Author Iris Chang found dead from self-inflicted gunshot in Los Gatos

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/11/10/obituary2116EST0174.DTL


Iris Chang, a best-selling author who chronicled the Japanese occupation of China and the history of Chinese immigrants in the United States, has died of a self-inflicted gunshot at age 36.

Chang, who won critical acclaim for her books "The Rape of Nanking" and "The Chinese in America," was found dead in her car just south of Los Gatos, Santa Clara County authorities said Wednesday. On Tuesday morning, a motorist driving on Highway 17 noticed her car parked on a side road, checked the vehicle and called police.

The official cause of death has not been released, but investigators concluded that Chang shot herself in the head, officials said. She lived in San Jose with her husband, Brett Douglas, and their 2-year-old son, Christopher.

<snip>

Chang continued to suffer from depression after she was released from the hospital. In a note to her family, she asked to be remembered as the person she was before she became ill -- "engaged with life, committed to her causes, her writing and her family," Rabiner said.

She did a very selfish thing. But maybe she couldn't help it. Maybe the depression was too out-of-control.

Now, her husband and child will have to crawl out of this thing - psychologically speaking.

May she rest in peace and transition well. Prayers of comfort to her family!

we had a suicide in my family and the legacy is awful.

Howcumizzit that if you are insulin resistant or have a trashed pancreas that people don't think of hollering "Make more insulin, dammit!" at them as appropriate treatment?

The same folks have no problem with thinking of serotonin deficiency in the brain as some kind of moral problem that can be cured by just telling depressed people to cheer up.

And anyone who says that has no f***ing clue as to what it's like to be seriously clinically depressed.

She felt like an impediment to the world, and removed herself.

... suicide is the ultimate selfish act.

period.

It can be, but when you have a serious illness sometimes you die from it.

I have many in my family that suffer from depression of the worst kind, and in my stepdad's family two of his children did this. We have come to realize some people recover from illnesses, and some die from them.

.. maybe ..

maybe "none so pious as a reformed sinner"

...

Every single time somebody commits suicide, out of the woodwork come the people screaming "selfish". Its the height of fucking insensitivity to attack people who are dead for being "selfish" because they were in such pain/suffering that they wanted to leave. Sometimes its desperation--perhaps its an elderly person who is paying hundreds of dollars in prescriptions every month and every single soul they ever loved is dead. Sometimes its a person who chooses to have life-sustaining medical stuff removed because they are suffering too much. Sometimes its a young kid devastated over a divorce and there doesn't seem to be options. Sometimes its a war vet who can't stand the trauma of violence remembered.

But bottom line is, they are not "selfish". They may be depressed, they may be alone, they be not thinking right--but they are not selfish. Or if by any stretch of the imagination they are--then they certainly are not anymore selfish than any other human being on this earth. And in their minds, maybe they are being LESS selfish.

thank you puddy.

the same self-righteous people are calling them selfish because they "can't pick themselves up by the bootstraps" and make everyone around them feel all good and happy about the intolerable pain they're living in.

I know that she was sick, and probably could not help herself, but it is an extremely selfish thing to do.

Very difficult for a family to recover from this.

she needed to be in a doctor's care until she could get some medical help to get past a suicidal moment.

there is nothing selfish about that. people don't kill themselves out of selfishness when they are suffering from a major depression. they do so because they think that's the only solution to a problem...even though they're wrong, they're not selfish to be ill.

please do people who suffer, and those who love them, a favor and spare them your armchair moralizing. you simply heap more blame on those who already have to deal with a horrific situation.

you do more harm than good.

The act of suicide is selfish. Have you ever had to deal with the aftermath of a suicide in your family? It is one of the most horrible things a family can go through.

Before you accuse others of "armchair moralizing", why don't you imagine that they might have their own damage to deal with.

I wasn't trying to do either good or harm. I stated my opinion, and I stand by it.

and look at the absurdity of what you're saying.

