Maybe I should have followed you and beat down your door
Maybe it's gonna be breaking you every time you fall
But to shower you with pity will do you no good at all, no good at all”
- Powderfinger ‘Sunsets’
Anguish and despair are not mental illnesses. They’re emotions.
The term ‘suicide epidemic’ is playing heavily in the international and local media. 'Depression’, ‘mental illness’, ‘demons’ and ‘darkness’ are to blame we’re told.
They mean that no-one in their right mind checks out. We’re meant to shuffle off this mortal coil, not leap and certainly not stroll.
There is a danger in the classification of suicide as a symptom of illness, which lies in the inability to distinguish rational despair.
Listening, empathy, and understanding- regularly held up to be a part of the ‘solution’ to ‘mental illness’- require that we understand that sadness is not necessarily illogical, and an individual may choose in their right mind to not continue living.
Listening, empathy, and understanding- regularly held up to be a part of the ‘solution’ to ‘mental illness’- require that we understand that sadness is not necessarily illogical, and an individual may choose in their right mind to not continue living.
The euthanasia debate in this nation and others often hinges- as will the legislation- on the terminality of illness, and the competency of a person seeking to consent to end their own life.
In other words, it’s ok if you’re going to die anyway. Well, who isn’t?
In a world with increasing pressures of population, of rising intolerance, and where the gap between ‘have’ and ‘have not’ is not just widening- but is increasingly accepted, it requires a set of rigid personal mental filters not to despair... for others or yourself, for your family or your values, for your home or for the planet – or simply for the loss of shared compassion once described as ‘humanity’.
Social media feeds and other everyday influencers strain with self-help and creak with conviction, pissing positivity in great rainbow showers, meant to balance the obvious and immediate reality of a world that has some very serious problems, all of which are ours.
If you accept that- and you may not- then it’s possible to look at the described ‘suicide epidemic’ not as a rash of mental instability spreading from an unknown source- but as a rational reaction by a species to overpopulation.
Sometimes, the problems are more immediate and personal- but that simply demonstrates the rationale.
“On May 28, 2014, Robin was finally given an explanation for the tangled lattice of sicknesses that had been plaguing him. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease"- excerpted from 'Robin' by Dave Itzkoff.
In August the same year, Robin Williams would commit suicide.
After a life of 63 years Robin was contemplating a painful death and mental decline. However, for some reason, reports on his death needed to include ‘lifelong battles’ with depression, alcohol and drug use, as though they were cause. Frankly, if every comedian with depressive tendencies or who liked a tipple were to commit suicide, well, there wouldn’t be any jokes in the eulogies… These factors are not irrelevant to Robin’s life- but neither does his choice of death seem unreasoned if we simply consider the immediate circumstances and his perspective, without accumulating a log of every drink or sad smile over his lifetime.
When a 26-year-old Iranian refugee died in June 2018 on the island of Nauru, he became the twelfth person to die in Australian offshore detention and the fifth asylum seeker to die on Nauru. He had at that point been detained for 5 years.
Call it depression if you like- but I don’t think there is anything irrational in the viewpoint that the man’s case could plausibly be described as pretty fucking hopeless. Debate the immigration policy amongst yourselves- but I’m unsure why it was necessary for media coverage to imply it was a death due to mental illness? Broken, distraught, hopeless- yes.
Sometimes, we simply refuse to listen when something could not be said more clearly…When prominent gay rights lawyer David Buckel set himself on fire in a park in Brooklyn in 2018, he left a suicide note. He intended for his death to make a statement about protecting the environment.
"I struggle to believe that this is a protest suicide. I think that, underneath, he's got to be in a very dark place, it's not characteristic of David"- said a friend.
I agree that it is by nature and definition, very uncharacterisitic. It’s a bit of a one time show. Not every communication requires interpretation. He wrote down his reason. Why would we not believe someone who has gone to the extreme to deliver what is in essence a simple message? Is it easier to ignore what’s said- undermine it- to class it as a form of insanity?
"Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die? At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eye..." sang Jack Johnson.
In New Zealand this week they did cry, when one of their colleagues, Greg Boyed, 'died suddenly'. He had "...battled depression for years before his death." we were told- instantly upon news of his death.
"How to tackle New Zealand's depression crisis" rang head lines. "A common misconception is that depression is an extreme form of sadness whereas the reality is absence of emotion. It is a deep void of an oppressive nothingness that sucks all pleasure out of living." Really? Fuck!
That seems quite a leap to take instantly. He's dead. He must've been sick. In the head...
Or it is possible that there is a bunch of stuff we don't know about the dead and successful newscaster.
"Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die?"
I agree that it is by nature and definition, very uncharacterisitic. It’s a bit of a one time show. Not every communication requires interpretation. He wrote down his reason. Why would we not believe someone who has gone to the extreme to deliver what is in essence a simple message? Is it easier to ignore what’s said- undermine it- to class it as a form of insanity?
"Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die? At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eye..." sang Jack Johnson.
In New Zealand this week they did cry, when one of their colleagues, Greg Boyed, 'died suddenly'. He had "...battled depression for years before his death." we were told- instantly upon news of his death.
"How to tackle New Zealand's depression crisis" rang head lines. "A common misconception is that depression is an extreme form of sadness whereas the reality is absence of emotion. It is a deep void of an oppressive nothingness that sucks all pleasure out of living." Really? Fuck!
That seems quite a leap to take instantly. He's dead. He must've been sick. In the head...
Or it is possible that there is a bunch of stuff we don't know about the dead and successful newscaster.
"Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die?"
“Most people who attempt suicide don’t want to die – they just want their pain to end or can't see another way out of their situation.” - opening line of the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand website.
I am not saying that suicide and mental health are not significant issues.
What I am saying is that they are not the same issue.
If we fail to recognize that there are real reasons for despair, and instead continue to address suicide as a flaw in the health of the individual, then the genuine and startlingly obvious problems, the circumstances which sometimes leave people without hope will remain unaddressed- and suicide with them, as a very natural response.
