Planes, trains, automobiles and Durkheim

Imagine a businessman that flies regularly across the Atlantic. Sitting next to him on the airplane you chat over a meal. At one point he says: ‘I think any pregnant woman should be banned from flying way before 36 weeks. They are a real nuisance. We have had to turn back and land in Ireland twice in 12 months as these idiots went into labour. Last time the woman gave birth on the plane. It was truly inconsiderate. What is worse is that they brought her to business class as “there was more space” – I couldn’t even enjoy my film with all the screaming first her and then her baby girl. You would have thought the plane would carry on to NY as she had given birth- but some other cretin said we had to land as the baby was premature and it was important to check her out as soon as possible. To top it all up the steward who had delivered her went off. With all this going on I had to wait for 30 minutes to get my G&T and nobody apologised’. Preposterous? Read on..

Ms A.B. arrived late for work, for the third time in a week, on Wednesday saying that there had been a pile up on the M15. On Thursday you are having a break with her and she points to an article in the local newspaper reporting the facts of the previous day’s pile up. ‘I think people like this should be more thoughtful and travel outside rush hour; cripples should not drive anyway’. A diabetic amputee had become drowsy and died as he was driving back home from a night shift; colleagues said that he was thirsty but had not stopped to drink as he felt the urge to go home and rest; he probably had high blood sugar that caused him to lose control of the car causing the pile up. ‘The worst thing is that I will have to pay back the time as the boss won’t budge!’  Another sick fantasy?

At the jubilee week-end I went for lunch with friends. At the table, I was sitting next to a new acquaintance that seemed smart and cordial. One of the topics was train commuting as the man on her left had recently moved to one of the home counties but worked in London. She confessed that she had commuted for a number of years and that she found the carriages stifling so that she would always try to be next to a window. Luckily the commute was no more than 35 minutes except on those occasions when some joker would jump in front of the train during the morning rush hour. These people are so inconsiderate: they seem to get up early in order to carry out their overly dramatic business at a time when it caused most inconvenience. Distressed, I pointed out that many depressed people wake up early in the morning when they often feel worse, that it may be easier to find an opportunity to jump when there are more trains and that anyhow this act that seems so deliberate is intimately linked with uncontrollable unpleasant thoughts and feelings. The response was ‘woo, who takes things too seriously then?’. She moved on.

This is a clear example of the cultural discrimination that people with severe depression are subject to and shows double standards compared with other conditions; sadly many people make and have made similar quips in my presence. My daughter who has been brought up to think about psychiatric illness, was horrified when she heard.

Over two thirds of suicides are associated with depression and its co-morbidities. There is great ignorance about the individual torment associated with suicide and the fact that the illness in itself makes people think repeatedly about it. For as long as people will focus on Durkheim (social anomie being one of the core causes of suicide), the sin of killing oneself and mendacious associations with ‘seeking attention’  it will carry on being the object of inappropriate attitudes that can extend also to professionals.

Andrea Malizia