Semantic Universal in Written Suicidal Ideation Through the Lens of Camusian Absurd

This exploratory study focuses on linguistic markers of existential distress in written suicidal ideation, examining suicide notes through the philosophical lens of the Camusian Absurd and proposing that suicidal communication reflects the existential tension between a search for meaning and an indifferent reality. By identifying recurring themes of despair, alienation, repetition and cognitive dissonance, the research suggests that the Camusian Absurd could be considered as a semantic universal in written suicidal ideation. Qualitative discourse analysis and quantitative semantic coding are combined to investigate three suicide notes from culturally diverse backgrounds: a young Chinese girl, an Urdu-speaking son, and an English-speaking woman. This study also lays the groundwork for developing the Camusian Absurd in Suicidal Communication Analyzer (CASCA), a proposed tool to analyze existential despair in written suicidal ideation. Future research may extend this approach with natural language processing to explore larger datasets, treating suicidal ideation as a genre to deepen interdisciplinary understanding of existential distress in suicidal communication.