Silence speaks volumes.
Particularly in journalism, which has rituals as strict as any kabuki.
In obituaries, for instance, when a deceased person is relatively young — say their 50s — and no cause of death is given, that usually means they killed themselves but their family doesn't want to say so.
Which is their right, I suppose, if it comforts them in their time of suffering. However, when the person in question is a public figure like Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor, who was found dead in her home Wednesday, July 26, and the family asks for their privacy be respected, the silence curdles. Nature and the media abhor a vacuum.
O'Connor wasn't just any singer. I don't want to add too much to the geyser of general praise, except to note that like most people I admired her music, bought all her albums when they came out, and never stopped listening. I suppose if I had to pick a favorite song, it would be "Jackie," just for its mythic quality, and her angry defiance in the face of heartbreak. "'You're all wrong,' I said, and they stared at the sand/'That man knows that sea like the back of his hand/He'll be back some time...'"
O'Connor wasn't just any singer. I don't want to add too much to the geyser of general praise, except to note that like most people I admired her music, bought all her albums when they came out, and never stopped listening. I suppose if I had to pick a favorite song, it would be "Jackie," just for its mythic quality, and her angry defiance in the face of heartbreak. "'You're all wrong,' I said, and they stared at the sand/'That man knows that sea like the back of his hand/He'll be back some time...'"
The police say the death isn't "suspicious." Which I read as, "we know but we're not telling you." Such matters could be filed under "Curiosity, idle," except O'Connor was hailed as an iconoclast and truth teller, and it would ironic — in a bad way — if she succumbed to her well-publicized demons but nobody wanted to say because they were trying to buff her image in death. Problems that can't be talked about can't be addressed, which is why woes that were once hidden now end up in the media. Sometimes. That's how change happens. When O'Connor ripped up that photo of the pope on "Saturday Night Live" in 1992 to protest the church's sexual abuse of children, it was shocking and shameful to many, particularly in her native Ireland. But eventually the problem was dragged out into the light — due to courageous acts like hers — and by the time she died this week, she was a hero for saying the unsayable.
There is no shame in suicide, just as there is no shame in cancer or heart disease or anything else. There is shame in refusing to recognize a problem because it embarrasses you, or saddens you, or is awkward. Maybe it doesn't apply, and I hope that is the case. It's a bad end. Maybe O'Connor just spontaneously died — she did have several physical health concerns. Or maybe she took her own life. It could be valuable to know which is true.
Current practice includes the suicide prevention hotline phone number. Tellingly, we all have to dial the area code, nationwide, including places where one's state has a singular area code, because of the permanent installation of a suicide prevention telephone service. A price well-worth even if only one human life is preserved.
ReplyDeleteIt has been more than a year since the implementation of 988 as the national suicide and crisis hotline. Anyone can call or text that number 24/7 to find a trained volunteer (like me) who will listen.
DeleteSuicide is a ticklish and touchy subject. My wife and I have lost a number of people recently. Dead is dead...whether you die of cancer in six months. Or six weeks. Or as a drunk behind the wheel, in six seconds.
ReplyDeleteBut your life is not just yours alone. Part of your life is part of everybody else's who loves you and who cares about you. And if you kill yourself, you have also killed the part of their life that they have invested in you. I can't do that...and especially to my wife. Maybe that's one of the reasons I'm still here.
The old cliche...that suicide is the coward's way out...is bullshit. I believe the opposite is true. It takes a helluva;lot of courage.to put the gun to your head or to knot the rope or to take the pills or to take that final leap into space...and nothingness. It takes more guts to die by one's own hand...even to ease your physical or your psychic pain...than to soldier on. Guts I've never had.
Of course, if my health really goes south...or my country does...that's a whole new ballgame. But I'll think about it tomorrow..Or ,maybe the day after tomorrow.
I think it is a cowardly way out in some ways. Take the case of the guy in Las Vegas who killed 50 some people and injured others. Possibly he had a mental problem. You often see a serial killer who gets trapped by the police and kills themself instead of being arrested. Or in murder suicide cases. Why kill your family instead of just killing yourself. That is one act I never got. I suppose a majority of people that committ suicide have a mental problem Others do it because they are ill and dying I just saw today that one of the actors on Euphoria died He was 25. No cause of death but the article I read said he was having mental health problems. I suspected right away it was suicide.
DeleteJackie is a phenomenal song. Nice column.
