A.O. Scott on Robin Williams - "An Improvisational Genius, Forever Present in the Moment"

Via film critic, A.O. Scott for the New York Times.

It's sad to see another talented and tormented man succumb to depression and end his life in what appears to have been a suicide.

Below the NYT obituary, there is an article from The Moderate Voice that addresses Williams' issues with depression and addiction.

Robin Williams, an Improvisational Genius, Forever Present in the Moment

By A. O. SCOTT
AUG. 11, 2014


Robin Williams was an irrepressible performer, on stage and off. Credit Gary Settle

Some years ago, at a party at the Cannes Film Festival, I was leaning against a rail watching a fireworks display when I heard a familiar voice behind me. Or rather, at least a dozen voices, punctuating the offshore explosions with jokes, non sequiturs and off-the-wall pop-cultural, sexual and political references.

There was no need to turn around: The voices were not talking directly to me and they could not have belonged to anyone other than Robin Williams, who was extemporizing a monologue at least as pyrotechnically amazing as what was unfolding against the Mediterranean sky. I’m unable to recall the details now, but you can probably imagine the rapid-fire succession of accents and pitches — macho basso, squeaky girly, French, Spanish, African-American, human, animal and alien — entangling with curlicues of self-conscious commentary about the sheer ridiculousness of anyone trying to narrate explosions of colored gunpowder in real time.

Very few people would try to upstage fireworks, and probably only Robin Williams could have succeeded. I doubt anyone asked him for his play-by-play, an impromptu performance for a small, captive group, and I can’t say if it arose from inspiration or compulsion. Maybe there’s not really a difference. Whether or not anyone expected him to be, and maybe whether or not he entirely wanted to be, he was on.


Robin Williams | Credit: Jay Paul for The New York Times

Part of the shock of his death on Monday came from the fact that he had been on — ubiquitous, self-reinventing, insistently present — for so long. On Twitter, mourners dated themselves with memories of the first time they had noticed him. For some it was the movie Aladdin. For others Dead Poets Society or Mrs. Doubtfire. I go back even further, to the “Mork and Mindy” television show and an album called “Reality — What a Concept” that blew my eighth-grade mind.

Back then, it was clear that Mr. Williams was one of the most explosively, exhaustingly, prodigiously verbal comedians who ever lived. The only thing faster than his mouth was his mind, which was capable of breathtaking leaps of free-associative absurdity. Janet Maslin, reviewing his standup act in 1979, cataloged a tumble of riffs that ranged from an impression of Jacques Cousteau to “an evangelist at the Disco Temple of Comedy,” to Truman Capote Jr. at “the Kindergarten of the Stars” (whatever that was). “He acts out the Reader’s Digest condensed version of ‘Roots,’ ” Ms. Maslin wrote, “which lasts 15 seconds in its entirety. He improvises a Shakespearean-sounding epic about the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, playing all the parts himself, including Einstein’s ghost.” (That, or something like it, was a role he would reprise more than 20 years later in Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.”)

Onstage, Mr. Williams’s speed allowed him to test audience responses and to edit and change direction on the fly. He simultaneously explained and acted out this process in Come Inside My Mind, a two-and-a-half-minute tour de force of manic meta — “I’m doing great! I’m improvising like crazy! No you’re not, you fool! You’re just doing pee-pee-ca-ca, no substance!” But if Mr. Williams was often self-aware, commenting on what he was doing as he was doing it, he was rarely arch or insincere. He could, as an actor, succumb to treacliness sometimes — maybe more than sometimes — but his essential persona as an entertainer combined neediness and generosity, intelligence and kindness, in ways that were charming and often unexpectedly moving as well.

In his periodic post-“Mork and Mindy” television appearances (on “The Larry Sanders Show” and more recently on Louie), he often played sly, sad or surprising versions of himself, the Robin Williams some of us had known and loved since childhood, which means an entertainer we sometimes took for granted or allowed ourselves to tire of. Many of his memorable big-screen performances were variations on that persona — madcap, motor-mouthed, shape-shifting jokers like the genie in “Aladdin,” the anti-authoritarian D.J. in “Good Morning Vietnam,” Parry in The Fisher King and even the redoubtable Mrs. Doubtfire herself.

That was a role within a role, of course, and Mr. Williams’s best serious movie characters — or maybe we should say the non-silly ones, since an element of playfulness was always there — had a similar doubleness. Watching him acting in earnest, you could not help but be aware of the exuberance, the mischief, that was being held in check, and you couldn’t help but wonder when, how or if it would burst out. That you knew what he was capable of made his feats of self-control all the more exciting. You sometimes felt that he was aware of this, and that he enjoyed the sheer improbability of appearing as the straight man, the heavy, the voice of reason.

He was very good at playing it cool or quiet or restrained as other actors in his movies — Nathan Lane in The Birdcage, Robert DeNiro in Awakenings, Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting — brought the heat, the noise or the wildness. He was an excellent and disciplined character actor, even as he was also an irrepressible, indelible character, a voice — or voices — that many of us have been hearing for as long as we can remember.


A version of this article appears in print on August 12, 2014, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Improvisational Genius, Forever Present in the Moment. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe

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From The Moderate Voice

Comedy, substance abuse and depression: reflecting on Robin Williams’ life and death

Posted By KATHY GILL, Technology Policy Analyst on Aug 11, 2014

I learned about Robin Williams, 63, the old-fashioned way. My husband walked in the house and announced, “The world is a sadder place today.”

“Mom and dad just heard on the TV. Robin Williams has died.”

A quick search of Twitter confirmed the sad news.

And then the double-whammy: suicide.

According to news reports, Williams had been “battling severe depression”. Last month he had checked himself back into rehab “to fine-tune and focus on his continued commitment” to sobriety.

In 2006, he talked publicly about substance abuse and treatment.

A Good Morning America interview hints at the darkness of his depression:

“It’s the same voice thought that … you’re standing at a precipice and you look down, there’s a voice and it’s a little quiet voice that goes, ‘Jump,’” Williams told Sawyer.

He continued:

“The same voice that goes, ‘Just one.’ … And the idea of just one for someone who has no tolerance for it, that’s not the possibility.”

