There is a very strong relationship between suicide and mental illness. If someone decides to end their own life, it is overwhelmingly likely that they are suffering from some form of mental illness.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12701661

>Why do we stand in judgement declaring it wrong to decide ones own fate?

Most people who survive a suicide attempt do not ultimately end their own life. Most people who have suicidal thoughts eventually stop having those thoughts. If you think that you'd be better off dead, I don't think that you're in any way morally wrong, I just think that you're probably factually wrong. You might think that you want to die, but if you go on living, it is overwhelmingly likely that you'll change your mind. To use an old cliche, suicide is a permanent response to a temporary problem.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0004867060117274...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016503271...

If I recall correctly, a majority of people who have 'failed' suicide (for lack of a better term) have stated that they immediately regretted attempting once it hits the point of no return.

This is just an assumption, but I think the will to live greatly outweighs the desire to take your own life. Of course their are outliers (I'm thinking of Samurai Suicides performed in front of audiences) but I don't know if there's any resources that talk about their mental health.

If anyone as any counter points I'd love to hear them - but for the most part I think suicide stems from mental instability or an otherwise inevitable physical death (terminal illness, old age, etc).

One other reason it may be linked with mental health, is the fact that if mental illness is not a factor - what is driving these decisions? I can't imagine that people come to the logical 'master of my own existence' that you mention.

It's a very interesting subject, when you take the horror an tragedy out of it. Also curious what other species have high suicide rates, or if its a primarily human affliction (don't have time to dig around on this right now).

I do recall one man who did not survive, who seemed at peace during the video of his fall -- he was one who I think perhaps did not regret the act, but was the extreme outlier in that regard. If you are 85 and dying of painful cancer, I can also see it being an act that makes sense, made to decide one's own fate. But MOST people seem to grow out of their suicidal phases, and realize it was the wrong choice, driven by bad thought patterns. In the same way that people try to help addicts or people with eating disorders try to obtain better thought patterns, suicidal ideation seems to me to be largely a broken thought pattern we should help people overcome, not an individual decision one should respect.

The widespread societal taboo against suicide supposes that no rational person free of undue pressures would consent to ending their own life, therefore anyone who commits suicide must have been pushed to do so by serious factors that impaired their ability to properly consent.

This line of thinking effectively re-defines 'mental illness' to be that unknown variable that pushes outwardly functional people towards a choice that surprised the observer.

So, are severely mentally ill people truly capable of living normal lives? Are they capable of making clear, level-headed decisions? I highly doubt that they were truly masters of their own existence if they decided they'd rather stop existing than suffer more illness.

And yes, I think it is a perfectly valid choice for someone to check out if that's what they want to do. Mental health or whatever aside, if you don't want to live anymore, for WHATEVER reason, I don't see why anybody else has the right to try to stop you.

My conclusion for my suicide is "bad" is because it causes pain and suffering to the ones around you. I relate suicide to stress that cannot be managed. If you feel like you need to die, then you are completely free to do anything. So why not do that? Remove that stress, till you don't feel like that's the only answer.

FWIW, I say this as someone who has had severe depression and been suicidal.

2. Sure, there may be times where a person may rationally chose to die. That doesn’t negate the fragility and value of life for its sake. Two things can be true. Some people may have a rational reason to wish to end their lives, and some people who would end their lives would do much greater harm to themselves and loved ones than good.

3. It is my firm belief that we may use #1 to evaluate the worth and even ethicality of choices and actions. Those actions which solely promulgate life or enhance its existence are ethical. Those actions or choices which violate the former are unethical. Actions or choices which solely diminish the life or lives of others or outright end lives are unethical - unless that termination of life ends suffering larger than the benefits of life. That’s a very fine line.

I’m not an expert on it, but there is a certain impulsiveness to it that suggests to me that it’s not just another choice. Terminally ill people often or maybe frequently get things in order and prepare things, almost going out of their way with limited time to take care of things for their loved ones. These things frequently take their loved ones by surprise and there aren’t exhaustive preparations.