"He/she was so selfish... how could he/she cause ME so much pain, damage and inconvenience."

Concievably, they had problems bigger than making your life easy and pain free. And they had a disease that didn't allow them to see any other solutions. So, speaking of selfish, what is it to heap judgment on the graves of those who can no longer defend themselves because of the hurt they caused you?

My ex-wife's son killed himself. A bright kid, I think he could have had a great life, but something happened and he killed himself.

Selfish is not a word I use when I think of him.

What is it with you people?

"Oh, I know she was hurting, hurting so bad that she just wanted it to stop, but she didn't think of what others would have to go through..."

Sometimes it just has to be All About You.

and, yes, I have had to deal with family members who have either tried or succeeded in suicide attempts.

it is heartbreaking, the ones that succeed and the ones that don't.

it eventually wrecked my marriage and altered my life forever. Depression is "contagious" and infects family members as well.

So I am very familiar with the emotions that survivors go through, and anger and blame is a big part of that whole emotional sequence.

and the act feels like selfishness to you because you are not in the other person's skin, and because you miss the person, and because you have to deal with the aftermath.

nevertheless, that does not make it selfish.

that said, ANYTHING a person can use to keep him or herself from committing suicide is a useful thought. to say "I can't do this, it's selfish," would be useful in such a circumstance.

however, to have someone else say that to such a person only compounds the self-loathing. But to blame someone and call them selfish seems to me to ignore the other person's problems that are caused by an illness.

My husband, Mike, committed suicide in July 1998. Since then, our son has been in and out of trouble. We deal with Mike's death on a nearly daily basis.
Mike was extraordinarily loving. When he lost both of his legs at Chu Lai, Vietnam in 1971, it was a devestating blow.
Mike was never a selfish person. NEVER.
Thank you, puddycat & rain...person.

It's possible that the lack of compassion from family members leads many suicidally depressed people to commit such a final act.

who has struggled w/ depression and suicidal thoughts, I was thinking more about how my own family treated me. Sorry if that came off the wrong way, I didn't mean to offend, I was reacting out of my own experience. :dunce:

and that we could always be compassionate to each other. I just can't think of anything sadder or more heart-wrenching than a young mother taking her own life, especially one as talented as she was.

Thanks for your reply. I also wish you to be surrounded by warm, loving people who remind you constantly of how much they value and need you. And that would include me, since I've always enjoyed your posts on DU.

The thing is, that it's very, very hard for all of the survivors of a loved one's suicide. When I have had those thoughts myself, and luckily for me they are rare, that is what keeps me going.

This is a time that is difficult for all of us, with the holidays coming on, and this devastating and unexpected loss in the election. Maybe we can all try to be a little bit kinder to each other, and I will start by keeping my own feelings about suicide to myself. They don't eclipse my sadness that we have lost a talented, loving young woman.

of this is difficult for everyone. I think many of us feel so poweless and full of anger, and anything that touches upon a sore subject seems to bring about more than a proportional amount of vitriol. Take care!

...of what you believe she was thinking?

Please spare me.

Sometimes it's best not to say anything at all until the full story comes out...if it comes out at all.

Would you call a cancer victim selfish? How about someone who dies from AIDS?

The perception of mental illness as weakness is superstitious and outdated. It saddens me we haven't moved beyond these old stereotypes.

When we insist on moving mental illness totally into the biological realm, we take away the patient's power. If we tell them they have no control over it then we deprive them the chance to even try to create change in their own lives and the course of their illness.

I think the truth is somewhere in between. Medicine and therapy can help people get through the hard times, like a seriously suicidal episode, but the power to heal in really inside themselves. The people around them can help to put them into prime position to heal, give them loving support, but the healing part is really up to them. That's why sometimes, despite our best efforts, we lose them anyway.

own suffering, and inflicts it on others.

selfish:
devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc.

selfless:
having little or no concern for oneself


By those two definitions, this was much closer to a selfless act than a selfish one. How can 'killing the self' be correctly construed as 'caring' for the self?




