Suicide note

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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

Overview

A suicide note is a message left by someone who later attempts or commits suicide. It is estimated that 12-20% of suicides are accompanied by a note. However, incidence rates may depend on race, method of suicide, and cultural differences and may reach rates as high as 50% in certain demographics.

Uses

According to Dr. Lenora Olson, the most common reasons that people contemplating suicide choose to write a suicide note include:

• To ease the pain of survivors by attempting to dissipate guilt
• To increase the pain of survivors by attempting to create guilt
• To set out the reason for suicide
• To gain sympathy or attention
• To give instructions as to disposition of remains

Rarely, those who have committed a crime or other offence will confess their acts in a note.

The most common reasons people contemplating suicide fail to write a note are:

• They are functionally or completely illiterate, or uncomfortable with written language.
• They have nothing to say or nobody to say it to - common with respect to the elderly or those without surviving loved ones.
• They feel they cannot express what they wish to say.
• Their choice to commit suicide was impulsive, or at least hasty enough that there was no time for a suicide note.
• They hope the suicide will be written off as an accident or homicide (common in those who wish to be buried in consecrated ground or who hope their families will be able to collect on insurance, for instance).
• They simply do not wish to write about their choice.

Famous suicide notes

The following people have left famous suicide notes: Template:Trivia

• Getulio Vargas - lawyer, politician and Brazilian president (1930-1945; 1950-1954) who used his suicide and suicide note (the "Carta Testamento") as a political weapon against his enemies.
• Lisandro de la Torre - Argentinian lawyer, politician and senator who fought against his government's corrupt officers during the "Década Infame" (Infamous Decade), the 1930's. Finally, abandoned by his allies and believing his struggle to be lost, he committed suicide, leaving a note describing the desperate situation he was going through.
• Leandro Alem - Argentinian lawyer, politician and senator who took his own life in 1896 after being betrayed by his fellow Radical-party members, who gave themselves to the fraudulent regime then in power in the country, at least according to his view. He left a note denouncing them and his own nephew and heir in the leadership of his party, the future president Hipólito Yrigoyen.
• Yukio Mishima, Japanese writer, his suicide note explained his reasons for attempting to incite mutiny amongst the Japanese self-defence forces.
• Eduardo Chibás, Cuban politician and radio celebrity, killed himself during the broadcast of his programme making his speech during it a kind of oral suicidal note, protesting against the widespread corruption of the reigning regime.
• Roger Angleton - Murderer and brother of famous bookmaker Robert Angleton.
• J. Clifford Baxter - Enron Corporation executive.
• Eustace Budgell, English writer: "What Cato did, and Addison approved, cannot be wrong."
• Leslie Cheung - Hong Kong actor and musician who suffered from clinical depression.
• Kurt Cobain - Lead singer of Nirvana. The note first addressses his fans and reasons for leaving, followed by a message to his widow, Courtney Love, and to his daughter, although it is widely believed to be a letter to his fans explaining his retirement from the music industry and not a suicide note at all. It is also said that Courtney Love possibly wrote a bottom section of the note.
• Clara Blandick - U.S. film actress, most famous for playing Auntie Em in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Her note stated "I am now about to make the great adventure"
• Ida Craddock - Facing prison in 1902 for sending through the U.S. Mail sexually explicit marriage manuals she had authored, Craddock penned a lengthy public suicide note to her readers condemning Anthony Comstock, sponsor of the Comstock Act under which she was convicted.
• Dalida - Popular French singer. She wrote: "Life has become unbearable ... forgive me."
• "Dead" - Lead singer of the black metal group Mayhem, whose suicide note famously read, in part, "Excuse all the blood."

File:Kleist suicide letter.jpg

The German poet Heinrich von Kleist's suicide note from 1811 is a farewell letter to his sister Ulrike.

• Budd Dwyer - Pennsylvania politician who, on live television, read his suicide note and then shot himself.
• George Sanders - Academy Award winning British actor. Suicide note stated he was bored with the world and that he "had lived long enough".
• George Eastman - Inventor of 35 mm film and founder of Eastman Kodak. His note simply read, "My work is done. Why wait?"
• Mike Von Erich - Wrestler who committed suicide after thinking that he was not as good as he had been prior to a shoulder injury. His brothers Kerry and Chris also committed suicide.
• James Forrestal - Former United States Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy.
• Pete Ham - Leader of the rock group Badfinger. Ham's note blamed the group's manager for his financial ruin, calling him "...a soulless bastard. I will take him with me."
• Tony Hancock - British comedian, who died in 1968. Suicide note included the line "Things just went wrong too many times".
• Phaedra - Character from Greek mythology who fell in love with Hippolytus.
• Freddie Prinze - U.S. actor and comedian, famous for his role on the sitcom "Chico and the Man." Is the father of Freddie Prinze Jr.
• Elliott Smith - Singer/songwriter who suffered from addiction and depression. The note, according to the coroner, read "I'm so sorry - love Elliot. God forgive me." The misspelling of the name is believed to be the fault of the coroner, but it is still unclear whether it was a suicide or not.
• Hunter S. Thompson - Creator of gonzo journalism who ascribed his suicide to boredom and a dissatisfaction with aging.
• Virginia Woolf - English feminist author and poet.
• Lee Eun-ju - She left a suicide note scrawled in blood, in which she wrote, "Mom, I am sorry and I love you." A separate note said, "I wanted to do too much. Even though I live, I'm not really alive. I don't want anyone to be disappointed. It's nice having money... I wanted to make money."
• Korechika Anami - "I - with my death - humbly apologize to the Emperor for the great crime." Historians are divided as to what crime he was referring to. It is possibly a reference to his part in the aborted coup against the Emperor Hirohito in the hours following Japan's decision to surrender at the end of World War II.
• Vincent Van Gogh - Left a suicide note that said: "The sadness will never go away".
• Romain Gary - He wrote a suicide note explaining the reasons of his suicide and then shot himself in his mouth. Apart from his suicide note, he had stated: "I really had fun. Goodbye and thank you."

External Links

• Mark Etkind: ...Or Not to Be: A Collection of Suicide Notes, Riverhead Trade, ISBN 1-573225-80-0
• Lenora M. Olson, The use of suicide notes as an aid for understanding motive in completed suicides, Proquest/UMI, ISBN 0-542162-85-7
• Famous suicide notes - dying words of famous people
• Suicide note
• Sam Paul: Why I Committed Suicide, iUniverse, Inc., ISBN 0-595326-95-1
• Kurt Cobain suicide note Shows the full text of Kurt Cobain's suicide note and discusses it in relation to recognized acute risk factors.