MetaFilter posts tagged with suicide and depression

The quiet goalkeeper: Robert Enke (1977-2009)

starzero — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:41:28 -0800

Yesterday evening, Robert Enke, goalkeeper of Germany's national soccer team, committed suicide. At a press conference today, his wife revealed, that he had been suffering from depression for 6 years and had been in therapy. He covered it up out of fear to lose custody of his adopted daughter and his career as a professional footballer. Despite being the favorite candidate for the goalkeeper position in the German national team at the upcoming World Cup 2010, Enke's hit several professional and personal setbacks in his life. The popular keeper was also a prominent supporter of animal rights and appeared in a PETA campaign. Enke is another recent victim of depression in German professional football, a condition that already forced Germany's rising star, Sebastian Deisler, to end his career in 2007. The Guardian's Raphael Honigstein reminds German football, that sometimes you cannot go back to business as usual and Sweden's retired Patrick Andersson writes a personal tribute to his friend and former teammate.

Catch you later.

knave — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:43:43 -0800

Two AI Pioneers. Two Bizarre Suicides. Wired's David Kushner examines the work of two young, competitive AI researchers, and the eerie circumstances of their deaths.

The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace

Baldons — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 05:03:23 -0800

The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace, Rolling Stone (warning: long article; could make you cry)

Christine Chubbuck

spock — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:01:27 -0800

"In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts and in living color, you are going to see another first -- attempted suicide." The 1976 multiple-Oscar-winning movie Network is said to have been partially inspired by this suicide. [Aug. 4, 1974 Washington Post story (PDF)]. This guy doubts that a tape exists.

The uneasy path to death

Gyan — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 15:41:36 -0800

How NOT to commit suicide

How much does your lawyer get paid?

monju_bosatsu — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 17:30:51 -0800

Lawyers appear to missing out on the growth of the leisure class. Despite American's growing leisure time, and despite another round of pay increases for starting associates, lawyers seem to be working more hours than ever. As long as lawyers are tied the billable hour, it seems that greater salaries for associates inevitably means longer hours for associates. Law professor Pat Schiltz argues [pdf] that the longer hours for new associates combined with the high pressures of law practice means that those lawyers often suffer from depression, anxiety, alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide at very high rates, and are often forced into unethical practices just to meet the requirements of the law firm.

matteo — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 11:14:54 -0800

The Suicide’s Soliloquy August 25, 1838, the Sangamo Journal, a Whig newspaper in Springfield, Illinois, carried an unsigned poem, thirty-six lines long. It stands out for two reasons: first, its subject is suicide; second, its author was most likely a twenty-nine-year-old politician and lawyer named Abraham Lincoln. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin relates how historians regard a broken off engagement to Mary Todd as the trigger to his famous depression, but it was his perceived failure as politician, she maintains, that fed Lincoln's "black dog". (For his depression, Lincoln probably took "blue mass", a drug prescribed to treat "hypochondriasis," a vague term that included melancholia). Lincoln's medical history file is here

When drug companies hide data

Lusy P Hur — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 13:48:17 -0800

When drug companies hide data.

"The attorney general's civil suit accuses the drug giant GlaxoSmithKline of committing fraud by concealing negative information about Paxil, a drug used to treat depression. The suit says that the company conducted five clinical trials of Paxil in adolescents and children, yet published only one study whose mixed results it deemed positive. The company sat on two major studies for up to four years, although the results of one were divulged by a whistle-blower at a medical conference in 1999 and all of the studies were submitted to the Food and Drug Administration in 2002 when the company sought approval for new uses of Paxil. At that time it became apparent that Paxil was no more effective than a placebo in treating adolescent depression and might even provoke suicidal thoughts.

My Dad was on Paxil until 26 days ago..... that's when he shot himself.

Ezrael — Tue, 06 Jun 2000 19:05:13 -0800

Hmm. Why am I not surprised? Muddling with your serotonin in such a drastic way has always struck me as an overreaction to depression. Let's be honest. In a world jam-packed with aggressive apes who deny that they are apes, a little depression is a healthy response. Taking a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor just because you feel blue is like taking 10000 micrograms of Acid because you like the Harry Potter books.