Hope her family finds some peace.

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:


Am I pissed? What was your first clue?


I'm coming out. I have SUFFERED with bipolar disorder since I was born. I have spent 48 FUCKING years trying to stay alive. I wish, OH HOW I WISH that every person who says it is SELFISH to kill themselves could spend one month with MY BRAIN. I'd pick the most hellish month I could and just let you sit there and try to hang on while you went from highs to lows in a matter of minutes. You get to a point where you are begging God to take you because the pain is so horrid. And 'horrid' isn't a word terrible enough to describe it.

Last night I was ready for the hospital. Today I've been a bit better -- after running to my doctor for the second time in less than a week for new medication. Yeah, it's REALLY selfish to have your brain take over your world and you have ABSOLUTELY NO CONTROL over what it is doing. If you are VERY lucky, you MIGHT find some meds that work. Or they will work for a few months or maybe even a year or two. Then it comes back big time. I LIVE IN FEAR that EVERY morning when I wake up, I'm going to be back in what I call the 'black hole.' Or hell. I know what hell is like. I've lived it for years at at time, day after day.

I can't begin to describe the treatments I have gone through to try to beat this monster. The meds that make you worse, that make you even more suicidal than you were to begin with. Shock treatments anyone? Lots of fun. Hospitalizations? I've lost count. Yeah, it's all that fun that makes it so selfish to want to not be here anymore. And after I'm done posting this I bet no one will ever want to 'talk' with me on the boards. I'm NOT crazy. My brain does not work the way it is supposed to. If my writing all this out, baring my soul as it were, will educate even ONE person, it will have been worth it to humiliate myself in front of all of DUdome.

So to every person who says it is selfish to commit suicide, I say these things. One, you have absolutely NO idea of what you are talking about. And secondly, get on your knees and thank whoever or whatever you believe in that you don't have any idea of what it is like. And pray like crazy that you never will. But oh how I wish I could give you that month. You'd be begging me and everyone like me for forgiveness for saying the 'selfish' word.

I'm not bipolar, but I've been morbidly depressed and I understand that black hole you talked about. When you're there, it feels like you'll never get out. You can't have any hope, because depression takes away all hope. I admire you for all that you've been through and survived. If you ever want to talk, please send me an email. My IM has been removed.

my respect and gratitude for your post. Those who are so quick to judge: "selfish" seem to me to be the "selfish" ones. "Don't bother/distress/embarass me" is what they are saying. Armchair shrinks motivated to protect their 'comfort zone'.

I have suffered from depression - mild now compared to most - but I made a couple of attempts at suicide decades ago. It was Hell. Added to it was the "self-serving embarassment" of people who should have been able to muster some compassion - but didn't. I survived in spite of them. I learned to forgive them...not for altruistic reasons - but because I 'lived' - and so had to 'live'. These are not things I ususally disclose -but I could not be silent here.

I hope today is better than yesterday - and tomorrow better than today. :hug:

Thank you for expressing this so powerfully. My ex- has major unipolar depression, and I still cannot conceive of what she goes through. You have my sympathy and support.

DTH

it's like to suffer depression on that scale. My oldest brother is a psych nurse and I listen to his work stories and am very thankful that my brain seems to (more or less) chug along on an even keel.

I hope that research into bipolar causes/cures reaches a breakthrough soon so that all you've suffered becomes a distant memory.

I have lost several friends to depression and more than one person in my family suffers from it. They are(were) in pain and I wish there was more that I could do for them.

I suffered a bout of clinical depression that very nearly took my life several times. That I am alive today is a small miracle.

You have NOT humliated yourself by "coming out" as having an illness.
No judgement here, only love.

:hug:

the pain that depressives suffer. It has been 2 years now since my last bout with a major depression, but it is indeed devastating. The pain is something that very few people can imagine unless they have been there themselves. The complete inability to think, or reason, or keep a rational thought in mind for more than a few seconds. And it ALWAYS seems certain that it will go on forever.

