Chuck Palahniuk, known primarily for authoring “The Fight Club”, his penchant for writing about support groups, and for having a name that even his most ardent of fans cannot pronounce, just wrote an “inspirational” article for Men’s Health with specific advice about how to make your life worth living.

In the article, Mr. Palahniuk cites a number of great authors and creative artists who lost their lives through their own hands. A glance at my book-shelf reveals the same theme: David Foster Wallace, Ernest Hemingway, and Hunter S. Thompson are the first to come to my attention. And it should be noted that there is a definite link between what some might call “the artistic temperment” and Bipolar Disorder and depression.

Before you get too alarmed and worry that Mr. Palahniuk’s article is really a suicide letter, it’s actually quite the opposite as the article contains what basically amounts to a suicide prevention checklist coupled with ten compelling reasons to live.

To avoid committing suicide, he suggests completing the three C’s: cleaning, culling, and communicating and suggests giving yourself a time-frame of seven days to complete these tasks. The idea is that once you have cleaned your house, purged yourself of all the crap that you have around you, and communicated with everyone you know how much you care about them, you won’t really feel like committing suicide at all. Also implicit in his writing is that after seven days of activity, you will feel better because you have a cleaner environment, don’t have to worry about your miscellaneous crap being discovered, and will have re-connected with tons of people that you quite possibly may have forgotten about.

If this isn’t enough of a start to help the hurting artistic types out there, Chuck Palahniuk also gives a list of ten reasons to live for including: sex, music, new people, new sensations, new imagination, better books, and for those of you who enjoy annoying people (which I do): “sticking around to stick in the craw of those who cannot stand you.”

And, if you are having suicidal feelings, remember that it is imperative to contact your doctor in case you need medication, and to find someone to talk to whether it is a suicide prevention hotline, a friend, a teacher, or a family member. It's also important to realize that the feelings you are having are temporary and will get better. For more important information about Bipolar Disorder and Depression, please see some of the resources to the right.