This will be more inappropriate, but AB had a marriage dissolve because he had to travel 250+ days a year and be away from a wife and young child. As a husband and parent of two, I find that staggering, we aren’t talking about someone without financial resources that does whatever job they can to support their family, he probably didn’t need to work. To me, it’s not even a thought, I’d do a different job or somehow rearchitect my life to keep my family near. IMO, there was clearly some priority issues or something going on. If he had this supreme rationalism and simply chose to end things, where was that when he fathered a child that he didn’t spend time with? Or was this a new found clearity he discovered? Im not try to sound accusatory but I think there might be a lot of other differences in his life if this was a healthy and rational choice.

RIP Anthony and I hope his family and loved ones find peace and comfort.

Also it's pedantic in a really ignorant and dumb way, and not nearly as clever as you think it is.

There are examples of people taking their own life due to physical maladies which I can COMPLETELY understand, and choosing to end your own life kevorkian-style is understandable to most people: Robin Williams had dementia. His mind had basically completely gone before the end, his wife spoke of the rages and lack of understanding of what was happening around him.

But many people choose to end their own life when they are young, healthy, and in a pit of despair that they feel they will never escape. Depression is a mental illness which symptoms of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts. So there you go. That is why. Depression is a mental illness.

We as a society have deemed having no value of life, including your own, is aberrant behavior. I would argue that "deciding to commit suicide" for no other reason than you are tired of being alive, or want to "decide your own fate" is completely psychotic.

Also, saying "It's your choice" and doesn't affect anyone else is just insanely wrong. As I've grown older and lost people around more at a higher rate, it is ASTOUNDING the hole left behind when you lose a loved one.

I am in favor of a right to die, because I saw my mother struggle with cancer. What she went through seemed truly awful.

However, having a terminal disease is very different than having a temporary lapse in judgment about whether to continue living. Someone raising a child likely does not truly want to be gone from the Earth. We don’t know for sure, but with his known addiction history, this was likely an unintended consequence, the one he cannot take back.

That being said, I agree with your point. One should be the master of their own existence from a certain viewpoint, but we aren't. Humans are social creatures and define our lives in terms of those relationships. Even if you are a solitary hermit, you define your life in relation to the people that aren't around. I'm not trying to be clever there.

I can see where suicide can be considered the most rational response given the right social or societal context. See any number of ritual suicide practices in human cultures.

Again, even the physician assisted suicide that we debate so often make sense in the context of maintaining some notion of dignity in one's familial or social group. When you add human suffering to that situation it becomes a moral imperative, I think. That's just me though.

(Much the same holds for murder vs. other crime rates, though both may be influenced by trauma medicine advances. David Simon talks of this in The Audacity of Despair, on YouTube.)

For much this reason, suicide is seem as a definitive marker of individual, and social, dysfunction. It is the title and subject of Emil Durkheim's foundational work on sociology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_(book)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Durkheim

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw

But consider this analogy. If "suicide" was a just a judgement, and not a temporary insanity, then people who came close to suicide wouldn't ALL glad that it did not happen.

You would have a significant portion of people who look back and say... I really wish I had taken my life back in 95', that was a really hard year. But that is so extremely rare, its easy to lump the majority of suicidal thoughts into the temporary delusions category.

In some cases people have been contemplating suicide for decades before they do it, which is a common sign of depression. But that is significantly different than wishing that they had done it in the past.

No, in many ways and cases you aren't. As comments below note, one of those ways is through mental health issues. While I do agree that people should ultimately have the right to choose, it's simply incorrect to think that it's a simple matter of rational choice. There's very good reason to believe that, in most cases of people seeking suicide, they are not of sound mind.

This idea that you are the perfect and complete "master of my own existence" is one of the most pernicious and persistent fallacies people hold.

Because suicide is almost always preceded by years of mental health problems.

Few living things who are physically healthy and with no history of suicide ideation just decide to die just because. Generally there's some underlying cause, whether it be a longterm plan to do so or some sudden stressor.

Sure you have the right to decide your own fate, but you should consider that you affect other people. In taking your own life you’re also fucking up the life of everyone who cares about you, forcing them into a state of grief and possibly causing them to blame themselves for what was ultimately a selfish act on your part.

