Up to twenty percent of people with bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic depressive disorder) commit suicide. Not attempt; commit.
Nearly sixty percent of sufferers are substance abusers.
I didn't know that Kurt had bipolar disorder until I read this node. I was going to write about how we shouldn't hold up a screwed-up junkie as an icon, and how he is a terrible role model for teenagers everywhere. But it's apparent to me now that he was just an unfortunate man who suffered from a terrible illness that may have been the source of his genius and was certainly at the root of his destruction. Sufferers of bipolar disorder experience alternating periods of mania, which can range from mere high spirits to terrifyingly unpredictable and often destructive episodes of uncontrolled nervous energy, and periods of depression, where their despair and dejection can be such that they lose all motivation and will to live. Relatively few sufferers of major depression commit suicide; their despair is such that even this action is too much effort for them. Kurt's Heroin addiction was most likely originally caused and later worsened by his illness; the periods of depression would be eased - albeit temporarily - by the drug, making the high that little bit more valuable. Perhaps it helped him escape the worst of the mania as well. Whatever, it is likely that a period of mania combined with depair resulting from his illness and addiction were his eventual downfall, as he finally lost his life-long struggle with mental illness. I think he deserves to be remembered for his music and the gift he possessed; but we shouldn't forget that at the end of the day he was a poor, sick man who lost his long battle with a terrible affliction.