Discussion The suicide note of Plaquemines Parish John Doe (1975)

[Jon Arbuckle]

I hope that this doesn't come off as disrespectful. I just wanted to share this unidentified person's suicide note I came across because I felt like I could strongly relate to a lot of what he was feeling. I hope he is at peace now.

Plaquemines Parish John Doe (1975)

Plaquemines Parish John Doe was a teenager who died by suicide by hanging himself from a persimmon tree in Naomi near Belle Chasse, Louisiana. The police a lengthy suicide note addressed to his parents found in a sealed glass jar resting against the tree's trunk. Few details of this case are...

unidentified-awareness.fandom.com

The note:
"Mom and Dad, You have provided be excellent advantages and privileges and experiences. I am extremely grateful for all of your sacrifices, time and support. I am now repaying you with an arrogant act. In this light, I do see it as criminal. I can only hope that you see that it was me who caused it. I never did develop into a real person and I cannot tolerate the false and empty existence I have created. It is best if I cease to live, quietly, than risk that later I will break and shatter by violence or linger years under care. I implore you to see a psychiatrist in order that you might understand my death and my life. Ask thoroughly about what I was and you will see that it is not tragic that I am gone but more natural than if I continued. I was born with a definite pervasive melancholy. What frustrated me most in the last year was that I had built no ties to family or friends. There was nothing of lasting worth and value. I led a detached existence and I was a parody of a person-literally and figuratively. I didn't tell jokes-I was a joke. I am a bomb of frustration and should never marry or have children. It is safest to defuse the bomb harmlessly now. I do not want to bother with being a "reformed and cured" person limping through life. I am this self-centered. I am no longer interested in the world and know that it is not interested in me. When you stop growing you are dead. I stopped growing long ago."

 

[ForestGhost]

Huh, interesting, thanks for sharing. What an articulate note, he really had a knack for expressing himself. May his soul rest well.

"It's safest to defuse the bomb harmlessly now" -- I can relate to this feeling a lot.

 

[Electra]

"When you stop growing you are dead" - made me think about how we are all looking forward for the next stage in our lives. Moving, learning, growing.
Thank you for sharing this.

 

[an alien]

He really had a way with words. I hope his soul is at rest and his family found peace.

 

[kazatte]

i was actually thinking about him recently so i went to see if anyone posted about him on here; i think about him a LOT, actually. i'm very interested in unidentified decedents but his is one of the cases that hits the hardest for me as i've felt everything he's feeling multiple times in my life, and i think i can see a lot of myself in him. i really hope his soul is at rest; he seems to have had a very hard life

 

[eggsausagerice]

the note feels so real. he expressed how he was feeling so well and it's sad to know that he was in so much anguish.

"When you stop growing you are dead" - made me think about how we are all looking forward for the next stage in our lives. Moving, learning, growing.

i agree, @Electra. my depression feels like it started from the inability to grow and mature as fast as others. eventually, i started to feel like i wasn't growing at all.

it's a terrible place to be in and i emphasize with this person so much that reading it made me feel like it was from someone i could've known. no one ever feels pride in the fact that they killed themselves, they do it because they feel ashamed and they don't want to burden the people around them.

"I was born with a definite pervasive melancholy. What frustrated me most in the last year was that I had built no ties to family or friends."

pervasive melancholy is such a articulate way to describe the way depression and loneliness clings onto you and ruins you. it's slow and dull, but it doesn't kill you until you kill yourself. i hope that his parents were able to understand the sense of despair he was going through. thank you for sharing this. i'll keep him in my heart.