ReplyDeleteIf only we weren't so terrified of the unknown .... and what comes after death is certainly unknown. The suicide of a loved one is devastating to persons left behind, but it is the right of the person making the decision. That's one if the definitions of bodily autonomy. When we deal with the continuing stigma of mental illness and accept the rightness of assisted suicide we will have moved toward compassion and peace.
ReplyDeleteI once had the misfortune of watching a man commit suicide, 13 years ago. He laid down on front of a Metra train.
ReplyDeleteMy sympathy however is for the train's engineer, who had no control of the situation, as he had no time to stop the train, to prevent it.
For me, the result was a few weeks of nightmares & whenever I wait for a train, I'm always expecting someone to do it again.
Not long after that happened, I was waiting for a train, saw the headlight & then there was a single blast from the air horn & the train stopped. I immediately knew what that was & it turned out to be correct. It even has it's own name now, Metracide.
And a wave of that was started when Metra's own director of operations was found out to have embezzled a few hundred thousand from Metra, so he laid down in front of one of his own trains & died. Even weirder, it turned out the reason he embezzled the money was because he was an actual bigamist with two families, a fact the local media covered up, except for Greg Hinz in Crain's.
Regarding the Metra executive's suicide, he was actually standing in front of the train (not to mention two cars waiting at the Hillside Road crossing in Crystal Lake), facing it, and locked eyes with the engineer. He had been wearing a U.S. Open golf cap against the light rain that morning, which was found sitting on the outside front step of the lead train car after the incident.
DeleteI was riding in the lead car about five seats back from the engineer's cab. (The gentleman we hit was built like Sir Topham Hatt, and made such a bang that I texted my wife immediately afterward to say that I thought we had hit a car.) I was friends with our regular morning engineer, but he was off that day, and the younger man driving that morning was visibly shaken. I didn't have much conversation with him, beyond our asking each other whether we were hurt at all, after which we sat in silence for a long while as Metra tried to figure out how to handle the aftermath, which had occurred on the rather isolated spur line leading up to McHenry.
A couple of days later my engineer friend returned from his vacation, and I asked him whether this had ever happened to him. That turned out to be a rather naïve question. He was just a few years short of retirement, and in the decades he had spent in his job, he had lost count of the number of suicides on his watch. He finally guesstimated about seventeen. He said that most turn away from the train; some sprint in front of it at the last second. He thought it somewhat noteworthy that the Metra exec faced his fate head-on.
First responders have to train themselves to not be affected by what they see upon arrival, and some succeed at that better than others. Train engineers have to take that to the next level, for they see what will happen before it occurs, and there's nothing they can do about it.
Sometimes the pain of living exceeds a person’s ability to endure and the current therapy practices and suicide prevention approaches are inadequate and insufficient in easing that pain. I respect a person’s choice to leave and no matter how developed our levels of compassion and empathy are, no one knows the intensity of another person’s inner pain.
ReplyDeleteAs I posted yesterday, I was diagnosed with depression 12 years ago. Dianne, you have made a great point, almost all of the people I have met in my program & support groups who survived a suicide attempt said it wasn’t that they wanted to die, but that it was too painful to live.
DeleteArthur
Of course there shouldn’t be shame in suicide but having been close to friends and co-workers who have taken their lives, I observed the families and friends not only suffer the loss of a loved one, they also have a difficult time absolving the blame they put on themselves. If only I did something. If only I knew. etc. They feel ashamed and sometimes guilty.
ReplyDeleteAs a retired fire-medic, I am aware that those in our profession, just like the police, have a high rate of suicide. Each that I knew took me, and everyone, by surprise.
Many years ago, I read a piece about suicide-prone professions, and I never forgot it. It's not just cops and firefighters and other first responders. It's also pro golfers, because the travel (and practicing) can play hell with family life. And reporters, because of all the human misery they deal with.
DeleteAnd, somewhat surprisingly, dentists. One of mine told me the root cause (ouch). So many patients ignore their advice. That eventually gets to some of them. He had a poster in his office that displayed the best dental advice I've ever heard: "Ignore your teeth and they'll go away."
I’d like to be in a room with all who commented here and have the stigma discussion and devise ways to combat it, especially for suicide. Pritzker’s bill to force insurance companies to cover mental issues on par with physical issues will help. The more open we are the less stigmatizing. You do a great service in writing about mental health. This column particularly. I too wish families wouldn’t be shamed into obfuscated. BTW, what happened to Rocky Wirtz?
