Mrs. Hunter Thompson details family gathering with Thompson dead in chair
I notice in this article that Mrs. Thompson keeps mentioning details about the conditions under which HST wanted to die, sounding more and more like he was the kind of person who talked with her constantly about the possibility of suicide. Not that I'm laying blame on her necessarily, but the details: "I know he did not want me to find him alone. He knew I was opposed to it." He seems like the kind of guy who would sit around saying, "If I was going to do it, I wouldn't use that gun, I wouldn't do a sloppy job like [any given sap in the daily news]."

I guess I'm obsessing about the details of this story because it reminds me a little of my pen-pal Prof. V who committed suicide after many years of abstractly discussing the possibility that he would do it. It was something more like sepuku with him. More cultural than psychological, if that makes any sense. I mean any good book on Psychology will tell you that some strange beliefs that seem like delusions could be cultural beliefs. When a person says that wine turns into the blood of Christ when they take communion, would you call that delusion? Professionals psychiatrists try to distinguish those things. For a Christian, it is a cultural belief.

Maybe some people who kill themselves do it because they're depressed and could have been talked out of it. For some others, it's part of their belief system and not really a sign of depression. Not sure if that applies to HST, but I'm trying to explain how it seemed different for Prof. V, even though I don't agree and I would have loved to talk him out of it if I could have.