General Celebrity deaths

[Guard Dog]

What the hell is going on with suicides lately? Two celebrities in a week and it has become the 10th highest cause of death in the US. In some states it's the highest non-natural cause. It's heartbreaking.

[Blarghagh]

Society as a whole is moving up Maslow's hierarchy of needs while decreasing the importance of things needed to actually fulfill the needs higher on the pyramid, making the core needs of modern people difficult to satisfy. It's an irony of sorts, you're less likely to get depressed you're trying to find food, shelter, security etc. than if you're trying to find happiness. Human beings are not built to be happy.

[Malcador]

Society as a whole is moving up Maslow's hierarchy of needs while decreasing the importance of things needed to actually fulfill the needs higher on the pyramid, making the core needs of modern people difficult to satisfy. It's an irony of sorts, you're less likely to get depressed you're trying to find food, shelter, security etc. than if you're trying to find happiness. Human beings are not built to be happy.

Heresy DOES come from idleness.

[Guard Dog]

I guess my brain is just wired differently. Over the course of my life I could go bummer to bummer with most anyone but despite all that I'm basically between feeling fine to mostly happy most of the time.

[Bartimaeus]

 

RIP. I was never really comfortable with watching his shows - I always found him just a little off-putting, and he seemed to often have an alcohol problem (e: and from what I'm reading now, he's had substance abuse problems since forever, which unfortunately fits with the feeling I already had). A few people I know that have been following him for forever are going to be devastated, though... Chronic depression is a funny thing, too - most of the time, it might seem bearable, but it only takes one night where you get into your own head just a little too much and there being nobody there to help you or pull you back from the brink, and that can be it.

Funny isn't the word I'd use, but then me and chronic depression have a very toxic relationship.

 

Didn't know the guy, but every mental illness related suicide is a tragic failure of society. R.I.P.

 

Well, yeah, I didn't mean literally funny. I was speaking a little from experience, after all.

[Blarghagh]

Yeah, I know. I'm just... Touchy subject for me, I guess.

 

My life is an every day spiral of my brain trying to convince me the world is better off without me. It's hard for some people (don't mean you, just people in general) to imagine what it's like having to constantly choose to stay alive rather than it being the default state. I don't blame them, honestly, it's called mental illness for a reason. Explaining how cancer feels to a healthy person, as easy as describing a color to a blind person.

 

I guess my brain is just wired differently. Over the course of my life I could go bummer to bummer with most anyone but despite all that I'm basically between feeling fine to mostly happy most of the time.

That's fine, lots of people do. But others just don't. I'm honestly envious, I'm about as far to the other side as someone can be.

[Bartimaeus]

My way of dealing with touchy subjects is usually making humorous or pithy observations about them. The number of times I've had people somewhere between faux and real yell at me for making terrible semi-joke-observations about some of my recently dead/suicided family members is probably too many to count. Sorry if that doesn't work for you, .

Edited June 8, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Blarghagh]

Nah, it's fine. Don't worry about it. I'm just touchy today because it's been a bad day for me on this subject. Probably wouldn't even have noticed if you posted it a couple of days ago or made jokes too, but today was one of those days I had to ask my wife to hide all the pills in the house because I was afraid I'd have too big an appetite for them, so to say.

[Leferd]

Through Kitchen Confidential, A Chef's Tour, No Reservations, and Parts Unknown, Bourdain helped instill a love of food and curiosity of the world and other cultures which I might otherwise have missed out. I'd probably be 20 lbs lighter. I admire the guy and I'll really miss his show.

 

Hope he's kicking it in Purgatory. 

 

[Malcador]

I guess my brain is just wired differently. Over the course of my life I could go bummer to bummer with most anyone but despite all that I'm basically between feeling fine to mostly happy most of the time.

I ,too, possess a pysche of iron.

[Blarghagh]

Mine's more like paper mache made from lyrics sheets to Kansas' "Dust in the Wind".

[Guard Dog]

What sucks is I guess it's something you really don't have control over. You could fake it I guess and fool people but you can't fool yourself.

[injurai]

Sometimes people turn to substances because of what feels like an internal imbalance and they sort of self-medicate. I think though a deeper problem is that competition forces people push themselves past their limits and substances are a great way to mask the self-abuse. They stimulate you through exhaustion, they give you back your evenings when you would otherwise not be lively enough for company, they help you to fake it until you make it.

