The Suicide Journalist.
Three Months ago , The Observer began a new column, Second Class Male, by Richard Geefe. After an aborted suicide attempt, Geefe resumed his column - at the Editor's insistence - and it was renamed Time to Go, his account of his last few months on earth before killing himself in November. The columns, which provoked fierce controversy and a vast postbag, were written by Chris Morris, one of Britain's most innovative broadcasters, and the man behind such ground-breaking programmes as On the Hour, The Day Today, Brass Eye and Radio 1's Blue Jam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Jam
Time To Go.
[SIZE=+1]Last week, I decided to end it all. No one understood me. No one liked me. And here's why…[/SIZE]
Sunday May 30, 1999
The editor writes: `Last week, The Observer learnt that columnist Richard Geefe had attempted to take his own life. Despite his need for rest and medication, he insists that he continue writing and I have, after much thought, agreed. We will, of course, review the situation continually, in line with Richard's true interests. For The Observer, prurience is and always will be inexcusable. We have also agreed not to alter his work in any way, however uncomfortable that makes us feel.'
I guess the only reason I can write this at all is that the humdrum-rattle of a hospital is easier on the mind than the crucifying black anxiety of those last few hours in my flat. If I could have written anything as I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling for the best part of 10 days, it would have read like this.
There's a stack of unread mail in the hall. Newspapers, magazines. It doesn't matter; I can hardly see them. The last thing I did before going to bed was paint the walls and windows black. Methodically daubing the treacly floor paint all over the architect's white and grey glaze walls, the waffle-textured bamboo wallpaper, the skylights, the portholes, the glass, bricks and the panora-fenestrals. It's not a neat job. The bleached wood floor is covered in tarry splats. They said my loft was light and airy. Well I'd love to see the face of the agent showing someone round this bituminous catacomb now. That's one reason to live I suppose. To see that face. Not a very strong one since they'll only show the place when I've gone and then I won't be able to see anybody's face. That's what happens to anything that feels like a reason to live at the moment - it glimmers for an instant - easy to see because it is alone - and then vanishes like a mirage...
This time two weeks ago, I was in bed. Panic attacks had given way to a smothering, toxic dread. My voice had dwindled to a pathetic quaver. If I answered the phone, my friends would say: `Is Richard there?' I, of course, would say: `No' and hang up. I think I went to bed on a Friday. Two hours after getting up. I was simply unable to do anything else. For days, I lay in a waking paralytic hell. The ansamachine quacked with calls I would never return. I remember being vaguely intrigued by this since I'd chucked it in the fishtank to shut it up. Such destructive acts often rise from extreme paranoia - the drivelling, sweaty foreman of bipolar disorder. But experts say I am categorically unipolar. I remember sinking the machine in a rageless, blank trance. Just as I clearly recall tipping ink in after it to stop the fish looking at me.
I don't remember reaching the point where taking my life seemed an answer. I simply became aware of it as I was burning various personal effects to avoid anyone finding them after I'd gone. That was just after I'd phoned my 12-year-old son for the first time in eight years in order to say goodbye. I was surprised to recognise his voice. `It's Dad,' I told him. After a short pause, he simply said: `Go away' and hung up.
I've contemplated taking my own life before but it wasn't like this. I was 23, watching my girlfriend destroy herself with heroin and had just lost two friends in a road accident. Why did I stop myself then but not now? I had more reason to die then. But maybe grand reasons stop you because they excuse your mood. Reasons are not the reason. You decide to kill yourself at the point when the momentum of being born simply runs out. Spiritually we're all born at different speeds. A few of us reach the end of the arc before we plough into the blades of car crashes and coronaries. And at that point, we decide to kill ourselves. I am probably not explaining this very well. Sorry.
