Lawyers are no slouches when it comes to committing suicide. We all know the statistics about the amazingly high rate of successful suicides among lawyers versus that among the general population. And since the law bubble burst, there have been a number of high achievers who took their lives.
Now we have another high achiever, although not a lawyer, to reflect about. It's alleged Craigslist killer and former medical student Philip Markoff. He was found in his cell, an apparent suicide.
Researchers, including the noted Kay Redfield Jamison, haven't been helpful, at least not in a way to prevent more suicides. Yet, in a volatile economy in which so much can be lost so quickly, suicide has been looking better and better to many of the brightest and best. Somehow in 2003 when my business, savings and mind all went, I managed to bypass that option [Download Geezerguts.]
I have always been drawn to investigating the phenomenon of suicide because it's rampant in my family. I have become convinced there is a suicide gene. After all, Sylvia Plath's son also took his own life. In his new book HITCH 22, Christopher Hitchens walks around and through his mother's suicide. One wonders if his own heavy smoking was his slow path to self-destruction?
Could there be types of suicide just as there are types of alcoholism and types of cancer? Should scientists be probing the type that runs in certain families but not others and perhaps certain occupations like law and writing and not others.
That path of probing might save more lives which get ended too young.
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