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This is a surreal moment. A guy that brought people together with food.

Rest in Peace.

uni-mitation

Apparently, the cause of death is suicide. It seems we all have our inner demons; be kind to others for we don't know what theirs are. There are resources if you or a loved one feels like you though of suicide.

1-800-273-TALK (8255)

uni-mitation

I once saw him give a talk (do a spoken word performance?); a friend who was with me went out into the back alley behind the theater before the show to have a cigarette and ran into Bourdain, who had ducked out the back to do the same thing. My friend stood out there with a couple of other people, listening to him tell funnier, more ribald stories than he would tell inside, then the famous chef went back in to give his actual performance. One of the few times I've regretted I wasn't a smoker.

uni-mitation wrote:

Apparently, the cause of death is suicide. It seems we all have our inner demons; be kind to others for we don't know what theirs are. There are resources if you or a loved one feels like you though of suicide.

In the same week, in the same way, as Kate Spade.

In the the same week the CDC also published about US suicide rates are up 30% since 1999. I think its an existential crisis thing, and more and more people for one reason or another are sadly running into it.

Maybe this should be a split into R&P but I’d be interested in the age of suiciders in that study. My uneducated opinion is that people aren’t told to suck it up or get over it as much at a young age and so find more of their life unbearable.

strangerguy wrote:

In the the same week the CDC also published about US suicide rates are up 30% since 1999. I think its an existential crisis thing, and more and more people for one reason or another are sadly running into it.

I'd bet a non-trivial percentage of them are members of the armed forces who served in the Middle East and came back with PTSD.

Super, super sad about this one.

If any of you haven't read "Kitchen Confidential," you should. My recommendation has nothing to do with wanting to be a chef or food, it's just a damn good book.

https://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Confiden ... 0060899220

just brew it! wrote:

strangerguy wrote:

In the the same week the CDC also published about US suicide rates are up 30% since 1999. I think its an existential crisis thing, and more and more people for one reason or another are sadly running into it.

I'd bet a non-trivial percentage of them are members of the armed forces who served in the Middle East and came back with PTSD.

While I don't disagree with this, there is a contagion component to suicide. The more known people who commit suicide, the more likely it is that another suicide will occur. My wife is a trauma therapist, and the statistics are really clear. It is particularly strong in terms of soldiers and high school students.

DancinJack wrote:

Super, super sad about this one.

If any of you haven't read "Kitchen Confidential," you should. My recommendation has nothing to do with wanting to be a chef or food, it's just a damn good book.

https://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Confiden ... 0060899220

It is a good book, but I found his television series from No Reservations on to be his most important works. Food, culture, politics, bringing foreign societies into the viewer's home and presenting them well. Some of the best documentary television I've ever seen, and he kept at it for years.

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

Maybe this should be a split into R&P but I’d be interested in the age of suiciders in that study. My uneducated opinion is that people aren’t told to suck it up or get over it as much at a young age and so find more of their life unbearable.

I take issue with this generalization. Suggesting that people with depression should "suck it up" is a very dangerous thing.

Being told to bottle up, ignore, and not process their emotions can cause emotional deprivation and isolation and lead to depression. People attempting to normalize severe mood disorders can be very harmful.

No one can just wish away their mood disorders, and it took a long time to get a handle on my anxiety, or even recognize that it was abnormal and could be treated.
I "sucked it up" and went to work for months in a row having regular panic attacks, and worked for years in a field that would consistently cause these reactions (changing careers helped very little). I never even thought there was something wrong with me because "everyone gets nervous" and "you're doing fine" or people getting mad at me for telling them I was miserable. No one believed I was in such pain because I did such a good job sucking it up.

This is what my life experience has been, and if one more person had told me to just "get over it" I might not be here to type this. Believe you me, people in my situation are constantly telling themselves to get over it and be OK.

I'm sure you didn't mean any harm, and I am in a much better place in my life now that I am processing my emotions in healthy, productive way with therapy and medication. I am actually back working in that original career and doing quite well.

Here's some hilarious takes on understanding depression, and I've never found a better way to describe it than this "my fish are dead" analogy:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

People that suffer from anxiety, depression, bi-polar disorder, and many other mental health diseases lack the cognitive power to control these symptoms. Imagine waking up for three days and feel like your body is being weighted down by an anchor, and every minute pain in your body is multiplied a couple magnitudes over. Any small thing sends you into a crying ball, or into an a rage. Or that you have to work today and you were not able to catch one wink of sleep because of your anxiety? So many symptoms, so out of the will of the people that suffer them.

