Humiliation Kills - The Wound that Will Not Heal for Men
Trey Pennington social media giant dead at age 46.
Posted September 7, 2011
A significant percentage of men who feel and act suicidal and sadly commit suicide either have been or are about to be humiliated
Trey Pennington , a social media leader known to hundreds of thousands of people and someone who I followed on twitter, who followed me and even interviewed me about the importance of listening committed suicide this past Sunday at age 46. He was a consummate and caring host and interviewer and had the ability to make you not only feel smarter and wiser than you are, he also make you feel worthwhile and deserving or even a blessing to be on this planet.
I only wish someone had listened to him (or that he allowed someone to listen to him to ease his torment) and helped him feel the same way so that he could still be among us.
Since I didn’t know him well, I don’t know how much of the following applies to Trey, but it certainly applies to many men I have seen over the years who felt suicidal.
From Vince Foster , to Mark Madoff to Enron’s Vice Chairman J. Clifford Baxter the infamous Bronco chase of O.J. Simpson , the news and the public’s fascination about suicide stops viewers and listeners in their tracks to find out more. That is because such scenarios have touched something at the core of our humanity (or as you will discover, maybe something even below our humanity).
It may not be readily apparent to women (who commit suicide to get out of unendurable pain) why mere embarrassment should cause you to want to kill yourself. After all it’s not the death of a child or a divorce which on the surface seem more understandable triggers for self destruction.
However to most men, it isn’t so surprising that extreme humiliation can cause suicidal thoughts and action.
What may be happening neurospsychologically is that the three parts of a man’s mind/brain i.e. his lower, reptilian, “fight or flight” brain; his middle, mammalian, emotional brain; his upper, human, rational brain have been rigidly wired together in service of a particular mission or goal (the soldier fighting a war and being willing to die for his fellow solider, for example). But then when their current reality or their mission changes and calls for something entirely else that their rigidly wired mind/brain cannot adapt to (the soldier who in civilian life has to put up with people whining about trivial stuff and who only care about themselves), that situation eventually can push that person’s mind/brain to uncouple from the way it is hard wired. And rather than feeling like merely an internal readjustment to a new reality, for some it can feel like a breakdown.
It’s simply this. When as smart as you thought you were is as foolish as you turn out to be; when as powerful as you thought you were is as powerless as you turn out to be; when as much of a hero as you thought you were is as much of a villain or coward as you turn out to be, a man’s sense of himself begins to plummet and heads towards shattering.
A man without competence is useless and worthless; A man without courage is not a man. A man who is useless, worthless and not a man has no reason to live.
The anticipation of shattering and like Humpty Dumpty never coming back together again can be terrifying and terrorizing. Therefore, while that man still has some control of his actions and before he completely loses control over his life, taking his life can be ironically an act of self-preservation (vs. self-fragmentation) even as he ends it.
Six steps that may help to talk a man out of suicidality (done in a very calm, reassuring, patient, let-him-talk-as-much-as-he-needs-to way):
Despair or as I like to call it, des-pair, means feeling unpaired in a world it which it feels like everyone else is paired with a good job, a happy marriage , loving family, caring and hope and you’re not. When the pain of feeling so unpaired becomes intolerable and that is when “pairing with death” as a way out and as a way to relieve intolerable pain becomes plausible.
The six steps above are a way of “re-pairing” with such an individual via empathy. And when it is successful and they can pair with that kind of understanding and caring, they will no longer need to pair with death.
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Mark Goulston, M.D. , the author of the book Just Listen, is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.