ReplyDeleteGreat column. I agree with you— she wasn’t just any singer. She was more that. My favorite Sinead song is Black Boys on Mopeds. Jackie is a great song too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI think reporting on suicide has evolved over time, and individual families continue to address it unevenly. There are the brave Jamie Raskins, and there are countless, crushed others who cannot speak of it. At least not in an immediate way. I think the media is right to respect the wishes of a celebrity's family in the short-term. The circumstances will eventually come out. I agree that in this case it is ironic, given all we know of Sinead O'C. Its also helpful to remember that the language used when discussing a celebrity suicide can have unintended impact (Neil's writing was fine, btw). This article is a good summary: https://www.irmi.com/articles/expert-commentary/language-matters-why-we-dont-say-committed-suicide
ReplyDeleteJill A
I've known 3 people who took their lives. One from mental illness, one from inconsolable grief, and one from an unknown but suspected condition, all tragic. The people left behind bear the burden of loss, which in one case was understandable to all, in another was a source of blame among survivors. Not believing in an afterlife, suicide doesn't scare me, but I can understand not wanting to wake up another day. But better not express it to your doctor. A friend in the tenth year of pain and discomfort from various problems was sent to a 72 hour psych hold by his oncologist for being honest about his mental fatigue. That's why I never joke with the VA staff when they ask questions about "hurting myself". A good way to cheer yourself up is a beautiful Irish female voice, like Sinead O'Connor, Enya, or her older sister Marie Brennan from Clannad. Or this. I found a receipt in a library book, from 18April2023, listing 3 books on loan. People vs. Donald Trump, Every Goddamn Day, and Smitten With Kittens. Who Among you....?
ReplyDeleteI might have missed one. A friends son, shot in the head. Florida County Sheriff called it suicide, his parents say two people alone in a house with two guns, only one person knows the truth.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of options other than "she spontaneously died" and "she took her own life." We should respect her family's wishes and refrain from speculation and suggestion.
ReplyDeletethank you for a valuable post, i think it's worth expansion to a column
ReplyDeletepaul w
roscoe village
But we have a right to know!
ReplyDeleteGreat piece, and such great comments too. Thanks all.
ReplyDeletePart 1: When I was young I often felt embarrassed and ashamed. I thought there was something wrong with me. Though I seemed to fit in to most people, I have pretty much always felt uneasy, with periods of feeling OK or better than OK, but then I go back to a gnawing sense that I'm not quite right. I appear social, but do not feel comfortable so much of the time that it's a relief when I get back home, alone. Or in my car, or on a bike. I'd say 30% of the time I actually feel ok with the people I am with, if not alone. I feel scared a lot of the time. A sense of dread. Part of it can possibly be traced back to authoritarian teachers like my kindergarten teacher in a Chicago Public School who washed my mouth out with powdered hand soap in a janitor's closet once. It was horrifying. A lot of force had to be used, and when she realized it was powdered and she had to add water, she was even angrier. This punishment happened because my new best friend had tied our hair together with a very strong knot so as not to be separated from each other. When we were getting yelled at while she desperately tried to untangle the know, I said something to the teacher that she perceived as back talk. Straight to the closet with you!
ReplyDelete* knot
Deletewhat a horrible experience and what a terrible teacher; I hope that would not be tolerated today in any school
DeleteWhile I was in kindergarten (spring of '53). neither my teacher nor her assistant showed up on the day of a big March snowstorm. So two eighth grade girls were sent downstairs, as emergency replacements. It did not go well.
DeleteWhen my classmates didn't "behave"... they got to "see the bogeyman." Translation: They were taken into the darkened cloakroom, from which they emerged red-faced and sobbing, with obvious marks on their faces, from being slapped around and given an ass-whupping.
There were obvious racial overtones involved here. Not a single child of color saw that bogeyman. Chicago's public schools were quite medieval in the mid-Fifties. We moved to the suburbs the following year.
