What leads people like Bhaiyyu Maharaj and Anthony Bourdain to die by their own hand?
Does really the issues like stress, depression, boredom, and mental illness leads to suicide by so many people?
Your views will be highly appreciable.
Yes, unfortunately the current age restricts - by dictatorship, exploitation and war - living conditions and is a threat to many peoples. But also in modern democracies are not for all groups just conditions of life.
Too much ambition leads to more and more expectations. It ultimately creates a lot of tension in our mind. Afterwards it leads us to deep frustration.
All successful man/ woman are practically friendless. In the way of achieving goals, s/he did not generally give any importance to the persons running by his/her side. If such success comes through some curved ways, instead of any friend, the person must have many enemies.
But in some stage of life, we definitely need an actual friend who can share us. But it can not be made available instantly.
So, frustration comes in mind and it find no way to go outside from the mind. Frustration may lead to any of many bad consequences.
If I can think that there are many people below my status/ income.... who are more qualified than me, then I may control my ambitions as well as frustrations, at least partially.
Thanks.
I think that probably greediness is the main characteristic of human being and that can make somebody who, for our view, seems to have anything he/she desires to be unhappy and terminate his/her life.
It depends who you are where you "rank" in your society--if I can put it that way. There's nothing new about nihilism, but it's largely the preserve of the middle classes! If you're poor, life for you and your children is just too hard to give up too easily. They need you far more than you need death.
The upper classes are so self-glorifying they can't imagine a world without them. In fact, they have a chance of immortality! Properly constructed memories can last a long, long time. If you get the chance, visit a significant British stately home and you'll see what I mean.
Generally, the middle classes lack both those motivations. The kids have gone and are self supporting. They've not done enough "great" things to deserve immortality. Life drags on. They're becoming increasingly infirm. Or, if younger, they may have failed. And so on...Death can look quite appealing!
My own weakness has always been boredom. More recently I've added infirmity. My inherent streak of nihilism, seeks the peace of death...but then I'm too much of a coward, and my wife loves me dearly.
In terms of human emotions, this age is far from unique. Boredom is a signifier of depression. Depression is potentially destructive. It is a mental illness. Stress? Not that convincing as a direct cause, but can develop into depression.
Christopher NOCK
All these diseases do not come suddenly, it is a series of accumulation of frustrations, depression, boredom and mental decline, the science tends to find solutions and treatments for diseases that show clear symptoms, which they can diagnose and analyze, and ignore the side of mental health, which is the key to immunity in the field of physical and mental health, The immune function is in balance between them
Yes. It is the time of anxiety. Too many things are happening at the same time, thereby hightening our anxiety levels.
When our ancestors were hunter gatherers, hunting and gathering were the main activities that increased their anxiety. They would go hunting and when they spot game, they would get a dose of catecholamines (epinephrine and norepinephrine) leading to high levels of anxiety. They would then chase the game and spend a lot of energy in the process. Increased rates of energy metabolism would inadvertently lead to the breakdown of the catecholamines and hence clearing of these anxiety hormones from the body.
Nowadays, however, we are sitting in the lab or office most of the time. Highlights in modern life include, a phone call, whats app, facebook, text messages,expected lab results, manuscript acceptance, citation or researchgate score updates. We also get doses of catecholamines into our blood systems each time these activities/events occur. However, these events are not accompanied by strenuous exercises to deplete catechoamines build up in our blood systems.
The continued accrual of catecholamines results in high levels of anxiety.
Yes we are living in anxious times
Every time is almost having same level of anxiety. In olden days people were having less health facilities, transportation was not well established, there was war among small communities and many social issues like catism and less opportunity for education. Anxiety was high in the past in same area and high now in some other spheres of life. We can say anxiety can neither be increased nor decreased but it can be transformed from one Segmemt of life to another segment.
Brief about Bhaiyyu Maharaj and Anthony Michael Bourdain:
Bhaiyyu Maharaj, a popular spiritual leader who counted some of the country’s top politicians and celebrities among his followers, committed suicide yesterday, by shooting himself in the head at his ashram in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.
