I am returning, just briefly, to the comments of Joey Barton and my previous post and I am relenting.
I have been feeling sorry that I said what Joey Barton tweeted was stupid, when he said that ‘Suicide is a mix of the most tragic, most selfish, most terrible (and I want to believe preventable) acts out there.’ He said what many people would say on hearing of the death by suicide of a friend. The first reactions of shock, and disbelieving are just what happens, there is perhaps no other way to receive the news of a suicide.
I remember the countless phone-calls I made and answered after Mottsu’s death. If he had died in an accident that would have been incomprehensible enough, his friends and I would have struggled to piece together a story that placed him in the wrong place and time and in the path of some fatal unforeseeable event. We would have tried to reconcile events with the whims of fate. While a tragedy that claims a life might seem senseless, it would have been explainable, and somewhat more comprehensible than his suicide.
Joey Barton is no more stupid, or smarter, that the average bear, uninformed maybe but not stupid per se. In the wretched aftermath of some suicides, not all but many, the shock is stupefying there are only questions no answers. I know how I tried to recount what I knew of what had happened to someone we knew as a rational respected journalist,and a warm and sincere friend. The facts in no way explained the loss, none of us was able to understand…
Fundamental to our existential natures is a tendency to seek reason and meaning, but often (always?) suicide defies rationalisation. There is no way to make sense of the anguished act, and the all but unimaginable possibility that someone might choose suicide. That is the tragedy that Joey Barton describes as “…the most tragic”.
Being confronted with a suicide is grim and it is heart-rending to think that something preventable, again that is Barton’s word, was not arrested not prevented. What might have forestalled a suicide? What did I know? Did I collude with a suicidal intent by not saying/doing anything rather than thwart it? If it is preventable who is the preventer and what might foil the suicidal?
I think our pre-occupation with prevention suggests an association with some sort of criminality , wrongdoing is implied. Something must be averted, prevented. If a suicidal person can be stopped and a suicide avoided then did someone fail when someone dies? Joey Barton didn’t say something stupid he said what many hold to be true “one of the…most terrible…acts out there.”
Suicide is confronting, it belies understanding and there is a pall of guilt. Someone is guilty of something. Barton identifies the culprit when he makes his accusation of selfishness. I do not agree.
If you, or someone you know, needs emotional support call Lifeline on 13 11 14 in Australia. Crisis counselling is available around the world.