Anthony Bourdain’s apparent suicide surprise us like a seldom used change up when we are sitting on a fastball. We are totally taken back. I remember being a kid hearing Superman, actor George Reeves committed suicide. Bourdain a man of the world, a man of words frames a travel script that makes Rick Steves look like he is in kindergarten. His death occurs while he is working an episode in France center zero for everything Bourdain loves, food, wine, and lots of talk. The French investigation has ruled suicide. Nobody has suggested otherwise. I hold out 5% if there is a possibility of foul play because Bourdain was often political in his programing had to have made enemies along the way.
Suicide, hard to believe but that is how we often look at it when it happens. The following is a response I wrote in the NYT to an article How Suicide Quietly Morphed Into a Public Health Crisis
“Since depression can hit any of us I think it is time to attack it like we do cardiovascular, cancer, and diabetes. Suicide has hit the top ten of causes of death. By 63, 25% may be clinically depressed. A depressed person needs the intervention would give a cardiac event.
Yet it is too hard to get entrance into a hospital for evaluation and treatment. If one does get admittance one will lose personal rights. Units are locked and treatment is more like being in prison than a voluntary admission should be.
People trying to deal with their illness should be on parr with those treating other deadly conditions.
The brain how complex, when something goes wrong it often impairs our ability to seek help. Depression creates a depressed hopeless world. That is why we should plan ahead with support we need to deal with depression better.
Trading a gun or noose with a sympathetic needle is no solution.”
If you know me, you know I sought out help and went through hospitalization and treatment. I have been on both sides of a locked door. I did lose rights. I appreciated the care and intelligence behind my treatment and therapy. But getting admitted and how we look at these things needs to be more friendlier.
Follow the NYT articles there are trends happening with suicide that are alarming.
- Despite all the research and resolve to treat depression and suicide it has risen 25% measured from 1999 to 2016. NYT Benedict Carey June 7 2018
- Guns usually are involved in 50% of Suicides
- Alcohol and drugs are often involved in suicides. The increase of opiates has to factor in this increase. It isn’t always mental illness that sparks suicide. Acute conditions can cause suicide.
- Downfall of economy will bring a rise in suicides.
Make it easier for people to get the intervention they need to battle suicide. For people who are willingly seeking help take the locks off hospitals treating depression. Locked units should only be for the process of law. There are millions of people who voluntarily seek treatment.
Every person reaching there 50’s and 60’s should have a mental check up like they do for their hearts, cancer and diabetes. Life stresses and losses mean something.
Bourdain’s travels gave him some hard trials that broke down his health. On some of his shows he was seriously sick for weeks.
He was a drinker and had used drugs and maybe that was a strong factor.
He looked at the dark side of things and if you are there for too long who knows.
I liked the guy. I am sorry he had thoughts of suicide and actually acted out suicide. How would CNN and the NYT had covered Bourdain if he did an intervention to prevent suicide. Would he still have been a man of the world? Would he still have kept his show? Would we have looked at him differently had he had a heart problem or cancer? My questions are leading but I think we have to make it easier to take on a blue world. Keep walking
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/health/suicide-spade-bordain-cdc.html?WT.nav=top-news&action=click&clickSource=story-heading&hp&module=second-column-region&pgtype=Homepage®ion=top-news