He elaborated in a People magazine interview:

“Cocaine for me,” Williams told PEOPLE in 1988, “was a place to hide… It slowed me down… And I was so crazy back then – working all day, partying most of the night – I needed an excuse not to talk. I needed quiet times and I used coke to get them.”

Depression + Substance Abuse Too Often = Suicide

Clinically, the two — depression and substance abuse — increase the risk of suicide.

We don’t know if there are “genetic as well as social or environmental factors that predispose an individual to an increased risk for both disorders” — substance abuse and depression.

But we do know that one increases the risk of the other:

The analysis revealed that the presence of either disorder doubled the risks of the second disorder…Further evidence suggests that the most plausible causal association between AUD [alcohol use disorders] and MD [major depression] is one in which AUD increases the risk of MD, rather than vice versa

Dark comedy

Last year the Express (UK) explored the relationship between comedians and depression. The Mail (UK) followed up in January: Why comedians ARE a little bit mad: Funnymen’s personalities are similar to those with mental health conditions.

What does it mean, that a celebrity as gargantuan as Robin Williams could talk publicly about depression and substance abuse … and yet succumb to suicide?

That it is still a mark of bravery to talk about depression (your own)? Despite a long list of notable depressives?

How do we, as a culture, begin talking about mental illness and alcohol abuse with the goal of helping, coping, preventing (rather than blaming)?

We can hear/see commercials for Erectile Dysfunction, for pete’s sake. It’s past time we talked openly about depression.

Can we find a silver lining in Robin’s death?

Medal of Honor Recipient, in New Act of Valor, Thanks His Therapist

It's an act of bravery for a soldier to thank his therapist when accepting a Congressional Medal of Honor, but in an era where more men die of their own hand than die in battle, it is a necessary and laudable act. He is strong enough to admit that war and seeing friends die has had an incredible impact on his mental health, that he is emotionally scarred by what he has witnessed.

Wonderful to see the wall of silence being taken down by a man recognized as a hero.

This nice story comes from Pacific Standard.

Medal of Honor Recipient, in New Act of Valor, Thanks His Shrink

As wave of military suicides continues

Staff Sgt. Ty Carter speaking at a ceremony awarding him the Congressional Medal of Honor. (PHOTO: YOUTUBE) 

August 27, 2013 • By Marc Herman

The video below, from Stars and Stripes, shows Staff Sgt. Ty Carter’s speech at a ceremony awarding him the Congressional Medal of Honor yesterday. Carter, one of only five living recipients of the medal who fought in post 9/11 conflicts, was cited for his actions during a battle in Afghanistan in which he attempted to rescue a fellow soldier, Spc Stephan Mace. Carter pulled Mace to safety and treated him amid a 12-hour-long battle. Mace, wounded grievously, eventually died.*

Carter’s speech is notably different from the popular image of a war hero receiving a medal. In lieu of crisp salutes and talk of duty, Carter spends much of his time speaking about loss, and frankly discussing his own mental health after the ordeal. To be clear, Staff Sgt. Carter appears to be a person of extraordinary mettle. In his presentation, however, he does not mind projecting another image, of a young man who has seen too many terrible things. Speaking in what can only be called a tone of vulnerability, he tells the White House audience, including President Obama:

Only those closest to me can see the scars that come from seeing good men take their last breath. During the battle, I lost some of the hearing in my left ear. But I will always hear the voice of Specialist Stephan Mace. I will hear his plea for help for the rest of my life.

He goes on to talk about how he recovered from the experience.

However, thanks to the professionalism of my platoon Sgt, Sgt Hill, and my behavioral health provider, Capt. Cobb, and my friends and family, I will heal.

“Behavioral health” is a synonym for mental health. A “behavioral health provider” is a therapist. In a ceremony traditionally designed to showcase bravery in battle, Carter is taking the extraordinary step of focusing on how he, the classic American war hero, came home from Afghanistan with his head in a bad place. He goes on to speak of anguished families of the soldiers lost in the same violent battle for which he received the medal. President Obama also remarks on the mental health issue.

Certainly what the video below displays is a cultural shift, from the 1940s image of the hard-bitten GI, to the modern, human hero like Carter. It’s also tempting to read the focus of this week’s ceremony as a tacit pushback against an emerging skepticism about war’s role in a wave of military suicides over the past half-decade-plus. Coincidentally, two weeks ago a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association claimed that military deployments were not to blame for the widely-reported rise in suicides among service members since 2005.

The study, which has sparked intense debate, found ”suicide risk was independently associated with male sex and mental disorders but not with military-specific variables.” It cited a rise in alcohol and drug abuse among the soldiers studied as likely causes for the increase in suicides, but did not consider those influences “military-specific.”


*UPDATE 08/28/2013: This post originally stated that Staff Sgt. Ty Carter was one of only five living recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. In fact, he is one of five who have received the MOH in the post 9/11 conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Jed Diamond - Why Men Commit Suicide: The Three Warning Signs Most People Miss

This article by Dr. Jed Diamond was posted at the Good Men Project back in July - but it is an important topic that bears repeating and re-posting.

Why Men Commit Suicide: The Three Warning Signs Most People Miss

July 13, 2013 by Jed Diamond Ph.D

Jed Diamond, P.h.D, looks at suicide in men from both an individual and societal vantage point and gives ways to prevent it from happening.

_____

Recently I received a review copy of the book, Lonely at the Top: The High Cost of Men’s Success by Thomas Joiner, Ph.D. I was happy to offer a review. Dr. Joiner is one of the world’s leading experts on suicide and has published two previous books, Myths about Suicide (Harvard University Press 2010) and Why People Die by Suicide (Harvard University Press 2005).

Dr. Joiner and I share a professional interest in suicide prevention. Suicide is a major world-wide epidemic taking the lives of over 1,000,000 people a year, according to the World Health Organization. Estimates suggest that 10 to 20 times more individuals attempt suicide.

Self-harm now takes more lives than war, murder, and natural disasters combined.

