Shortly before midnight just over 3 weeks ago, I was wakened by a call from my sister in London. Given that I had been staying with her a week earlier and with the knowledge that she does not normally call to exchange idle banter, even in my sleep-soaked state I was immediately prepared to expect bad news. And indeed it was pretty damn shocking. She told me that my 31 year old nephew and god-son, had committed suicide a few hours earlier; not her son, but that of one my brothers. It turned out to have been a very considered and deliberate act, but horrific in its fulfillment.
My nephew was academically bright, good looking, amiable and popular. He was also privileged, coming from a reasonably affluent family with parents who provided him with many of the opportunities and possessions and all the love any child could have hoped for, without his becoming spoiled. He was a competent sportsman who surfed, skied, fished, rode and played football. But he was also shy, self-effacing and unobtrusive, preferring to hang around the periphery rather than be the centre of conversation or social activity. There always seemed to be a slightly sardonic smile as if he was observing, though rarely commenting. In truth, this reticence made it difficult to get to know him.
He had had a nervous breakdown at university 10 years earlier and since then had presented his family much cause for concern. Though I knew him less well than others, I recall that he had always been a sad boy and I vividly remember how that even as a small child he cried a great deal for no apparent reason.
I mention this event, not to garner sympathy, but rather to draw attention to the whole subject of suicide. A friend of mine is involved with a company called, CNS Response that seeks to address the failure of the psychiatric and medical professions to deal with the mental disease. Prescribing appropriate medication is by all accounts, a very hit and miss affair, as my nephew himself attested to. He had declined further medical help. I gather that doctors frequently prescribe a drug without really knowing what the effects on any given patient will be. Sometimes they are positive, but more often than not the reverse is true and so the next drug in the alphabet gets put forward, until such time as one, or rather a cocktail of several seems to produce acceptable results. The problem is that many of the effects lead to suicide of which there has been an alarming increase in recent years, especially amongst war veterans. CNS Response seeks to address this issue by building up a database of patients, drugs and the effects they have. By cross referencing millions of results and masses of data, they claim to be able to better select the appropriate medication for patients who have been submitted for analysis. (That is my summary. Visit the website for something more precise. It certainly sounds a viable option and my friend claims that the results are there to be seen. Sadly they are struggling to find sufficient investment.)
It happened that shortly after speaking to my friend, I was in London listening to Woman’s Hour. I cannot stand Jenni Murray, which is by the by, but the radio was on and I just carried on listening. The comedienne and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig was one of the guests, promoting her new book. She went on to explain her association with and admiration for the armed forces and especially her concern for veterans of the various wars. She informed us that during the Falklands War, 270 British soldiers had been killed. Since then, a further 280 had committed suicide, a shocking statistic. One man I knew, a chap who courted my sister for a while, had been badly burned on the Galahad. He died in a car accident some years later. I am not sure whether his name is included in the 280 but I believe, as would have my sister, that it should have been.
Many of you will have seen the article earlier this week about the former guardsman who stabbed his children before killing himself. “On July 20, 1982, Pedersen was taking part in the Changing of the Guard procession when a remote-controlled bomb was detonated as the Blues and Royals rode past, claiming the lives of four of his comrades as well as seven of their horses.” Stories such as this are less appealing than those of a more salacious nature, and they do not hog the front pages in the way that other, to my mind, less deserving articles do. But it strikes me as entirely tragic that a man can be so distraught as to act in that way. Of course I cannot know for sure, but I have little doubt that the lasting effects of the terrorist attack played a very significant role in finally pushing him over the edge.
My nephew was not a soldier nor was there any incident that I am aware of the might have caused him to be so unhappy so I do not know why he chose to do what he did. But I can readily accept that some people, like he, become so sad that they find life no longer worth living. The method he chose was not pleasant but demonstrated very clearly what his intentions were. This was not a ‘cri de coeur’. He wanted to finish things once and for all. He was discovered by his flat-mate the boyfriend of one of my nieces. They were good friends and he knew of my nephew’s depression.
In contemplating the event, a horrible thought occurred to me. What if he, or I or anybody else had discovered him while there was still time to save him? Of course our instincts would have been to call an ambulance and try to save him. But would that have been the right thing to do. He had so clearly wanted to die. Would I have felt any less guilty if I had saved him than if I had positively allowed him to die? I honestly do not know.
The weekend before, he had gone to visit his family at their home in the west country. It was a happy occasion, by all accounts. On returning to London, he had written to them and to his employer with his resignation. All his other affairs were in order.
He had been born in Saudi Arabia where my brother had been working at the time. By way of acknowledgement for the years spent there, his parents had been given him an Arabic middle name. It was clearly no coincidence that he chose the day he did to take his own life. Tuesday September 11th.
Boadicea's Chariot 
You cannot save people from themselves.
It is unfortunate that the lifestyle that may have given them solace is no longer available. I rather think that closed religious orders protected many such people in the past who could not deal with the outside world.
Now they kill themselves.
I do not think prescription drugs are the answer, in fact, from observation in the USA where they take far more mood altering drugs on prescription I rather think that they cause more problems than they solve. I certainly think they induce more psychotic episodes. Here death by police is a favourite option. Wave a gun at a policeman and they will shoot to kill first, many do it.
I am sorry for your family’s loss but if it was a lifelong problem then perhaps it is better sooner than later. Others cannot judge and I do not feel they have the right to drag back to life the well planned suicide.
