342. Suicide, Addiction, and the Power of Narrative feat. Clancy Martin

Oct 11, 2023

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As we navigate life's challenges, it's crucial we confront the subjects that often remain unspoken out of fear or misunderstanding. Both modern and ancient philosophers have had the wisdom to lead about the tough topics of suicide and addiction, and the nature of their complexities can be informed by both philosophy and science.

Clancy Martin, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri Kansas City and also the author of several books in both the categories of fiction and nonfiction. His latest nonfiction work is titled How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind, and Clancy talks with Greg about this book as well as his previous nonfiction work Love and Lies: An Essay on Truthfulness, Deceit, and the Growth and Care of Erotic Love, and several of his fiction titles.

Clancy shares his personal experiences with the complexities of suicidal ideation and its relationship with addiction, illuminating the power of narrative in preventing suicide and fostering understanding. They also dive into the Christian and Buddhist perspectives on suicide and suffering to examine these concepts from the lens of religion, and Clancy shares personal stories of how his work has directly affected the lives of others.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

Distraction as a lifesaving tool

17:42: When a person is in a moment of real crisis, right on the brink, I think distraction and busyness can be very helpful. The reason I think it can be helpful is that when you're really in that moment of crisis, where you're thinking about taking your own life and maybe about to do it…[18:18]your thinking at that point is not clear at all. So, in advance of that moment, if you know you're predisposed to this, you should have some strategies in place to distract yourself. And distraction at that point, I think, is a fantastic tool. You should get up and take a walk. You should text a friend. You should consider calling a number like 988, a mental health line. You need to recognize and you need to open your blinders a little bit so you can see that there are other options. You need to lessen the pressure a little bit and ease the pain a little bit, because you're not thinking clearly.

Do we take our senses for granted until we lose them?

20:39: You can't really love other human beings until you start engaging with these meaning-of-life questions, which require tremendous courage and do require you to turn away from constantly distracting yourself.

Is addiction a way to escape intimacy and vulnerability?

35:17: An addiction is just this way of running away, of escaping from the terrible, scary vulnerability that comes with intimacy, and ultimately, from the fact that your life really does have meaning and is really important. But it's a frightening thought, actually. The more you think about that thought, that your life is really, really important as a function of its interaction with other people's lives, that is scary, and maybe ought to be a little bit scary, but being willing to embrace that scariness.

The truth about addiction

17:42: The more we think about all of these little addictions we have, the more we might have a tendency to recognize that they are ways of running away from ourselves rather than ways of accepting ourselves. And the person who attempts suicide is just kind of on the extreme end of that scale.

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