Our personal lives have also been touched by suicide. My mid-life father tried to commit suicide when I was 5 years old. Although he lived, our lives were never the same. I grew up wondering what happened to my father and was terrified that the same thing would happen to me. My life-long interest in men’s health grew from my desire to help men, and the women and children who love them, to understand what causes men to give up on life and what we can do to keep them engaged.

Dr. Joiner’s father, also named Thomas, killed himself when Dr. Joiner was in his third year of graduate school. Although the senior Thomas was depressed, he didn’t seem like a suicide risk. As reported by Tony Dokoupil in a recent article, The Suicide Epidemic, “the 56-year old Joiner was gregarious, the kind of guy who was forever talking and laughing and bending people his way. He wasn’t a brittle person with bad genes and big problems. Thomas Joiner Sr. was a successful businessman, a former Marine, tough even by Southern standards.” As it turned out, these “manly” traits may have contributed to his demise.

Joiner remembers the day his father disappeared. “Dad had left an unmade bed in a spare room, and an empty spot where his van usually went. By nightfall he hadn’t been heard from, and the following morning my mother called me at school. The police had found the van. It was parked in an office lot about a mile from the house, the engine cold. Inside, in the back, the police found my father dead, covered in blood. He had been stabbed through the heart.”

The investigators found slash marks on his father’s wrists and a note on a yellow sticky pad by the driver’s seat. “Is this the answer?” it read, in his father’s shaky scrawl. They ruled it a suicide, death by “puncture wound,” an impossibly grisly way to go, which made it all the more difficult for Joiner to understand.

Suicide is a Primarily Male Problem

In his latest book, Lonely at the Top, Joiner asks, “which cause of death stands out as affecting men far more than women? Given their privileged financial and society status, perhaps it has something to do with the dark side of wealth and power such as the cardiac or stroke-related consequences of influential but stressful jobs, or a taste for expensive but unhealthy foods?”

“No,” he says, “It’s suicide.” Approximately 30,000 people commit suicide each year in the U.S. and 80% were men. Overall, males kill themselves at rates that are 4 times higher than females. But in certain age groups men are even more vulnerable. The suicide rate for those ages 20-24 is 5.4 times higher for males than for females of the same age.

In the older age groups suicide is even more a “male problem.” After retirement, the suicide rate skyrockets for men, but not for women. Between the ages of 65-74 the rate is 6.3 times higher for males. Between the ages of 75-84, the suicide rate is 7 times higher. And for those over 85, it is nearly 18 times higher for men than it is for women.

A New Understanding of Why People Die by Suicide

Joiner is 47 now, and a chaired professor at Florida State University, in Tallahassee. He’s made it his life’s work to understand why people kill themselves and what we can do to prevent them from taking their lives. He hopes to honor his father, by combating what killed him and by making his death a stepping stone to better treatment. “Because,” as he says, “no one should have to die alone in a mess in a hotel bathroom, in the back of a van, or on a park bench, thinking incorrectly that the world will be better off without them.”

Dr. Joiner has proposed a new theory of why people commit suicide which he believes is more accurate than previous formulations offered by writers like Edwin Schneidman, Ph.D. and Aaron Beck, MD. According to Schneidman’s model, the key motivator which drives people to suicide is psychological pain. In Beck’s understanding, the key motivator is the development of a pervasive sense of hopelessness. Dr. Joiner suggests that these are correct understandings but are also too vague to be useful for predictive purposes and not capable of offering a complete motivational picture.

Joiner proposes that there are three key motivational aspects which contribute to suicide. These are: 1) a sense of not belonging, of being alone, 2) a sense of not contributing, of being a burden 3) a capability for suicide, not being afraid to die. All three of these motivations or preconditions must be in place before someone will attempt suicide.

Although women, too, can take their own lives when they suffer at the intersection of “feeling alone, feeling a burden, and not being afraid to die,” this is clearly a more male phenomenon. Throughout our lives males take more risks and invite injury more often. We are taught that “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” and “no pain, no gain.”

We often invest so much of our lives in our work, when we lose our jobs or retire we feel worthless, unable to contribute. It’s a short step to feeling we are a burden on those we love. We also put less effort into developing and maintaining friendships so we can come to feel more and more alone.

Preventing Suicide In Men

I’ve found that Joiner’s model, what he calls the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide, can be very helpful in understanding suicide risk in men. The three overlapping circles help alert us to the kinds of questions we might ask ourselves if we want to prevent suicide. Joiner and his colleagues have developed a questionnaire that addresses these issues. Here are a few of the items they assess:

Thwarted Belonginess:

• These days, I feel disconnected from other people.
• These days, I rarely interact with people who care about me.
• These days, I don’t feel I belong.
• These days, I often feel like an outsider in social gatherings.

Perceived Burdensomeness:

• These days the people in my life would be better off if I were gone.
• These days the people in my life would be happier without me.
• These days I think I have failed the people in my life.
• These days I feel like a burden on the people in my life.

Capacity for Suicide:

• Things that scare most people do not scare me.
• The sight of my own blood does not bother me.
• I can tolerate a lot more pain than most people.
• I am not at all afraid to die.

♦◊♦

Like most people, I’ve had thoughts of suicide at numerous times in my life, but the one time I felt at high risk of actually killing myself was when all three sectors overlapped. I was lucky that my wife was smart enough to remove the guy from the house until I saw a therapist and got into treatment for my depression and my suicide risk subsided.

Some people believe that if a person is going to kill themselves, there’s nothing one can do. If you try to stop them, they’ll just bide their time and do it later. However, we now know that suicidal intention is transient. If we can get support to get through those times when we feel disconnected, a burden to others, and having the means and mind-set to actually kill ourselves, we can begin to develop the social supports to turn things around.

I suspect the difference between James Joiner’s dad and my dad wasn’t their level of “thwarted belongingness” or “perceived burdensomeness” but my father’s lower capacity for suicide. Disrupt one of the risk circles and we buy ourselves more time to heal. Making a connection can be as simple as a smile. I read the report of a man who left a note as he walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. It said, “If one person smiles at me, I won’t kill myself.” The note was found after he had plunged to his death. We can all reach out, in our own way, and touch someone who may feel disconnected, disrespected, and useless.