I’m afraid I would have closed the door and walked away until it was finished.
As you can imagine I have great personal experience of this and wished daily for it to happen for a good three months. Sods law, those that need to, don’t.
Sometimes it is a very sad world.
Sipu.
I’m very sorry for your family’s loss; it was difficult to read your post and try to understand why some people are perhaps from childhood destined to find no joy in the world, despite the efforts of those who love them.
I agree with Tina; for some the disconnection that is depression is not helped by drugs, and it may indeed exacerbate the problem.
I’ve read the reports about Pederson and I agree that my first thought was that this was an extreme reaction to events that shaped his life, but how sad, but not unusual that he couldn’t bear that his children should grow up in such a world. A mistaken view and tragic, but there is a horrible logic to this.
I do often wonder how some are able to cope with these horrors and some cannot, but we are all different, and I cannot think that war, terrorism and trauma affect some people for the rest of their lives.
Typo in the last sentence, my apologies.
” I cannot but think….”
A very sad event, Sipu. The only consolation is that the lad is now at rest.
I am shocked at the Falklands statistics but then wonder whether I should be so shocked. Exposure to war, bombing, and death surely has far reaching and hidden consequences. It is unbearably tragic to read of the Pederson deaths – one wonders what real help these guys have had to overcome such trauma. My own cousin shot herself in the head many years ago in the USA. With two children and a US husband I guess she never really settled in the US and felt trapped in a lifestyle that was alienating. I know her mother (my aunt) was a depressive and on medication so maybe my cousin too was on medication. Maybe that too disorientated her and made her condition worse.
Thanks for the post Sipu and I am sorry to hear of the family loss. I have a few friends who are prison officers. They are trained to rescue guys attempted hangings in their cells. When I say trained I mean they have the equipment and knowledge of what to do to give the guy a chance of survival – if caught in time. Were I to witness any suicide hanging I would not have the courage to walk away – I don’t think so anyway.
I’m going to have a malt before retiring tonight – to cheer myself up!
CO and Arra, thank you both for your considered responses.
CO, you make a very valid point about the succour offered by religion (Note the spelling all ye cynics and accept that I did not mean ‘sucker’!). There is a great deal of truth in Tennyson’s ‘more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of’. Though of course one needs an open mind to recognise exactly what that means. Mind-altering drugs and mind-altering psychiatrists have become the modern curative of choice.
I confess that I have become callous. I got my losing done early in life and now I am unable to understand the huge emotions that others appear to experience. I am baffled by the furore over the missing girl from Wales. I was baffled by the outpouring over the two policewomen who got shot as they rang the doorbell. And clearly, from my previous post, I was baffled by the emotions over the runaway school girl.
I do wish that people would come to recognise the fact that s*** happens. The trouble is that too many people make money out of trying to prove otherwise.
CO, I like the idea of ‘death by cop’, though to spare the feelings of the officer, one would have to choose the right jurisdiction. Some police forces, I suspect, would have fewer inhibitions than others.
Arra, we seldom stop to worry about those who seem to have a perpetually sunny outlook on life. And I certainly know some of them. We should accept the fact that certain people are destined to be sad just as we accept that English summers are frequently pretty miserable, as I rediscovered recently.
With regards to the IRA bombing, as I recall, more fuss seemed to have been made over the death of the horses than their riders.
‘It’s a strange, strange world that we live in Master Jack.’
Soutie might recognise this:
Sheona and PapaG. Sad indeed. I worry about my brother and sister in law who will, I am sure, always be burdened by the guilt that perhaps they could have done more, or maybe even feel that it was something they did that caused such unhappiness. It was not their fault.
Hi Sipu
Remember 4 jacks and a Jill? Who doesn’t?
I met two of the original band members a few years ago, they live in these parts, they play in a band called 2nd Generation and kindly donated a nights performance for one of our fundraisers. I still bump into them occasionally.
Sipu, deepest sympathies to your family. The burdens of life on many people can take them down and you never know when your time is called; ***t happens, as you put it.
I read your post after I published a blog on my recent little drama with pain. If you wish, I will delete my post as my trivial problem cannot be compared with your family’s anguish.
Prescription drugs can dull the pain, but eventually the pain will emerge.
One of my friends was aware that her mother was likely to commit suicide. She contacted the Samaritans who counselled her and told her that she could do nothing if that was her mother’s firm intention. They also spent a lot of time talking to her, both before and after her mother killed herself, so that she would not feel guilty that she could not save her mother’s life.
My sympathies to you and yours.
Hi TR, thank you for your sentiments. Please keep your post. Happiness and sadness are real for everybody, though their causes can sometimes be difficult to relate to and what may seem dramatic to some are seen as being insignificant to others. Each of us has a range of experiences throughout our lives, by which we gauge the highs and lows and individual events in relation to them. For some the range is narrow and concentrated at one end of the spectrum, relatively speaking, while for others it is very wide, encompassing levels of personal tragedy that are extreme, but also periods of great joy and happiness. I am often staggered when I hear how some people have taken their lives as a result of a seemingly trifling experience, such as failing an exam, breaking up of a relationship, or losing a job. But if that is the worst thing that has ever happened then, to those people, I imagine the feelings are as intense as the worst experiences of others.
Thanks Boadicea, I think you nailed it with the idea of ridding one’self of any feeling of guilt. That is what I fear most for my brother and his family. They are not guilty, but it is going to difficult for them to accept that.