Dr. Keith: Beautiful, Smart People Are Depressed Too
The suicides of two stunningly successful individuals in two days should be enough to do away with the notion that great beauty or professional achievement or a treasured family and good friends can immunize anyone from the potential ravages of desperation and major depression.
On June 28, supermodel Ruslana Korshunova plunged nine floors to her death from her apartment in Manhattan’s financial district. She had just come back from a modeling gig in Paris. A friend said she was “on top of the world.”
On June 30, Dr. Douglas Meyer, an esteemed physician at Manhattan’s Beth Israel Medical Center, described by a co-worker as “full of life,” leapt 17 stories to his death.
As a practicing psychiatrist for 15 years, I can tell you that these tragedies were a long time in the making. The complete wearing away of self-esteem or shutting down of the ability to see any future other than darkness is more like a curtain slowly closing than a door swinging shut. Indeed, the fragile sense of self that can give way to a free fall may be decades in the making.
Why did no one see it happening in these two cases? Or why, if someone intuited that it could, was it not prevented?
One reason is that we don’t like to think of ourselves—whether as associates or friends or family members—as parts of personal dramas that could be so dark. We deploy a kind of denial about the lives of others that suggests things will “turn out alright,” that terrible tragedies of the kind that have visited the families of Korshunova and Meyer happen to other families, that the light in the lives of our loved ones could never be extinguished.
Another reason is that we mistake the ability to do one’s work in this world, and do it well, for well-being. I have treated executives and politicians and health care providers who went to work on time and performed admirably, even brilliantly, while battling major depression and even delusional (psychotic) thinking.
And yet another reason is that we may fear that opening up a discussion about whether someone is actually “on the edge,” or “unsure of whether he or she can go on” will put us in a kind of psychological no-man’s land where we will be lost, over our heads, not knowing what to say or do.
Here are a few things you can do:
1. Be alert for major depression in people you care about. The symptoms include low moods and tearfulness, but they also include trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping, changes in appetite, low self-esteem and dwelling on personal losses, even ones that took place in the distant past. And, remember, major depression affects people of both genders, every age and every socioeconomic group, without exception.
2. Listen a little like a psychiatrist. That means if someone says something about life being “too hard” or the future not being “worth it,” it’s okay to pause and ask a nonjudgmental follow-up question. No one will hold it against you. “Are you saying you don’t see any sense in living?” “Are you telling me you’ve thought about hurting yourself?”
3. Listen even more for the person’s answer. Your patience and openness can literally be a lifeline.
4. If someone opens up about feeling desperate, you can offer to take a walk over to an ER, to make a call for an appointment with a psychiatrist who comes highly recommended or to schedule a “right now” appointment with the person’s internist or family physician.
5. Remind the person that he or she cannot judge, while depressed or desperate, where he or she will be, or how that person will feel, just a few weeks or a few months from then. Depression is, arguably, the most treatable condition in all of psychiatry. The vast, vast majority of patients get completely well—which is why it is so important to keep them safe when they can’t keep themselves safe.
6. Share your own frailties. Depressed or desperate people often feel completely alone. They won’t be dragged further down by you speaking to times you’ve felt like all was lost, or like hiding or like you really needed help; they’ll be sustained by your openness.
7. Don’t feel like you have to keep quiet about what feels like an impending crisis. Call the person’s family or physician or both. You’ll be forgiven, because you’ll be acting in good faith, trying to do what’s right.
Being a supermodel doesn’t make you too beautiful to hate yourself, and being a great doctor doesn’t make you stronger or smarter than mental illness. No one is immune. These couple of days reminds us of that, as they cost us two great talents and two good, vulnerable people.
Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatry correspondent for FOX News Channel and a New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, “Living the Truth: Transform Your Life through the Power of Insight and Honesty” has launched a new self-help movement. Check out Dr. Ablow’s website at livingthetruth.com.
