Suicide Contagion: Will Madoff Investor's 'Act of Honor' Be the Last?

Can suicide be an honorable thing?

Last week Bloomberg News published a story titled "Madoff Investor's Suicide Was an 'Act of Honor,' Brother Says." Shortly thereafter, The Huffington Post featured a link to the article without comment.

I work in the field of suicide prevention, and something struck me about this piece: although Bertrand Magon de la Villehuchet's response to his brother's suicide is noteworthy, Bloomberg and HuffPo didn't refute -- or at least balance -- the skewed logic of suicide as a means to honor.

Isn't it worth noting that, on top of the family's financial loss, perhaps losing a family member was the worst blow of all? And what does the rest of Villehuchet's family think of this statement? It's a provocative stance (hence the headline), but the article itself ignores any controversy.

This is literally dangerous. Praising a suicide as honorable may come with an extremely high price: namely, more suicides. News organizations have a duty to temper such judgments -- not to censor them, but to put them in context. My concern is pragmatic. If we want to prevent suicide, we need to start speaking and writing about these things with greater social consciousness.

I don't mean to cast blame. Only one person should be held accountable for a suicide. Nonetheless, we can do a lot more to advance our understanding of this issue, and in doing so save lives.

There are plenty of resources. Most fittingly, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta published a series of guidelines for reporters and public officials who address a suicide. It's a brief, constructive dos-and-don'ts list on how to avoid language that may lead to suicide contagion. Furthermore, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) has a wonderful "About" page, full of information and additional resources.

Two realities are worth noting:

1) Suicide, though often characterized as the result of some life event, is nearly always caused by an underlying mental disorder. This is not to say that suicide is evidence of illness. 90-95% of those who kill themselves exhibit clear and commons signs of mental illness well before their lives end. Certain tragedies (like the Madoff fraud) may trigger an acute depression, which can lead to suicide, but nearly all victims of suicide have a predisposition to illness, often well documented by family and friends. And mental illness is treatable.

2) Our misconceptions about mental illness -- adding to the stigma and shame that so many sufferers face on top of despair -- can be a very heavy burden during an especially precarious time. We, the "sane" ones, can do more to lighten this load simply by educating ourselves.

To quote Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, who always puts it best: "Suicide is a pervasive, not-uncommon, major threat to the public health. It's discussed way too infrequently. It's one of the more common causes of death -- and, certainly among young people, one of the most common causes of death. It's a huge problem."

I hope to keep the discussion alive.

Comments

[gorbash]

I take medicine for Bipolar Disorder and depression, before I had Health Insurance (as I was working as a temporary worker at a factory) I wasn't taking my medicine, though I knew I was supposed to because I couldn't figure out how to pay for it and was too embarrassed to ask for help from a social worker. At that time I probably thought about suicide at least once every other day and would fantasize about it constantly, to the point that my life was a living waking nightmare and I was barely alive since I was thinking about death constantly. Some days I would think about suicide for several hours daily and my co workers said that I looked and acted like a zombie. Its hard to tell someone who lives under those conditions that life is worth living, because if you go through that for as long as I did (at that time a whole year), you wouldn't care as much about what suicide does to your loved ones as much as making the sadness stop.

Now, I'm taking my pills, and still occasionally think about suicide, but nowhere near as much as I was before.

[oldbrit]

You said, "I knew I was supposed to because I couldn't figure out how to pay for it and was too embarrassed to ask for help from a social worker."

Correct!

Americans think that if you can't make enough money to satisfy your needs, there's something wrong with you. You are lazy. You should get a better education - even though work full-time or more. We grudgingly provide charity, lord our superiority over those who receive it and give it only to those who grovel.

Until we recognize that physical and mental health care are human rights and provide universal health care to everyone at token cost or no cost - we have no standing to criticize human rights abuses elsewhere in the world.

As a society, we are greedy and selfish. We use our military to kill people around the world to get the resources "required" to live our gluttonous lives. We'd rather spend billions of dollars to prevent one welfare mother from getting a single loaf of bread to which she is not entitled than provide a decent social safety net. We use religion as a weapon to deny equal civil and human rights to all and attempt to impose our narrow religious rules upon others while we flagrantly violate them ourselves.

We have the ability to fix this if we will do it, but our media, dumbed down public education, and entertainment all conspire to keep us fat, dumb, covetous, greedy, and self-satisfied.

[lisa12345]

If there is a contagion of suicides, could it be said that the suicides are partially a result of a "sick" society? The person who commits suicide may be "sick" with depression. Yet if the society is structured in a way that breeds depression­--despair, hopelessness, helplessness--is it not really the society itself? I am not saying I have a clue about what the answer is. I am just wondering if the sickness is society itself. Societal forces can help create the trigger. Can they help create the "sickness" of depression (hopelessness) too?

[Douglas Faneuil - Huffpost Blogger]

If you check out the CDC's guidelines (see the link in my article), you'll get a better sense of how contagion arises.

