BMEzine founder Shannon Larratt dead in apparent suicide

Shannon Larratt, creator of body modification zine and early online community BMEzine, has died. The statement he left behind indicates that he committed suicide, after several years of a rare illness that left him in extreme, constant pain.

• [yttrx]

  Tubular Aggregate was not the kind of myopathy he had.  There is a lot more to this story which will unfortunately never, ever be told.

  This post is in memory of Keith Alexander and Shannon Larratt.  

• [CRiddell]

  I think I would choose the same outcome as Shannon if I had to live in constant (not even extreme) pain.

  I never met Shannon, but it makes me sad anytime we lose a creative individual. IMHO, the world is a wee bit worse off.

• [charliekrustovnovitchgeschalt]

  F*ck, that sucks. BME saved my body image. Thanks Shannon. 1994… Feels like a totally different network. RIP.

• [Seán McManus]

  I do not look at his passing as suicide, at least not in the same way I look at other people perfoming a permanent action for a temporary problem. 

  • [Lexicat]

    Moved share some of my own thoughts on this.I generally view suicide as an act of compassion: the aim is to alleviate suffering, and death is just a side effect.Sometimes there are alternatives to that particular alleviating pain.I have never felt anger towards my (too many) loved ones who have committed suicide over the years.We will all die permanently, suicide or no.

• [Jack Elder]

  I may be missing something, but where does it state that he committed suicide?  The first part of the statement seems to strongly indicate that he didn’t know in advance when he was going to die, and although he does express support for the right to end your life I don’t see anything confirming that this is in fact what he did.  

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    I’m not sure how else you could interpret a letter that starts with, “by the time you read this I’ll be dead.”

    • [Tally Osborne]

      Here’s how:

      As he talks about in the post, he received “end of life counselling”, which implies he knew he was nearing the end.  It’s really not so hard to imagine someone who spent a good portion of their life blogging incessantly would write a final post.

      Additionally, he talks about not knowing the mechanism by which the entry will be posted, whereas, if I were to leave this as a suicide note, I’d likely know exactly when, and how, this would be published.  The idea of having “last e-mails” etc is not really a new idea.

      Furthermore, he talks about writing the post over a long period of time, and also speaks about why he couldn’t commit suicide. 

      I can’t speak to either being the truth, but the way I initially read this post, it certainly wasn’t as a suicide note.

    • [Jack Elder]

      That he spent a lot of time writing up a last post to be published in the event of his death?  The second sentence (“Caitlin has probably posted it by my request, or it’s been posted as part of a dead-man switch”) reads to me like he had an arrangement with his partner that she’d publish this when he eventually died of whatever reason (or that he’d put in place a system to do that automatically if he didn’t log onto the internet for a week or whatever).  Certainly, if I knew that I was going to die soon, I’d be working on a last statement that I’d like published after my death.  

• [Sunny Stone]

  Crossing yourself over or choosing not to crossover and waiting for your body to stop functional life support.  It is a choice made and both bring sorrow for those who remain.  RIP, Mr. Larratt.  Heaven just became a better place.