BF2S Forums Madoff's son found hanged two years after arrest

Those are valid reasons . . Everyone is different.

He might have taken the rational decision that his wife and children would have been better off without him - he won't be prosectued and with no lawsuit hanging over them they can rebuild their lives.

EVieira wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

He might have taken the rational decision that his wife and children would have been better off without him - he won't be prosectued and with no lawsuit hanging over them they can rebuild their lives.

There is nothing rational about suicide.

i think you are starting to understand.

Dilbert_X wrote:

Generally speaking there is nothing rational about suicide, but from his perspective he might have concluded there would be a net benefit to his family if he killed himself, like throwing himself on a grenade to save his platoon.

But generally people who kill themselves are depressed, stressed and not thinking rationally, and problems seem much bigger than they really are.

As Charles M Schulz said "there is no problem so big it can't be run away from"
and
"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia."

There is nothing rational about jumping on top of a grenade, just as there is nothing rational about an educated well-off father of two kids hanging himself.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Jumping on top of a hand grenade is absolutely rational if there's a chance that you may save more lives than your own by doing it.

The rational thing to do is what you are trained for, and that is to COVER! People with hero complexes and death wishes jump on grenades.

Kmar wrote:

Clinical depression is not something that can be dealt with on your own. It's a mental illness that completely takes over rational thought. It's not like "having the blues" or "being down". Natural coping mechanism are completely broken down. Your brain is stripped of logic, and you are left with the inability to compute things like logic and consequence. Your own mind is attacking itself and it's a torture that you can not escape. .. there is no break.

clinical depression is without question the worst thing i have ever experienced.

'downward spiral' is a cliche phrase but it really is an all-consuming, self-fuelling process of self-annihilation

poor guy

There's totally something rational about suicide.. I have to say that most people that take there own lives do it for a reason.

Now rational suicide because of clinical suicide is something completely different. Obviously again this was because of guilt, also didn't he work with his father?

Anyone that would take their own life and punish the people they love because of the actions of someone else is a person who is not in control of their own mind. It is not normal for a person to give up on life, no matter the circumstance. For comparison we have the children of mass murders who are able to survive the deeds of their parents. Those people are mentally stable. I'm no doctor, but it seems clear to me that this man had some serious and uncontrollable psychological issues. A stable person does not commit suicide because of implied guilt. That is not a reasonable choice. In fact, I don't think it's a conscious choice they make at all. The people who are put on suicide watch are genuine dangers to themselves because they no longer have natural survival instincts. There is a real mental deficiency there.

Well, I've bounced back from endless difficult circumstances but it gets harder and harder, depression is not a big help.

People do sometimes sacrifice themselves for the greater good - as they see it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Oates

What exactly does go through their mind I don't know, but I did read somewhere Madoff Jr's wife wanted to revert to her maiden name for the sake of herself and her children, maybe this will allow it to happen.

Kmar wrote:

This would seem to be the opposite of the greater good. The amount of emotional distress he is dealing out to his kids is unimaginable.

Depends, they're too young to really understand, they'll get over it soon enough and can go through life without the stigma of the Madoff name.

kmar has the nail on the head here. if madoff's son had anything like serious clinical depression then i honestly find it impossible to join in the usual crowd crying out 'coward!' and 'weak way out!' depression just isn't properly recognized by most, it seems, as a seriously debilitating mental illness; there still seems to be a lot of stigma, or perhaps the every-day use of the term as a misnomer has 'cheapened' its real classification. clinical depression is an all-consuming - and literally exhausting - experience. it's an impossible hill to climb even when you're taking it on as an entirely personal matter, with all your family/friends supporting you. for this guy? in the public eye? shamed and scandalized? with his father locked away for life? i can't imagine how it must feel dealing with a very-public and very-serious case of depression where nobody is there to put a supportive hand on your shoulder; in a way it's almost as if the media and the public demanded this tragic waste of life, as some form of arbitrary moral 'revenge' for his dad's ponzi scheme. it's a shame but it's practically true: it's the same sort of media-driven crowd-justice frenzy that you get with other celebrity culture, such as the self-satisfying and destructive harassment of stars like britney spears as they have their embarrassing public meltdowns. we demand it, in an odd way... and then only after do we finally say: "it's a shame, that".

as for people arguing that suicide is rational... in the tradition of rational, philosophical thought, i quote my favourite: "there is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide" said albert camus. and he was working within an existentialist/absurdist tradition that accepted the utter meaninglessness - and indeed, the banal absurdity - of human existence. suicide is an ultimate problem with no firm answer in any philosophical school of thought-- even those so nihilist and existentialist that they reject all forms of rational optimism. i don't think i could ever contemplate suicide in a mental state that isn't considered, at least by a textbook, as 'depressed'. you have to be eaten up in that downward spiral of ego-disintegration to even entertain the idea of terminating your own morality.

EVieira wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Jumping on top of a hand grenade is absolutely rational if there's a chance that you may save more lives than your own by doing it.

The rational thing to do is what you are trained for, and that is to COVER! People with hero complexes and death wishes jump on grenades.

You play the hand your delt. If you have a Sump and can kik it in fine, if you dont and you know its ganna take you and your friend who has a New Born.. tons of people died this way in the south pacific please do not sully there valor. they made the call on the spot.