When was the last time you tried to commit suicide?
A little over a year ago.
Hanging yourself with the dog leash?
That was before.
And the first?
When I was 6 years old.
Does a 6 year old child want to commit suicide?
Buddha and Freud already said that there is a primitive instinct of self-destruction that can be felt at a very early age, and now psychiatry corroborates it.
Do you know why he wanted to commit suicide?
My father was an alcoholic and he viciously and frequently abused my mother.
His older brother committed suicide.
Yes. But I have spoken with many other people who did not have those types of negative circumstances but felt that very strong desire to die, which is like being obsessively hungry or sleepy.
How did he try to commit suicide at age 6?
I jumped on a bus, it was completely premeditated, it was something I had thought about every day for many months, it is so exhausting that you want to get it over with.
And that thought hasn't left you?
Until about a year ago there was not a single day in my life when I did not think about committing suicide all day long. Suicide is not a spontaneous act, it is a thought pattern.
How many times have you tried it?
Between 12 and 14. We are all addicted to something: food, sex, shopping, cell phones..., and I am addicted to alcohol and suicide. But the source of all these addictions is a desire to escape from ourselves.
You are two cats, because you have overcome 14 deaths.
I like that idea, and I think that one of them is white, and another, black: there is a death drive, black cat, and a life drive from which my novels, my love for my students, my children and the ability to live the day with joy.
Two ideas that coexist.
Yes, I wish I was dead, and I'm glad my attempts failed.
Why has it failed so many times?
I'm a comic figure in the history of suicide, and I'm afraid of violence and pain, and I've also been lucky: I was about to jump off a building once and a friend showed up. Luckily we Canadians are reluctant to guns, it was difficult for me to get one.
He hasn't managed to die, maybe he doesn't want to.
I've had a gun to my temple several times, I must have a half-hearted will. I have been admitted to psychiatric hospitals about six times.
And have you learned anything?
No, but I was able to appreciate the beauty and importance of other people who also wanted to stop living, and that led me to appreciate my own importance as a human being. Self-hatred and shame are for me the two fundamental psychological causes that lead you to want to commit suicide.
What were you ashamed of?
If you have an exaggerated idea of your own importance and are dogmatic, you will always feel like a failure for not measuring up.
You have spent 13 years reading and writing about suicide, what have you understood?
That it is very common but to varying degrees, that many people feel like me but they hide it. I learned what to do when faced with the uncontrollable desire to commit suicide: the first thing is to relieve the pressure, leave the physical space where you are and talk to another person, about anything.
Is living obsessed with committing suicide an illness?
All my life, until a year ago, when it subsided drastically, I have had that impulse. Suicide is not something spontaneous or impulsive, it is an existential issue. Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky have more to teach you about suicide than your psychiatrist.
How did you experience the failure of not dying?
With disappointment, and in the following 30 days the possibility of recurrence is high. It is important to lean on other people. I am in contact with people who were searching on Google how to commit suicide and came across my book.
And do they contact you?
I give you my cell phone. They lean on me as much as I lean on them. It is very important not to go through this experience alone.
You have five children, don't you feel guilty?
You think they'll be better off without you.
It scares me that after writing this book he tried to commit suicide again.
I went through a very severe depression. Now I am prohibited from doing so. Since the book appeared, many people with suicidal ideation have asked me for help and that has made me redirect my attention to the urgency of their lives.
Focus on helping others.
That is the most important. In desperation, I would ask him that when he goes out for a walk and passes another person, he smiles at him; Thanks to that, she will be able to remember that she has the ability to create good in this world, that will make her regain the flavor that life has.