Not really, humans live in societies. Your existence is not purely yours. Maybe it applies to Gaint Pandas that spend all of their lives in solitude.

He did have mental issues for much of his life, but in the end it was likely his physical condition and not his mental issues that led him to suicide.

It's not clear if he had this condition in 2009 - he might have, but we don't know.

Fame and the life it brings seems desirable, but there's ample evidence that would indicate otherwise.

If you think about it, it's no wonder so many famous people are depressed, dysfunctional, or disgusting - their self worth and ability to self-evaluate are completely distorted. And the pressure of maintaining that fame, that score that many believe determines how important you are to society, is crushing.

If you're not happy, not content, not satisfied with yourself when you're a "nobody", becoming a "somebody" won't change that. Whatever issues you brought to the table before you got fame and power won't be improved once fame and/or power is acquired. The Good Book says something along those lines a few thousand years ago:

"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. - Luke 16:10

Doctors don't have higher rates of death by suicide.

I think female doctors do have a higher rate of death by suicide than women in general.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6525a1.htm

and those challenges are usually poorly understood

It's like wearing a heavy cloak around, after having done so for most of your life, day after day, year after year. If you're a proper adult, age-wise, all of the effort in the world doesn't guarantee that cloak will fall off one day. The idea that it's fixable doesn't play itself out in real life. I would posit that this is why riches and fame only temporarily relieve the weight of it.

"I should’ve died in my 20s. I became successful in my 40s. I became a dad in my 50s. I feel like I’ve stolen a car — a really nice car — and I keep looking in the rearview mirror for flashing lights."

Rest in peace.

Psychosis, Schizophrenia, Biploar, Anxiety, Suicidal Depression, Panic Attacks.

It wasn’t until I changed my relationship to all emotions and then sought out a variety of support to safely go deeply into my experience that I was able to find relief.

1 session of MDMA therapy lifted a decade of suicidal thoughts; session 2 a year later largely freed me of anxiety and paranoia; combined with a NARM therapist to help me heal developmental and shock trauma, yoga, holotropic Breathwork and a loving stable romantic relationship. And a lot of grace.

No meds, no longer a prisoner, and my life is vibrant and alive and the past feels like nothing more than a straight jacket I wriggled out of.

The often unspoken truth is that Trauma (developmental, shock, generational) underpins most all mental health issues (save issues of malnutrition, poisoning,tumors and TBI).

This is on the radar of few practioners who instead offer very limited tools to suppress symptoms.

And because mental health is actually a context, folks typically are surrounded by others who don’t have a very deep capacity to honor our expeirences and would rather try to “cheer us up” or change what we feel. The actual need is to have people who help us feel more of what we feel (that leads to deeper relief).

The Suicidal Impulse is a an impulse for the pain of our default mode network to stop. When we have unprocessed traumas, we are in a state of fight or flight and this activation is painful. It also leads to addiction.

Ego (default mode network) death and rebirth is possible without killing the body. It requires a safe context to release the old trauma and form new pathways in the incresed plasticity.

Know that there are actual solutions, it’s not your fault, and there are people here to help — but you will need to take responsibility for healing this as our current society is doing a terrible job thus far.

Anthony was inspirational to me in part because, among many reasons, though he lived his life in a very unusual way he was still successful and always adventurous.

The world has suffered a great loss today.

For anyone who has struggled with depression or severe anxiety, if you haven’t read the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, I encourage you to read it as soon as possible — it’s one of the best, most approachable, resources out there to understand not only many of the roots of depression, but many strategies to actually overcome it (it’s very different from traditional talk therapy, which is mostly focused on getting people to cope with their past trauma rather than resolve it).

https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/01...

Anthony changed the way that I view the world and inspired me to explore the world's rich tapestry of life. We have lost someone who truly was a world citizen who built the culture that "different" could be good.

The man's struggles through addiction and journey to peak physical fitness in his late 50s is nothing short of inspiring. I hope that he is immortalized through his work.

Sad news.

If you're in a dark place, please, please consider reaching out for help.

I love this community. We gotta look out for each other y'all.