Like the previous poster said, telling people that suffer from these symptoms to push them down might actually work for a while. Even someone that suffer from anxiety might do something that seems like he/she has taken control of them. The thing is that it ends being worse for them when their brain chemistry ends winning the fight against will-power. All of these symptoms rise from a part of the brain where it is not "working right". Compare a healthy "go lucky" brain and you will see that the chemicals and its receptors that regulate certain moods do not show extremes of happiness and sadness to be overly simplistic. A healthy brain is able to process stresses in our every day life. Then some stuff start to break-down, and we start to feel like it is out of our control. Symptoms start to develop because our brains are not adapted to be exposed to such extreme stresses as super-sonic sound blasts, concussions, whip-lash, prolonged states of fight-flight, etc. Given enough abuse, any healthy brain will develop these symptoms. It is time to start reconsidering whether this "rat-race" mentality is even what we want for our mental health.

A brain is more fragile than people think. Anyone and everyone is able to develop mental health issues. The problem is not "sucking it up." It is realizing that we need help and to seek that help. Taking pro-active steps to reduce your risks is also a good idea.

uni-mitation

Brewineer wrote:

I take issue with this generalization. Suggesting that people with depression should "suck it up" is a very dangerous thing.

I didn't read him as saying that. What I understood him to say is that increasingly, we don't necessarily give children a basis for evaluating and prioritizing their emotions on a hierarchy, which can aggravate a mental breakdown later on. And I wouldn't say that's necessarily wrong: the brain/thought patterns that are formed early, when feelings are new and intense but can also be changed or redirected easily, are much harder to alter later.

In any case, research-wise we're just beginning to plumb the interplay between the health of the body and the surrounding environment to the health of the mind. Complex subject, complex causes.

Brewineer wrote:

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

Maybe this should be a split into R&P but I’d be interested in the age of suiciders in that study. My uneducated opinion is that people aren’t told to suck it up or get over it as much at a young age and so find more of their life unbearable.

I take issue with this generalization. Suggesting that people with depression should "suck it up" is a very dangerous thing.

Being told to bottle up, ignore, and not process their emotions can cause emotional deprivation and isolation and lead to depression. People attempting to normalize severe mood disorders can be very harmful.

No one can just wish away their mood disorders, and it took a long time to get a handle on my anxiety, or even recognize that it was abnormal and could be treated.
I "sucked it up" and went to work for months in a row having regular panic attacks, and worked for years in a field that would consistently cause these reactions (changing careers helped very little). I never even thought there was something wrong with me because "everyone gets nervous" and "you're doing fine" or people getting mad at me for telling them I was miserable. No one believed I was in such pain because I did such a good job sucking it up.

This is what my life experience has been, and if one more person had told me to just "get over it" I might not be here to type this. Believe you me, people in my situation are constantly telling themselves to get over it and be OK.

I'm sure you didn't mean any harm, and I am in a much better place in my life now that I am processing my emotions in healthy, productive way with therapy and medication. I am actually back working in that original career and doing quite well.

Here's some hilarious takes on understanding depression, and I've never found a better way to describe it than this "my fish are dead" analogy:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

Thank you for sharing your experiences. Greatly appreciated.

uni-mitation

I think this thread is skirting pretty close to R&P. I mean, I don't mind since people are talking about a very passionate subject of mine. Yet, I feel there are some people that just want to reminisce about all of the good stuff that Bourdain has done with bringing people together with food. I think a split would be most appropriate in my view.

uni-mitation

Brewineer wrote:

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

Maybe this should be a split into R&P but I’d be interested in the age of suiciders in that study. My uneducated opinion is that people aren’t told to suck it up or get over it as much at a young age and so find more of their life unbearable.

I take issue with this generalization. Suggesting that people with depression should "suck it up" is a very dangerous thing.

Being told to bottle up, ignore, and not process their emotions can cause emotional deprivation and isolation and lead to depression. People attempting to normalize severe mood disorders can be very harmful.

No one can just wish away their mood disorders, and it took a long time to get a handle on my anxiety, or even recognize that it was abnormal and could be treated.
I "sucked it up" and went to work for months in a row having regular panic attacks, and worked for years in a field that would consistently cause these reactions (changing careers helped very little). I never even thought there was something wrong with me because "everyone gets nervous" and "you're doing fine" or people getting mad at me for telling them I was miserable. No one believed I was in such pain because I did such a good job sucking it up.

This is what my life experience has been, and if one more person had told me to just "get over it" I might not be here to type this. Believe you me, people in my situation are constantly telling themselves to get over it and be OK.

