.  Maybe she felt she'd given it all she could give. Maybe there was no beauty left, just numbers. Not debts necessarily, or bills, or responsibilities, just cold ugly numbers crushing her into the dark, and not the years or energy left to fight them.

Why go on, when there was nowhere to go?

An easy step onto a chair and over the edge, it would be easy, it would be certain. No cry for help this; there was no help to be had. It was over.

She always wanted to fly.

--

My deepest apologies to the family and friends of Ruth Tarvydas if my liberties with her life and name have caused any upset. I say again that I never met her nor read her mind, but when I put myself in her shoes it came as a shock but not necessarily a surprise to so easily imagine myself at the end of the same path. Pretty Rock Designs may not be a worldwide empire to lose, but I've felt the sting of obligation battle the joy of creation more than once.

Don't worry about me, I have responsibilities.

Comments

[redbraids.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this.

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

I barely knew M better than you, if at all. I probably last spoke to them 5 or more years ago.

And yet, as soon as I read they had passed away on FB, I knew why. I immediately started searching back through the posts in the vain hope of finding out it was just a physical illness, or a random accident, only to see that it wasn't.

In retrospect, it feels inevitable that it would end this way. Perhaps that's why it struck so hard.

It's funny, realising that almost all of my memories of them are well more than a decade old, and I barely knew them then. And yet, my heart aches for them, and most especially for their family and friends.

Anyone's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Humanity;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

I hope and pray that where-ever M may have gone onto, the burden they struggled with has been lifted from them.