Everybody loved him, but he could not realise.

national | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Wednesday December 10, 2003 17:04 by David

Just something to maybe thing about

Over 400 people take their own lives In Ireland each year. According to one (unreliable report) there are 10 thousand suicide attempts each year. People are not happy.

No one saw the note beside the body
No one knew the problems
But my God
Suicide

(Phil Lynott
Fighting, 1975)

On a Monday morning, 5 months ago, I was rudely awakened by my fathers self determined eternal rest. The upsetting reality of suicide in Ireland had invaded my once blissfully ignorant life in a way I could no longer ignore. Each long day since, I have struggled to understand, often in vain, why? The simple answer is that he was sick. He had a “chemical imbalance” in his brain that caused him to act irrationally but this reason is exactly as hollow as it seems. There was much more, life does not end on such a whim. My fathers struggle was that of a sensitive, gentle man, he was not a defective machine. Yes, he did have an illness, diagnosed as manic depression or Bi-Polar disorder he had gone through the full mental health system of this state, but I believe he still died the same way that hundreds of brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers die each year, a miscalculated act of desperation. The false realisation that all his relationships had failed, that he was living a life alone and that he was better off dead.

Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of modern sociology, set himself the task in one of his major works to uncover the reasons and causes of suicide. Why do people take their own lives? He reached the conclusion that where a strong sense of community existed, suicide rates were much lower, or that alienation was a large cause of the anguish one must feel to take ones own life. How many people these days know and trust the people living next door to them? How many people have friendships that they believe will survive should they change jobs or move to a different part of the city? How many people commute 2 hours a day, work 8 hours in a job they don’t really enjoy with people they can barely stand, come home and are too tired to do anything with their family? I believe that our modern inflicted way of life is unhealthy and that it will breed alienation. When it boils over, something will have to be done but this is a larger cause and one that we as individuals are powerless to change.

Durkheim also equated personal relationships with contentment and happiness. Everybody dies alone, but Man is not meant to live alone. I believe that most of the people who take their own lives in this country do so because they believe they will never be able to build successful relationships with either specific people or with society in general. Durkheim noticed that single men were far more likely to kill themselves, Women in relationships were more likely to kill themselves if they were estranged from their family and friends. The incidences of suicide increased after divorces and separations and amongst those who live alone in isolated “communities” and young people can be severely affected by how they believe their parents and family feel about them.

My father was married to a woman who was, and still is, utterly in love with him. Her every decision and action since I can remember had his best interests at heart but my father could not always see this. He was looking at the world through a cloud of illusion. He was sick, he could not fully understand the reasons why his family wanted him to take these drugs that took his soul away, or why a loving wife wanted him to be in a hospital so many miles apart from his home, his mother, his brother and best friend. He was sick but he was still a very sensitive person and I remember seeing the hurt in his eyes when everyone appeared to be against him. When my father died he wanted to end his suffering, suffering which I believe was caused because he could not believe how many people loved him. His funeral proved him wrong of course. I watched as streams of people walked past, white faces, tears in their eyes. Everybody loved him, but he could not realise.

Assuming that most people who take their own lives are at least in some form depressed, there is a dangerous rush to seek out medication to correct the “chemical imbalance” that has been so widely accepted (without much evidence) as the cause of mental distress. I am not alone in strenuously asking, is this the best way? It almost goes without saying that the vast majority of parents want nothing but the best for their children but unfortunately this is not always enough. A child has to feel wanted and sometimes they cannot see the love imbedded in every action. A depressed child is at risk of suicide, but I believe that rushing to the pharmacist is not the best way to help. Listen and talk and realise that just because somebody is young does not mean that he/she is carefree and be there for your loved one, personally, take the time to listen and understand instead of just hearing the cry for help and then allocating the problem to a professional. Food clothes and shelter keep us alive but it is our emotional well being that keep us from wanting to die.
This government believes it can achieve economies of scale with our mental health system, that numbers of patients treated is an indication of how well the system is performing. It’s not. Until proper resources are put into therapy and counselling services (and I’m not holding my breath) then the front line in protecting your friends, your family, your loved ones, is you. We should not be trying to stop people from ending unhappy lives, we should help them to live the lives they deserve.