The issue with contagion isn't that it creates suicidal feelings in people who are otherwise healthy -- it's that certain language and/or representations of suicide can entice individuals who are already at risk.

For example, excessively praising someone who has killed himself, and excluding information about his troubles, might lead another suicidal person to conclude that suicide is a way of placing oneself on a pedestal. This would be dangerous, for the obvious reason.

[entropygal]

The only thing that I didn't like about the testimony before Congress was the retiree with $4million in savings who lost it all. Please do not portray this person as just a regular working stiff. His loss is huge, but he is not middle class.

As John McCain said a person has to have at least $5 million to be considered wealthy. It just shows how out of touch they are with middle class earnings and savings. We will never has $1 million...only makes us feel worse about these bad economic times.

Now is the time to spend as much effort as possible to prevent suicides. We must become more knowledgeable on mental illness and treat it as compassionately as any physical illness. We would never say to a heart patient or diabetic just cure yourself. Someday we will be enlightened enough to treat these illnesses seriously. Lead with your heart.

[TEakins]

Douglas,

I'm curious as to how you regard treating those who are suicidal due to long term mental illnesses but also happen to be unemployed. I saw your previous statement but I was more concerned with how those whose illnesses are treatable with only medication would be able to consistently get medication for their illness without insurance.

[Douglas Faneuil - Huffpost Blogger]

First let me say this: there's no such thing as a mental disorder that's treatable with ONLY with medication. Talk therapy proves beneficial in nearly all cases, with or without the aid of drugs. Additionally, it's an important way to monitor patients, and make sure they remain committed to their medication regimens.

That being said, I get your point. I don't have an easy answer, but if I were jobless and without health insurance but needed medication, I would do one of two things:

1) If the situation were desperate -- if I were feeling suicidal and I didn't want to wait -- I would go to the emergency room of the nearest hospital.

2) If the situation were less pressing, I would contact one of these low-cost counseling centers. I am sure all of them have or know resources for people in exactly this predicament.

http://www.icpnyc.org/
http://www.wawhite.org/home/home.htm
http://www.wsi.org/

[that last link seems to be broken; see: http://newyork.citysearch.com/profile/7090046/]

[tbone99]

If you were depressed about yor financial situation going to the nearest E.D would guarantee you a minimum $500 bill just for sitting in the chair.

And the chance of your getting into a mental hospital are even slighter. Believe me I have worked in them. Private hospitals kick people out the minute their insurance lapses with no further hope of follow up and public institutions are devoted to the chronic mentally ill and massive medicating of the worst kind.

[tbone99]

hey - at least we won't be having to support these guys in prison for the several years.

As if....

[TEakins]

TBone99, you seem to be ignorant of the people who committed suicide recently.

None of them were Bernard Madoff or his ilk. Rather, these people were just successful investors who suffered recent large financial losses in fair market dealing. One of them even had their financial loss come as a result of Madoff's swindle.

Once again, these people were far from criminals and it would behoove you to know the topic well before making incorrect statements.

[tbone99]

They were people who's JOB was to secure investments and were well paid for their EXPERTISE. Instead they waived investigating Madoff's company because he was "one of them".

In other words they didn't carry out the responsibility they were well pad for , and assisted in a fraud.
They are accomplices in crime.

[Wiserone]

Madoff is the greatest liar, cheater, and thief of the last century.
It is clearly impossible for ONE person to run the logistics necessary for his operation (such as , for instance, producing on a MONTHLY basis the ten of thousands of forged documents he sent out to his (eager) victims. But even more importantly : He and his sons are the ONLY witnesses to the famous December 10 "coming out story". And doesn't the story of how the (innocent !!) sons turn their father in to authorities make those sons look innocent ??...Imagine : they turned in their own father !! Never mind, of course, the fact that the father knew very well , at that point , that he was doomed and that he only had a few days left before being caught. And what better use of those few remaining days than making up this story to exonerate their sons (and rest of the family) ?? This way, not only don't they go to jail but they can keep enjoying all the billions that the guy, obviously, stashed away in secret places and under phony names .. Isn't it time to question and rebuke anything this man , who has lied to everyone he came across the past 40 years, is saying ? Don't you see how this is the perfect storm to convince everyone that the sons are innocents ?

[SabrinaFair]

Two weeks ago, a good friend of mine, having been out of work for nearly a year, broke, and in the process of being evicted and with a family not worth a damn that gave her no emotional support whatsoever, took her own life with a bottle of alcohol and a handful of over-the-counter sleeping pills.

She was 43. She was warm, caring, smart, funny and one of the best people I'd ever known.

She'd struggled financially and with mild depression for years. And last year she left a job for another and then the new company closed within weeks of her hire. She spent the last year looking for work, had no savings, and believed that ending her own life was the way to put an end to a lifetime of struggle.