We can also let in the love when we are feeling down. I remind myself, and my clients, to take heed of the lines from the Eagles song Desperado. “You better let somebody love you, you better let somebody love you, you better let somebody love you…before it’s too late.”

____

photo: jamesackerley / flickr

The Suicide Rate Among College Age Men Is Four Times Greater Than Among Females

 

Suicide is a decidedly "male" problem in a lot of ways. On the whole, more women than men attempt suicide, but more men than women complete suicide. The problem is most obvious in young men and older men.

In this post at his Psychology Today blog Boys to Men (The science of masculinity and manhood), professor Miles Groth, Ph.D., of Warner College (one of the architects of the Male Studies movement, and editor of New Male Studies), examines the situation surrounding suicide among college-aged men.

If this were reversed, and women were 4x more likely to suicide than men, there would be national campaigns to raise awareness, Oprah would do a special, and President Obama would appoint a committee of morons to look into the issue. But it's only our young men - no worries, if weren't this it would be combat or some other cause.


I suspect there are a lot of areas where Dr. Groth and I diverge in our values and perspectives - but this one topic where we are on the same page. Something must be done about this crisis in our young men.

Young Men Who Commit Suicide

The Suicide Rate Among College Age Men Is Four Times Greater Than Among Females

Published on August 29, 2013 by Miles Groth, Ph.D. in Boys to Men

This week, a popular, successful young man beginning his senior year at a small liberal arts college in the Northeast left campus during one of the first days of the new semester after talking cheerfully with friends and participating in activities for new students. The next morning he was found dead, far away from home and campus. Next to him, the police told reporters, they found a suicide note. It was a "first" for the college, but it is a well-known phenomenon around the country.

Suicides among young males are four times more common than among young female, and they are occurring among ever younger males, some in their early teens. Little is understood about what motivates boys and young men to take their lives in such numbers. Of as great concern is another fact: little effort has been made to understand the trend.

The topic is at the top of the agenda of items for consideration at university and college centers for men. It now becomes another reason for stressing the need for such places on campuses. Among other topics at such centers, which are growing in number, are the relationship between fathers and sons, in particular the impact on young males of not having had a father during boyhood. Other common topics are body image and relationships with women -- and, perhaps most to the point here, their perception of how they are seen as males in contemporary culture.

The psychology of male suicide is not at all well understood, but since late adolescence is a time of identity consolidation, it is thought that being unable to answer the question "Who am I, really?" is a critical feature among college age men who consider suicide. It is also known that young males are more impulsive than females and often act without giving the consequences of their acts much thought. This might include taking a drastic decision to leave this world.

In more than 40 years of college-level teaching, I have observed thousands of young men change remarkably, especially during the last two college years. Generally on a somewhat later timetable that female peers, many undergo significant transformations only during the junior and senior years. They change in appearance, revise their persona, and perhaps for the first time make even a preliminary decision about what they want to study -- and this with only a year remaining. Their female peers have done this much earlier. Some find that they need a fifth year to finally put their intellectual, emotional, and even pre-vocational or pre-professional house in order.

Many other young men have still not decided what they want to do by the time they graduate. They return home to live with their parents -- more than ever before. By contrast, most college women know what they want to do by commencement and head into further study, if they have decided to continue with their education, into a career, or into a serious relationship that might lead to parenting children.

Just what prompts a young man to end his young life at a time when his prospects might be expected to be brightest is baffling -- unless we consider that they are facing a world that may seem not to have a place for them. And they are keenly aware of this. And they are hurt by it. Perhaps just having gotten over the fact that they are not especially welcome on college campuses -- something I have discussed in an earlier contribution -- they now face another world, the real world, that also has little good to say about men. They have all read in popular weeklies or on the internet about "the end of men" or heard the question "Are men necessary?"

As I have reported here before, the numbers of males attending college is at an all time low (about 37% nationally) in proportion to their female peers. This trend has been of concern to admissions officers for twenty years. The reasons are not clear, but they include a sense of not being welcome. But what about a young man who is among that group who matriculated, has found a place for himself on a university campus in a major he enjoys, has been engaged in campus life, and has done well academically? We must suppose that another factor is at work when he leaves in all behind on a warm summer day.

Perhaps the most vexing issue is that colleges and universities have not responded seriously to the fact -- not a guess, not a hunch -- the fact that the rate of young male suicides is so much greater than that of females during the college years. Why this has not become a topic for study and simple human concern is troubling.

I am convinced that men's centers on college campuses by their very presence raise awareness of the challenges young men face -- not only at institutions of higher learning but in contemporary culture as a whole. As a footnote to the incident mentioned at the beginning of this contribution, on hearing about that young man's suicide, an anonymous donor made a gift of $800 to the center to support its work in trying to understand, among other matters, why so many young men are ending their lives.

Here I bring issues of importance to discussion and leave it to others to advocate for policy change. In this case, I raise a question I believe is worth investigating:

Why are so many more young men taking their lives -- even young men with the special advantage of being able to afford to attend university -- and at just that moment when they have finally negotiated some of life's most demanding puzzles: Who am I? What do I want to do? Surely, this question deserves eveyone's thoughtful consideration.

Billy Johnson II - Traditional Gender Expectations May Contribute to Rising Suicide Rates in Men

This is not surprising. In a world where traditional male gender roles are no longer valued economically, where macho behavior is seen as cavemanish, and where gender roles in general have become more confusing, it's no surprise at all that men who feel they have to live up to traditional definitions of masculinity might feel hopeless and depressed about their future.

This article comes from the Good Men Project - and they are seeking stories by those affected by suicide (not sure if their deadline has passed).

Traditional Gender Expectations May Contribute to Rising Suicide Rates in Men

MAY 8, 2013 | BY BILLY JOHNSON II

Feeling trapped between a traditional masculinity and a progressive one can contribute to depression and suicide in men.

Despite strong national efforts, completed suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. According to the CDC, in 2010 there were 38,364 suicides in 2010 in the United States, a daily average of 105 each day.

Furthermore, these statistics are thought to under-exaggerate the total number of completed suicides as the data can be difficult to gather and this behavior often goes unreported.

