Princeton Grad Student Dies In Apparent Suicide. Left a 4,000-word suicide note detailing a childhood of physical and sexual abuse

Bill Zeller, a Princeton Ph.D candidate and renowned internet programmer, died Wednesday from injuries sustained in a suicide attempt. He was 27.

Zeller stunned the programming community with a 4,000-word suicide note detailing a childhood of physical and sexual abuse, which he had never before disclosed to anyone.

"I've never been able to stop thinking about what happened to me and this hampered my social interactions," Zeller wrote. "... I wondered what it would be like to take [sic] to other people without what happened constantly on my mind, and I wondered if other people had similar experiences that they were better able to mask."

According to the Daily Princetonian, Zeller posted the note on his website and e-mailed it to friends before taking his own life. The note in full can be seen below.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/07/bill-zeller-dead-princeto_n_805689.html

I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I assume I'll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right decision. Maybe it's true that anyone who does this is insane by definition, but I can at least explain my reasoning. I considered not writing any of this because of how personal it is, but I like tying up loose ends and don't want people to wonder why I did this. Since I've never spoken to anyone about what happened to me, people would likely draw the wrong conclusions.

My first memories as a child are of being raped, repeatedly. This has affected every aspect of my life. This darkness, which is the only way I can describe it, has followed me like a fog, but at times intensified and overwhelmed me, usually triggered by a distinct situation. In kindergarten I couldn't use the bathroom and would stand petrified whenever I needed to, which started a trend of awkward and unexplained social behavior. The damage that was done to my body still prevents me from using the bathroom normally, but now it's less of a physical impediment than a daily reminder of what was done to me.

This darkness followed me as I grew up. I remember spending hours playing with legos, having my world consist of me and a box of cold, plastic blocks. Just waiting for everything to end. It's the same thing I do now, but instead of legos it's surfing the web or reading or listening to a baseball game. Most of my life has been spent feeling dead inside, waiting for my body to catch up..... (read more @ the link)