Anyway, at 4am last Wednesday, I necked the requisite number of barbiturates and slugged half a pint of absinthe and a bottle of Day Nurse for good measure. I placed a bag over my head and waited. And to kill time, I checked into a chat room. I asked the kids in there if I could sit down and if they minded if I didn't get up again. Someone called Bushbabe117 (no doubt a bloke) asked me what I meant and I told her she was hard to read through the condensation on the bag. She told me to take it off. I wish I hadn't. A short while after, I passed out - the wormwood must have made me sick. I woke up in a bright room. Some insufferable creep in the chat room had called the web server. They'd broken the confidentiality of my contract agreement, looked up my address and called an ambulance (and doubtless spent the whole week with a bulbing great high moral hard). I had even signed off a note with `If I am revived, I shall sue anyone who aided in this', like the good Derek Humphry says. All the rest was crossed out because it was meaningless, self-serving guff - like this column. The ambulance crew said they didn't see the note. My lawyer says that gets them off and, anyway, he won't represent me any more.
Since then, I have received cheery visits from friends, most of whom would like to think this was all an accident. My family have tried to be kind in a way that just makes me embarrassed for them. And the editor of this paper brought flowers and chocolate from colleagues (and Lewis Wolpert's latest blubsheet from the biggest twunt in journalism who I have named here: if you don't see their name, it has been censored and our no-cuts agreement already lies in ruins). I would like to say for the record that the editor did not dissuade me from my decision to take my own life, though touchingly, he tried till he wept (bet he keeps that in), but he did suggest that I delay it for six months and this I have agreed to do on the spurious grounds that some fucker (probably him) may benefit from my burbling. Nor incidentally did he even mention the idea of my taking a lodger - a minder - into the loft. He just sent someone round to clean the place up and they haven't left yet. His name is Thad. He has some kind of jazz beard.
And I hope he can lift my dead weight without popping a hernia (or a slithering, goatee'd turd) into his Shinex cycle shorts. Next week the Observer begins a new series of columns unprecedented in all journalism. In Time To Go, Richard Geefe will chronicle what remains of his life - a life he has vowed to end on 16th November 1999.
Three Months ago , The Observer began a new column, Second Class Male, by Richard Geefe. After an aborted suicide attempt, Geefe resumed his column - at the Editor's insistence - and it was renamed Time to Go, his account of his last few months on earth before killing himself in November. The columns, which provoked fierce controversy and a vast postbag, were written by Chris Morris, one of Britain's most innovative broadcasters, and the man behind such ground-breaking programmes as On the Hour, The Day Today, Brass Eye and Radio 1's Blue Jam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Jam
Time To Go.
[SIZE=+1]Last week, I decided to end it all. No one understood me. No one liked me. And here's why…[/SIZE]
Sunday May 30, 1999
The editor writes: `Last week, The Observer learnt that columnist Richard Geefe had attempted to take his own life. Despite his need for rest and medication, he insists that he continue writing and I have, after much thought, agreed. We will, of course, review the situation continually, in line with Richard's true interests. For The Observer, prurience is and always will be inexcusable. We have also agreed not to alter his work in any way, however uncomfortable that makes us feel.'
I guess the only reason I can write this at all is that the humdrum-rattle of a hospital is easier on the mind than the crucifying black anxiety of those last few hours in my flat. If I could have written anything as I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling for the best part of 10 days, it would have read like this.
There's a stack of unread mail in the hall. Newspapers, magazines. It doesn't matter; I can hardly see them. The last thing I did before going to bed was paint the walls and windows black. Methodically daubing the treacly floor paint all over the architect's white and grey glaze walls, the waffle-textured bamboo wallpaper, the skylights, the portholes, the glass, bricks and the panora-fenestrals. It's not a neat job. The bleached wood floor is covered in tarry splats. They said my loft was light and airy. Well I'd love to see the face of the agent showing someone round this bituminous catacomb now. That's one reason to live I suppose. To see that face. Not a very strong one since they'll only show the place when I've gone and then I won't be able to see anybody's face. That's what happens to anything that feels like a reason to live at the moment - it glimmers for an instant - easy to see because it is alone - and then vanishes like a mirage...