Tags: Beth Israel Medical Center, depression, Dr. Douglas Meyer, Dr. Keith Ablow, Manhattan, Paris, Ruslana Korshunova, suicide, supermodel
Share
Dr. Keith
Very timely post. I had not heard of the death of Dr. Douglas Meyer. Another very sad example of your points. I agree with the reasons you highlight for why people don’t see what’s happening, or if they do, feel able to intervene.
I would add the point that many of us percieve people who are successful, or rich, or beautiful as somehow different than us, or above having problems. This is tied to the idea a lot of us have that if WE were richer or better looking, then we would be happier, have better relationships.
These tragedies can help us understand that the differences between people are largely superficial, and that none of us are beyond the struggles life brings.
Hopefully, people will take note of your ideas for how to intervene with people who may be having trouble.
Dr. Barry
http://dharmashrink.wordpress.com/
There is no proof that Ruslana committed suicide. None.
Her close friends, current boyfriend, family and those who met her during the last days of her life say she was happy and that she loved her work, and that she loved life. She had made plans for her birthday (July2), and she had made plans to go see her best friend that same evening as it was HER birthday that day.
There was no suicide note. This was a girl who apparently loved and needed to express herself. She was very close to her mother, and partially supported her. She would have left her a letter.
This is a girl who wrote some sad poetic blogs when she was breaking up with someone. How unusual for a 20-year-old girl! I am sure there are TONS of happy blogs on these sites, written by her. Blogs that we will never read, since the sad parts were conveniently singled out for the purpose of rushing to judgment and label it a suicide, despite the fact that the evidence is clearly missing.
If you take blogs written months and weeks earlier out of context you will not have a true and complete picture of this person’s current state of mind. I think the whole thing is pretty outrageous.
The protective netting enclosing her balcony had been very neatly cut along the lines of the balcony. Who bothers to cut a very neat and huge whole, carefully cutting exactly along the lines of the railing, when they intend to kill themselves?
This opening was clearly made either by someone else who had malicious intent, or by someone who wanted to get air and light into her converted studio apartment. There is the clear possibility of an accident. Freak accidents happen every day.
A sloppily cut, smaller hole fits the suicide scenario much better. If she was organized and rational enough to cut that kind of difficult opening she would have written a letter as well. This story just doesn’t add up. Besides, this type of suicide is rarely chosen by women.
There was a rush to judgment. To take a few melancholic blogs on a networking page as evidence of her state of mind on that day is preposterous. All the evidence here seems to point in the opposite direction.
She was generally happy during this period. She had just come home from Paris and had made plans to go to Milan. Her best friend spoke with her the day before, and she says she was happy and loved life, and they talked all the gossip. She was an open and expressive girl. People would have noticed any serious clinical depression.
Her mother will now have to live with the fact that her child’s death is labeled a suicide by lazy authorities and sensationalistic media. They showed a shocking lack of respect for her. They didn’t even wait for the toxicology report. I think the whole thing is a scandal.
Dr. Ablow’s reasonings are made all the more important by the previous message.
If, in fact, the Russian girl’s death was homicide - well - then it is up to whomever wrote that message to report that to the police as the message writer seemed to imply knowing even more than what she wrote.
Either way, Dr. Ablow’s advice is sage.
Dr. Ablow’s advice is always sage.
Dr. Ablow has hit the nail on the head.
If there was a conspiracy and the young Russian woman was, in fact, killed, well, that is entirely another matter.
Even then, what Ablow has written remains relevant.
It is sad to hear a person who has everything can not find happiness in their lives to keep him them here and face their problems. I know everyone in their life time has reached a point where death seems better than life but they have something pulling them back. My children have always been my strength and my reason for what I do in life.
I have not actually known anyone who committed sucide but had a good friend who lost his best friend. No one had any idea that he was in pain. They said he seemed happier than usuall and had just started dating a new girl. But someone who is depressed and knows they are going to commit sucide do become some what celebratory. It is like they are celebrating that they are leaving this earth and having there own party. My friends, best friend actually called everyone the night he killed himself to say good bye but they didn’t have any clue what was going on. When they look back they can see the signs but they weren’t looking because he had seemed so happy in the last couple of weeks before suicide.