The last moments of Abraham Biggs’ nineteen years of life were broadcast live via the Internet on Justin.tv. 

 Biggs, a Broward College student who reportedly suffered from bipolar disorder, had posted a suicide note on BodyBuilding.com before overdosing on a combination of opiates and benzodiazepine tranquilizers in front of his webcam. 

Just as shocking as Biggs’ decision to end his life publicly was the fact that strangers encouraged him to do it.  Some in the virtual audience texted entries like “lol” (for “laughing out loud”) and “hahahaha.”

Other viewers did contact the Web site, and police were eventually notified.  They found Biggs dead 12 hours later.

The lesson in this tragedy is the same whether we think about the lead actor in this made-for-the-Web reality drama or his viewers.  All were lost in a hall of mirrors that deprived them of real human connectedness.  When Biggs shared his overwhelming desperation with strangers, and when those strangers treated him without humanity, they were laced together—each and every one of them—in the peculiarly potent kind of depersonalization that today’s technology breeds. 

When we broadcast our life stories over and over again—whether on Justin.tv or Facebook or YouTube—we run the risk of slipping the bindings of our real feelings and experiences and becoming, in some small or greater way, actors in our own lives.   And as actors, some number of us will feel free to do and say things that are not a reflection of our true, deep character, but of the characters we have created for public dissemination.

Abraham Biggs may have committed suicide alone, without an audience.  But broadcasting his overdose may have made it seem just a little less real to him, a little like acting out his own death without having to really die, like an actor reading a script who stands up after the death scene and walks off the stage.  And those who watched and did nothing, or who watched and laughed out loud, or watched and egged Biggs on, might never have behaved that way were a person standing in front of them ready to end his life. 

While some may have believed Biggs was faking his death, I believe others were rendered inhuman by the fact that a camera turned the last pages of his life story into entertainment.

We are past due for major research into the psychological effects of the Internet on human emotion, behavior and relationships.  With tens of millions of Americans participating in online social networks and dating sites and photo sharing sites and (perhaps most toxic of all) Second Life, some percentage of users may be gradually disconnecting from themselves and others and reality.

Maybe it isn’t too big a leap to wonder whether that’s one reason Americans seem increasingly drawn into “bubbles” of fiction that eventually burst, causing real suffering.  Think about the near-delusional thinking that fueled the Internet stock bubble and the real estate bubble.  Think about the fact that our government is now injecting staggering amounts of capital into failed businesses to make them look like real businesses, in hopes that they will eventually become real businesses.

Biggs’ story is shocking because it captures the last minutes of a good and decent young man’s life.  It is all about private suffering turned inside out into a scripted, public spectacle in which the pain was meaningless to many of those made privy to it.  The Internet wrung the truth out of it. 

We’d better find out—and soon—how “connecting” through today’s technology may be disconnecting us from ourselves and from others.

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 or e-mail him at info@keithablow.com.

Tales of traders throwing themselves out of windows on Wall Street in the wake of 1929 were essentially myths, as John Kenneth Galbraith noted in his 1955 account of the crash.

Nevertheless, current economic woes are clearly impacting on our country’s mental and physical health. Stress is a well documented cause of depression, suicide, heart disease, stroke, predisposition to infection, and certain kinds of cancer.

Stress is often subliminal, it may overtake you before you realize it.  The last thing a person in financial trouble needs is to be simultaneously dealing with illness, yet stress-induced illness is common.
 
SOME WORRISOME EXAMPLES OF THE EFFECTS OF FINANCIAL TROUBLES:

* In New York, calls to the Hopeline network for people with depression or suicidal thoughts leaped 75 percent to 10,368 in the 11 months ending in July 2008.

* In Chicago, ComPsych Corp., the world’s largest provider of employee assistance programs, logged 21 percent more calls seeking help for stress from financial pressures in July than they received a year earlier.

* Hospital admissions for psychiatric services are up 10 percent this year over last year in claims submitted to UnitedHealth Group Inc., the largest U.S. health insurer.

* ValueOptions Inc., the fourth-largest U.S. provider of behavioral health and wellness services, reported that calls for assistance with home foreclosures, bankruptcy and other financial hardships have grown 89 percent this year over 2007.