I've now recovered from 8 episodes of major depression. I know that I will be on medication for the rest of my life. I know that it may hit again at anytime. Try, people, to imagine living with that. I have a potentially fatal illness, as do all other people with this disease. And hearing people belittle and call selfish those who did not survive infuriates me as much as hearing Fred Phelps belittle AIDS victims.

I have been called selfish because I could not find the energy to get out of bed during a bout. I remember the hell my mother put my father through (this is often inherited) back in the dark days of depression treatment, when he could not even move or speak because of the internal hell.

This is NOT something you can just think your way out of. And people who believe and say that are ignorant of the true nature of the disease.

Dem2theMax, I appreciate your courage. We need to come out of the closet, so that people with sense will realize what they are critisizing, and how many of us there are.

Hope we all learn from it. Feel better my friend. I think you're a very brave and honest person and I hope you find the answer to your condition. I believe you that it's REAL, not selfish and most of us will never know the mountains you've climbed to be here & tell that story.

I had depression that was so bad, it became psychotic. Unless you've been in that terrible, terrible place, don't judge people who suicide. It's more than you can understand.

n/t

If the hospital was treating her breakdown but not specifically postparum depression, that is. Poor woman, poor family.

Could have resulted from isolation too.

May she rest in peace!

PS: I wonder if she was on Prozac...

they believe that it's the only choice left from them and that, in fact, their world would benefit if they were out of the picture. I don't believe anyone commits suicide unless the pain that they're in is so horrible beyond belief that they just can't take it any more.

in that state of mind. Of course it seems selfish from a rational thinking mind.
But that is the problem with this assessment.
Suicide comes from a mind so overwhemed with grief, sorrow, or actual pysical agony that the rationale ceases to exist.
It is so deeply personal that not one person can rightfully judge it.
It is simply outside another human being's thinking to form a solid conclusion as to the why's or the how's.
It is my opinion, from what I've learned from human nature, that to deam suicide as "selfish" is a selfish statement in itself.
It is like saying.."how could that person do this to ME".

Suicide is a tragedy. It is often based in a disease of the brain to some degree. Depression is one disease to refer to. Sometimes it is treatable and someimes it is not. Sometimes the Dr. treating it is competant and sometimes they simply are not. Medications can be a guessing game also.
Depression is as serious and as potentially fatal as cancer or heart deasease.
It carries a stigma because it is a disease of the brain, a major organ like the heart, liver, lungs etc.
It is our society that often declares which are acceptable diseases and which are unacceptable.
This is unfortunate.
This is why depression and the like often go untreated. No disease should be treated as shameful.

When society stops treating improper brain function, when this major organ is seen as fallible as we know the heart, lungs, kidneys, or liver to be, suicide may only then be seen for what it truely is, rather than what our own personal fears condemn it to be.

Loved ones of suicide victims should never be made to feel that the person they knew & loved for all the good that person was, is somehow wiped clean by the kind of death they suffered.

We don't treat deaths from heart attacks or cancer this way, even if the person may have caused it themselves in some way. i.e. smoking, drinking, sedentary lifestyle of simply hereditary.

We still honor that person's life. And so we should honor the suicide victims life also. With as much dignity and respect as any "acceptable" death.
Until we have "walked in their moccasins" as the saying goes, we can simply say that we truly do not understand the depth of pain the person must have been in.
Say a prayer and forgive them. We must be careful judging what we do not understand. And yes, this one is a tough one to grasp. But try to see it as a disease rather than a conscious act of selfishness.
Maybe reasearch will help understand it. Talk to someone who has been there and for whatever reasons, is still here to tell about it.

See it as a disease, and realize how extremely intricate the brain is. Nerves, neurons, and areas that control the rest of the body, and behavior. What is affected by any tiny malfunction of this major organ can have greater impact than any organ of the human body.