I'm sure you didn't mean any harm, and I am in a much better place in my life now that I am processing my emotions in healthy, productive way with therapy and medication. I am actually back working in that original career and doing quite well.

Here's some hilarious takes on understanding depression, and I've never found a better way to describe it than this "my fish are dead" analogy:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2013/05/depression-part-two.html

I agree 100%. The phrase "suck it up" has too strong a connotation that the course for correction - or worse, even the blame, if there is such a thing for a condition such as depression or anxiety - lies with the sufferer. It is antagonistic and unhelpful. However, I think it is key to avoid robbing individual autonomy. Whenever possible, the more the sufferer can be empowered to exert control to ameliorate their condition, the more it seems to "stick". The best outcomes of behavioral correction seems to arise when the sufferer (either alone, or guided by therapist, etc) can successfully brake down the root causes into increasingly manageable pieces that the individual can, over time, overcome one by one. As far as I can tell, this is the only real sustainable way of overcoming these issues - to determine how one can come to terms with whatever has prompted the condition in whatever breakdown is manageable and develop the confidence and autonomy to progressively move forward.

I tend to wonder if it was really a suicide. I can easily think of several reasons why this doesn't "pass the smell test". The only outlier is the sole comment by his mother that he had been in a "dark mood" a few days before he was found dead - which is the front caption, whereas the rest of her statements indicate that despite any short-term mood that there was every indication that he would NOT have taken his life. Pretty much everything else, including others that had contact with him the prior week, indicated that he was actually happy (something to do with a really good segment on Hong Kong that he had just finished for CNN).

If there was something that "set him off" AND altered his thinking (like some sort of drug), then maybe.. but really, hanging yourself (at 6'4") with a small bathrobe tie (and expecting anything to support your weight in a hotel not exactly known for its high ceilings)? Of course for the locals "apparent suicide" sure seems a lot more appealing than "celebrity murdered in charming 5 star hotel" (..particularly if the murder was well done - leaving little physical evidence beyond obvious inconsistencies).

I apologize to those individual who took it a little harsher than I meant. I certainly would never demean the issues that people struggle with in their life. I’m sorry.

Chuckaluphagus wrote:

DancinJack wrote:

Super, super sad about this one.

If any of you haven't read "Kitchen Confidential," you should. My recommendation has nothing to do with wanting to be a chef or food, it's just a damn good book.

https://www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Confiden ... 0060899220

It is a good book, but I found his television series from No Reservations on to be his most important works. Food, culture, politics, bringing foreign societies into the viewer's home and presenting them well. Some of the best documentary television I've ever seen, and he kept at it for years.

Oh yeah, I don't really disagree, but IMO a book is a little more accessible to a lot of people rather than watching hours and hours of television, regardless of how damn good it is, that can cost quite a bit of money to acquire.

CScottG wrote:

If there was something that "set him off" AND altered his thinking (like some sort of drug), then maybe.. but really, hanging yourself (at 6'4") with a small bathrobe tie (and expecting anything to support your weight in a hotel not exactly known for its high ceilings)? Of course for the locals "apparent suicide" sure seems a lot more appealing than "celebrity murdered in charming 5 star hotel" (..particularly if the murder was well done - leaving little physical evidence beyond obvious inconsistencies).

It happened in France, not, say, South Africa or Belize. No need to dull Occam's Razor looking for a conspiracy just yet.

I don't understand for which reason he would be assassinated. Sure he was quite vocal about politics but he spoke against bad things on both sides.
If he goes to a former "communist" country he can claim that it is poor due to its history, if he goes to Palestine he can say that the occupation is harmful. If he goes to Cambodia he can trash Kissinger. Or how he ate food with Obama but didn't want to with Trump. Anyone can make this death political.

But how much attention did these types of comments really gain? He was in Palestine in 2013, and if say Mossad "neutralized" him then why did it take 5 years. And certainly now a lot of the things he has said will gain further attention whereas it would otherwise have been forgotten.

It's actually far more likely that his life of depression and drugs made life difficult... he said in an interview a few years back that he had trouble talking with the people who he really cared about which made him feel lonely, and this contrast becomes harder to deal with considering that he was talking with people for a living, and from what I have seen made great contact with many.
He also said that even eating a bad burger could spiral him into depression for days, which is hardly normal. It could simply be that hormonal levels in the brain had turned abnormal for some reason which made him take the final step of ending his life prematurely. He's also from the older generation when people didn't go to psychiatrist for a talk, or get anti-depressants which can help to say increase the serotonin levels in the brain.