But that’s just me. I didn’t climb anywhere near the same heights as he did which it why it made me think that. I hope it’s something more positive (as it could be for something like this).

Edit: Just to add, this death affected me so much more than any other celebrity. I look up to him so much for turning his life around and turning it into what it is. I forget which episode of his newer show it was but he goes out hunting with the guy and shoots a... deer/elk/something. He tells the guy it’s the healthiest he’s ever been. You could tell how much it meant to him to be healthy and be able to do the hike they did.

Don’t know why it stood out so much but I was so happy for him. It encouraged me to keep going.

Otherwise, somehow, and I may be wrong, I think suicide might be deep rooted to our toxic: media, culture, attachments, conditioning, etc. It does sound a bit wrong to say. It might because I’m in my early twenties and still live with my parents and have lots of time to think but I’m becoming more aware of how, maybe, be of the world not in the world is so important. It seems like escapism but again, these days: I’m not reading the news as much or partaking in entertainment especially the internet, I’m spending more time alone in solitude, watching the evening sky, I’m going on walks, I’m deciding what has meaning and what does not, I’m just living but with no fuss, noise, or ego. Some may think it’s a boring way to live but it may be a true way to live, I think. It’s almost as I live in my own bubble and I’m not sure if that’s a right thing to do or not.

To the point, suicide and depression are terrible and I think, in modern day, we have to have a strong inner self to conquer it or else we get sucked in. It also reminds me of Thoreau’s Walden or Wallace’s understanding of American culture.

>Suicide is a growing problem in the United States. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a survey Thursday showing suicide rates increased by 25% across the United States over nearly two decades ending in 2016.

I remember a while back that the general public's tone on suicide was a lot less sober. More of a "man up" sort of attitude. With a growing list of famous, financially successful people committing suicide, I can only hope that people as a whole start seeing it as a complex issue and the stigma of mental issues and stress can lessen so that people can get help. Or at least be able to talk to their friends/family when they first notice problems instead of hiding it until it's too late.

When people first start having these sorts of thoughts and even hint at it to other people, the whole "What are you depressed about? Your life is good" response so many people give only makes it worse, and hopefully it's beginning to go away. Depression has nothing to do with how "good" your life is on paper.

"'Fuck you,' he says. 'You don't even cook. You're not one of us anymore.' Far from being offended (although I am hurt), I want to give him a big hug. Another drink or two and I just might.

I don't cook. I'm not a chef. The chefs and cooks who are better than I used to be - better than I ever was - know this and don't need to say it. They certainly don't need to say it to my face, like this kid, pressing me up against the bar now with the force of his rage and hurt. He will channel those feelings, appropriately, into a demand that I do a shot of tequila with him. Or two.

Which is a relatively friendly and diplomatic solution to an awkward situation."

- Anthony Bourdain, "Medium Raw" (I opened to a random page)

Another great artist lost to suicide. Anthony Bourdain reinvented food writing with his book "Kitchen Confidential", injecting a brutal honesty and punk rock ethos into the stuffy world of restaurant reviews and travelogues. He continued writing with more terrific work like "Medium Raw" and "Nasty Bits". It's not just that his writing was full of practical advice for diners (never eat fish on mondays, never eat mussels, bread is recycled, etc)... it's that he was brutally honest about himself, about his struggles with depression and drug addiction. If you read his books, his suicide should come as no surprise.

He went on to reinvent food television with "No Reservations", a travelogue show that celebrated highbrow and lowbrow in equal measure, that put third world street food vendors in the same breath with Michelin-starred chefs, that ate the weird stuff not because it was weird, but because it was a new experience. From there, he went to "Parts Unknown" on CNN, elevating his work's already broad international beat to a more explicitly political level, visiting little-known and often dangerous places such as Libya and Myanmar, celebrating the joy and creativity people took in their food, even in the poorest, most oppressed places on Earth. He was a cultural ambassador for all of humanity, the likes of which had never been seen before.

And then there was that time that !Kung bushmen in Namibia punked him into eating a warthog's asshole by convincing him that it was their finest and most exclusive culinary delicacy. And then laughed their asses off at him. And he ran that on tv.