Earlier, on June 8, the celebrity world was shocked to hear about the death of the Anthony Michael Bourdain (Born on June 25, 1956). He too committed suicide. He was an American celebrity chef, author, travel documentarian, and television personality who starred in programs focusing on the exploration of international culture, cuisine, and the human condition. He was considered one of the most influential chefs in the world. Though best known for his culinary achievements and television presentations, along with several books on food and cooking and travel adventures, Bourdain also wrote both fiction and historical non-fiction.
Thousands of his followers were left stunned after they got news of spiritual leader Bhaiyyu Maharaj committing suicide by shooting himself on Tuesday.
Suicide is a problem of the whole world. We become more shocked when we come to know about celebrities committing suicide. In India, so many ordinary people are committing suicide every day — even the young students and young girls, besides farmers. We are told that the main cause of suicide is depression and the inability to deal with it. People are feeling certain kind of loneliness even though they live with the family, friends and society. But they don’t feel at home anywhere, they feel alienated. We wonder what has happened. Even though there is so much comfort available to a large number of people, so much amusement and so much entertainment, even then the people become depressed and commit suicide.
Yes, as you preferred. Where natural disasters, wars and famines and the control exercised by powerful countries against poor countries, all these factors are a source of concern for people and life.
Yes I think that so because this prevailing time is full by activity that causes anxiety
Yes, we are over burdened with lot of information. So, stress and anxiety are high even in normal course.
When money controls minds
No charity and no mercy
When souls become blind
So lonely away from Eternity
The tears must be very warm.
it really is an age of anxiety, apprehension and stress probably arising from the need to prove oneself!!!
Yes indeed. Most suicides result from stress, depression, trauma, loneliness, stigma and so on. This is an era of anxiety resulting from issues with families, friends, foes, among others.
Rich and famous are very lonely because most people around them don' t really care about them; they are just trying to get something from them. Behind the artificial smiles and happiness ; nobody really knows how they feel until the unthinkable happens. Lesson to learn: look for values in life for true happiness; you will shine and be surrended by real and honest people.
For those countries that have consciously passed through the Age of Enlightenment, such as those in Europe, the "dialectic" of enlightenment, which produces anxiety and insecureness, is evident: First: in the ever-increasing risks of being unable to control technological development in the general interest. Second: In the unresolved difference between poor and rich, exploited and exploiting groups.
However, regardless of social and technical progress, the advantages of which are only ever open to a part of mankind, there are also traditions and religious beliefs that generate the feeling of depression, helplessness and being at the allegedly "predicted fate" in the belief of many people.
Christopher Nock was right to point out this problem. That is why suicide rates are unusually high in some countries. But scientists who have this self-awareness and insight as elites of their countries will not give up discussing and combating these problems.
Overall, humanity has lost a certain level of connectedness which is what held us together for so long. Greed, isolation, success and dogged individualism have all led to people being less dependent on other humans and more dependent on "things" whatever they may be (including technology). Problems that used to be discussed with family or friends are no longer discussed by and large. Compounded with all of these is boredom and perhaps a loss of purpose. Add alcohol and drug addiction to the equation and so it is not surprising that folks think of suicide as an easy way out. The cause of suicide may not be related to a mental health problem per se, but rather to a loss of human connectedness. This is my opinion.
I admire Dr. Milton Erickson's methods of eliciting strengths from mental health patients in an inpatient psychatric ward. For example, he noticed a patient who kept saying that he was Jesus. Dr. Erickson informed the patient that he had heard that Jesus was a good carpenter. So the doctor gave the patient some wood and some tools. From that day onward, the patient started working with wood and produced some of the best furniture, thus giving him a purpose in life. Also, the patient stopped saying that he was Jesus. These anecdotal events are rare and perhaps few and far between.
Age of Anxiety? Think of being a victim in Nazi Germany, gassed or starved; Mesolithic humans when Dogger Bank was overwhelmed, and western Germany, in one huge tsunami scampering in horror before a hundred foot wave: the Black Death; the Middle East in the expansion of Assyria, massacring towns and people; a peasant in Western France during the Hundred Years War; Chinese civilians in Shanghai as the Japanese troops arrived, bayonets leveled; Mongolian hordes riding towards your city, watching as skulls of friends and family were piled high; young soldier in WW1 listening to a cavalcade of shells raining down day after day; victims of famine and drought; Nagasaki; Hiroshima; ISIS roaring into your town eager for heads.
