Anthony Bourdain has died • Hacker News Board

Re: Anthony Bourdain has died

#191

Post by frockington » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 2:38 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #118

ransom1538 wrote: post #23

I remember watching Robin Williams perform ~2009. He was hilarious and positive on stage at Cobb. After the show he hung out with us and Bing Gordon (his friend). His entire demeanor changed. Unable to smile, look people in the eyes, and holding back tears. People thought he would be funny off stage but he just was extremely anxious and wanted to leave asap. Anyhow, I feel like people (esp. famous people) hide the th…

The above link shows more than just half - 2/3 gun deaths in US are suicide - approx 20,000 out of 30,000 Fairly horrifying but does impact the whole gun control debate IMO.

People like to include suicides in the gun violence numbers to make guns seem more violent

Re: Anthony Bourdain has died

#192

Post by jb1991 » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

daxorid wrote: post #137

jb1991 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entirely untrue and offensive. Propagating this is dangerous and fuels the stigma that makes treatment harder. Not all mental illness is chemical, but a lot very much is.

I'm going to defend 69132 here. 1. We know that the symptoms of many different varieties of mental illness have been helped by the administration of SSRIs and other drugs that alter brain chemistry. 2. But what we most assuredly do not know is that mental illness patients have detectably different brain chemistry from baseline. We assume from (1) that (2) follows, but we have no actual evidence of (2). Herein lies th…

I think there a difference between saying what you have said, which admits the possibility of real chemical imbalance based on surrounding contexts, even if more research and evidence is necessary to fully understand or prove it, vs, outright saying that it is a "myth," as the OP did, which is both dismissive and inaccurate.

Re: Anthony Bourdain has died

#193

Post by southphillyman » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

I wonder what impact, if any, the Kate Spade suicide had on his decision. Sometimes I wonder if people suffering from depression observe the attention people who have committed suicide recently receive and if it's influences their decision in any way. I imagine someone feeling really down right now see's all the love and empathy Bourdain is receiving post posthumously, and it could perhaps incentivize them to make the same decision. Am I reaching here?

Re: Anthony Bourdain has died

#194

Post by jdietrich » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 2:43 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #180

jdietrich wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why do people immediately link suicide and mental illness? There is a very strong relationship between suicide and mental illness. If someone decides to end their own life, it is overwhelmingly likely that they are suffering from some form of mental illness. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12701661 >Why do we stand in judgement declaring it wrong to decide ones own fate? Most people who survive a suicide attemp…

>> There is a very strong relationship between suicide and mental illness. Suicide is a symptom of some types of mental illness. But perfectly sane people can still kill themselves. If one wants to prevent suicide one has to accept that fact. We cannot prevent suicides if we look only to people with some sort of observable mental illness. Normal everyday people, some in the prime of life, can and do occasionally deci…

>We cannot prevent suicides if we look only to people with some sort of observable mental illness. Normal everyday people, some in the prime of life, can and do occasionally decide to kill themselves.

A great many of those normal everyday people are suffering from mental health problems. The data suggests that as many as 60% of people with a serious mental health condition are not receiving treatment. A multitude of barriers prevent people from seeking appropriate diagnosis and treatment, from stigma to insurance coverage to the shortage of psychiatrists.

I have no problem with voluntary euthanasia. I have a big problem with the fact that thousands of people are needlessly dying due to treatable mental health conditions.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15939840

Re: Anthony Bourdain has died

#195

Post by sleazy_b » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

smn1234 wrote: post #183

this really hurt me, I'm usually not as affected by "high-profile suicides." There's some terrible correlations beginning to surface, in my mind, with the psychiatric drugs taken by Robin Williams, Kate Spade, Chester Bennington, and Tim Bergling for example that seem to be the final push-over-the-edge for these folks - whose lives are full of options and [appear] far from hopeless. Surely we can't judge how things r…

This comment betrays a remarkable ignorance of mental illness. There is, in fact, a link between the commencement of a course of antidepressants and suicide, but to claim that "...mental illness is created as a result of these Big Pharma medicines" is to ignore a tremendous body of research.

Out of curiosity, how do you feel about vaccines?

Re: Anthony Bourdain has died

#196

Post by post_break » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 2:47 PM UTC

nautilus12 wrote: post #22

Anyone have any idea why? Not to encourage speculation but was there something hes been publicly struggling with?

Well it looked like his wife was cheating on him.

Re: Anthony Bourdain has died

#197

Post by grasshopperpurp » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

overcast wrote: post #142

spooneybarger wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sucide rate in the United States has increased over the last 20 years according to the Centers for Disease Control: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/suicide-rates-are...

What I find interesting is that Nevada actually decreased, a place where you can literally lose it all. All of those Midwest states, where quality of life is generally considered the highest and happiest, have the highest increases.

Nevada already had a very high suicide rate.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/suicide-mortality/...

Re: Anthony Bourdain has died

#198

Post by mmiliauskas » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 2:50 PM UTC

southphillyman wrote: post #193

I wonder what impact, if any, the Kate Spade suicide had on his decision. Sometimes I wonder if people suffering from depression observe the attention people who have committed suicide recently receive and if it's influences their decision in any way. I imagine someone feeling really down right now see's all the love and empathy Bourdain is receiving post posthumously, and it could perhaps incentivize them to make th…

I read somewhere that suicide headlines increase the probability of plain crashes.

Re: Anthony Bourdain has died

#199

Post by ridgeguy » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 2:50 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #143

simongray wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently read the book "Lost Connections" by Johann Hari which covers this issue. In fact, it's a really a book about some deeper problems of Western society (where depression, anxiety, etc. has been on the rise for a long time), so the pharmaceutical pill-pushing and the fairly debunked "chemical imbalance" explanation of depression really just sets the backdrop of the story. He emphasizes - like you mention - soc…

I am obliged to point out that Johann Hari has a distinctly chequered reputation. He lost his job as a columnist at The Independent in 2011 due to multiple substantiated allegations of plagiarism; it later transpired that he had vandalised the Wikipedia articles of journalists who had criticised his conduct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#2011_scandals His book Lost Connections has been strongly criticised…

Thanks for your post, I was not aware of the controversy around Hari.

That said, I found his book "Chasing the Scream: the first and last days of the war on drugs" [1] an informative resource that in some places touches on this thread's topic.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chasing_the_Scream

Re: Anthony Bourdain has died

#200

Post by codingdave » Fri, Jun 08, 2018, 2:51 PM UTC

southphillyman wrote: post #193

I wonder what impact, if any, the Kate Spade suicide had on his decision. Sometimes I wonder if people suffering from depression observe the attention people who have committed suicide recently receive and if it's influences their decision in any way. I imagine someone feeling really down right now see's all the love and empathy Bourdain is receiving post posthumously, and it could perhaps incentivize them to make th…

You are not reaching - that is always one of my concerns when news like this comes in. But I am gratified to see how many comments on HN are approaching it from a perspective of increasing visibility of the mental health problems we need to solve. Hopefully that message gets out just as strongly as anything else.