Why did Kurt kill himself?

WARNING!

THIS POST DISCUSSES SUICIDE. DO NOT READ IF THE TOPIC CAUSES YOU DISTRESS. IF YOU ARE IN NEED OF HELP HERE'S A LINK TO A WEBSITE THAT PROVIDED SUICIDE PREVENTION HELPLINES FOR MULTIPLE DIFFERNT COUNTRIES.

Why did Kurt kill himself?

This is a common question I read fans of Cobain, particularly those who refuse to accept he committed suicide, would ask. They have difficulty in accepting the fact that a rich and famous man like him who abuses with drugs such as heroin ended up dying from suicide. This comes from a myth about drug addicts. The myth is that addicts use drugs to make themselves happy and therefore it would be rare for them to be suicidal. Heroin is known for its euphoric effects. Even if Kurt had depression, he wouldn't kill himself after taking heroin. Even if it was hours after he had taken heroin. 

From what I have researched about drug addiction, there is something known as drug withdrawal. Drug withdrawals are side effects and adverse effects that occurs when an addict discontinues the use of the drug. The withdrawal symptoms can start after some hours or a few days after the discontinuation of the drug.  Different drugs have different withdrawal symptoms and duration of the symptoms. From what I have researched, heroin withdrawal symptoms start after 8 to 24 hours of its last use and has a duration of 4 to 10 days. Symptoms can include:

• Anxiety
• Restlessness
• Diarrhoea
• Insomnia 
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Body aches
• Stomach cramps
• Sweating

I must add that stomach cramps or stomach pain are not common symptoms of heroin withdrawal. Stomach pain are caused from frequent vomiting. When we vomit, we expel fluids from the stomach that protect the tissues of the stomach from an acid used to digest food. Lack of fluid causes inflammation around the stomach when the acid contacts it. This inflammation causes the pain in the stomach. 

In one of my blog posts, I estimated that Cobain took heroin between 6 to 24 hours before he shot himself. Some fans who accept that Cobain's death was from suicide think that what prompted him to kill himself was the withdrawal symptoms of heroin. 

In his suicide note, Cobain wrote "Thank you all from the pit of my burning, nauseous stomach". It is widely known among fans that Cobain had suffered from severe stomach pain during the last years of his life. Officially, the cause of his stomach pain is unknown. In one of his interviews which was done some 4 months before he died, Cobain claimed that his stomach pain has been cured after doing a treatment. This caused some of the conspiracy theory supporters to doubt that the suicide note is forged. Either that or the note was written by Cobain months before his death when his stomach pain wasn't cured yet. They theorize that Courtney found the note, wrote the last four lines and gave it to her hired hitman to put near Cobain's body after killing him. However, there are some people who are of the opinion that Cobain's stomach pain was actually caused by his heroin abuse. It's possible that during his last moments Cobain was suffering from heroin withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety, nausea, vomiting and stomach pain which is why he wrote the line about his burning, nauseous stomach. It is possible that Cobain and the doctors who checked him didn't knew that frequent vomiting can cause stomach pain. This happened during the time when technology wasn't as advanced as it is now. People now-a-days can search on the net and get answers they didn't know before.

Maybe in his last few days, he was vomiting and suffering from withdrawal symptoms of heroin. His mental and physical condition wasn't good when he wrote the suicide note. 

In my opinion, I don't think the withdrawals alone caused him to kill himself. The stress from his life and other personal problems also caused him to kill himself. Judging by the suicide note, Cobain expressed that he has become a 'miserable, self-destructive, death-rocker' , something he was afraid Frances would become when she grows up. Kurt wasn't happy with his life after he became a rock star. I wasn't around when Kurt got famous. I was born in 1993. I haven't read the negative newspaper articles about him. However, I have read old interviews where Kurt said he wasn't happy with some of the things the media wrote about him. He expressed his dislike of being portrayed as a moody, pissy person by the media. He also didn't like the 'rumours' that claimed he was a drug addict. I also think the media's portrayal of him being a wife-beater affected him deeply. In June 1993, there was a report that Kurt was arrested for domestic abuse against his wife. According to Kurt, the report was exaggerated and a lie. He and Courtney were making some noise and their neighbour thought there was some domestic abuse happening and called the police. He wasn't beating his wife.