That's the reason mental health has become so fashionable. Most of us, sorry, have never had it so good!
Well said Stanley! And don't forget Stalingrad....
Depression as a fashion statement... I like the notion. I think it might bear some weight in certain cases, but I wouldn't want to go too far with it. There are a lot of genuinely sick people out there worthy of our help and support. I think better diagnosis has played a key role in the rising numbers.
NOCK
Christopher, diagnosis is not simply a medical action, but political and social as well. A client of mine (I do not believe in diagnosing anyone by the way) felt strange. Existentially this could have been seen as a correct or healthy response to life. He became (because of all the publicity?) convinced he was mentally ill. He asked my advice. I told him to look at his life and look at his world. How did his feelings and thoughts fit in? Nevertheless, he went to see a physician who immediately decided he was suffering severe mental illness. He demanded confidentially from the physician but the next thing he knew, he was overwhelmed with requests from hospitals, etc, to come and get tested for his clear mental problems. Diagnosed in person, he was then diagnosed by hearsay. He cancelled it all and walked away. He was offered all sorts of treatments, but especially drugs. I told him that once he started taking drugs his life could swiftly be ruined, as they tend to have a debilitating affect not acknowledged by prescribers. On BBC TV (UK) a few nights ago a psychiatrist and academic from Oxford University was interviewed about his research into psychotropic drugs. His response was, as I've been saying for years, that there is actually no scientific evidence for beneficent effects-so diagnoses has economic considerations as well. Read 'Elephant in the Room' a paper on aforesaid drugs.
My client now? Plunging ahead with a career, his life, is content and dynamic.
Diagnosis? A complex system of responses! Not simply about dissatisfaction, contentment, illness and health.
It's really sad. We must be realistic in setting our goals, admitting our limitations, acknowledging friends and family while making time for relaxation.
I think, the main reason is the loss of development perspectives (intellectual, moral, financial, career etc.). It can be at all ages. Every human being must be motivated and required. A valuable discussion of Fadel Djamel and colleagues on RG https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_do_you_think_of_suicide?view=5a6b2f0f48954c6fba30c425
Stanley, I don't necessarily disagree with any of that. In fact, I've had a similar experience myself. For years I was presumed to be suffering with Picts disease, an early onset dementia. I was treated as such with drugs, regarded as a lost cause, and pretty much left to die. It didn't much matter to me. I was bonkers. It was for my wife to witness my depressing demise.
As it eventually turned out, the consultant thought, at one point four years in, I might have had a stroke. Only now was I sent for a brain scan. Immediate correct diagnosis? Hydrocephalus (water on the brain). I needed a shunt and drain in my head! Local hospital wouldn't do it! "Too dangerous" they claimed. Left to die again. Wife demanded a second opinion. A proper hospital said "no problems" and I had that operation about three years ago. Immediate improvement mentally and physically! Still improving mentally, so watch out! Physically, a lost cause for other reasons.
So I know about the nature of diagnosis and its limitations. I know about the social and political construction of many of them. But it's largely medical shorthand, and if you've got a decent quack on your case, a decent diagnosis can save your life, and give you a much better chance of improvement.
NOCK
Yes, I think so, this is an age of psychological stress.
The reason exactly as Dr. Zin Eddine Dadach mentioned
When money controls minds ...No charity and no mercy
When souls become blind ..........................................
Christopher, you're a strong man so everything is/will be ok.
I think mental health is a very different matter though, as in the end both your real/imagined illnesses had a physical base that could be proved or not proved by simple tests-or perhaps not quite so simple. Psychiatrists tend to base their understanding (so they've told me in discussion on the causal basis of their expertise) on observation, perception and experience. Now each of these has a subjective base from which structural claims are made and in fact entail far more knowledge than most physicians possess to be right. There are other objections to this as plausibly scientific.