* Research based on 17 years of Pennsylvania unemployment records concluded that employees affected by a mass layoff at a plant were 15 percent more likely to die of any cause over the next two decades.

* Harvey Brenner, professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, projects that rising unemployment could cause as many as 47,000 more deaths than would have otherwise occurred, including 1,200 more suicides, as well as nearly 26,000 more heart attacks.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT:

* Seek emotional support, from loved ones and if needed, professionals.

* Try to continue to focus on business as usual, and to avoid obsessive negative thoughts.

* Emphasize regular exercise, try relaxation techniques such as yoga or meditation, eat regular meals, and as much as possible, observe regular sleep habits.

* Consult with your physician if your fear over your financial future is spiraling out of control. Anti-anxiety medication may be necessary to break the cycle of worry.

Dr. Marc Siegel is an internist and associate professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine. He is a FOX News Medical Contributor and writes a health column for LA Times, where he examines TV and movies for medical accuracy. Dr. Siegel is the author of “False Alarm: the Truth About the Epidemic of Fear” and “Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic”. Read more at www.doctorsiegel.com

This morning as I was leaving the house to come to work at FOX, my 12-year-old son asked me a question that stopped me dead in my tracks.

“Hey dad, is America in a depression?” he said.

And I said “No, why do you ask?”

“Because I hear everybody talking about the economy and all this trouble that I don’t understand,” he said.

“What do you know about the Great Depression of the 1920s,” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “I know there was no money and I think people were jumping out of buildings in New York.”

I tried to reassure him that things were okay and that nobody was jumping out of windows…yet.

But as I left, I started thinking about our conversation, and I asked myself: Why do innocent people suffer? How is all this anxiety and stress over the current economic crisis going to be remembered by the next generation in America?

Yes, every mental health professional will tell us that there are multiple studies that correlate severe financial debt and depression – even suicide.

I remember reading a recent report of two college student that killed themselves after being overwhelmed by credit card debt.

In India, an estimated 150,000 debt-ridden farmers have committed suicide since 1997.

Yes, we all know that suicide is not the solution, but again I asked myself, why do innocent people suffer?

And as I stopped to ponder the answer to my burning question, I began to evaluate some of the things that many of us have forgotten – the things that are truly important.

Love and respect for ourselves and others – that’s what’s important. You can’t buy happiness. The integrity of our lives and the way we love and respect the people we are so fortunate to have in them is far more important than any economic indicator on Wall Street.

So I thought long and hard, and I decided to tell my son the biblical story of Job – a story I think many people should read in these times of financial crisis.

Job was a happy man, a wealthy man who lived a prosperous life filled with family and good fortune. But one day, Job was tested by God. He was stripped of his fortune, his family and his health. Job began to complain of God’s indifference, he wondered why God did not punish the wicked instead of him. But after all of his analysis, he understood that what was important to God was the love that should never be questioned — the love that he has for his children. And, in the end, Job’s prosperity was restored.

Why do innocent people suffer? Because perhaps they forget that love, compassion and respect settles all debt.

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.

Depression, teens and marijuana are a dangerous mix that can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report being released Friday.

A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed — 25 percent compared with 12 percent, said the report by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Click here to read the full report

A British television executive committed suicide two months after he started taking the smoking cessation drug Champix, which is marketed as Chantix in the United States.

Omer Jama, 39, of Bolton, England, was a Sky Sports video editor who was taking the drug to try and kick his pack-a-day habit; it is being reported by London’s Daily Mail.

What do you think? Do you or someone you know take Chantix?

The French woman who had sought the legal right to commit suicide to end the suffering caused by an incurable and disfiguring cancer killed herself with sleeping tablets, authorities said.

Chantal Sebire, 52, whose face was distorted by a rare cancer of the sinus, was found dead in her home in eastern France last week, shortly after a court ruled that a doctor could not be allowed to help her die.

The Food and Drug Administration is investigating a link between the asthma drug Singulair and suicidal behavior, according to a news release Thursday.

The FDA has requested Singulair’s manufacturer Merck & Co. evaluate the drug’s data for more information about suicidality and mood changes, according to the news release.

The agency is also reviewing the post-marketing reports of patients who have reported such behavior after taking the drug.