I'm going to miss him so much.

[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7bw89a/comedy-545-v17n10

[2] https://robdelaney.tumblr.com/post/414007899/on-depression-g...

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Rob-Delaney-Warrior-Yardstick-Cabbage...

I read Kitchen Confidential when it came out. A hge fan and followed him ever since.

Sympathy goes out to his young daughter and his friends and family.

http://www.mces.org/pages/suicide_fact_alcohol.php

Most people would tell me his life is their dream.

Rest in peace.

I suspect it is the latter, but I don't have the heart to google it.

Every Robin Williams, Chris Cornell, Anthony Bourdain no doubt causes a bit of a ripple of none famous suicides and thus this news is doubly sad.

The second is that we were both functional heroin addicts for some part of our professional lives.

His tell-all book "Kitchen Confidential" hit home to me like a 20-oz T-bone and a good bottle of red. His unafraid discussions of his addictions were a breath of fresh air in the otherwise stultified environment of talking-about-work.

There is little doubt in my mind that his struggles with addiction are related to the suicide, at some perhaps never to be known level.

He entertained the shit outta me, so he will be missed...cheers to you Anthony we hardly knew you.

This. Sucks.

Everyone needs to know it’s ok to not be ok.

For creative people with an audience, there's this expectation from the audience that every thing you release to the world will be as good or better than what you did before, and that you will produce this brilliance on a reasonably consistent schedule. Any slip in quality (say, from experimenting with something new) or any delay in delivery, and the toxic parts of your audience will hurl their bile. You're labeled a burnout, or you're losing your edge. The people who didn't like your work in the first place openly relish your stumble.

Some creatives like to pretend that these critiques don't sting, and maybe some fortunate souls truly are immune. But it's human nature to build our self-image based on feedback from others, and a good self image can be essential for survival.

I feel like some creatives such as Bourdain try to meet the demands of the public, and keep upping their game and pushing, but that can't go on forever. Exhaustion, harsh self-criticism, and a sense of responsibility to one's audience combine into a caustic soup, and it shrivels the soul. One is expected to be increasingly brilliant even as one's energy diminishes to the effects of burnout. Quitting will just invite more cries of "failure!" It's unsustainable, and sometimes the part that breaks is the willingness to continue to bear it.

To any creative people suffering from this cycle, I think the best remedy is to make a "temporary" lateral move if you can. Move out of the spotlight and lend your skill to up-and-comers for a while. It's hard to get mad at that. And there's an odd comfort in knowing that you never have to go back, but the option is there when/if you're ready.

The illness is not all in the heads of the people killing themselves.

I recently initiated a suicide intervention for a loved one.

I would like to know what would make it better. Or at least what not to do.

I am relentlessly optimistic (cancer survivor, a learned skill). I definitely feel like my efforts here ("talking someone off the ledge") had mixed results at best. Good stuff for other cancer victims. Not so good for depression, suicidal tendencies.

Sure, I took careful notes of conversations with the various care providers, professionals. But I don't feel any better equipped to handle the next flare up.

PS- RIP Anthony Bourdain. Kitchen Confidential deeply influenced me. My first exposure to his ideas, worldview was a "Trial By Fire" profile on his management style in HBR (?). I loved how he accepted everyone to work in his kitchen, so long as they didn't miss a shift. How it was his crew versus the world, every night.

> I remember a while back that the general public's tone on suicide was a lot less sober. More of a "man up" sort of attitude.

Not trolling: wouldn't this provide (weak, but nevertheless some) evidence that a "man up" sort of attitude was more effective at combating suicide than our attitude towards it now?

Personally, I don't really feel the "here's the suicide prevention hotline's number", "you should talk to someone", or "you should see a doctor" lines, which seem to be replacing that, are any better.

I'd say a grew up in a relatively conservative area, but throughout my entire life, society has recognized the seriousness of suicide and mental health issues.

Says who? Maybe if we put everything on that paper the scale would visibly tip but it may be the case that if we could perceive those things as they are such that they could be written down it would exclude the problem's sticking power.

By the way we should also confirm it was really depression.