A quick look at diagnosis again, outside of its subjective parameters: the mental health services (industry perhaps, because its economic dimensions should not be underestimated) has expanded exponentially over the last 70 years. I use exponentially for very good reasons-not only have tropes of un-wellness or illness been foisted on a number of moods and personality traits that can be explained differently and more positively but for every new mental health worker (the field is immensely diverse including trained psychotherapists like me to advice givers -also like me-psychiatry-which in fact functions very differently to all the rest-care workers, etc) exponentially the number of people who apparently have these illnesses grows by 10 times as much. That is a conservative assessment. So for every psychiatrist, for example, who becomes qualified ten patients/sufferers emerge to meet the need of their employment. In the UK, the National Health Service functions as much in the economic sphere as in the health area, so illnesses are a product.
We're living hard times, as Charles Dickens would say. Last night I attended a conference on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder which is becoming increasingly common among the working segments of the Western population. More and more people are experiencing psychosomatic illnesses, and that is to a large extent due to the obsession with loss. Consequently, uncertainty, fear, angst are on the rise.
But this is also the right time for deep introspection and constructive boldness. If the world we're living in follows the trends imposed by global economies, then it might be useful to look at how other societies and cultures manage to turn scarcity of material resources into happiness. The example of Bhutan is, in this perspective, one of those which stand out as epitomes of human development and spiritual elevation.
Food for thought ...
Stanley, thank you for your kind words. I don't feel any need to disagree with what you say. But I should say that when they mind guys thought it was Picts I was pretty paranoid, hearing voices and seeing things. I met with a psychiatric care worker once a week or so, and he really helped settle those things down despite the nonsense diagnosis. Pure luck? Useful skills? I don't know.
NOCK
Christopher, but obvious symptoms although wrongly diagnosed. if psychiatry left it there, than fine perhaps. But psychiatrist´s don´t. Even there, there is subjectivity. Many such instances can and are caused by things as diverse as food poisoning, injections for disease, virus-all wrongly diagnosed often with terrible consequences. Another reason-their own drugs can and do have similar effects.
Ah, Stanley, and I was just heading back to you! I'm not going to comment on mind stuff. I don't know too much about it. But I do think in some ways it does work like other types of diagnosis. Let's try IBS. Bear with me!
Years ago no one suffered from IBS because it didn't exist! My mother constantly suffered from "stomach chills" which had surprisingly similar symptoms, but until the day she died, she had no IBS whatsoever.
IBS proved far more popular with my generation. Indeed, I have suffered appallingly with it since Christmas Eve 1985. It was only "diagnosed" when they came up with that name some years later. And despite the wonders of diagnosis, I still suffer great pain from it virtually every single day! I am still seeking a quality bowel quack to help me sort it out.
I've tried an endless range of treatments. No good at all. None of them. Why's that? Well, IBS is NOT a diagnosis, it's a description. That's all. It describes sets of symptoms which could respond to certain treatments. Mine don't. So the "diagnosis" is utterly meaningless in my case. It may well be very useful for others...but not me.
I think an awful lot of physical diagnoses are like this. I have no doubt most mind ones are as well. A collection of descriptions of physical traits and/or mental ones that may, or may not be liable to treatments that may, or may not work. If they do, diagnosis got us there. If not, find another one....
Having one, even if it's nonsense, is often better than none at all. With one they will try treatments, and can exclude many quite quickly. No diagnosis "we may just have to accept we might never know what it is." Been there with one feckin' idiot!!! Ran as fast as I could, well got the missus to push me. One month in a quality hospital and we knew what it was, and how to manage it. PTL.
NOCK
Good question. Sir Mahesh Kumar, people are filled up with anxiety, they have tolerance and patience to deal situation or day to day matters wisely. this anxiety has really left people with distress, depression and isolation.
All my dear worthy RG colleagues thanks for your answers, opinions, and valuable discussion.
THANKS again!
Chris, just one final point as I´ve just read your answer. Psychiatry is worse. it actually has-and I've come across it here-a diagnosis called conspiratorism (or something similar) whereby if someone is rebellious, doubts authority or thereby a diagnosis they have a mental illness. They make it up, Chris, make it up!
