From reports I have seen it sounds like Tom was suffering from depression and ended his life with a gun.

So sad … so very very sad.

His friend Alice K. Turner said Mr. Disch shot himself. She and other friends told how his apartment had been devastated by a fire; then his partner of more than 30 years died; then his home in Barryville, N.Y., was flooded; and finally, he faced eviction after he returned to the apartment. He also suffered from diabetes and sciatica.

?He was simply ground down by the sequence of catastrophes,? his friend Norman Rush, the novelist, said Monday.

As far as I can tell, Tom’s only family died in 2005, and he had been mourning him ever since, from what I’ve been reading. Tom also had a history of mental illness and depression. His LiveJournal indicated he didn’t think he was going to live long. Whether that was due to his physical illnesses or a premeditated suicide isn’t clear. It is very sad that he was in such a state that he wanted to end his life, and his brilliance and artistic talent were no match for the deep depression he was in. I wonder if he’d still have suicided if he hadn’t had access to a gun. There’s that immediacy issue again.

I’m glad for you that you don’t understand how he could do such a thing. That means you’ve never felt that kind of pain and desperation.

Augustine is right on the money.

I wonder if he’d still have suicided if he hadn’t had access to a gun.

My opinion is that having a gun wouldn’t change my resolve to commit suicide, it’d just improve the lethality. One doesn’t typically survive a gun-shot to the head and I’d hate to have to attempt suicide more than once: it would just prolong the inevitable.

Comment from: Augustine [Member] C4T, I don’t think that you can really judge someone for suicide.

Thanks for saying that Augustine. Have you ever noticed that, in times of great tragedy, there’s no shortage of people (particularly people with the cowardly anonymity of the internet) who are ready to pass hasty, critical, often cruel judgment on other people when they’re down, dead or in despair?

Life is for the living. However unfounded condemning a person who was clinically depressed for their selfish actions is, the emotion that led to it is just as real.