On DFW's Suicide
I just did some research on David Foster Wallace’s decline (albeit, through Gemini 3.0, so there might be some hallucinations). The surface level understanding is: 1) his medication stopped work; 2) they gave him electroconvulsive shock therapy, 3) he hung himself. But I never quite knew the gruesome and heartbreaking details of his “medical episode” (as described by his wife to his agents).
It was like a biochemical meltdown: he was struck with tremors and convulsions. He completely lost his appetite, stopped eating, lost 60 pounds, and his parents moved in to try to cook him familiar foods from childhood. Probably the worst: he could hardly speak, which is something like hell for who might have been the most articulate writer of his generation. He describe his situation as “the bad thing” and “the black hole with teeth.” Often, he couldn’t make basic decisions, and had extreme paralysis in deciding which room to occupy. He could barely comprehend the complex literature he’d been reading, and devolved into self-help books and basic spiritual texts to help him through the situation.
After, I think, 16 months of this, he decided to kill himself; he convinced his wife to leave to get groceries, who agreed because he seemed unusually well, but then organized his manuscript (the Pale King), wrote a two page letter to his wife, and hung himself on the porch. I imagine he assumed his new condition was permanent, and maybe it was, but I can’t help but think that maybe, in 5-10 years, it could have restabilized, but that is easy to say when you’re not in it (a year of this might feel endless/excruciating).
I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of these details are fake (AI-hallucinated). It nonetheless is a more detailed version than the caricature, and it’s possible that a wrong sketch of the details is more true in essence and tenor than an accurate meme-level compression. Perhaps one day I’ll really read into this to make sense of the whole episode. I think now I’m at a place where I don’t quite believe my original understanding, nor the new one, so overall I’m skeptical and unlodged, which is maybe better?
(PS: apparently the details all do check out with D.T. Max’s biography, Every Love Story is a Ghost Story.)