Also in his old interviews,  Kurt strongly denied the rumours that alleged he abuses with drugs, particularly heroin. Later on, he would admit he was a drug addict and had abused with heroin. He even released a biography with Michael Azerrad where he spoke about his drug addiction. And it seems that for Kurt to come out in public with his addiction was a sensitive matter to him. I get the feeling that one of Kurt's guilt or shame was how he lied about not being a drug addict when in truth he was. He felt like he was a hypocrite. He had told people he never took heroin and the rumours of him doing heroin are rumours. Then it turned out he took heroin.  Later on, he expressed in one of his interviews that he did not like having his private life being pried upon. 

If Kurt had problems with being famous, it wasn't from the idea of having a large number of people becoming his fans, it was mainly from how badly he presented himself to the world and having a lack of privacy in his life.

I also recommend people to read old interviews of Kurt from a website called Live Nirvana. Many people say they find the suicide note confusing or false. If you read his interviews then you'll understand what Kurt was saying in his note.

Other than that, people say he had mental disorders/illnesses such as depression, bipolar disorder and that he was diagnosed with ADHD when he was a child. 

In a few of his interviews, particularly ones from the year 1993, Kurt expressed his suicidal thoughts. As an example, I suggest to read this interview. In this interview, the interviewer wrote that Cobain told Azerrad that he considered shooting himself after the article (Strange Love by Lynn Hirschberg) was published. This was also written in the biography "Come As You Are" in Chapter 12: All we did was cry.

The main point is, he had gone through suicidal thoughts and if he was going through withdrawals when he was writing the suicide note, he was in a state of anxiety. Anxiety can cause a person to have suicidal thoughts. Anxiety is the feeling of fear, panic or worry about a matter a person does not want to face. Sometimes, the person is so afraid of facing whatever is making them anxious that they consider killing themselves just to avoid having to face their fears. I have read in newspapers of young students who committed suicide before or during their exams because they were so stressed and anxious about their exams. They were afraid to face the fear of failing to get the high grades they desire. Other examples I know are of people who killed themselves when they were in panic and in an extremely bad situation, a situation where they have to face harm of some sort. I read about a child who was frequently beaten up by his father, locked himself in the bathroom one night to escape from his father who was beating him and committed suicide by drinking bleach. I also read that soldiers who get cornered by their enemies will shoot themselves to avoid having to face being captured and tortured by their enemies.

Maybe Kurt killed himself because he was afraid of facing or dealing with something unpleasant. Maybe his fears were intensified by the withdrawal symptoms of heroin. Yes, he wasn't in a bad situation but even people in normal situations can kill themselves such as those students I mentioned above. 

That's all I can think as to why he killed himself.

Also, in case some people will complain about how I am 'portraying' Cobain to be a sad and unhappy person... I am not portraying him as such. I am not forcing people to believe he was 'destined' to kill himself because he was depressed and had complained about his problems and expressed his suicidal thoughts. Nor am I trying to portray Cobain to be such a tragic figure that he never experienced happiness in his life. Because he died from suicide and also because the question is mainly about why he killed himself, the answer will contain suicidal thoughts caused by stress or a mental illness or from substance abuse as the main cause of his suicide.

To put it shortly...

It's likely that the withdrawal symptoms of heroin pushed Kurt to kill himself. He had problems in his life which he was afraid to face. The anxiety symptom from the withdrawal may have caused him to stress about his fears more than he should. Judging by his suicide note, his stomach pain returned with the withdrawals and that may have weakened him. He wasn't in a good mental condition during his last moments. All the stress he was facing during his last moment pushed him to kill himself. 

-Indya