Letters to the Editor

I KNEW CYNTHIA

My thanks for Philip Dawdy's "One Suicide Too Many" [Jan. 14]. I knew Cynthia Doyon about as well as anyone did, which was not very well, for something like 18 years. I have felt a need to write something about her for the past five months, but I didn't know who to write it to. Or for. Or why.

I have worked on fund-raisers at KUOW during almost every Saturday-evening pledge driveSaturdays, so I could chat with Cynthia and let her know how much I appreciated the work she was doing to keep the memory and history of American popular music alive for yet another generation. I even "pitched" with her on-air on a couple of occasions, which was truly a thrill.

Much like Cynthia, I have spent a lot of time dreaming about living in an era known to my parents and grandparents, but not to myself. I tried to imagine how it felt to club-hop in the '20s, survive the Depression of the '30s, and live in a "united" United States, when most of its citizens were going in the same direction and with the same goals, during the war years of the '40s. Cynthia was a history major. I know she longed for the era she never lived in, and I think she had a hard time living in the era she was dealt. On the one and only vacation I ever knew her to take, she visited the grand ballrooms, dance halls, and casinos made famous during the swing era; such was her love of the past. Fortunately I have friends and family enough to keep me tethered to the present. I don't want to live in the past anymore, I just want to visit it.

I knew the moment I heard she was gone that she must have taken her own life. Over 18 years, it became apparent to me that Cynthia was, well, fragile. I knew that during certain past administrations at the radio station, she felt unappreciated, underutilized, and underrewarded. But I also came to realize that while no one works in a perfect world, she probably did not do all she could have to promote her own agenda and make her own dreams come true. Or maybe she did do all she was capable of doing, but it wasn't enough.

Even though we were not close friends or relatives, I wondered if there was anything I could have done that could have altered the outcome. There is always that fine line between supporting or meddling, helping or alienating. I hope that readers will take lessons from Dawdy's article and take just a little more of a chance at getting involved in the lives of friends and loved ones when they are in need, and hopefully they'll have a better "end of the story" than Cynthia Doyon did.

Dave Stauffer

Bothell

I attempted suicide three times in 1981 and ended up in the UW psychiatric ward for a month. For years, I hoped I would have a breakthrough therapy session that would help me return to normal, or that a drug would come along to return me to my pre-depression state. It never happened. I eventually realized that depression would never go away and that I would have to battle the disease every day the best I could.

I am grateful to Philip Dawdy for openly discussing his struggle with mental illness, and am saddened to learn that Cynthia Doyon lost hers. Isolation is very common among depressed people. You don't want anyone to help you, don't want to reach out to anyone. Friends and family members are cut off and are unable to recognize the symptoms or seriousness of the illness.

Mental illness is complex and insidious. There isn't likely to be a single cure because there isn't a single cause. But ignoring the problem in the hope that it will pass is no solution at all, as Dawdy eloquently asserts.

David A. Hippo

Puyallup

Thanks to Philip Dawdy for shining light on a very difficult subject. I found his article painful to read, because it brought back feelings of despair and wanting to not exist. He's right about how people want to sweep the subject under the rug. I can remember being a teenager and swallowing 15 aspirin, or sitting with a bottle of codeine cough medicine, hoping I'd get the nerve to actually succeed at it this timeand all the while hearing from family and friends: "Oh, stop being so dramatic!" This went on for years, until a former roommate realized I was in trouble the night I tried to kill myself while walking in my sleep. Since then, thanks to therapy and medication, I have fewer "black hole" days. Now I can recognize when I'm heading into a depression and take steps to get through it. More importantly, I now know that, despite some feelings to the contrary, I will eventually get through it and come out the other side.

But I would not have reached this point in my life without the support and aid of caring friends and trained professionals. I only wish someone had taken the time to get me the help I needed 20 years ago.