Dr. Nolan Ryan Williams, neuroscientist/psychiatrist, pioneer of Stanford SAINT protocol for depression, dies by suicide

[hunter]

26. I've been there myself, including hospitalizations.

I've been kept alive by drugs that made me feel like crap or fuzzed my mind, intensive therapy, and yes, some of that has worked. I'm still here.

Worse than my own misadventures with that sort of depression, I've had family and friends who have killed themselves, or tried to kill themselves, and I attribute some measure of my diagnosed PTSD to those experiences.

One of the reasons I quit my last psychiatrist (similarly world class, I have connections...) was that he seemed a little too interested in some of my stories, and a little too excited by certain drugs he wanted to try. There are places I'm not willing to go and I tend to be paranoid when I'm at my worst.

If something bad does happen to me, at my own hand or through my recklessness ( I can and have been a real trip sometimes... ) I wouldn't want anyone burdened with guilt... okay, maybe if they pulled the trigger or pushed me out the window. But even then... I have a knife scar on my arm that reminds me not to blurt out whatever pops into my head, especially to an angry person threatening me with a knife. Most of all I don't like agency taken from me, even in a locked psych ward.

If I've learned anything, it's that acceptance is important. I have to accept myself that this is a physical problem; accept myself as someone with an erratic mind that strays into some very dark places where nobody can reach me. I'm a bright guy but I'm not going to fix this by force of will no more than I could send myself back in time by force of will, which I've sometimes wanted to do.

Beyond accepting me as I am, it's also important that others accept me. But it's no longer essential to my well-being that everyone accepts me, or even that most people accept me. There are people in my life who have accepted me, even at my lowest points. I don't let people who cannot accept me, for whatever reason, live in my head.

By lifetime experience I've learned that when I'm heading downhill the first thing that flies out the window is my ability to judge my own mental state and my actual situation. I've managed to build a social safety net for myself, even some mental safety nets within my own self (that I do not trust), but the reality is I walk a high wire. That's just the way it is.

Okay, I sound cavalier. And I may not have walked such a high wire as Williams walked, or some of his patients walked. There is an anger behind my comments and it's probably best I keep to myself for now. I'm not angry at Williams, I'm not without sympathy for those who loved him. Nevertheless there are aspects of U.S.A. society that kill people. DU is a political site and my post was political.