In Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar about a young woman struggling with suicidal ideation, she writes about a fictional story of a fig tree. Esther, the protagonist of The Bell Jar, invisions herself sitting under a fig tree and seeing all of the delicious figs ready to be eaten. She assigns choices to the figs; to one, marriage, to another a career, to a third moving back home, etc. Esther imagines herself paralyzed by the choices and ultimately starving while the figs rot around her.
The summary of this passage is usually finished here, though the next page brings to light a very important missing part of the story. Esther is later taken to lunch, and upon eating some food, she realizes her dark take on the fig tree situation was caused by hunger.
This is not always the case. There are real, underlying causes to mental illness and suicidal ideation, but it is also important to remember that small things can also affect our moods and our mind. Sometimes we’re just hungry.