The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number is 1-800-273-8255. En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889. Crisis Text Line by texting 741741. If you’re worried about someone, check the warning signs and what you can do.
Chef Anthony Bourdain was found dead in his hotel room in Paris, by a close friend. CNN has reported that the cause of death was suicide. He was 61 years old.
“It is with extraordinary sadness we can confirm the death of our friend and colleague, Anthony Bourdain,” CNN announced Friday morning. “His love of great adventure, new friends, fine food and drink and the remarkable stories of the world made him a unique storyteller. His talents never ceased to amaze us and we will miss him very much. Our thoughts and prayers are with his daughter and family at this incredibly difficult time.”
People from all walks of life are mourning the thoughtful man who was an idol to many. I myself remembered him as a chef who truly appreciated the food of different cultures with a love of the people who made them.
Anthony I am so mad at you. You were so loved, the world is not better without you. I have a message for those considering suicide as a solution to a temporary problem. Please call a hotline. Please reach out. Asia needed you, Anthony. We needed you. Please come back. pic.twitter.com/kqOEdJ80h9
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) June 8, 2018
Anthony Bourdain had money, he had fame, he was respected. He had maybe the coolest job I can conceive of. This is all by way of saying: Depression doesn’t give a single solitary fuck. Get help if you need help. We need you here. Suicide prevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255
— Justin McElroy (@JustinMcElroy) June 8, 2018
His wisdom, his insight, his humor, his compassion, his staunch resistance to the inauthentic and support of all that resonates from the heart, and his passion for life that he shared with the us….Its difficult to process a world without Anthony Bourdain.
— Elijah Wood (@elijahwood) June 8, 2018
Read this 1999 @NewYorker piece by Anthony Bourdain that became “Kitchen Confidential.” This changed everything, for everyone. It rocked an entire industry. Maybe several industries. https://t.co/ht4LToAAJr
— your friend Helen (@hels) June 8, 2018
devastated by the losses of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. we must continue to destigmatize depression, anxiety & a therapist. it’s ok to seek help. In fact it’s incredibly wise.
you are not broken. the future has so much in store for you. please never take your life from us.
— Dan Reynolds (@DanReynolds) June 8, 2018
.@WillieGeist interviewed Anthony Bourdain in 2017, an interview that captured the many wonderful things about the chef – his honesty, his authenticity and his hatred of all things pumpkin spice.
This is how we’ll remember him. pic.twitter.com/fBhzRSOSxz
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 8, 2018
The announcement of Bourdain’s death, so soon after the suicide of Kate Spade, follows a report from the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) that the U.S. Suicide Rate has increased over the past twenty years. According to the study, not only have the rates of suicide “increased in nearly every state over the past two decades” but in half of those states, the rates have gone up “more than 30 percent.”
Suicide has accounted for 45,000 deaths in 2016, according to the CDC, which is what prompted the CDC division in Atlanta to investigate the rates of suicide from 1999 to 2016. They found that suicide rates had risen most in the central, northern region of the U.S. North Dakota saw a 57.6 percent increase since 1999. Nevada was the only state that had no increase, and Delaware had the smallest increase at 5.9 percent.
“Suicide in this country really is a problem that is impacted by so many factors. It’s not just a mental health concern,” says Deborah Stone, a behavioral scientist at the CDC and the lead author of the new study. “There are many different circumstances and factors that contribute to suicide. And so that’s one of the things that this study really shows us. It points to the need for a comprehensive approach to prevention.”
Robert Gebbia, the head of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, reminds NPR readers that the nation currently has no federally funded suicide prevention program for adults. “There are some for youth, but they’re very, very tiny,” says Gebbia. “We can’t expect a major public health problem like this to be addressed unless we see the investment.”
I have attempted suicide twice in my life, and I’ve lost a beloved cousin to suicide. Neither time did I actively seek help longer than required; I was convinced that I could push it down deep enough. I didn’t want to be ill. I didn’t want there to be a deeper reason for my feelings that required work. I had instead convinced myself that it was a matter of strength and weakness, and as long as I was “strong enough,” it would be alright. Those ideas hadn’t taken into account I’d had these thoughts since around the age of 10, and that despite the numbers being low, kids do commit suicide, and among the highest are black children.
Throughout your life, when you express sadness and people scoff, “What do you have to be sad about?” it can make you decide that your sadness is not legitimate, that your feelings are not worth long-term contemplation. It does damage to seeking out help, because it stigmatizes your pain, painting it as weakness. We are not weak; we just need help, and it would be easier to get help earlier if people learned to stop treating those with mental illness as if we can just “get over it,” because there is no one who hasn’t tried that.
Compassion goes a long long long way. Ending the stigma goes a long way, because depression, anxiety, mental illness don’t care who you are. For those out there struggling, you are not alone, and to those who have people in their lives who’ve talked about this to you, listen. They are talking to you for a reason.
(image: Photo by Craig Barritt/Getty Images for The New Yorker)
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