I cried when I heard that Robert Enke had died.
When death has been recently close to you anyway, spectacular deaths have impact, whether Real and Suicidal as with Enke or hyperreal deep state shenanigans as with Diana Princess of Paris.
First, let's get one thing absolutely straight.
To not have periods of depression in this horrendous late capitalism nightmare is the surest sign of mental illness.
Depression is the norm outside of psychopathic behaviouralisms and if you are not occasionally depressed, you are deluding yourself.
Even if you reside in 'First World' consumerist comfort, the fruits of your luxury are built on the maquiladoras of the North Mexican border or the sweatshops of South East Asia.
Squatter towns, cardboard shacks, refugee cities, the Gaza Panopticon, rampant wage slavery founded on fear throughout the tiers slightly elevated from absolute poverty, shareholder capitalism exploits and murders the individuals on whom the Ponzi Pyramid is built.
For a Darfur refugee, the few strands of life available are fought for to the last breath, these people are desperate to survive the mass rapes and sexual assaults, the randomised violence and death that the 'First World' allows in the name of economic progress and oil.
In the 'First World', those in touch with their emotional and psychological Realities are able to share these pains in an ever so irrelevant and distant way, but it is there in the background all the time - it is simply not valid to go on vacation to these 'tropical paradises', for example, without reckoning with the gross distortions of living created by global and national capitalist psychopathies.
Four members of my family have undertaken voluntary work for The Samaritans - a British charity that offers support for those contemplating suicide, indeed my brother remains a chairperson of his local branch to this day.
There are good things and bad things about this organisation, but the primary good thing is that volunteers are there not to prevent callers or visitors from committing suicide, but to be there for the client, if necessary, while the suicide takes place.
While I was a volunteer, I researched numerous statistical analyses of suicide in both Britain and Europe.
Several key points arose from these data...
* Men tend to be markedly more violent in the manners of choosing their own death whereas woman generally take less 'extreme' routes that are more in the 'cry for help' territory rather than a determined desire for self-termination.
* Death distributions are highly seasonal with the lead up to xmas/New Year and spring being worst. Overnight and early morning are also more problematical than the remainder of the day.
* Certain countries have peculiarly high suicide rates with some correlations existing with regard to the hours of sunlight. Related to this are the clusters of suicides of Afro-Caribbean men in Britain - this non-racist nirvana.
* Reasons for feeling suicidal are primarily poverty, relationship breakdown, stress, racism, death, unemployment, bullying, sexual/physical violence and alcohol or other drug abuse. There are also systemic reasons outlined later in this post.
* Public attitudes to suicide, although improving, remain unevolved. Militaristic violence against masses of Islamic civilians is regarded as okay in Daily Telegraph Land but violence against oneself is not.
It was this last factor that directly led to the death of Robert Enke.
Having lost his two year old daughter to a rare heart disease, the Enke's adopted another daughter. Robert feared that if his depression became public knowledge, the authorities would take their adoptive daughter away from them too.
Consequently, he kept his condition to himself, even keeping the Hannover 96 club psychologist in the dark.
After three months out injured, Enke returned to action last weekend for the derby against HSV and had expected to be included in the German Nationalmannschaft for the friendly internationals against Chile and Cote d'Ivoire as he was the number one choice prior to his injury.
The selectors chose to omit him from the squad, a decision made in ignorance of Enke's psychological state, so no blame may be attached to the German management team.
Goalkeepers are particularly prone to depressive issues in professional football as it is the keepers that are most frequently targeted by those wishing to criminalise football match outcomes - we know of one Premier League goalie who is coerced into doing the dirty work of one particular organisation due to the knowledge of the 'lifestyle issues' which that organisation has on this individual.
A rock and a hard place...
Robert Enke obviously never recovered from the death of his daughter.
But the system is responsible for his death too.
If we declare our depressive tendencies, it goes on our work records, on our adoption papers, resulting in serious difficulties in maintaining an adequate lifestyle/employment history which fuels the depression still further.
How is it reasonable for a caring couple like the Enke's to have concerns about their suitability to bring up a child when war criminals, psychopaths etc are able to breed, adopt or whatever?
This is a damning indictment of a system.
And the system creates suicide of its own accord.
The first occasion I suffered a bout of depression was after Thatcher took power and my generation suddenly came face to face with the Reality that the social system that we had been brought up to expect in our adult lives had been replaced by the monstrosity that is free market capitalism, where it is those very breeding psychopaths who gather the rewards at the expense of our existence.
When I went one year to The Samaritans Annual Conference in York, I stood at the back of a room on the Saturday night with a co-volunteer, Sheila, watching the bizarre disco that was taking place as light entertainment for those attending the event.
"They are just callers with elastoplast on" stated my colleague.
And that is why The Samaritans works - people who have survived the threat of suicide themselves are the best placed to help others who are still in a very dark place indeed.
Violence against self is a right.
Systemic violence isn't.
Robert Enke's funeral takes place tomorrow.
No doubt the mainstream media, which avoids depressive Realities most of the time, will be present en masse to claim their slice of the action, of the distress, the pain and the suffering and horrendous sense of loss.
Tomorrow I'll think of his wife and adopted daughter, and of the poor train drivers who in the process of going about their labours ended up being indirectly responsible for the loss of a good man's life.
And I'll hope that not only will this sad death result in a more enlightened attitude to depression but also that we are able to look forward to a point in the future where non-violent methods of self-termination are available for those who feel that they are unable to go on in this nightmarish hyperreality of psychopathic and systemic violence.
Robert Enke RIP.
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