Despite what we know about suicide – that men commit suicide 4 or 5 times more often than women – it’s always shocking and disheartening to learn that a a man with seemingly so much external success has taken his own life.
Such is the case of Tony Scott, famed director and producer of films such as Top Gun and TV shows like The Good Wife and Numb3rs. People are clinging desperately to guesses in trying to find an answer why he would choose to die.
ABC news reported on Monday that an anonymous source close Mr. Scott’s family said he had inoperable brain cancer, a fact which Newser reports Scott’s family is refuting. So far no evidence that Scott had a tumor of any sort has surfaced.
Why do we do this? Why do we wish it were because of a brain tumor? Perhaps because we want him to seem like a hero, and suicide does not seem heroic to us unless there is a dramatic and unsolvable situation at hand.
In this case, however, it simply appears not to be true. It appears Tony Scott was among the roughly one million people per year who takes their own lives. We wish there were more for us to understand, but perhaps there is nothing more to get.
It must also be known that suicide can be considered “contagious” and that after celebrity deaths to suicide, rates of suicide climb. It cannot be stressed enough that we here at The Good Men Project are dedicated to helping forge a new path in the discussions that surround men’s issues with depression, mental illness and the specific challenges men face when entering the mental health-care system.
If you are feeling suicidal, please know there is help. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is always available. Please reach out for help if you feel you need it. The number is 800-273-Talk.
AP Photo
About Joanna Schroeder
As a former crisis and suicide counselor, and a huge fan of Tony’s work, this piece really hit home with me. Thank you for doing your part in helping men and women find freedom from thoughts of suicide.
I think people want to believe Mr. Scott ended his own life as a response to a hopeless situation such as a brain tumor for one simple reason — fear.
People need to feel safe. They need to believe that they and/or the people they love could never do something as shocking as jumping off a bridge without the reason being amongst the most extreme they can think of.
I think most of us have seen this type of reaction by people in other situations as well. As a rape and childhood sexual abuse survivor I notice it most often after reports about a child being abused or when someone is raped.
Some people want to blame the rape on what someone was wearing, or how they behaved, or the conditions under which the events happened. I think they do that because then they can tell them selves “Well, I would never do that” or “behave like that” or “be in a place like that”, so they can feel safe again believing it could never happen to them.
Now people are looking at the death of Mr. Scott and looking for an answer that makes sense to them and that will keep them feeling safe.