Yes, unfortunately the current age restricts - by dictatorship, exploitation and war - living conditions and is a threat to many peoples. But also in modern democracies are not for all groups just conditions of life.
When a person reaches the full conviction that his life is not meant to continue as a result of failure or frustration or the continuation of his pregnancy for certain ideas do not receive acceptance from the community and when the person is subjected to stress and social pressure or economic higher than his ability and load then the person may consider ending his life through suicide as an expression of frustration or In order to represent a cry in the face of the society in which he lived, a rejection of this society and its concepts, or to bring the attention of the public to what has failed to deliver ideas during his life.
Stanley, I don't doubt it. It's a good job I've always been a good boy, and never rebelled!! I bet you haven't either...
And I don't want to give them too much slack, but minds do tend to be more complicated than bodies.
But, I know they've done some nasty stuff. Often it's imposing middle class values on lower class spirited kids and teens. Delinquents the lot of 'em!
So, I don't like it, but it does some patients some good. So if it's well monitored, it just might do more good than harm...? I hope so!
It's been a good exchange. Thanks.
NOCK
Anthony Bourdain said in a food program in Finland's TV that he feels a lot of guilt,
probably over fine dining, in case I got it right. This makes me think of depression. Every life lives in the end-times and anxiety is provoked by not knowing. The difference is that TV provides daily disasters in our living rooms and some people like to produce pervert films to keep us in horror. As children after the WW II we feared war, now children fear climate changes. Fear, angst, depression, envy, anger keep us striving for a "better" future. In the end peace with God takes away the fears and anxieties.
Dear Mahesh,
"Do you not think that the prevailing time (age) is an age of anxiety?"
Good question and how we answer it will depend on the perception of each person. When one learn to connect with Intuitive Guidance, one lives from "heart consciousness" and although one uses the thinking mind as well, one is not so influenced by the thoughts or opinions of others.
Warm regards Tina
For many Yes, it is an age of anxiety. I think every one may feel anxious at a stage or a time , but the important question is how to overcome feeling.
To Galen, "Traumas are "the windows of the body/soul/". In some countries the program for destruction of the excess of biological mass is being successfully implemented.
Possible difficult mental illnesses leads to suicide by some people ?
You are never too old to set another goal. Or to dream a new dream.
Aristotle
http://www.wiseoldsayings.com/philosophy-quotes/page-2/?fbclid=IwAR1o5HxTX6QAB2Ch9OvTSQWKA58X3LyZVKo1yElMRN8uIJWmovwTmRLfH1s
frustration and depression is probably the cause of anxiety disorder and mood swings
Certainly there is more stress and accompanying anxiety these days than ever before. Some of the support systems have disappeared in many communities such as family, church, community, etc. Some people do not even know who their neighbor is. People are filling their lives with more stuff and gone are the days when one used ot have spare time to relax and ruminate. Overall there is more emptiness and seeming lack of purpose in life.
Yes I also agree with the topic. With growing competition and fast life everywhere, stress and anxiety is increasing day by day. Loneliness is also a culprit of depression mainly among senior citizens.
“Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.”
― Thomas Hardy https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6802676-time-changes-everything-except-something-within-us-which-is-always?fbclid=IwAR3ZQ8soIJEf5P527hfOuZGzVjHCJO14fYgHahaujOQGAIqIwm9X9oqlGcQ
They needed Psycological Help and Stress Treatment which they didnot get at right time. There is treatment of Anxiety and Depression which could achieved by Medicine and by other ways.
regards
These are exponential times, causing a lot of uncertainty and fear.
What should concern everybody seems to concern almost nobody.
To take your own life is not an easy decision. Yes, money, popularity and power are some of the factors that define success but underneath that smile is loneliness, for example, Robin Williams. Being in the spotlight and idolised by millions it does not mean that the person is happy. In today's society, happiness is hard to achieve -often it is attached to fear, uncertainty and self-doubts. Depression has multi-layered causes and to pinpoint the reasons will take time, patience and infrastructure to resolve the issues.
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