Yeah - but Iād say thatās more down to ordinary people and not necessarily government initiatiives. In fairness if you read through this thread you see that most people are very compassionate towards the subject.
That suicide awareness training in psorting teams sounds like a tremendous idea. There really are some good people out there in this country when you think about it.
Maybe he strangled his missus in a fit of madness and couldnāt believe what heād done so immediately went to end his life. We donāt know the details. He doesnāt sound like a scumbag with no regard for human life. Heād come from Africa and made a life for himself. He might have been a nice chap. Maybe something snapped in his head. I advocate trying to understand these things rather than dismissing him as a cunt and leaving it at that.
As for the other case, Kev, well, Iāve had my heart broken, I know the pain. I actually think what the chap did was unbelieveably romantic, though obviously desperate for the families. Not too different from dying of a broken heart, really.
Youāre a great man for advocating this sort of thing but your initial posts on this particular case completely contradict your own apparent view. Itās either one or the other Kev, make your mind up.
bullshit. they converted the sanitoria used in the TB era to house people who were too unmanageable to be seen in public.
there has been little to no investment in our mental health system, the top clinic in the country was built using money provided by jonathan swift FFS.
P.S. i wasnāt denigrating the investment in road safety, merely the frontman for the public campaign
On your last bit, maybe that was a low blow from me earlier and i apologise, but i completely agree with you. Its incredibly sad, but there is a romantic nature to it too.
On that guy in Kerry, weather he snapped or not he left a boy without his mother. We all snap from time to time. Control is a vital part of everyday human life. I donāt know the details, and the reasons may be traumatic, but there is no forgiveness for what he done.
The reason for these kind of things happening is what needs to be stopped, learned about, dealt with etc. But bottom line, this fella murdered somebody. The vast majority of murders are comitted by people with mental issues, obviously. This is completely different to a lad killing himself in a grave beside his loved one. He needed to be told that there was a life down the road without this person. But he didnāt kill her. The guy in Kerry did.
People kill themselves because they canāt face money difficulties etc, these are the kind of things that needs to be worked on. Suicide by definition is killing yourself, once you start killing others it becomes into a total different case, maybe a very sad one, but totally different none the less. You are making decisions for others on their lives. Thats where i stop caring about this guy.
Flano if you have nothing to contribute i think you should fuck off.
Do you? Well I dont give a fuck what you think pal.
I donāt agree completely with this. There may be circumstances which cause people to consider suicide as a course of action, but for those that go ahead with it, there has to be something underlying there that pushes them over the edge. The circumstances just bring the underlying issue to the surface.
While the Kerry lad was a murderer, he obviously wasnāt in the best state of mind to be making big decisions on his own life. Itās a tragic think to happen and as I said previously I think itās a very cowardly act but Iād be more worried about the impact itād have on the child. How will the child feel in future years knowing that his father didnāt think he was worth staying alive for?
A couple of genuine questions Kev.
What are your views on the death penalty?
Do you think the child in the Kerry case is better off that his father committed suicide?
I am not sure Mac. You seem to be saying that for someone to take their own life requires some sort of underlying trait in them - be it genetic, or coming from childhood or whatever.
There is obviously that, but then there are the people who have had a great life but struggle with coping with a major event for whatever reason. The ability to cope is critical when discussing suicidal intentions - some people are more able to cope than others.
Some people are just born to take their own lives Mac, or so some people believe. Something along the road just triggers it. Thats the belief in one case i know well. Thats a qualified opinion now Mac, not my own.
I agree, this is all about the kid, and the mother of course. But this man took the kids mother. If he just took himself it would be very sad, but the kid would have a mother. But for all we know the kid is better off and they knew this, maybe they were just really bad at parenting and knew it, and thei kid going elsewhere will in the long be better, who knows. As you say its still cowardly.
Iām torn on the Death Penalty, i would like to administer it to some scumbags, but you are always afraid of miscarriages of justice. Also some people you just want them to live a life of suffering, instead of being killed.
I do think though certain people just need to be put down, serial rapists etc should be at least castrated.
Canāt totally answer the last question, as i outlined above maybe he is. But then again maybe in 20 years heād be able to go to a prison and get some questions answered.
