The news of Anthony Bourdain’s death due to depression came
as a shocker. He has had a major influence on my love for good food and good
drink. The rebel in Kitchen Confidential and the intellectual search for a city’s
soul through food in Parts Unknown appealed at a visceral level.
To me, Anthony Bourdain represented what living a fulfilling
life looks like – constantly travelling, having interesting conversations with
strangers, eating great food, enjoying a good drink, being a firm advocate of
equality and looking dapper while doing all of it.
That a man who led that life committed suicide on account of
depression is unbelievable. Unbelievable, not as a reaction but as a real
interpretation of what that words means – un-believable.
This opinion piece by Leah McSweeney around “Toxic Feminity”,
while being an excellent counterpoint to the #metoo movement made a strong point
about the suicide.
It points to the fact that Anthony Bourdain was in an uncomfortable,
emotionally draining relationship with Asia Argento. It also indicates that there
was ambiguity around the so-called “open” status of the relationship and there
were incidents just before Tony’s suicide that could have acted as triggers.
This does raise an alternative argument that the cause of
suicide may be the inability to deal with the emotional trauma of an uneasy relationship.
That is different from stating that depression was the
reason.
Depression is a condition, a medical condition. Psychiatrists
and psychologists don’t treat the condition, they identify the triggers for
depression and help sufferers avoid these. Routines are put in place to help
avoid the triggers – deviating one’s attention through other mental activities
like socializing, exercise, diarizing.
Having spent a reasonable period of time avoiding depression
with the help of psychiatrists has brought this understanding to me. I was
never diagnosed depressed, but I did know I needed to avoid certain triggers to
go into a state of lament. People who know me well also know what these are.
Hence it is necessary to avoid falling into the belief that
every suicide is caused by depression.
It is not. It is caused by the triggers that lead to it.
An uneasy relationship. An unhappy professional environment.
Performance pressure of any kind. From anyone who you respect. Forced sexual
acts…the list is endless.
The recent trend of using depression as a cause for suicide
is a disconcerting trend. It almost sounds as an easy excuse – a non-confrontational
means of laying the death to rest and moving on.
It is important to know why a person took his or her life. It
is important to know for the people who care about this individual because they
deserve an answer.
Especially for a person who idolized life like Anthony
Bourdain did.
Using just depression as a cause to explain death is taking
the easy way out.
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