Part 2: I had mostly kind teachers, but there were a few who seemed to be spitting mad all the time. The rest of school was up and down. With kind teachers, I shined. With bullying or burnt out or shaming teachers, I acted out. I was bored. I had high intelligence, and boundless energy, and sitting down and being lectured at just didn't work for me. I often worried about the "underdogs," and tried to be extra nice to them. The girl who smelled funny, the scrawny redheaded boy who the other boys bullied and de-pantsed a lot. I saw that the world was not a very kind place and it seemed that the winners were the alphas whose parents had high paying jobs and were cheerleaders and football players, not the smart, kind, funny ones who were picked last for flag football, and often got teased. In my life I've had many ups and downs, part of it because my brain was not functioning as well as it could have been. A genetic/nature plus nurture thing, I'm sure. This was the 70s and 80s, and kids were not sent for evaluations for what ailed us, but we were punished instead. When I was a teen I wanted to die all the time. I'd say things that alarmed my boss, such as "what's the point? We are all going to die anyway." He is still in my life, not as a close friend, but as a forever loved mentor. He and his wife treated me like a member of their family. I had other mentors and good friends along the way, which is the reason I am still here. I've had several extended periods in my life where I'd just think "I don't want to be here. I don't want to be alive."
ReplyDeletePart 3: The closest I came was one summer not too long ago where I spent about two months barely functioning. I had painkillers and a muscle relaxer in the medicine cabinet, and I thought "I wonder if I have enough here to go to sleep and never wake up?" Luckily, I had a mentor at the time- I have always stayed connected with wise elders and encouraging peers- who recognized that the thoughts were probably directly related to a single dose of an opioid I had recently taken for pain. I've since learned that it seems unlikely this was the cause, based on current research. But I believed her at the time, and just being told that the feeling would past jogged something in me to realize that I might just get through the slump, and I did. I've had a few more bouts of not wanting to be alive since then, the last being this past week since Sinéad died. Just the thoughts, not any intention. I've had this feeling so many times that I know, now, that it will pass, and I will feel ok again. I do not allow myself to entertain ideas of self-harm, not just because I don't want those who care about me or who depend on me to suffer, but because I know that I am not alone, and when this slump passes I'll feel fine. Or at least ok. As long as it lasts I will feel a lot of pain. It physically hurts. But it will pass, I am certain. I also have a therapist and a couple of close friends I will tell today, now that this piece and these comments have sparked me to take a better look here, and do something about it.
ReplyDeletePart 4:
ReplyDeleteI have followed Sinéad's lifelong story closely since dancing to her music at Medusa's on Sheffield in the 80s. I met her once, in passing, at a club in L.A. We were both in our 20s. She looked miserable. I fan-girled a bit and asked her for her autograph. She sneered at me, but her companions asked her to reconsider, and so she gave me her autograph. I threw it away when I got back home from that trip because I had felt so hurt by her behavior. I'm not sure why it did not occur to me to feel empathy for her, a fellow traveler in this sea of depression, but I did not. I wish I had. In 2000, she came out with an album called Faith and Courage. This album was a pivotal part of my healing at that time. Every single song. In one of them she says that she is sorry for anything she's ever done to harm anybody. That really touched me. Daddy I'm Fine is the best badass punk girl song about the inner angst of a young woman who seeks danger and risk to get out of her own head. To a false freedom that really just means being less, rather than more, empowered, in some ways. Acting out of angst and being loud about it is a form of self-harm, I have found out over the years. This past Thursday I was at a golf club where members hang out, eat, drink, and listen to music. The DJ played Mandinka and I got right up to thank him, and to dance a bit. He handed me his phone and passed the DJ job onto me. John, I Love You, Emma's Song, Daddy I'm Fine, The Emperor's New Clothes... then I realized that I was going deeper and deeper into my own scary feelings as I grieved her death, so started lightening things up with Bob Marley. I handed the phone back over to the original DJ and made my leave. I biked home, Sinéad still in one ear on a low volume on my ear pod. One day a time we all do our best to survive this thing called life, together. And now that I've gotten this off my chest I'll go be around other people rather than my original plan of hiding from the world on this sunny day. The comments I read from other readers helped me feel much less alone. Peace, all.
Even on the worst days, not caring if I woke from that nights sleep, did I regret the morning.
ReplyDeletelovely
DeleteMy husband works at our local Medical Examiner's office, collecting data about violent deaths, suicides, and overdoses for the CDC. He looks at crime scene and autopsy photos and reads suicide notes all day. Trust that even if the public is never told what happened, the information is being recorded and many people are looking at how we can prevent all types of untimely deaths.
ReplyDelete