On falling into that vacuum

Today L'Wren Scott, a noted fashion designer, reportedly committed suicide by hanging herself in her Manhattan apartment.

She was 49, and news of her death shook me.

I didn't know her of course. I knew her name though--I'd seen it in magazines, accompanying photos of celebrities wearing her clothes--beautiful pieces that were both modern and retro cool. 

But really that's all I knew of her. Until this morning I didn't know she'd been dating Mick Jagger athough following news of her death that seemed to be the most defining characteristic about her--at least judging by all the headlines that played on some variation of "Mick Jagger's Girlfriend Commits Suicide."

That angered and frustrated me--clearly L'Wren Scott was an accomplished woman in her own right--but that's not why I'm writing about her now.

I'm writing about her because news of her suicide took me to a very sad, very dark place.

She's not the only famous person to do such a thing of course (and here I'm making an assumption that the report of suicide is true, based on what little I know--perhaps it's not fair, I get that) but for me, today, learning of L'Wren Scott's death felt like a note of sadness that echoed to my core.

Have you ever felt suicidal?

I have.

It is a horrible, awful and dark, dark feeling. It is the feeling of loneliness and despair and pain and emptiness and a lack of hope and an absence of all things good--all things beautiful and worth living for. It is all those feelings, wrapped tightly into a home-made hand grenade barbed with self-loathing.

It is a feeling that creates a black hole, a vacuum. A vacuum that can feel near impossible to escape.

And, for some that vacuum does become inescapable.

When I thought about L'Wren Scott today, I felt my mind and my heart and my stomach return, very briefly, to the place that overcame her mind, heart and stomach this morning. And all at once I felt horrible and sad and something of a survivor's guilt but also relief that I climbed out of that place. When you learn that someone's succumbed to those feelings that relief is both overwhelmingly comforting, but also it's no solace at all.

Please, please, please if you feel yourself falling into that vacuum, talk to someone. A friend, a therapist, a doctor, a complete stranger.

Anyone, please.