Didn't follow the program, but he seemed like a reasonable guy int he few interviews I saw him do at programs such as the Daily Show. Most of his problems seem to have been there earlier in his life though..

ludi wrote:

It happened in France, not, say, South Africa or Belize. No need to dull Occam's Razor looking for a conspiracy just yet.

As an update: it was chef Ripert who was with him that said he was in "..a dark mood", not his mother (..she was just repeating what Ripert told her). Ripert was also the one who found Bourdain's body after hotel staff unlocked his door. Apparently there were other accounts (from others) of this behaviour as well, and one source mentioned exhaustion.

I still find an "impulsive" suicide without a "trigger" - dubious at best (..ex. Robbin Williams who had that "trigger"). It's NOT what I'd call the simplist answer in this instance, at least with the scant details provided thus far. But of course it could be sleep deprivation and intense episodic depression along with some means to acomplish this particular suicide that we don't have details on. Don't know. May not ever know.

As far as a conspiracy on the part of French police, what I'm thinking is not really conspiracy - rather an agreement that it looks like a suicide based on evidence that doesn't initially appear to be anything else, and then proceeding with that with an understanding that the conclusion is far easier (less inflamitory and potentially damaging to local interests) than the alternative. (..it's not a slight to to the police in Strasbourg, it could just as well be any other local law enforcement.)

As an example: George Reeves (original TV superman "Adventures of Superman") - suicide? Depression was the reason given for apparently taking his life. But did he though?

Kaleid wrote:

I don't understand for which reason he would be assassinated.

I wouldn't limit it to assasination. It could be "garden variety" murder or murder-for-hire. Or of course it could just be suicide. I just think that it appears less probable to be suicide with the meager facts given. (..the "mechanics" of hanging yourself as a person 6' 4" in a room that probably isn't higher than 9 feet and has few (if any) viable areas to support such an act seems "off". Who knows though, maybe his suite had vaulted ceilings with beams?)

Usacomp2k3 wrote:

I apologize to those individual who took it a little harsher than I meant. I certainly would never demean the issues that people struggle with in their life. I’m sorry.

Thank you, I appreciate that. I didn't believe you meant any harm whatsoever.
Please don't feel badly about it, you just shared your feelings on the matter, and it prompted a very productive conversation.

I felt it an important opportunity to share my experience and educate people about harmful notions. If we can have productive conversations about mental health and spread awareness, and let people know that there is help, that there are options beyond self-harm, that there are people going through this AND able to come back from the edge and live rich, full lives, it can help very much. It took so long for me to be able to reach out and get help and my life is so much better. I'm in a place that I never thought possible just a couple years ago.

cynan wrote:

I agree 100%. The phrase "suck it up" has too strong a connotation that the course for correction - or worse, even the blame, if there is such a thing for a condition such as depression or anxiety - lies with the sufferer. It is antagonistic and unhelpful. However, I think it is key to avoid robbing individual autonomy. Whenever possible, the more the sufferer can be empowered to exert control to ameliorate their condition, the more it seems to "stick". The best outcomes of behavioral correction seems to arise when the sufferer (either alone, or guided by therapist, etc) can successfully brake down the root causes into increasingly manageable pieces that the individual can, over time, overcome one by one. As far as I can tell, this is the only real sustainable way of overcoming these issues - to determine how one can come to terms with whatever has prompted the condition in whatever breakdown is manageable and develop the confidence and autonomy to progressively move forward.

That's a very good way to put it, and in my experience, this rang very true. I felt I had very little control or agency over my life or emotions. Working through my anxieties and fears one at a time with my psychologist allowed me to dig up and expose some of the root causes and challenge them in a supported manner. Some of them have diminished greatly just by digging deep and shining a light on them. I am in a place where I feel that I have the agency, confidence, and support to improve my lot and actually LIVE my life, not just work and suffer through it.

CScottG wrote:

Kaleid wrote:

I don't understand for which reason he would be assassinated.

I wouldn't limit it to assasination. It could be "garden variety" murder or murder-for-hire. Or of course it could just be suicide. I just think that it appears less probable to be suicide with the meager facts given. (..the "mechanics" of hanging yourself as a person 6' 4" in a room that probably isn't higher than 9 feet and has few (if any) viable areas to support such an act seems "off". Who knows though, maybe his suite had vaulted ceilings with beams?)

People often enough choose hanging because it ensures that there second thoughts don't matter. Same as a firearm. They take a moment of commitment. Same goes for jumping off a high building or a cliff. Other methods such as wrist slashing often allow for a way back. Staunch the flow of blood, and get help.

Sadly, it doesn't take much to hang one's self. Really, all it takes is a door and bedsheets. Just like with drowning, it is just a matter of finding the correct angles.