Adolescent suicidal behavior has received the bulk of scholastic and media attention because suicide is the third leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24. However, the New York Times reported significant increases in suicidal behavior among middle-aged individuals, in particular middle-aged men: specifically completed suicides by persons aged 35-64 increased by nearly 30% from 1999-2010.

The gendered nature of suicide has been well documented with males being three to four times more likely than females to die by suicide. Men’s use of fire arms, tendency to stuff emotions, and low likelihood of seeking help are a few of the variables listed as responsible for the contrast in suicide rates between men and women.

But how do we account for the significant rise in suicide among middle aged men?

The New York Times article listed several possibilities for this trend including access to fatal drugs and the impact of the current economy, one of the consequences of this being higher unemployment rates. Furthermore, this generation may feel financially and emotionally burdened by the task of taking care of their parents or older family members while ensuring their own financial stability.

Depression and anxiety are often at the center of suicidal thoughts, and research by Samaritans, a U.K. charity which aims to lower the number of suicides, revealed that middle aged men who experience divorce or relationship separation, unemployment, and poverty are more likely to experience depression and consider suicide.

The researchers add that these individuals may also feel stuck between traditional masculinity, with its focus on emotional stoicism, and the more recent and progressive gender politics of expressing emotions openly.

Finally, they report that the ineffectiveness of some approaches in curbing suicide lies in the lack of a strong social conversation on the role of inequality in suicidal behavior. Men with low socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely than more affluent males to complete suicide; therefore, any approach for reducing the prevalence of this behavior must also include an analysis of the impact of poverty. This begs the question: how can suicide rates be lowered in a declining economy with such differing opinions of masculinity? What is in our power to do to help lower suicide rates among men of all ages?


In Canada and the U.S., the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

In the U.K., ring the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90.

We’re looking for stories of people who have been affected by suicide. Please email lisa@goodmenproject.com if you would be willing to write about the experience.

Photo: ChrisHConnelly/Flickr

Read more:

• New Study: Male Suicide at All Time High
• 7 Types of Self-Care to Help Prevent and Heal Depression
• We’ve Got To Learn To Talk About Men

NPR - How A Patient's Suicide Changed A Doctor's Approach To Guns

This segment of All Things Considered aired on the local NPR station Wednesday evening. This struck me as a largely male issue -   men are more likely to be treated for depression by the family doctor than women (72-89% of females will see a mental health professional at some point, but only 41-58% of males will do so), men are more successful in committing suicide (by a margin of 4:1, even though more women attempt suicide, by a margin of 3:1), and men are more successful at suicide because they use guns (women tend to opt for overdose or cutting themselves).

When we finally look at the real numbers about guns and suicides, the debate about gun control is really an issue of suicide prevention, as noted by the Boston Globe:

In 2010, the last year for which complete numbers are available, the number of gun deaths by suicide in the United States outnumbered homicides 19,392 to 11,078. If you add up all American gun deaths that year, including accidents, 3 out of 5 people who died from gunshot wounds took their own lives. Those figures are not an anomaly: With just a few exceptions, the majority of gun deaths in the United States have been self-inflicted every year since at least 1920. This is a startling fact, and one that forces us to realize that, no matter what we may believe about the Second Amendment, the debate over how to reduce the death toll from guns is, to a great extent, a debate about suicide prevention.

Maybe if the men's rights folks took up an issue such as this, one that has nothing to do with feminism, more people would take them seriously.

How A Patient's Suicide Changed A Doctor's Approach To Guns

by ERIC WHITNEY
March 20, 2013

from CPR
All Things Considered
6 min 20 sec

Listen to the Story

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Transcript

Dr. Frank Dumont at his clinic in Estes Park, Colo.Barry Gutierrez for NPR

Dr. Frank Dumont knew one of his favorite patients was getting depressed.

When Dumont first started seeing him, the man was in his 70s. He was active and fit; he enjoyed hiking into his 80s. But then things started to change.

"He started complaining of his memory starting to slip," Dumont says. The man would forget where he had placed objects, and he'd struggle to remember simple words and phrases.

Dumont prescribed antidepressants and saw him every eight weeks or so.

Like a lot of people in the small town of Estes Park, 90 miles northwest of Denver, both Dumont and his patient were drawn to the ruggedly beautiful mountains there. One of them, called Longs Peak, is a cherished part of Dumont's life. He and the patient talked often about the picturesque mountain.

"He was one of those people where you see them on the schedule for the day and you just smile," Dumont says. "You just realize you get a chance to chat with someone who feels like a friend."

That's what their last visit was like. Dumont says he did ask the man whether he was having any thoughts of hurting himself, but got a very convincing no.

"What in hindsight struck me about that visit is that he brought me a gift, which was a geological survey marker from the top of Longs Peak," says Dumont. "It was a replica, but it was one of those things that was just another reminder to me of this connection that we had had."

Dr. Frank Dumont holds a gift from a patient who committed suicide with a gun. In hindsight, Dumont sees it as a farewell from the man who was one of his favorite patients.Barry Gutierrez for NPR

"And at the time it just seemed like a very generous gift that touched me," Dumont recalls. "And what I didn't realize at the time was that that was, I think, a farewell gift, or a bit of a parting gift, from him. Because I did not see him again. And the next that I had heard of him was from an emergency phone call from his wife about a month later, and she called needing to be seen. .... She had to come in and talk to me with how to deal with the fact that her husband had committed suicide."

Dumont's patient shot himself in the head with a rifle. Dumont was stunned, and guilt-ridden.

He says he always asks his depressed patients about suicide, whether they've thought about how they'd do it. But he now regrets not asking this patient specifically whether he had guns in the house.

Suicide prevention researcher Dr. Matthew Miller, at the Harvard School of Public Health, says Dumont sounds like a great doctor. "He was doing everything he could to try to keep this guy from making a suicide attempt, but what he didn't do was the second step, which is make it hard for him to die if he did make an attempt," Miller says.

The second step, Miller says, is asking patients if they have guns in the house or access to guns. If someone tries to commit suicide without using a gun, they probably won't succeed.

"The likelihood of their dying is of an order of magnitude lower," he says. "Instead of there being a 90-plus percent chance of death, there's a greater than 90 percent chance that they'll live."