It can be genetic, it can be caused by an event or loss, or can be caused by a host of other multiple troubles.
That was a serious shock in Wexford with the sudden death of the girl and the suicide of the boyfriend after. She worked in Sam MacCauleys in Enniscorthy I believe Mac.
The boyfriend went to visit the grave with his father and the father left him alone to grieve for a few mins. Canāt begin to think of the horror the father felt when he returned to find his son lying there on the grave. Absolute tragedy that barely registered in the media.
I can understand both sides, as something like that, the families should be left to grieve in peace. On the other hand, possibly highlighting the hardship and utter heartbreak caused to families may deter a minority from taking their own lives in future. Hard to know really.
its a terrible story alright. I was talking to her cousin after the Wexford match on sunday and he was saying it was just a shock when she died. 25 and no ill health. but the boyfirend killing himself has turned the story even more tragic.
Yeah she worked there alright was what I heard aswell. Didnāt realise the father had just left him for a few mins. Thats fuckin awful.
They are indicating in the press that yer man in Kerry was a useless shite who lived off the woman he murdered. There had been tension between them because of this and he obviously couldnāt take it.
Was there more suicides 20 or 30 years ago?
Its not a sweeping the problem under the carpet approach Im suggesting, there seems to be a casual acceptance about suicides though. Im sure we could all tell stories from around the country about copycat suicides. It kind of seems to be an acceptable way out when it isnt.
Im all for increasing mental health awareness, unfortunately the cut the public expenditure mantra affects services like mental health care. There is a real human cost to cutting costs that people arent aware of. Irish society doesnt tend to discuss mental health properly. Depression is still a stigma when it shouldnt be.
The mental torture people must be under before they kill themselves must be terrifying. But to go the whole hog and kill yourself and spread that torment to the people that find your body, your family and friends is wrong imo.
What a cunt
Iāll probably regret writing this but what the fuck.
Iām honestly interested in how many people here have ever thought about committing suicide.
Have I ever thought about it? Yes, many times. Iād say the first time I thought about it was when I was about 14. Not for any particular reason, but Iāve always had a bit of a fucked up fatalistic attitude to life. But Iām not depressed or anything like that.
Have I ever seriously thought of going through with it? Yes and no, certainly not in my senses, probably because I have actually talked about it (talked is probably not the right word) with my family and a few other people. I donāt think Iād be brave enough to do it to be honest. But I have thought of it many times when recovering from drinking sessions. Really I have. Drink IMO contributes massively to suicide. I can honestly say that many times Iāve wanted to just crawl into a hole and die after drinking, itās not just that, drink gives you this total and utter self hatred, you want your presence to just be erased from anybodyās memory completely, for nobody to remember that you ever even lived. Itās appalling. It lasts for days. I am a person who is very affected by moods and tempers and I canāt rule out that someday I might do something terrible to myself. Iād guess suicide is often a spur of the moment thing. It must be. I canāt believe that somebody in their senses would do something like that to their family. I know if I was in my senses I wouldnāt do it. But Iām out of my senses too often to rule out the possibility that I wonāt do it someday. Christ I hope I donāt.
Do I think that people who commit suicide are selfish? Iād say a lot of them are. I would say a lot of the time itās a cry for help that goes wrong, people that donāt really know what theyāre doing.
Ah Christ, the whole thing is fucked up. Iāve thought a good few times about why Darren Sutherland, for instance, committed suicide. I feel sorry for him and then I think he was a selfish cunt to do it. I feel fucked up just thinking about it. I donāt know, I suppose talking about it is about the best thing you can do.
The Irish Times - Saturday, January 29, 2011
Challenging the culture of self-harm and suicide
BREDA OāBRIEN
De-stigmatising the idea of seeking help early is vital for people with mental health problems
THE MOOD may have lifted among Fianna FĆ”ilers, delighted with their old but new broom, MicheĆ”l Martin. However, there are many worrying signs that there is a deeper, more persistent gloom far more serious than political woes blighting many peopleās existence.
Acting coroner Brian Mahon, prompted by the fact that he had to deal recently with five cases in Offaly, spoke about suicide being rampant, particularly among young males. Prof Jim Lucey of St Patrickās hospital spoke of a 25 per cent increase in suicide last year. There is also a new type of person at risk ā the driven male entrepreneur. Lucey said that we are seeing the āterribly morbid outcome of a misplaced sense of responsibilityā, and men ācondemning themselves to deathā because of financial failure.