Thank You
Blaze

...criticizing.

I have this general theory of NPR that it's goal is to make white middle class people complacent and to sap any energy they might have for trying to make the world a better place by telling them that they suffer so much already just being consumers, and that they're really special just because they consume.

A year ago they had a story abot a couple who were upset because their housesitter committed suicide in their house (after the housesitter murdered her own child, I believe).

The position the story took was that this woman selfishly spoiled this couples enjoyment of their middle class life and their house. The effect was to distract listeners from the importance of good health care for everyone, and to treat disease like it's something the sick do to the healthy to spoil the complacency to which they are entitled.

A lot of people thought I was really wrong about that story. I wish you had posted this to that old thread.

poor, tired brain. You have NO idea of how much your post touched me. Thank you for taking the time to write it. You understand a great deal of how it is to live my life. Or what I call a 'life.' It isn't much, but at least I'm still breathing and still fighting.

that lets you enjoy life, and sets you free from the terrible pain you endure. There have been three suicides in my family, an uncle, my younger brother, and a first cousin. In the case of my brother, I know he suffered for many years from depression, and my sister-in-law and I spent those years trying to bring him out of that dark place he was suffering in.

I could never consider his death "selfish", because he truly loved life, and really tried to fight the impulse to give up. I feel sorrow that I couldn't help find a way out of the darkness, and sorrow that he isn't in our lives anymore, but I could never blame him.

The depression kept him from being able to keep a job, and since he had no job, he had no insurance. He knew he needed help, but couldn't afford it. Think about it...some call suicide a selfish act. What do they call a society who elects men and women who would rather eliminate the safety net which would have helped my brother, and others like him, in order to reduce taxes? I am not talking about fellow DUers, I know they care, but am referring to society as a whole.

I think some who commit suicide do so because they have fought the demons who plagued them for so long that they just give up. Perhaps if we understood depression more, we would have the tools to help them overcome the darkness.

she was a great young historian. It's so tragic she decided to end her life with a husband and young child, and so much unfulfilled potential.

The Japanese still have not owned up to what they did in Manchuria, despite overwhelming evidence including that painstakingly compiled by Chang.



...

...What I am reading here reveals, I think, that some people are very ignorant about depression and suicide. It's an illness and it sometimes proves to be fatal.

comments such as those here labeling her death as 'the ultimate selfish act' are cruel. I'm surprised no one has labeled it 'the coward's way out.'

if you had family touched by suicide or knwe anyone suffering from clinical depression you would not make such comments.

:cry:

...going back to our treatment of Native Americans shortly after arriving in the New World.

We've always won the wars, even if we didn't, and we always wrote the history books.

right down to RAPE, TORTURE, MURDER, KIDNAPINGS and ILLEGAL COMBATANTS :cry:

GEACPS

...story so willingly. She made a lot of enemies in very high places in Japan when her book was published. These are the same folks who were never tried for war crimes following WWII, and/or the inheritors of their highly nationalistic political movement. They are also the same folks that have sanctioned Japanese history books that say nothing about being the aggressors during WWII.

...depressed. The article quotes from what was pretty much a suicide note she wrote to her family after she was last released from the hospital.

although lately I have had my tinfoil hat on tighter than usual. That she did it with a gun in her car makes it more suspect for me - something about it seems off.

can't imagine how one could leave that.

is something that unless you have ever been there, you can't really understand. I've battled three major depressions in my life, and I think I am still in this last one, although maybe at the tail end. What a person doesn't get, is that the depression does the thinking for you. You truly believe there's no hope. Some people deal with it by drinking, substance abuse, other addictions, etc. For some that doesn't work and they get meds and they don't work. For some the meds DO work. But it's a battle that is hard to comprehend for many.

There's an excellent couple of books out there on the subject, one being The Noonday Demon by Andrew Soloman. Probably the most comprehensive book I've ever read on the subject. The other is Darkness Visible (quicker read), which was recommended by Bill Clinton on Larry King.

