I am a psychiatric nurse and i have been for over 30 years so lets just say that i have had to deal with suicides on a professional basis for quite a time. Yes it may seem as cowardice but talking to people who survive suicide attempts you know that they are really desperate, and usually are able to move on.I have also had to deal with the families whose kin completed suicide.That is something you have to wish to deal with at any time, but it has to be done.I also have had people i look after suicide whilst being treated for a mental illness.That has an impact on you. Stigmatisation plays a big part in peoples views on society, we do not know what had been happening in his life. Mental illness/depression knows no boundaries , it can affect any walk of life.As someone else put it to tigers70 that could have been your father or brother. Unfortunately i am not going to be out of a job but it would help if society was more tuned in to how prevalent depression is our society. So please keep views as puerile put by tigers70 to yourself. I am speaking from the heart here, and thank you DMD for allowing the thread.
Melbourne, it's not my place to dictate what's discussed, it's more just channeling the discussions to the appropriate places. What I had hoped in having this as a separate thread was that: 1. Gary Speed's memory could be respected. 2. People would post reasonable and considered points of view about the complex nature of depression and suicide. In my opinion, like physical health, peoples mental health can vary. Perhaps if people felt more able to ask for help and didn't get stigmatised for doing so, less people would feel driven to the sad measures Gary Speed did? In my opinion it takes a strong person to admit to a problem.
bob, there are clearly many things that are beyond your comprehension. now is a good time to stop demonstrating your paucity of intelligence.
Not really, taking your own life is a ridiculous thing to do. If you're having thoughts about suicide it's clear you're mentally ill, so you should go and get help and treatment, if you refuse you're weak, if you give in you're even weaker. Adolf Hitler took his own life because he was weak and mentally insane, but no one cries for him.
Have you entertained the notion that mental illness makes people irrational and therefore disinclined to seek help? Or that Speed might have sought help which was ineffective, but which we don't know about? Or that he was under the impression that nine times out of 10, a depressive can't be treated? Or that he was frightened that his national reputation would be tarnished if the scummier of the journalistic fraternity found out about him having mental problems? Or that he thought he could manage his burdens himself? You're very quick to call the man weak, and there are many words I'd use before that one if I were looking to describe those who are driven to suicide, and especially if I were looking to describe Gary Speed.
i repeat, bob, there are clearly many things that are beyond your comprehension. understanding the mentally ill is another. they can become expert at hiding their condition. they can become extremely manipulative. they can deny their condition even to themselves. they can have a fear of doctors, perhaps of wanting to be "any bother" or perhaps even of appearing weak. it does no good to apply words like "weak" to them. it isnt the same as getting measles or cancer. logic has gone, bob. no reason, not weakness, just,well, who knows? often it doesnt even make sense to the rational parts of their own brains, but they cant defeat it, cant understand it, and may not want to let anyone help or even know.
I think some people struggle with the difference between feeling down and suffering with clinical depression. I truly hope they don't have to learn the difference first hand.
Hitler took his own life because he didn't have the balls to face up to his crimes, same with other criminals who have topped themselves before facing justice. That is where suicide is cowardly and a sign of weakness. To compare Hitler's suicide to the sad case of Gary Speed is disgraceful. I'm no psychologist but like other posters have said, depression is a complex illness and when one contemplates or commits suicide usually all rational thought has gone and the mind doesn't function as it should. That is no fault of the individual, just an illness that has over taken them. They won't always be permanently down, there's ups and downs and everything can seem ok when it's not. Listening to people who knew him yesterday such as Robbie Savage, Howard Wilkinson, Ryan Giggs and Alan Shearer nobody had a bad word to say about him, no one felt any anger towards Speed for doing what he did, there was just such a deep sadness from them that there was nothing they could have done to help him. Having known someone who has taken their own life I didn't seem them as weak for doing so or anger to them for showing a lack of respect to those they left behind, just the same feelings that people who knew Speed seem to be having at the moment. You wish you could have reached out and done whatever you could to help that person and from knowing that person you knew that things must have been bad to do what they have done, and clearly their line of thought wasn't normal for them to do so.
