Joey Barton is an English footballer affected by the death of Gary Speed. Then he went and spoiled it all by saying something stupid like:
If not stupid Joey Barton’s view is uninformed and ill-considered. Before anyone concludes that suicide might be a selfish act I need to say; it is simply not possible to rationalise a death by suicide with an everyday logical mind. Suicide is far removed from normal experience and we struggle to comprehend the act. It is too easy, it seems, for the way someone dies to change your memory of how they lived. The accusation of selfishness highlights the lack of understanding and the related depth of stigma surrounding suicide. I feel compelled to continue to rally against the apparently widely held view that suicide is selfish. I have explored that perspective and argued against the selfish view again and again, in other posts.
I am repeating a short excerpt from May this year as evidence I hope will convince any cynic. Scientific American described suicide as “an attempt to escape from oneself”. The suicidal mind is described as “unbearable”, burdened with a “crushing intolerable weight”. The same article says “Feelings of worthlessness, shame, guilt, inadequacy, or feeling exposed, humiliated and rejected leads suicidal people to dislike themselves in a manner that, essentially, cleaves them off from an idealized humanity. The self is seen as being enduringly undesirable; there is no hope for change and the core self is perceived as being rotten.”
Here in Australia it was recently reported that “Beyondblue has had success in raising awareness about depression and anxiety, but it has largely fulfilled that purpose.” Beyondblue was setup in 2000, as a not for profit organisation established to to erode the shame surrounding depression and anxiety. It is premature to suggest Beyondblue, or any similar initiative, has fulfilled its purpose while suicide is widely regarded as the most selfish act a person can enact. There are more stories to tell, more work to do, more tweets to twitter, and more compassion to bring…