 

Substances are an easy solution at times, and in other domains of life almost seem necessary to keep up with the flow. The pressures that drive people to substances is immense and the food industry is as rife as any. One moment you're numbing a temporary pain due to incredibly uncomfortable circumstances, the next you're numb to everything but the feeling of impending doom and impression that the substances build up in you.

 

Bourdain was a role model of mine, someone who I thought could manage himself. Who had been through the wringer. I connected with him when I was a heavy drinker and even still when I freed myself from the drinking loop. He had compassion for the little guy, passion for skilled labor, a spine to take a stand, a voice to bring it all together, and knew when not to take things too seriously. Somehow though, this unfortunate passing does not seem alien to his character at all, and that saddens me the most. That he always struck me that he was one of the stronger ones, someone who had already come out the other side. I knew I caught my drinking problem early on, enough so that I can still drink on occasions. But it pains me to realize many loved ones in my life that I think are strong may be struggling internally in ways that I can't comfort or help. I think it was Robin Williams suicide that first really affected me. I realized the joy he brought to other's was in many ways him searching to bring to other's that which he struggled to find himself. Bourdain, however, really hits home on a new level. I see his persona less as a character, but more him pulling his inner self outward. Challenging himself meet an untenable ideal. I think it comes back to having to compete and strive for something ever more perfect just to stay afloat and survive. I see a lot of myself in him. I only ever drank alcohol as my elixir. I know he overcame other substances, but not alcohol which remained more a part of his well rounded meal. I can't shake the thought that those close to me continue to rely on this elixir to get by and I may be entirely oblivious to a deeper pain, or that there could be an impending implosion that even they aren't privy to.

 

The recent CDC publishings on suicide of very damning, I wonder if they struck a hopeless tone in Bourdain. The cascade of media that people take in while being in vulnerable moments today is immense. Hardly enough time to recover to one's better faculties before one is bombarded with a sense of despair. I know journalism is wrought with alcoholism and further there is a latent misery that it taps into. It feeds a desire to endlessly commiserate.

Edited June 8, 2018 by injurai

[smjjames]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/08/us/anthony-bourdain-obit/index.html

 

Anthony Bourdain committed suicided, he was 61...

 

I'm at a loss for words.

 

Just heard a couple min ago.

[Bartimaeus]

If you want to be depressed (so this isn't for you, TrueNeutral, ), here's the reddit Suicide Prevention Megathread where you can read thousands of people's stories dealing with suicide (their own attempted and friends and family): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8pks1u/suicide_prevention_megathread/?sort=confidence

Edited June 8, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[LadyCrimson]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/08/us/anthony-bourdain-obit/index.html

 

Anthony Bourdain committed suicided, he was 61...

 

I'm at a loss for words.

Well...that's a complete surprise to me. Not that I ever researched the guy and his life or something. (edit - had no idea about the background issues, I mean)

 

Hubby and I have watched some episodes of some of his shows - they were always hit and miss. Some episodes were very interesting, others were meh to downright snooze-inducing. Most of the time I didn't get any weird vibes while watching, although he probably wasn't a personality I'd get along with if tossed into a locked room for long. But he was such a staple - we joked all the time about how many variations of the format series he had/kept having.

 

RIP.

Edited June 8, 2018 by LadyCrimson

[Lexx]

It's just weird. The times when I have these phases (rarely nowadays, but still happen), I'm always thinking "why can't you be happy?" It's really not that I am missing so much. Job, money, barely any risks... and yet. In a more lighter form, it's actually similar at work: Stable job, good money (better than anywhere else), reasonable people around... and yet I just want to throw away everything and resign once I get moody again. It makes no damn sense to me and I wish I could just flick a switch and stop thinking that.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Lexx

[injurai]

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/08/us/anthony-bourdain-obit/index.html

 

Anthony Bourdain committed suicided, he was 61...

 

I'm at a loss for words.

Well...that's a complete surprise to me. Not that I ever researched the guy and his life or something. (edit - had no idea about the background issues, I mean)

 

Hubby and I have watched some episodes of some of his shows - they were always hit and miss. Some episodes were very interesting, others were meh to downright snooze-inducing. Most of the time I didn't get any weird vibes while watching, although he probably wasn't a personality I'd get along with if tossed into a locked room for long. But he was such a staple - we joked all the time about how many variations of the format series he had/kept having.