I ain't comparing Gary Speed to Hitler, just making the point why should one suicide be different to any other, just because one of thems a legend. I understand about mental illness and that it makes you irrational but with seeing the leftovers of 2 suicides nothings ever going to change my mind. The people left behinds lives change forever, it's not just dealing with someone dying but the confusion and extra sadness about how one could be going through something so bad they have to leave their loved ones behind, without giving even a hint about their suffering in time to help. I don't blame Gary Speed for being mentally ill but if one takes their own life, how can anyone or anything possibly be responsible but themselves?
nobody knows why he did it and there was no evidence from his body language on football focus saturday that he was anything other than happy and upbeat. it takes a strong person to carry the act out but i feel for his family. R.I.P. Gary Speed. as a footballer speedo, you were a class act.
This is the really strange part of suicide for me! My friend took his own life on the night after we had played Plymouth @ the KC (1st championship season I think). I sat next to him @ the game after we had been for a couple of beers before the match, after the match I dropped him off @ home as normal! I knew he had some problems but that day there was absolutely no indication that his time had come
Beer is a strong depressant probably not the best thing to drink if your already depressed obviously not the only reason but could be a factor.
Bob, I was 15 minutes from taking my own life. Only thing that stopped me was that my wife noticed something was not right and stayed in instead of going to work. When I was 19 and serving in Northern Ireland I had to take that one step forward that most squadies know may come, but hope it never will. Its always worse when you have time to think about it and not just react. So faced with the choices I made then and the same choice that I had when ill and the term weak does not count. How can it be weak to expose yourself to certian death in active service, yet be considered weak to take your own life? My mind was totally focused on survival on the former, but the goodbyes that I said in my head where exactly the same. I had battled for ages to keep the suicidal thoughts at bay, just the week before I had driven up to Hull and on the way back the drive over the bridge was so difficult you could not begin to imagine. A 4 hour journey took nearly 6, I stopped too many times to count, just to compose myself. I was a danger not just to me but to any driver coming the other way. Not one other person knew of this although I had been seen by doctors in the past, I did not believe that they could help me, I was beyond help. I was powerless. Yes it is selfish, yes it will lead to hurt and anguish of those close to you, but the overpowering theme in the thoughts was "they will all be better off without me" in my mind I was doing it to save them from having to deal with my faults. I know now that it is wrong, but back then it felt like there was no other way. Don't blame your friends, they where ill and it is an easy illness to disguise. My message to anyone particulary ex servicemen like myself, if you feel the need, PM me. I will not judge you.
bob, two more things, then i will give up: 1. i dont know if you are one of those that claim to be christian. i dont do religion myself. jesus said "judge not others, lest you be judged yourself". alas many many christians are amongst them most judgmental people going. but think about it. you are being judgmental without knowing the facts. 2. the most complicated thing in the universe is the brain. and the most complicated of brains is probably the human brain. we know of the origins of the universe, how planets are formed, how life and the physiology of animals works, how chemistry works, how most subatomic particles work, much about how the weather works, about electricity and related stuff, we have been to the moon, i could go on and on. but the brain is still largely a mystery. nothing is more complicated than this bag of chemicals so its hardly surprising that now and then things go wrong in it.
I'm probably not getting my opinion across very well and Adolf Hitler wasn't a good example but was the only well known one I could think of at the time. I understand about mental illness and that you think irrationally, and I'm not just talking about Gary Speed but suicide as a whole. I really do sympathise with those who feel the need to take their own lives but still think it's a daft and selfish thing to do. Those who get into such a state should adress their problems before they get so drastic, and while I appreciate that some people won't recognise they have a problem until it's too late, if you're even considering suicide it's clear you have a problem and should seek help and alert your family before putting them through hell. I don't think it's cowardly to do such things to yourself, it would take alot of guts, I think it's cowardly to run away from your problems. Problems should be dealt with as and when they arise, not run away from, hidden or attempted to be forgotten about. That's probably my main point, that if these people had the strength to adress their problems as they came in the first place, they probably wouldn't get into such a state of mental health.
but you are still looking at it as though the people concerned are capable of being rational all the time! if their brain tells them their family would be better off without them, how is that selfish?
If that was the case then why not sod off to Spain or something that doesn't involve wasting precious life? I know what you're trying to say but these problems should be dealt with sooner.