I know it may appear selfish to commit suicide, but the reality is that depression can be so debilitating and when so, it takes over all rational thought processes.

I find it curious that many great writers suffering from depression have ended up committing suicide, Virginia Wolf and Sylvia Plath, to name a couple.

No one who hasn't been through it can imagine how painfully debilitating depression is.

Writers, in particular, are prone to depression, and I'm not sure why. I do know that I spend a lot of time listening to my agent cheer me on, even when I don't think I need it.

But, imagine waking up, and your first, and only cheerful, thought of the day is that you are now one day closer to your death. That was sometimes the only thing that got me through.

To call an act born out of an illness "selfish" is to condemn the diabetic for not being able to handle sugar. Selfishness has nothing to do with it; sometimes suicide is the only thing someone can see, the only relief to one's pain.

and thanks for your openness so early on in your DU experience.

Hwy 17 - the most dangerous road in the state and among the top 10 in the US. Sad, sad. sad. My heart goes out to her husband and son. :(

They said a water company access road and I think it must be the one about a mile down from here - its the only one I can think of. Wierds me out....

There but for the grace of god go I - in March of 1997, my best friend found me in an old cemetery with a hunting knife in one hand and a loaded .38 in the other. And I was seriously in danger of using it. For all those who say, "selfish", you have no idea how terrifying and horrible it is to feel like you're losing your mind and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it.

I thought Democrats were compassionate.

:hug: Amen.

I was friends with her husband back in college (University of Illinois). A couple of times I met his girlfriend Iris, but after he graduated, he went to grad school at UCSB and we lost touch. I never realized that Iris became a famous author.

Anyway, I am deeply saddened by Brett and Christopher's loss and hope they find the strength to make it through this difficult time.

killing was just too much for her psyche,

Rest in Peace,may you be in a final place without war,pain and inhumanity.

Rest in Peace, Iris.

I'm so sorry for you and your family. I read your book (The Rape of Nanking).

May angels guide you to heaven. May you be greeted by the saints and martyrs. May you rest forever with the Father.

What a tragedy all the way around.

When I first read the AP news release, I was immediately struck by the similarity of Iris' *apparent* suicide and that of the Enron exec, J. Clifford Baxter, who, on the night before he was to testify before Congress against his employer, was found dead in his car, shot in the head. Not knowing anything about Chang, I did a google search of "Iris Chang" + "Bush", just to see if there was any connection. I found the following article:

Newspaper: New York Times
Date: Monday, December 24, 2001
Author: Iris Chang - Staff Writer
Topic: POW compensation suit

Betrayed by the White House

**snip**

The decision of the Bush administration to wage a legal fight against its own veterans is shortsighted as well as morally insupportable. A sustained assault against terrorism will require men and women who believe their country and their commander in chief stand behind them. Americans should be ashamed that the government is now prepared to sacrifice the interests of a previous generation of soldiers in order to woo their former enemy.

Our leaders in Washington must not be permitted to sell out the men who gave so much in the fight for freedom. Otherwise, what shall live in infamy will be not only Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11, but this unjust betrayal.

Call me crazy, but it sure seems like critics of the Bush admin have a nasty habit of turning up dead, all by *apparent* suicide.

It sure makes me wonder what, if anything, Chang might have been working on presently and whether it had anything to do with BushCo.

List of suicidal coincidences: Enrongate and Funeralgate
http://www.hereinreality.com/suicide.html

The Bush Body Count List (search term "suicide")
http://www.bushbodycount.com/list.php?query=suicide&amount=0&blogid=2

I just saw it on my most emailed stories and was going to post it, if no one else had. Its very sad. I was wondering if possibly she had Post Partum Depression. It mentions that she has a two year old. Though I don't know if PPD disappears after a while if it isn't treated it could be a possibility. I meet her once when she came on a speaking tour to a local college and got her to sign my copy of her book. Seem so strange to find out that she is dead now.