This time two weeks ago, I was in bed. Panic attacks had given way to a smothering, toxic dread. My voice had dwindled to a pathetic quaver. If I answered the phone, my friends would say: `Is Richard there?' I, of course, would say: `No' and hang up. I think I went to bed on a Friday. Two hours after getting up. I was simply unable to do anything else. For days, I lay in a waking paralytic hell. The ansamachine quacked with calls I would never return. I remember being vaguely intrigued by this since I'd chucked it in the fishtank to shut it up. Such destructive acts often rise from extreme paranoia - the drivelling, sweaty foreman of bipolar disorder. But experts say I am categorically unipolar. I remember sinking the machine in a rageless, blank trance. Just as I clearly recall tipping ink in after it to stop the fish looking at me.
I don't remember reaching the point where taking my life seemed an answer. I simply became aware of it as I was burning various personal effects to avoid anyone finding them after I'd gone. That was just after I'd phoned my 12-year-old son for the first time in eight years in order to say goodbye. I was surprised to recognise his voice. `It's Dad,' I told him. After a short pause, he simply said: `Go away' and hung up.
I've contemplated taking my own life before but it wasn't like this. I was 23, watching my girlfriend destroy herself with heroin and had just lost two friends in a road accident. Why did I stop myself then but not now? I had more reason to die then. But maybe grand reasons stop you because they excuse your mood. Reasons are not the reason. You decide to kill yourself at the point when the momentum of being born simply runs out. Spiritually we're all born at different speeds. A few of us reach the end of the arc before we plough into the blades of car crashes and coronaries. And at that point, we decide to kill ourselves. I am probably not explaining this very well. Sorry.
Anyway, at 4am last Wednesday, I necked the requisite number of barbiturates and slugged half a pint of absinthe and a bottle of Day Nurse for good measure. I placed a bag over my head and waited. And to kill time, I checked into a chat room. I asked the kids in there if I could sit down and if they minded if I didn't get up again. Someone called Bushbabe117 (no doubt a bloke) asked me what I meant and I told her she was hard to read through the condensation on the bag. She told me to take it off. I wish I hadn't. A short while after, I passed out - the wormwood must have made me sick. I woke up in a bright room. Some insufferable creep in the chat room had called the web server. They'd broken the confidentiality of my contract agreement, looked up my address and called an ambulance (and doubtless spent the whole week with a bulbing great high moral hard). I had even signed off a note with `If I am revived, I shall sue anyone who aided in this', like the good Derek Humphry says. All the rest was crossed out because it was meaningless, self-serving guff - like this column. The ambulance crew said they didn't see the note. My lawyer says that gets them off and, anyway, he won't represent me any more.
Since then, I have received cheery visits from friends, most of whom would like to think this was all an accident. My family have tried to be kind in a way that just makes me embarrassed for them. And the editor of this paper brought flowers and chocolate from colleagues (and Lewis Wolpert's latest blubsheet from the biggest twunt in journalism who I have named here: if you don't see their name, it has been censored and our no-cuts agreement already lies in ruins). I would like to say for the record that the editor did not dissuade me from my decision to take my own life, though touchingly, he tried till he wept (bet he keeps that in), but he did suggest that I delay it for six months and this I have agreed to do on the spurious grounds that some fucker (probably him) may benefit from my burbling. Nor incidentally did he even mention the idea of my taking a lodger - a minder - into the loft. He just sent someone round to clean the place up and they haven't left yet. His name is Thad. He has some kind of jazz beard.
And I hope he can lift my dead weight without popping a hernia (or a slithering, goatee'd turd) into his Shinex cycle shorts. Next week the Observer begins a new series of columns unprecedented in all journalism. In Time To Go, Richard Geefe will chronicle what remains of his life - a life he has vowed to end on 16th November 1999.