Miller wants to make it routine for family doctors to ask their patients about guns. One large study found that nearly half of all suicide victims had seen a primary care doctor within a month of killing themselves. So it's important for them to bring up suicide and possible means.

"We have to get people to stop thinking about these discussions as gun control in one way or another, but rather as a way of conveying useful information, so people make decisions that protect their family," Miller says.

There are lots of reasons family doctors avoid bringing up guns with their patients. They may not want to offend a patient, or they may be too busy checking off all the preventive screenings and tests on the list.

Not everybody wants gun advice from a medical professional. Edgar Antillon organized a pro-gun rally at the Colorado State Capitol earlier this year. He says he would resent a doctor bringing it up.

"Tell me to stay healthy, tell me my baby has colic, but I don't think it's their job to tell me about gun safety," he says. "They're not gun experts. They're not NRA members. ... And if they are, then I'll take it as advice from an NRA member."

But Dumont has spent a lot of time second-guessing himself since his patient shot himself. The doctor hopes small measures he can take will reduce the odds, just a fraction, that another one of his patients will die from suicide by gun.

"I have a lower threshold for asking follow-up questions, asking the same thing a different way," he says. "Or if I have any inkling, starting to push a little bit further, and say, 'Well, so you're not really thinking about it, but have you ever thought about how you would go about it if you were going to?' And I have a lower threshold for asking about a weapon in the home as well."

Dumont says he thinks more physicians would talk with their patients about guns if they got information about health risks associated with them. Medical journals and a federal board of experts regularly issue advice on prevention of obesity, car accidents and workplace injuries. But there's been a ban on federally funded gun safety research until President Obama restored it with an executive action.

This story is part of a partnership between NPR, Colorado Public Radio and Kaiser Health News.

Lana Wachowski's Emotional Coming Out Speech

The video below has been making the rounds on Facebook since it was released last week. It features Lana Wachowski (born as Laurence ["Larry"] Wachowski), one half of the Wachowski directing team that created the Matrix Trilogy and most recently, Cloud Atlas. She first went public with her transition in July of this year, following an operation to correct the biology of her birth.

According to Huffington Post, her process of becoming herself has been a topic of rumors for almost a decade.

Lana's personal life has been a source of headline fodder for years now. 

In 2002, Wachowski was going through a bitter divorce from wife Thea Bloom, as People magazine reported at the time. In 2003, a date Wachowski took to the Cannes Film Festival told the British tabloids that the director was a "cross-dresser."

That same year the Gothamist reported on a column written by movie journalist Dave Poland, alleging that Wachowski was in the process of undergoing a "sex change".

"Every indication I have says that Larry Wachowski is now in the process of changing his sex," Poland wrote. "Dressing in public like a woman, taking female hormones and yes, having a sex change operation."

It's unfortunate that she had to go through this in the public eye - among the transgender clients I have worked with, simply doing this privately and dealing with friends and family is difficult enough. 

Ms. Wochowski gave this 25-minute talk, a very rare appearance on this side of the camera, during an Oct. 20 fundraising dinner for the the Human Rights Campaign in San Francisco. She talks about growing up as a woman living inside a male body, the wrong body, and the abuse and shaming she experienced as she tried to reconcile her gender identity with the biology with which she was born. At one point, she had her suicide planned out.

Fortunately, she never chose that option.

But many transgendered youth do choose suicide. In fact, more than 50% of Transgender youth will have had at least one suicide attempt by their 20th birthday. This is a horrible statistic, and one that we can change through awareness of what these young people are going through and support for their identities, including the right to have corrective surgery if that is desired.

Blessings to Lana Wachowski for bravely stepping forward to speak her truth.


You can read about the event here - and there is a good interview with Wachowski here.

Finally, kudos to the Hollywood Reporter for handing this story with compassion and integrity.

Good Men Project - Boys, Men, and Suicide

The Good Men Project posted this article by Thomas Golden back in August, and I have been wanting to share it here and kept forgetting. This is a serious issue - twice as many females as males attempt suicide, but males succeed more often, accounting for 80% of completed suicides in the U.S.

This post was written specifically for the state of Maryland, but it no doubt applies to every other state as well; and the recommendations are universally applicable.

Boys, Men, and Suicide

August 17, 2012 By Thomas Golden 

 

Although 80% of completed suicides are by males, there are no national programs specifically aimed at men or boys. Tom Golden wants to change that.

This was previously published on Proposal for a White House Council on Boys & Men.
A report written for the Maryland Men’s Health Commission by Tom Golden, LCSW.

Men and boys comprise nearly 80% of all completed suicides in the United States.[1] With this sort of number one would assume that there would be services that focus specifically on suicidal males. Surprisingly, there are almost no programs that focus on helping men and boys who might be suicidal. Sadly, Maryland is no exception to this rule. Maryland traditionally has very active programs to address the issues of suicide but does not seem to have any programs specifically addressing men or boys.

Even more surprising is how difficult it is to secure funding to study this disparity. Lanny Berman, the Executive Director of the American Association for Suicidology, made the following statement in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2006: “As much as I would love to lead the charge [in finding out why boys kill themselves], try to go out and get funding for it.”[2] Berman’s statement expresses his frustration that funders aren’t interested in studying boys and men. Berman is not alone; organizations such as the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) have voiced similar sentiments. NASW ran a study on suicidal girls in 2008. When asked about their reasons for studying girls rather than boys, Elizabeth Clarke, the NASW Executive Director, stated that the funder specified the money was dedicated to studying girls.[3] In the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 200+ page document titled “National Strategy for Suicide Prevention: Goals and Objectives for Action,” they only mention men and boys once: in a sidebar that indicates: “Over half of all suicides occur in adult men ages 25-65.”[4] Even this important document seems to negate the stark reality of the 80% of suicides completed by males; there simply seems to be very little interest in learning about men and boys and why they are more prone to kill themselves or how we can help them.

