hearts attacks and suicides

preventative illnesses galore

I am sad today.

Two of my closest friends wrote me texts over the past 30 hours of passings in their immediate families. The first involved one of the hundreds of thousands who die annually in the United States from a heart attack. He was an overweight and middle-aged white male, but one seemingly taking care of himself with a recent visit to a cardiologist. None of us ever know what really goes on within someone’s body (or marriage, they say) but it happened to this fellow. My friend is deeply saddened as one expects.

I happened to read just yesterday that heart attacks remain the single most common cause of death in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one of every five deaths—1 every 33 seconds on average—in the United States in 2021 was due to a heart attack. The causes of heart disease are well-known but often ignored as Americans accumulate weight, eat a highly saturated-intense diet (potatoes are our favourite vegetable but doctors are not encouraging us to eat more French fries when they say consumer green veg), our lifestyle is too often almost completely sedentary, and we are a stressful society these days. None of that is good for that beautiful muscle pumping blood relentlessly through our bodies.

Heart attacks, according to every medical source I find, are preventable but our lifestyles often preclude us changing our behaviours. Actions create consequences.

This afternoon’s text was from a mother who lost her son to suicide this weekend. I cannot imagine the pain, the shock, the utter horror, the questions, and the constant reminders of a thirty-something year old white man ending his life. Suicide is such a pervasive scourge in contemporary America, indicating the isolation, the sense of hopelessness, the feelings of futility, and so many more things of which none of us is often aware.

This woman is, unfortunately, not my only close friend to have lost a relative to mental illness. As I wrote last summer, depression is one of the most pernicious thieves in any society or individual life; if chronic, it is relentless and overwhelming.

More than 48,000 Americans take their own lives annually. Other countries see suicides but the uniquely American pervasiveness of guns, supposedly in the name of personal freedom, facilitates the biggest number of them along other methods equally final.

Mental health remains so stigmatised in this country. Since the illness deeply burrows into a person’s psyche, as someone feels she/he cannot bear the burden any longer, the mistaken sense of a better solutions leads to the individual taking that ultimate and irreparable step to end life. Many depressed individuals confront gender-identification, workplace disappointments, and a host of other issues in a society currently uncomfortable addressing differences and diversity while lauding towering successes and incomparable victories. Coupled with financial burdens, hopelessness, and a daunting sense of inability to control for the future, many depressed people literally find themselves unable to ask for help from the depths where they find themselves. Depression is not a ‘pull yourself up’ kind of problem; the walls of the caverns in which too many people find themselves are sheer and unforgiving so the surrender to what seems inevitable, even if those of us from the outside see things differently.

Suicides are heinous reminders that our society has so far to go to promote the general welfare we tout in the Preamble to our most precious Constitution. None of us really want to discuss the topic yet people we encounter daily probably crave our understanding.

Both suicide and heart attacks are preventable but not easily or quickly addressed problems. Each exists within a complex system of triggers, experiences, fears, and frustration. Someone suffering needs long-term professional help along with our assistance where appropriate.

Each of us can be supportive of sufferers but it takes time, patience, careful listening and hearing, and support. None of us walk in the shoes of anyone else but we can make a difference by supporting someone desperate—silently or not—for help. Make a call, offer to go for walks with the affected, think of how your behaviour models for others, and listen listen listen. Provide suggestions for professional help where necessary but understand you likely are not the answer for either problem but someone who can facilitate getting professional assistance for a sufferer.

Thank you for reading this admittedly painful column today but you can make a major difference in someone else’s life.

Centers for Disease Control, ‘Heart Disease Facts’, retrieved at https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm

Centers for Disease Control, ‘Suicides and Self-Harm Issues’, retrieved at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm