How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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another in his life that suicide has seemed justifiable. Normal men and women who are faced with problems and losses that seem to excuse suicide seldom choose this method of escape. The suicide usually betrays his real motive in the notes he leaves behind. Many a suicide does away with himself to revenge himself on the world, his parents, or the sweetheart who did not take him at his own extravagant evaluation. A minor form of suicide is that form of neurosis which I have called self-sabotage. In this neurosis the individual cuts off his nose to spite his neighbour’s face. Shell shock and the paralyses of hysteria are classic examples. Hysterical blindness, deafness, and self-mutilation are further examples. Rather than cooperate, these neurotics damage themselves to such an extent that cooperation becomes really impossible. Self-sabotage closely resembles suicide in its psychological value. This last form of the neurosis is perhaps the most discouraged expression of life that exists, for it is based on the assumption that every other human being is a superman, while the discouraged neurotic considers himself the lowliest and most insignificant worm, completely incapable of success. While the neurotic announces his hopelessness by committing suicide or mutilating himself so that he can no longer participate in the common tasks of life, he exhibits his anti-social nature by taking a Parthian shot at those he leaves behind him. 'If he commits suicide, he knows that the disgrace will become a permanent heritage to those affected by his demise. And the self- mutilating neurotic knows very well that society will continue to support him, and thus achieves not only an excuse for his failures, but a sense of superiority over those who are not so clever as he and must continue to work hard to give him his daily bread. In this discussion of the psychodynamics of neurotic behaviour we have barely touched upon a complex problem, a full description of which would require a book much larger than this volume. The reader may well ask, why, if the neurosis is always purposive and effective