There is a common misconception that men die from suicide much more frequently than women do due to their choice of more lethal means. At first this seems to be a reasonable assumption. In 2004, 20,500 men committed suicide using the lethal means of fireams and hanging, but that same year, only 3,583 women used the same lethal means in completing suicide.[5] At first glance, this data seems to indicate that men must choose more lethal means and therefore are more likely to commit suicide. Looking a little bit closer, one finds that men choose lethal means to end their own lives in 79% of male suicides. However, what most people seem to miss is that women choose the same lethal means to end their own lives in 51% of female suicides. While the difference between 79% and 51% is significant, it in no way is a strong enough difference to account for the four to one ratio for overall suicide rates. There is obviously something else at work and we are simply not aware of this difference, nor is anyone making any efforts to examine what it might be.

Maryland has been hosting an annual conference on issues of suicide for many years. From my observations, the conference hasn’t had workshops that focused on men and boys and their unique issues related to suicide with the exception of one recent workshop that focused on veterans. This seems very perplexing since men and boys are the overwhelming majority of competed suicides. In fact, Maryland boys comprise 86% of the suicides between the ages 15-24 and yet there are no programs or resources that directly address their needs.

Why do men die more often from suicide?

Why could it be that boys and men comprise such a large percentage of completed suicides? Some, as we have heard, assume that the reasons are related to men being more violent. Others speak of men’s reluctance to seek help. These are likely partial answers, but if we want to better understand this question, we will need to start thinking outside the box. One of the boxes we are in is our assumption that men and women heal in the same way. There is a good deal of information becoming available that suggests the possibility that men and women have markedly different ways of healing and this difference may play a major role in the reasons that men predominate in completed suicides. Below are some very brief ideas about these differences.

Emotional Processing—Scientists are uncovering some fascinating differences between the strategies men and women typically use when under stress. According to the research of Shelly Taylor, Ph.D., of UCLA, when women are stressed, they are more likely to move towards interaction and being with other people. This movement obviously puts women into a position of sharing their problems with others, which then increases the likelihood that one of these people will help a woman connect with therapeutic emergency services. Men, on the other hand, have been shown to move less towards interaction and more toward action or to inaction. Both of these tendencies, action and inaction, move men away from others who might connect them with services and move them toward a more solitary solution. This is a much more dangerous position if you are feeling hopeless and helpless and likely plays into men’s tendency to avoid treatment and to see suicide as an alternative.

Societal Roles—No one is mandated to care for men. Men have been responsible for the safety and care of women and children for thousands of years. However, there is no third sex that is held responsible to care for the safety of men! Men are keenly aware of this and have developed a strong sense of independence and self-reliance. Both independence and self reliance will hamper the likelihood of a man seeking “help” for suicidal urges.

Harsh consequences for dependent males—A dependent male is a male that is judged harshly. Men are in a double bind. If they say they are not in need of services then they are held in high esteem but forfeit the help they need. If men admit they are in need of services, they are seen as worth less. Peter Marin, in an article titled “Abandoning Men: Jill Gets Welfare–Jack Becomes Homeless,” states:

To put it simply: men are neither supposed nor allowed to be dependent. They are expected to take care of others and themselves. And when they cannot or will not do it, then the assumption at the heart of the culture is that they are somehow less than men and therefore unworthy of help. An irony asserts itself: by being in need of help, men forfeit the right to it.[7]

A depressed and suicidal man is a dependent man. When we are hopeless and helpless we are far from being independent. Hopelessness and helplessness are the cornerstones of what underlies suicidal ideology. A man who feels hopeless and helpless will likely avoid letting others know his dependency and will avoid exposing his need by asking for help.

Mental Health System—Our mental health system is based on a face to face mode which favors the interactive nature of most women. Men more frequently move to a “shoulder to shoulder” mode when feeling vulnerable which is profoundly different from the norms of most mental health services which rely on interaction and a face to face environment.[8]

Dominance Hierarchy—Fascinating research is showing it is likely that human males live within a dominance hierarchy. Most of us are aware of the male big horn sheep that charge each other and ram heads until one of the males backs down. By butting heads they are forming the dominance hierarchy for their flock. The male who comes out on top of this hierarchy will have access to the top ranked females in their group. Evidence is now pointing towards human males having a dominance hierarchy based on status with males competing for status and access to the highest ranked females.[9] This helps explain men’s tendency to compete for higher status and their reluctance to disclose information that might negatively impact their status rank. If this is correct, it helps explain a man’s reluctance to discuss his suicidality and his attempts to disguise his vulnerability, which would obviously lower his status.

Culture—Our culture is harsh on men who emote publicly. Men know there is huge judgment placed on them for displaying emotion, and will avoid public emoting at all costs. The fact is that men are placed into a double bind: If they do emote publicly, they are labelled as wimps; if they don’t emote publicly they are labelled as cold and unfeeling. It’s a lose/lose for men. This impacts a man’s reluctance to discuss his suicidality and his tender and vulnerable feelings.[8]

Hormones – We are beginning to understand that testosterone is a powerful force when it comes to processing emotions. Females who take very large doses of testosterone are reporting that their access to emotional tears becomes markedly diminished and their ability to articulate their emotional state dwindles.[10,11] It’s a small jump to assume that testosterone in males will have a similar impact. Men have at least ten times more testosterone than women and would therefore be less likely to access emotional tears and less apt to articulate their emotions as they are feeling them. Both of these qualities have been the standard fare for therapy and may be one more reason that men avoid seeking treatment. This would help explain why women are more likely to seek out therapy than men.

Valuing female lives over male lives—As hard as it is to believe, we tend to value female lives more than male lives. Why else would we allow men to commit suicide 4 times as often as women and take no action? Why would we allow men to be 93% of the workplace deaths? Why would we allow men to be over 97% of the deaths in wartime and not show any concern? Just imagine that the US Government decided that only females would be allowed on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan and all of the sudden over 32 times as many women start dying than men? People would be outraged that so many women were dying. Why are they not outraged now that so many men are dying? Because we value female life more than that of the male.

Recommendations

1. Dedicate next year’s Maryland Suicide Conference to the topic of men, boys and suicide. Call in experts from around the country on the topic, and work towards bringing together numerous clinicians and researchers who will be able to share information and ideas on the reasons for men dominating the suicide numbers and ways to start to solve the problem.

