Unfortunately, that is often the case. My brother in law also committed suicide. He worked in medicine. Had been treated for 10 years. Despite the treatment and support he received - in the end - he couldn't face yet another bout of depression. No one saw it coming.
Yes it's sobering to think about that. We are so wide of the mark with our suicide prevention strategies.Originally Posted by barry
I confess I wondered whether it might be a suicide too when I read that it was a one car accident. However I haven't seen any confirmation of that and, unlike many other articles that skirt around suicide (think Majak Daw's 'fall' from the bridge during the last pre-season), there are none of the links to Beyond Blue etc that media include in these type of situations and so I think we should be cautious to assume anything too readily. Depression is an insidious and potentially deadly disease that remains relatively poorly understood by the community (although things are improving) and so, unfortunately, there remains a stigma attached to suicide and we should not be too glib about inferring that's what has happened in Spud's case (notwithstanding his mental health history).
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I like the conversation that is emerging though, and appreciate people sharing their own, and their families, histories with depression and suicide. Is a topic that needs to be brought out into the light.
Not correct from what I’ve seen . I’ve read quite a few articles that have linked beyond blue or similar charities at the end. Also on the news it said that the police were still investigating what happened, but the crash would not be counted as part of the road roll , which I assume means it is not considered an accident .
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I haven't seen that but, in that case, and taking into account the posts late on the last page which I had missed, I take back what I said.
Yesterday was World Suicide Prevention Day.
I think sometimes the press doesn't mention suicide outright initially because there is a feeling that the family members have enough to deal
with, without them also having to deal with the fact that the whole world knows this extremely personal & terrible thing has happened to
them. We bag the press a lot, but sometimes they can be quite sensitive to other peoples' suffering.
Unfortunately, suicide is stigmatized in the West where Christian culture characterizes it as a sin. We can compare this to Asian cultures, particularly Japanese, where suicide is regarded as atonement for dishonor.
It's interesting how one culture views suicide as shameful while another views it as atonement for shame.
Much of the psychological maladies of modern society is connected to one's personal status in one's social group, which can be measured in diverse ways, and often ways which we are not fully cognizant. In this sense, we are not very different from our primate cousins that exhibit similar behaviours related to status.
Loss of status, effectively failure of some sort, especially failure to meet one's own expectations or those of friends and family, can usually be traced as the source of anxiety, depression and related syndromes.
There is no easy solution to these problems, as depression and suicide are are on the increase in many countries around the world (but on a sharp decline in China, by contrast). What needs to change is the way we value status in our society. The value of one's status or worth is determined by others, so we often feel locked into a lifestyle where 'failure' may have a relatively high probability. Alternatives, like 'dropping out' can be difficult and also viewed as failure. To leave the group and seek a life on one's own is not a natural state for most humans (something identified by Erich Fromm, for example).
Perhaps we can view Danny Frawley's death not as a tragedy, or even with sadness, but rather a rational choice to depart the world with respect and not have that respect diminished by an impending loss of status. The real sadness is that our society is unlikely to head in a direction where such outcomes are less likely.
Perhaps we on RWO can place less importance on winning, swim against the tide of footy industry mouthpieces, and enjoy our Swans for just going out and playing football, and find pleasure in whatever the numbers on the scoreboard might be. We are brainwashed into valuing our team in terms of success, failure and ladder position (status), thus mirroring the value system of society as a whole, invoking anxiety, depression and frustration when our team is seen as failing.
We have in our power to measure success and failure by the metrics we choose, if we take the freedom to do so. We have the capacity to eliminate failure as one of the options. Let's do it.
If Spud killed himself, given the circumstances as far as I know them, I cannot view it as a rational decision. I think it was a spur of the moment decision taken out of desperation and redolent of irrational fears. And I am often on the other side of this argument with my friend who is a doctor and who says suicide is NEVER a rational choice, whereas I think it can be.
Medically assisted suicide for terminal illnesses, that seems rational (particularly when you need a couple of doctors to assess and sign off).
Deliberately veering into a tree at 100km an hour ... when there is a chance you might survive (and be a massive mess as a result); not to mention potentially not considering the impact it will have on those nearest & dearest to you?
I find it somewhat distasteful that eBay listings of signed Danny Frawley items has tripled since yesterday.
Yes, while I am a long way from being an expert on the subject, I suspect that one reason why a suicidal person would choose a car accident, rather than, say, a gunshot, would be their desire to have their friends and relatives believe that it was an accident. And of course, even though the circumstantial evidence looks like it could be suicide, none of us can definitely state, what exactly was in the person's mind, in the final few seconds of their life. For all we know, it could be psychosis, rather than depression? It could be an extreme reaction to medication? It could be an ill-advised attempt to withdraw from medication? Or it could even be falling asleep at the wheel?
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