Brewineer wrote:

...Being told to bottle up, ignore, and not process their emotions can cause emotional deprivation and isolation and lead to depression. People attempting to normalize severe mood disorders can be very harmful.

No one can just wish away their mood disorders, and it took a long time to get a handle on my anxiety, or even recognize that it was abnormal and could be treated.

I "sucked it up" and went to work for months in a row having regular panic attacks, and worked for years in a field that would consistently cause these reactions (changing careers helped very little). I never even thought there was something wrong with me because "everyone gets nervous" and "you're doing fine" or people getting mad at me for telling them I was miserable. No one believed I was in such pain because I did such a good job sucking it up.

This is what my life experience has been, and if one more person had told me to just "get over it" I might not be here to type this. Believe you me, people in my situation are constantly telling themselves to get over it and be OK....

It's the stress of having to deal personally with bad situations in a world full of them. We've each got a maximum handling capacity rating from birth, and all suck. Some much more than others.

When we grew up, we had others to care for us, parents and close family or other caregivers. These represent the last worry-free, happy experiences for most (which they confirm by not remembering these as much else). As we grew, we learned to work at things to make them happen and to engage others to make them care.

But our health still worsens while intransigent issues become tougher to wrangle with as the years pass. People resort to a compendium of coping strategies to deal with the resulting stresses, i.e. the application of money and time, putting in smarter ways and longer-legged effort, biting off jobs in stages, relying on expert assistance, employing aids, etc.

So, most things are amenable to rearrangements of thoughts and resources. Just not those that validate one's whole life as a process worth finishing well. The usual response to recognition of this dismal condition is to beautify its aspects, to devise more coping techniques, more career ploys and work effort, more temporal fixes.

For better recourse, something has to come from nothing. How it happens spiritually is a life's treasure worth telling when it does.

TheEmrys wrote:

People often enough choose hanging because it ensures that there second thoughts don't matter. Same as a firearm. They take a moment of commitment. Same goes for jumping off a high building or a cliff. Other methods such as wrist slashing often allow for a way back. Staunch the flow of blood, and get help.

Sadly, it doesn't take much to hang one's self. Really, all it takes is a door and bedsheets. Just like with drowning, it is just a matter of finding the correct angles.

IF you can fall from enough height for a clean neck break, then sure - it's the same as a firearm. Otherwise it's self strangulation - which would likely be difficult to tolerate without taking simple reflexive measures to ensure you survive.

Look through the hotel's bedrooms and factor-in Tony's height (and look for areas of probable support):

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb ... oioIrAEwDA


-on the other hand, murder by strangulation while the victim is sleeping is comparativly simple. (..and a bathrobe tie is certainly far more plausible in length for that sort of action with a couple of wraps around each forearm for a tight hold on the tie.)

CScottG wrote:

TheEmrys wrote:

People often enough choose hanging because it ensures that there second thoughts don't matter. Same as a firearm. They take a moment of commitment. Same goes for jumping off a high building or a cliff. Other methods such as wrist slashing often allow for a way back. Staunch the flow of blood, and get help.

Sadly, it doesn't take much to hang one's self. Really, all it takes is a door and bedsheets. Just like with drowning, it is just a matter of finding the correct angles.

IF you can fall from enough height for a clean neck break, then sure - it's the same as a firearm. Otherwise it's self strangulation - which would likely be difficult to tolerate without taking simple reflexive measures to ensure you survive.

Look through the hotel's bedrooms and factor-in Tony's height (and look for areas of probable support):

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb ... oioIrAEwDA


-on the other hand, murder by strangulation while the victim is sleeping is comparativly simple. (..and a bathrobe tie is certainly far more plausible in length for that sort of action with a couple of wraps around each forearm for a tight hold on the tie.)

People tend to restrain their own arms and legs in a hanging suicide. And once it has been tightened enough, unless the weight is removed from the noose, nothing is going to prevent the strangulation. Even having arms free is often not enough.

I think we are straying from a plausible "impulsive" suicide at that point to something requiring more thought and planning (which may have occured despite the report of "impulsive"). ..however, if you put that much thought into it, why not use heroine? (..I believe he's even mentioned that if he were to comit suicide it would be with heroine, as a previous user.)

CScottG wrote:

I think we are straying from a plausible "impulsive" suicide at that point to something requiring more thought and planning (which may have occured despite the report of "impulsive"). ..however, if you put that much thought into it, why not use heroine? (..I believe he's even mentioned that if he were to comit suicide it would be with heroine, as a previous user.)

Binding one's own hands seems like it would take less planning than an illegal drug buy.