Her suicide note declared that she was tired of the struggle and things just weren't getting any better so she decided to end it.

These are tough times and I think about how desperate she must have felt and about how many others are out there just like her looking for a reason to go on with life because they cannot support themselves in this world.

I applaud you on your efforts. And I also hope that people out there, if you are in a position to give someone a job when they need one, please do. If she had found work, some way to survive, she'd be alive and here in the world today.

[Douglas Faneuil - Huffpost Blogger]

Amen. I wanted to keep my piece relatively short, but in retrospect I wish I had made your point more forcefully -- that some people need our help.

I'm really very sorry to read about your loss. My sister killed herself (many years ago), and I could've written the exact same words about her: "She was warm, caring, smart, funny and one of the best people I'd ever known."

Your post underscores another point I'd like to make. As much as I have all the sympathy in the world for those who feel that life is not worth living, suicide is not the end of suffering -- it's the proliferation of suffering.

[Common Tater]

Faneuil's article was excellent. I'll reserve my criticism to the comments.

First, Euthanasia is entirely different from "honor" killing. The former spares one's family from additional pain and suffering, medical expense; the latter only exacerbates the problems for those left to clean up the mess. The circumstances that lead to euthanasia are also different from those that lead to "honor" killing. A terminal illness is not the same as wounded pride. Isn't that obvious?

Universal health care...would be great. But what's the point -- that because we don't have universal health care, we shouldn't worry about the improper veneration of "honor" suicide?

Faneuil's point stands. Thanks for the great work.

[Trittydi]

Thank you for this.
*

[gorbash]

I think it would be socially acceptable to commit suicide if one were in the Army and captured by the enemy and being tortured for intelligence information and feeling oneself "cracking" and not wanting to give up information would choose to end one's own life.

[LeonBNJ]

In some cultures, like in Japan for example, honor suicide is not uncommon when one has disgraced their family or employer with criminal acts or financial problems. In the Judeo-Christian faiths, suicide may be seen as a sin, although the underlying mental health problems may absolve someone of having committed a sin.
We tend to like it when a murder kills themselves as a peverse form of justice as well as saving the costs of a trial or in jail for many years at taxpayers cost. If Madoff committed suicide, he would be seen as a coward as it would complicate the ability to figure out the mess he made, but many would accept it as 'honorable' as punishes him for his obscene beheaviors.
Some may kill themselves to allow beneficieries (usually family) to collect on tax free life insurance benefits if they see no other way out of a financial crises they created.

[praire2paradise]

Today I attended a presentation on the financial crisis presented by a bunch of Ivy League PhD types. They mentioned the suicicide yesterday of German financier Adolf Merckle in an off-handed way, almost as if it were a logical progression of the situation. Oops the market crashed so he had to kill himself. Or words to that effect. Sometimes money trumps peace, as "W" likes to say.

The rest of the presentation was a slick, glossed-over, chat and graph sleight of hand which at heart admitted that most of the investment houses were populated by coniving theives, the rating agencies by impotent enablers, and CEO suites by uneducated, unqualified tyrants. "how could we have seen it coming?" I dunno, maybe look at Japan or our own S&L crisis? Doh!

Does our long unwaivering stare at the shiny lamp coming out of the tunnel and our failure to yell, "train! " and leap out of the way constitute a form of collective societal financial suicide?

[GrainOSand]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/12/asia_letter/main3054259.shtml

[littlepuffycloud]

What's honorable about leaving your family to wrestle with the financial mess, not to mention the emotional nightmare?

[newzworthy]

I didn't read the bloomberg article myself, but why would anyone consider suicide honorable, especially in this circumstance. What is honorable, is pleading guilty and going to jail, and offering the police the help they need - that's honorable.

[oldbrit]

The fellow who committed suicide wasn't a crook, he was duped by Madoff.

As for honorable, what if you have an incurable disease and expect to live 6 more months, but that 6 months will bankrupt your family and take the money that had been saved to send your grandchildren to college?

I'd say that would be an honorable suicide, but, more importantly, it is a great dishonor heaped upon greedy Americans who refuse to acknowledge that universal health care is a human right and who are perfectly happy to see other Americans bankrupted and homeless due to medical bills - as long as it doesn't happen to them.

[ADunafraid]

So you don't think that this guy was a crook. He was a money manager that took hundreds of millions of dollars of peoples money and gave it to Madoff while taking a precentage off the top that made him filthy rich without doing the due diligence behind what he was investing in. He made money while not doing his job.

I am an engineer. I get paid to design and field verify structural work on projects. Instead of doing this I take the money and just sign off on a contractors work without actually seeing what he was doing because he is the best contractor. If that building fails and people die/lose money can I just say I was duped by the contractor?

All of these money managers that made money through Madoff's scheme are complicite and should be prosecuted for fraud. You are getting paid millions of dollars as a money manager to make sure peoples money is soundly invested. Because people can't understand this is why this type of crime will continue to be committed.