 

RIP.

 

His show was all real, so if they didn't get any material then there wasn't much more than literary references and waxing poetic dubbed over a rather standard affair. I always appreciated that the show was produced without a script.

 

It's just weird. The times when I have these phases (rarely nowadays, but still happen), I'm always thinking "why can't you be happy?" It's really not that I am missing so much. Job, money, barely any risks... and yet. In a more lighter form, it's actually similar at work: Stable job, good money (better than anywhere else), reasonable people around... and yet I just want to throw away everything and resign once I get moody again. It makes no damn sense to me and I wish I could just flick a switch and stop thinking that.

 

It'd be nice if it was easier to take sabbaticals and vacations. In America there is a lot of guilt taking one, and your always left a bit behind when you come back.

Edited June 8, 2018 by injurai

[Gfted1]

I get 15 paid days off to use at will and an additional 14 paid days off for various holidays, per year. I never feel guilty but crap sure does pile up while Im gone. And its use-it-or-lose-it. If I could sell it back I would never take vacation. Now I just let it pile up until the last quarter of the year and take days off if it looks like its going to snow.

[Blarghagh]

Injurai: Thanks for that eloquent, meaningful post.

 

Lexx: Sorry man, I hope you find your place some day.

 

If you want to be depressed (so this isn't for you, TrueNeutral, ), here's the reddit Suicide Prevention Megathread where you can read thousands of people's stories dealing with suicide (their own attempted and friends and family): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8pks1u/suicide_prevention_megathread/?sort=confidence

A bit too late on that warning, because I'm in there somewhere. Anonymously, though. I've always been pretty open about my struggles with depression and mental illness online, but that gets a little too personal.

[Malcador]

Suicide prevention on Reddit seems out of place. I feel like killing myself every time I browse that site.

[Blarghagh]

Hah, I've never used my account there for anything else than signing up for game giveaways. But I try to add a voice to these things where I find them, there's comfort in shared and sharing experience I guess.

[Gromnir]

What the hell is going on with suicides lately? Two celebrities in a week and it has become the 10th highest cause of death in the US. In some states it's the highest non-natural cause. It's heartbreaking.

 

suicides is simple to decrease.  not kidding.  current US suicide per capita rate still hasn't reached levels it were at when coal gas were used in ovens. change from coal gas made suicide more inconvenient and suicide rates dropped dramatic.  current opioid crisis has put lethal amounts o' legal narcotics into the hands o' millions of Americans.  is no wonder the recent increase in suicide rate is mirroring the suicides by drug increase.  as such, am suspecting the single most effective means o' decreasing suicides in this country would be to put greater limits on handgun ownership.  sure, is constitutional issues, but in terms o' most immediate impact, take away a common and simple means o' self execution would be having immediate and lasting results.

 

as sad as it is to consider, suicide is most easily prevented by making the act inconvenient.  force folks to reflect for even a short period o' time and chances are they step back from the brink instead o' going through the extra effort needed to end their own existence.  is the worst kinda dark humor to acknowledge the laziness o' the ordinary suicide.  make suicide more inconvenient and large numbers o' lives is saved. yeah, the root problem o' large numbers o' depressed peoples is not addressed, but make suicide inconvenient at least gives friends and family time to save the potential suicide. 

[Valsuelm]

I guess my brain is just wired differently. Over the course of my life I could go bummer to bummer with most anyone but despite all that I'm basically between feeling fine to mostly happy most of the time.

 

Pop some psycotropics on a regular basis and that will change.

 

Also, you're more grounded than most. A factor in a good number of suicides is one's imagined world crashing into reality in such an unpleasant way one doesn't want to deal with reality.

 

That said, people kill themselves for a variety of reasons, 'depression' isn't the only one.

[Valsuelm]

What sucks is I guess it's something you really don't have control over. You could fake it I guess and fool people but you can't fool yourself.

 

 

Suicide aside, one hell of a lot of people constantly engage in fooling themselves....

 

Fooling oneself is a prerequisite for delusion, cognitive dissonance, sociopathy, hubris, and more....

 

 

Edited June 9, 2018 by Valsuelm