August 31, 2006
Half Forwards...
A guy I went to school with committed suicide last week.
We were never what you'd call mates, but when you go to school with someone for six years you have quite a few shared experiences. He played on a flank next to me in the footy 3rds. We did house aths. His little brother is one of my little brother's best mates. I taught his other little brother at a school camp some years back. My mum knows his mum from when they were young and she had a maiden name. At the moment, all that comes to mind are cliches: they seemed just like a normal family with normal family stresses, tensions, and joys.
I can't comprehend what they are going through at the moment.
His death is set against a backdrop of a society in which young men, in alarming numbers, are killing themselves. Beyond Blue informs me that statistically, one male farmer does so every four days. Anecdotal statistics I have picked up in the last week or so suggest that men are taking this course of action in greater numbers than motor accidents are killing them. One of my very favourite teachers from school, as caring and intelligent and approachable a man as you could hope to meet, has had four former students take their own lives over the past ten years. That's from just one school.
The thought that the next person to do so might be someone even closer to me I find utterly terrifying. I feel like calling all my male friends and telling them that if they want to have a beer or something, I'm always here. My father did exactly that when he called me the other night to tell me what happened, and he has done it for twenty years, every time we have ever spoken about suicide: "Pete, if you ever think of doing something like that... Please, just talk to us".
I hear also that the overwhelming majority of male victims of suicide have some form of depression. This guy was one of those. Beyond Blue suggests that this is not uncommon. Is this something to do with the grin-and-bear-it culture boys are brought up in? I don't know. I suspect we are touching on issues far more complex than I can deal with here.
I just find it all very, very sad.
Filed under Peter
Comments
I'll have a beer with you Pete if you can answer me this one question - who won the heavyweight boxing gold medal at the 1960 olympics?
Posted by: James Morley at September 1, 2006 12:33 PM
I'll pretend I didn't read that, but I will be up for a beer when I get back from the West.
Interested readers might like to pitch in, though:
If the question in James' comment was a Trivial Pursuit question and the answer on the card said "Cassius Clay", would you accept "Muhammad Ali"?
Posted by: Peter at September 1, 2006 12:55 PM
Under the Clifford-Lester Rules of Trivial Pursuit Engagement, (ie. me and my best mate) one only has to 'demonstrate knowledge', not actually come up with the right set of words. So if, after several beers or wines, you find that you can remember all the words to a song, but not for the life of you the lyrics, singing it would be an acceptable replacement for the answer. If you can remember everything ever published by an author, and give a synopsis of several works, but can't recall the bastard's name right at the minute, that's ok too.
My cousin Richard, on the other hand, is the kind of bastard who'll disallow Martin Luther King, when it was Martin Luther King Jr.
It's probably best to figure out what style of game you're playing before you start.
Posted by: kate at September 1, 2006 02:12 PM
Also, on the more serious note of your post, the suicide rate is terrible. I gather the stats are, to put it more fully, that women are more likely to try to kill themselves, and less likely to succeed (because men are more likely to choose violent methods and have access to guns, while women are more likely to take overdoses) and also that women are more likely to seek help for depression. While it's a discrepency that men have to work on and take responsibility for changing, it's also a cultural change that women have to support by not expecting their partners, brothers and dads to take care of them or shoulder the burden of breadwinning all the time.
A primary school mate of mine killed himself when he was 15. I hadn't seen him in a few years, we'd never been close, but the shock was still enormous. Maybe the place to start is supporting your little brother in getting his little brother through it. It doesn't really matter what you say, if you can't think of anything say so, mostly when people are grieving they just need friends who aren't scared to visit.
Posted by: kate at September 1, 2006 02:24 PM
A male friend of mine who is 31 has lost 3 friends from his year at (an all boys) school to suicide.
The suicides of two male trainee doctors within weeks of eachother earlier this year has hit the news this week because the coroner has decided to investigate them. Doctor friends of mine knew one of these guys - everyone around them was absolutely gutted, as are all people left behind by someone who takes their own life.
This is a massive problem. The number of deaths due to suicide is higher than the road toll but the reality of this gets hidden away from us.
There has been an unspoken rule in the media for a long time to not publish stories about suicides. There's a theory that it might incite people on the edge to do it themselves - the research supporting this theory is far from conclusive.
Last year an amendment to the Criminal Code was introduced called the Suicide Related Material Offences - it was devised to stop people broadcasting information for the "purposes of counselling or inciting suicide, or promoting or providing instruction on a particular method of suicide".
While this is a good idea - don't give vulnerable people information about how to go about taking their own lives - it also serves to put an even tighter lid on educating the general public about the suicide toll.
Personally I think newspapers should publish the suicide toll right next to the road toll - they're both highly preventable and can be reduced with education and interventions. Why differentiate them?
Phew..... that one has been on my mind for some time now, thanks for the vent opportunity Pete.
Posted by: morgan at September 15, 2006 03:07 PM
Interesting point Paintballguns.
Posted by: Tom at September 20, 2006 07:40 PM
On the more lighthearted topic. Last night I was with a big group of poms (oh by the way they don't like being called that, so of course i call them that) when someone mentioned the moors invading Malta (or something). Ha, what an opportunity. Actually it was the moops, I said, and was stunned as the whole group stared at me like i was insane. Poor old sods the poms didn't even know what a bubble boy was. Apparently their networks decided to show 3rd rock from the sun at 7pm and seinfeld at 1030.
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