**
I’m sorry you have gone through that. I have to say, however, that this statement cannot be extrapolated to all depressed/suicidal people. Many of us have personal experiences with people this deep into depression, and they cannot all be painted with the same broad brush. I guess we all need to remember that when discussing something of this nature.
There was a report on the NBC national news tonight that the family released a statement including the information that she had been under treatment for her depression. I’m not sure why so many have assumed that she had refused treatment. So much speculation by so many.
That is probably what the family is upset with the older sister about - she claimed Kate Spade refused treatment .
@alwaysamom, the comments about Kate refusing treatment are not speculation, but were in response to Kate’s sister’s statement that she refused treatment.
Now, the more I read about the sister, the more skeptical I become of her veracity or motives. Nevertheless, this idea wasn’t invented out of whole cloth by people on this thread.
"But if the sister is to be believed, this woman who had access to health care and money to afford the best treatment, wouldn’t take it. "
That is exactly the conundrum that keeps the story alive… If she had these problems with ment’al health what kept her from seeking outside help when she apparently had such easy avenues for help?
It’s not just about her–it’s about everybody that has a similar scenario. We take out money, we take out job “failure”, we take out uncaring family. What’s left and what could have been done?
There are just not many (if any) effective treatment for mental illness.
On a side note, I have heard on a podcast (not the most scientific resource I guess) that there was a study that looked at the relationship between lithium level (it is naturally occurring in ground water and different regions have different levels) and depression, and the findings are the higher the ground water lithium level (still micro level compared to pharmaceutical dose) the lower the population depression rate. There are such claims to use microdosing of lithium to treat depression and bipolar.
For those who think that suicide is “selfish”, please . PLEASE read the link to Dr. Joiner’s execellent interview.https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126365907 He explains, among other things:
And yes, Robin Williams had LBD, not Parkinson’s, as someone upthread clarified.
@jym626, very helpful post. Unfortunately, some people continue to resist this explanation. Why, I don’t understand.
Thanks, @Nrdsb4. In situations like this, people try to rationalize irrational thinking and/or irrational behavior.
Maybe because it is devastating to the people left behind. The depressed or mentally ill person certainly might have a twisted belief that it is selfless or behavioral health professional can explain their (twisted) logic but those left behind will perhaps for the rest of their lives wonder if they too are genetically predisposed to mental illness, if there was something they could have done, or if in some part they contributed to the suicide or any number devastating ideas they might never have had to have had the person not killed the self.
I probably will never accept that it is anything but a selfish action on some level even if the person committing suicide cannot fathom that concept. A selfish person doesn’t typically think about how their words or actions impact others…so I can see how they might twist it up to convince themselves it is the opposite e.g. the world will be better off, happier whatever without me thinking. But if so then they are still thinking primarily about themselves.
But “selfish” implies they have the capacity to think reasonably about the impact of their thoughts/actions on others. This isn’t really so. Their thinking is not rational. They commonly think they are a burden to others and by ending their life they are relieving their loved ones of this burden, and therefor their action is selfless, not selfish, in their eyes.
I understand why people don’t get treatment for mental illness, such as depression, when there continue to be so many misconceptions about mental illnesses and stigmatization of people who suffer from mental illnesses. As was said above, this thread illustrates the pervasiveness of the misconceptions and stigma.
Maybe others can explain this better (that suicide isn’t a “selfish” act):
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS748US748&ei=0HwYW6OcFpS_0PEP8sKW-AM&q=is+suicide+selfish&oq=is+suicide+selfish&gs_l=psy-ab.3…0i131k1j0l5j0i22i30k1l4.3256.6591.0.6899.19.11.0.8.8.0.156.1105.0j8.9.0…0…1c.1.64.psy-ab…2.16.1151.0…0i67k1.119.B6I0kqd6Y-o
@momofthreeboys
Would you use the word “twisted” to describe someone who has terminal cancer and decided to opt out of treatment/choose euthanasia? It is very offensive and cruel for you to call people suffering from depression and chose sadly to end their lives “selfish”.
Well, I speculate that her sister had her own agenda, and it was also reported (i.e.speculated) that the sisters were estranged. Which begs the questions:
• How much did the sister really know what was going on?
• What kind of person talks to the press the day (or anytime, for that matter) of her sister’s suicide? L-)
It is possible someone with cancer could display twisted logic or twisted beliefs. It is fairly common terminology apologias if it touched on something sensitive for you. I suppose I could have used the word irrationale.
My father took his own like in 1999. He had been under a doctor’s care, was taking his prescribed meds, all of that. And still went through with it. In his home, where my mom found him. My kids, who were 5 and 7 at the time, were devastated. I told them then, and I still believe this today, simply that he had a disease in his brain, and he died.
I was angry with him, for about an hour. Then I started to think about all the times in life when I, or anyone, had done something really impulsive and stupid. Not an uncommon thing, and in any normal case, you look back and say “Boy, THAT was dumb. I can’t believe I did that.” I like to think it was the same with my Dad, except that his dumb play was permanent. Wherever he is, I’m thinking he’d really like a do-over on that one.
I feel for Kate’s family, and for any family affected by depression and its aftermath.
But suicide is rarely impulsive. Sadly, it is typically thought through… items often given away, and the person has an intent, plan and means.
[quote]
And this illustrates another truth, and contradicts another myth, about suicide, and it’s that these deaths, they are often hard to see coming. They can come out of the blue from people who outwardly seem like they’re doing OK, seem like they’re going to work, seem like they’re functioning normally. But inwardly, they’re in desperate misery.
And so the death seems to come out of the blue to everyone else, but if we had private access to that person’s thoughts and feelings, you’d see a misery lasting for weeks, sometimes months or even longer, and you’d also see a planning process about the death itself.
CONAN: So it’s not an impulsive act.
Prof. JOINER: Absolutely not. This is one of the most entrenched myths of all, that researchers will repeat it, clinicians will repeat it, but it’s not true. If you ponder death, really at how fearsome it is, how daunting is, to imagine that people would just, on a whim, on the spur of the moment, be able to engage in something that dramatic and that fearsome, I just think it completely misunderstands human nature; that rather, what happens is that there’s a long process building up to it.
Now again, it can seem to others to come from out of the blue, but that doesn’t mean that it really did./quote