As a teacher, I know teenagers best and I am profoundly worried about trends in their culture. It is important to state again that the majority of teenagers navigate the sometimes troubled waters of adolescence with relative ease. However, for a minority of teenagers, the risks have increased exponentially, even for children from so-called good families, where there are strong and loving relationships.
I have no desire to worry parents who are already worried enough. The majority of parents are doing their very best but often feel overwhelmed and helpless in the face of wider cultural trends. Acts that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago are entering the āmenu of optionsā for young people.
I am terribly afraid that by talking more and more about suicide (as I do myself in this column) we may have contributed inadvertently to de-stigmatising the option of death by suicide. We have not been successful enough in de-stigmatising seeking help, or more importantly, in creating a culture where fewer people feel driven to desperate acts.
I am convinced there is a significant copycat effect happening among young people. It is as if knowing that someone in your circle has engaged in self-harm, makes such choices more acceptable, instead of triggering a desire to look for help. Imagine if instead the behaviour being copied by people in distress was successfully seeking and availing of readily accessible help.
Why is a significant minority of young people so unhappy? Or rather, since teenagers have probably always been unhappy, why are they choosing such drastic options to manage their distress? There may be clues in their culture. People born after 1985 are described as Generation Y. The theory is that an age cohort has similar characteristics. All generalisations about a group are flawed, but some of them ring true.
There is a song in the primary school religious education programme which perhaps unwittingly sums up a key theme of this generation. It is called Circle of Friends . This generation finds meaning in life in a circle of friends, which also includes family.
This generation is not rebelling against parents, or indeed, anything much. Some acerbic commentators go so far as to say that they are the most over-parented generation ever, with parents anxiously involved in and supervising every aspect of their lives. They are also the technological generation, who cannot imagine a world without instant communication. This means that events become magnified and dramatic very rapidly, in the multiple feedback channels of the mobile phone and internet.
They are also more likely to have grown up in an atmosphere where faith is not a key part of their lives. Comedian Tommy Tiernan used a memorable phrase describing faith in his childhood as like a television channel that was never turned on, unused and unmissed.
Obviously, someone with my preoccupations would be concerned by this, but it is a concern for everyone, because it is not just the lack of faith that is significant, but of any overarching narrative outside friends and family. When the Circle of Friends breaks down, or worse, you never make it in, these kids feel defenceless and devastated. The gentle and sensitive feel this the most deeply.
Again, it is important to emphasise that most young people learn the skills to cope and get through this. But it leaves a minority uniquely vulnerable. The tight, cosy world they inhabit does not lend itself to developing skills to learn to deal with failure. Worse, small humiliations enter the echo chamber of the internet in a devastating way.
These young people have been praised from birth. Paradoxically, it seems to have had the unwanted consequence of making it very difficult to deal with any failure.
Perhaps it is the same problem with the highly driven entrepreneurs who are taking their own lives. They invested themselves entirely in financial success, and consumed with guilt for not being able to look after employees or family, they look to the most drastic way out of all.
There has been a welter of responses to the suicide crisis, and voluntary organisations have multiplied in recent times, many of them providing invaluable support. Aware, for example, just launched online support which is relevant to the technological generation.
However, the fact there are up to 500 groups inevitably leads both to overlap and some gaps in services. Minister of State John Moloney has proposed an audit and regulatory framework, which can only be valuable. The call has been made for some time by responsible organisations.
But it needs to go wider, to an audit of how all public monies are being spent in suicide prevention. There have been some modest achievements recently, including some beds for children and adolescents. However, at the same time cutbacks in our mental health services are being made without any real thought to the consequences, while other services of unproven value are being maintained.
It is vital that laudable attempts to de-stigmatise mental health problems do not have the unintended consequence of adding self-harm and suicide to a āmenu of optionsā. We need to focus our collective energies on challenging the culture, on de-stigmatising the idea of seeking help as early as possible, and on provision of readily accessible services. The vast majority of people treated for depression will recover. We have to get that message out.