/lit/ - Literature

>>21964240
>Suicide is an inexplicable act that forces survivors to seek an explanation. For someone as gifted and lucky as Anthony, the initial impulse is to think the reason must be equal to his violence, to the pain he caused. In the two years since he died, however, no terrible secret or disgrace has surfaced. Anthony’s story is subtler and more frightening and it doesn’t feel like an answer.

>We worried about Anthony, especially in his final year, but his behavior was like so many other high-achieving Americans: He ate too healthily, exercised too much, studied too hard. He could be vain, but elites often are. Behind his veneer of well-being, he cannonballed through as robust a safety net as anyone with a mental illness could reasonably have, including two psychiatrists in his immediate family. In the emails and instant messages I clicked through after his death, he occasionally acknowledged his despair, but in life he mostly passed for a pampered and high-strung striver at a crucial moment in his career.

>In elementary school Anthony was popular and stood out as a soccer player. On Friday afternoons he came home to do his homework so he could enjoy himself all weekend. After going to an academic camp in middle school, he began giving himself an education. “He did things oftentimes in a very deliberate way,” Anna recalled. Anthony would “be aware that this was an author he needed to read” like Dostoevsky, and then read the novelist because the kind of person he wanted to be would have read him. He was always comfortable asking questions about what he was learning, whether that meant talking medicine with my father’s oncologist friend or quizzing our Guatemalan housekeeper on technicalities in Spanish grammar.

>He grew enamored with Thoreau in high school and one weekend sophomore year he took the train to Boston. We don’t know if he reached Walden Pond but more than a decade later both my sister and father remembered the trip as an attempt to run away. “I was both really excited for him and really didn't understand what he was doing, or what he wanted,” Anna said. “I think he spent the train ride dodging the conductor and sitting in the bathroom so he wouldn't have to buy a ticket.”

>“For 10 minutes we said, ‘Well maybe it’s some psychiatric issue,’" my father, who is a psychiatrist, said. “And in retrospect it doesn’t seem like [the trip] was wrong, but it was sort of peculiar. You don’t know what was going on.” As in several later episodes, the Thoreau excursion feels less like independent mindedness than failed rebellion.

>>18633501
>Suicide is an inexplicable act that forces survivors to seek an explanation. For someone as gifted and lucky as Anthony, the initial impulse is to think the reason must be equal to his violence, to the pain he caused. In the two years since he died, however, no terrible secret or disgrace has surfaced. Anthony’s story is subtler and more frightening and it doesn’t feel like an answer.

>We worried about Anthony, especially in his final year, but his behavior was like so many other high-achieving Americans: He ate too healthily, exercised too much, studied too hard. He could be vain, but elites often are. Behind his veneer of well-being, he cannonballed through as robust a safety net as anyone with a mental illness could reasonably have, including two psychiatrists in his immediate family. In the emails and instant messages I clicked through after his death, he occasionally acknowledged his despair, but in life he mostly passed for a pampered and high-strung striver at a crucial moment in his career.

>In elementary school Anthony was popular and stood out as a soccer player. On Friday afternoons he came home to do his homework so he could enjoy himself all weekend. After going to an academic camp in middle school, he began giving himself an education. “He did things oftentimes in a very deliberate way,” Anna recalled. Anthony would “be aware that this was an author he needed to read” like Dostoevsky, and then read the novelist because the kind of person he wanted to be would have read him. He was always comfortable asking questions about what he was learning, whether that meant talking medicine with my father’s oncologist friend or quizzing our Guatemalan housekeeper on technicalities in Spanish grammar.

>He grew enamored with Thoreau in high school and one weekend sophomore year he took the train to Boston. We don’t know if he reached Walden Pond but more than a decade later both my sister and father remembered the trip as an attempt to run away. “I was both really excited for him and really didn't understand what he was doing, or what he wanted,” Anna said. “I think he spent the train ride dodging the conductor and sitting in the bathroom so he wouldn't have to buy a ticket.”

>“For 10 minutes we said, ‘Well maybe it’s some psychiatric issue,’" my father, who is a psychiatrist, said. “And in retrospect it doesn’t seem like [the trip] was wrong, but it was sort of peculiar. You don’t know what was going on.” As in several later episodes, the Thoreau excursion feels less like independent mindedness than failed rebellion.

>Suicide is an inexplicable act that forces survivors to seek an explanation. For someone as gifted and lucky as Anthony, the initial impulse is to think the reason must be equal to his violence, to the pain he caused. In the two years since he died, however, no terrible secret or disgrace has surfaced. Anthony’s story is subtler and more frightening and it doesn’t feel like an answer.

>We worried about Anthony, especially in his final year, but his behavior was like so many other high-achieving Americans: He ate too healthily, exercised too much, studied too hard. He could be vain, but elites often are. Behind his veneer of well-being, he cannonballed through as robust a safety net as anyone with a mental illness could reasonably have, including two psychiatrists in his immediate family. In the emails and instant messages I clicked through after his death, he occasionally acknowledged his despair, but in life he mostly passed for a pampered and high-strung striver at a crucial moment in his career.

>In elementary school Anthony was popular and stood out as a soccer player. On Friday afternoons he came home to do his homework so he could enjoy himself all weekend. After going to an academic camp in middle school, he began giving himself an education. “He did things oftentimes in a very deliberate way,” Anna recalled. Anthony would “be aware that this was an author he needed to read” like Dostoevsky, and then read the novelist because the kind of person he wanted to be would have read him. He was always comfortable asking questions about what he was learning, whether that meant talking medicine with my father’s oncologist friend or quizzing our Guatemalan housekeeper on technicalities in Spanish grammar.

>He grew enamored with Thoreau in high school and one weekend sophomore year he took the train to Boston. We don’t know if he reached Walden Pond but more than a decade later both my sister and father remembered the trip as an attempt to run away. “I was both really excited for him and really didn't understand what he was doing, or what he wanted,” Anna said. “I think he spent the train ride dodging the conductor and sitting in the bathroom so he wouldn't have to buy a ticket.”

>“For 10 minutes we said, ‘Well maybe it’s some psychiatric issue,’" my father, who is a psychiatrist, said. “And in retrospect it doesn’t seem like [the trip] was wrong, but it was sort of peculiar. You don’t know what was going on.” As in several later episodes, the Thoreau excursion feels less like independent mindedness than failed rebellion.