2. Designate one interested staff member to investigate the latest treatment ideas and programs for males and suicide around the world. Finland is the first country to have focused on men and suicide and is ahead of most others in this respect. They have been one of the most successful countries in bringing their numbers of suicides down and would likely be a wealth of information. Australia would also be worth checking since they have recently instituted numerous programs specifically for boys, men and suicide. Some are for Indigenous men, others for boys, others for men in general. Lastly, Colorado’s Men and Suicide Campaign would be another place to check. This innovative program is the only program to my knowledge in the U.S. that focuses on males and suicide. Unfortunately, the program lost its funding only days before it was to open. There remains a core group of passionate clinicians and administrators who are working to carry the program forward without funding, and I know they would be happy to talk to someone from Maryland about their work and ideas.

3. Provide for the staff member conducting the research outlined above to present this material at the Maryland Suicide Conference. A podcast of the presentation could be available for download.

4. Create interest in the health department around the issue of males and suicide. Send informal notices for voluntary gatherings to discuss this issue in hopes of attracting interested professionals. Gauge the response and determine whether the next step may be to form a group of interested professionals who might facilitate the gathering of information and dissemination of information to interested parties.

5. Create PSAs on this issue that confer a male friendly message that states clearly that men are good and that each man is valuable. Develop podcasts that can be downloaded that offer information and ways to connect to supports.

6. Develop new avenues that men might be more likely to use in reporting possible suicide ideation and severe depression such as email, twitter and texting. Consider alternate arenas to connect with men including barber shops, sports teams, workout facilities and sports events.

7. Work in conjunction with the Maryland Suicide Prevention Commission.

References
1. (2006) National Vital Statistics Reports, Deaths: Final Data 2006, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Volume 57, Number 14, April 17, 2009 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr57/nvsr57_14.pdf
2. Ryan, Joan. “Sorting Out Puzzle of Male Suicide.” San Francisco Chronicle 26 Jan. 2006: b-1. Print. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/26/BAGHRGT0DV1.DTL&hw=suicide&sn=003&sc=490#ixzz0Y6EBcvdg
3. Personal correspondence 2009 with Elizabeth Clarke, Executive Director NASW.
4. (2001 )National Strategy for Suicide Prevention: Goals and Objectives for Action. Rockville, MD : U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, 2001. Includes index.
5. “Suicide Statistics at Suicide.org” Suicide.org: Suicide Prevention, Suicide Awareness, Suicide Support—Suicide.org! Suicide.org! Suicide.org!. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2009.
6.Taylor, Shelley E.. The Tending Instinct: Women, Men, and the Biology of Relationships. new york: Owl Books, 2003. Print.
7. “Abandoning Men: Jill Gets Welfare, Jack Becomes Homeless.” Alicia Patterson Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2009..
8. Golden, Thomas R.. Swallowed by a Snake: The Gift of the Masculine Side of Healing. 2nd ed. Gaithersburg: Golden Healing Publishing Llc, 1996. Print.
9. Moxon, Steve. The Woman Racket: The New Science Explaining How the Sexes Relate at Work, at Play and in Society. Charlottesvile: Imprint Academic, 2008. Print.
10. Valerio, Max Wolf. The Testosterone Files: My Hormonal and Social Transformation from Female to Male. Emeryville: Seal Press, 2006. Print.
11. “Testosterone.” This American Life. National Public Radio, n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2008.  http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=22

In Canada and the U.S., the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Read more on Suicide.

Image of happy man, father and son, courtesy of Shutterstock

Jezebel - Bullied Teen Who Made "It Gets Better" Video Commits Suicide

Effing awful . . . . Sometimes it really doesn't get better. Dan Savage, who started the It Gets Better Project, says we shouldn't bully the bullies, but hold them accountable:

His tormenters need to be held to account—not bullied themselves, not prosecuted or persecuted, but held to account—for their actions, for their hate, for the harm they've caused. They should be asked if they're "WAY more happier" now, if they're pleased with themselves, and if they have anything to say to the mother of the child they succeeded in bullying to death.

I suspect the kids who bullied Jamey feel pretty bad right about now. I can't imagine what it would feel like to be directly responsible for another human being feeling so horrible about himself and his life that suicide seems to be the best answer. They need to understand the degree of pain required for another person to take his own life at such a young age.

And we need to do more to make sure this does not keep happening in other schools in other towns . . . to other young men.

Jezebel posted his video and the story about his situation - links to their sources are at the bottom of the post.

Bullied Teen Who Made "It Gets Better" Video Commits Suicide

BY MARGARET HARTMANN 

This weekend, just a few months after he filmed a video for the "It Gets Better" project, 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer of Buffalo, NY was found dead from an apparent suicide. Earlier this month he blogged, "I always say how bullied I am, but no one listens. What do I have to do so people will listen to me?"

* * * * 

Tracy Rodemeyer says her son, "Has had issues since fifth grade. He had suicidal tendencies back then." Things got particularly bad a year ago when he created a Formspring account and started receiving hateful messages:

"JAMIE IS STUPID, GAY, FAT ANND UGLY. HE MUST DIE!" read one post.

Another read: "I wouldn't care if you died. No one would. So just do it :) It would make everyone WAY more happier!"

The messages were reported to guidance counselors at his middle school, and Jamey was seeing a social worker and therapist.

* * * *

Jamey is the second Williamsville North High School student to commit suicide this year, but school officials say they did all they could. Dale Bauer, a licensed school social worker and clinical social worker at Williamsville, says the school offers some counseling, but isn't a mental health clinic.

 * * * *

In a post responding to news of the Jamey's death, Dan Savage says that those who bullied him, "need to be held to account-not bullied themselves, not prosecuted or persecuted, but held to account-for their actions, for their hate, for the harm they've caused." He adds:

The point of the "It Gets Better" project is to give kids like Jamey Rodemeyer hope for their futures. But sometimes hope isn't enough. Sometimes the damage done by hate and by haters is simply too great. Sometimes the future seems too remote. And those are the times our hearts break.

Teenager Struggled With Bullying Before Taking His Life [Buffalo News]
Bullied Teenager In Buffalo, NY, Takes His Own Life [The Stranger]