Taking its toll

Brendan texted me yesterday to say that Robin Williams had taken his own life. Williams’ untimely death shocked the world. How can someone so talented who has given so much pleasure to so many people be so utterly depressed as to want to end it all? Poor mental health is a huge problem in our society and it shouldn’t take an A-list celebrity suicide to get people talking about it. Every year about 300 people are killed on New Zealand’s roads. Road deaths are readily reported on the news. You can find the figures all over the internet, and they’re updated almost daily. Road casualties are broken down month-by-month, by age, location, and type of road user. And wouldn’t you know it? NZ road fatalities are in steady decline. We’re all becoming better drivers and our roads are becoming less dangerous. But while the road toll is decreasing, over 500 New Zealanders are killing themselves every year, and that figure isn’t going down. Just imagine for a minute that suicide statistics were displayed so prominently and in such detail on a government website, and updated every time a suicide was confirmed. Suicides would be the second or third item on radio news bulletins. Millions of dollars of taxpayer money would be spent on suicide-prevention adverts, specifically targeting those most at risk. By tracking the stats, you’d know exactly who those at-risk people are because, guess what, they aren’t the same people they were in 1994. Knowledge is power. Yes, John Kirwan’s depression campaign has been a definite help, but so far it feels like we’ve only just scratched the surface of the problem. Depression, and suicide in particular, still seems to be largely a taboo subject.

I talked to Brendan on the phone last night. We talked about Mark, a 23-year-old guy who, for a while, attended both the Auckland autism group and the North Shore men’s depression group. He died on a sunny afternoon in August 2011 when his car crossed the centre line and collided with a truck. I don’t think it was ever determined whether or not it was suicide. Mark had a combination of mental health and other conditions: depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and Asperger’s, although I never would have guessed he was on the spectrum. He was what I’d call a “pretty boy”, and he had a habit of getting closer to women than they might like. He came from a well-off family north of Auckland; I don’t think he had a good relationship with his parents. In September 2010 he wanted to move away from home and he asked me if I’d take him on as a flatmate. I said no, using the age gap as an excuse, but really I knew he’d be hard work with all his conditions. If I’d said yes, he might still be alive today. If a butterfly flaps its wings and all that.

 

The autism group on Monday worked rather well. Our facilitator had to leave at short notice but that wasn’t a problem – we were more than capable of facilitating ourselves. My phone app – remember that? – cropped up in conversation. If I’m ever going to create apps or games myself, perhaps my best bet is to make a Facebook game.

Here's a great article on FiveThirtyEight about Nigel Richards, the Kiwi Scrabble player who is number one in the world by some distance and gets virtually zero recognition here in New Zealand. He's almost a recluse and is Zen-like when he plays Scrabble. Both his interests are obsessions: Scrabble and cycling. If he wasn't somewhere on the spectrum, I'd be surprised.

Here's another good article from Joe Bennett, describing a moneyed suburb of Auckland. He's right - house prices have reached almost mythical levels in that city. Things were bad enough when I looked at properties in 2009. The no-price thing was a real turn-off. I'd look at a place and ask an agent for just the first figure of the price. Three or four? Four or five? Give me a clue. Of course if I'd actually bought, we'd be talking six or seven now. But that was 2009, the year when my income peaked. I'd be really surprised if I ever earn as much in real terms as I did then, and I knew that even then (and if by some miracle I do make that much, it won't be from a salary). The earning power of a graduate is "supposed" to peak around fifty; mine peaked in my late twenties. Going back to the article, Joe Bennett has a remarkable knack of making mundane things, like that road sweeper, sound interesting, almost beautiful.

I had my Chinese lesson tonight. I still think it'll be ages until I can speak vaguely comprehensible Mandarin, if I ever do. And as for reading or writing it, that will take even longer. At the moment we're using pinyin, which is the most popular Romanisation system. The design of the system was headed by Zhou Youguang, a remarkable man who is still alive at 108. The Language Log blog is interesting reading. It covers Chinese quite often. The latest post on the blog, written by Victor Mair, features a Chinese restaurant menu. The two most impressive things in that post (to me) are that: (a) the Chinese have at least seven words for cabbage, and (b) Victor Mair knows them all.

My car failed its warrant. I'm not surprised. It's got some fairly large patches of rust on both of the front pillars. I'm getting the patches repaired for now, but all this rust will probably be end of my car eventually.

It feel like rust patches are sprouting all over this blog too. I don't think my writing is up to much these days, and I don't enjoy it as much as I used to either. So we might be nearing the end.

We need to talk about it

Suicide. More people die that way in New Zealand than on the roads, and the deaths are just as preventable, but it's almost a taboo subject. Our attitude needs to change, otherwise we'll continue to see over 500 people a year taking their own lives, as it appears a member of the Auckland autism group did last month.

One theory I had for our high suicide rate was high gun ownership rates, especially for men who live in remote areas, but some figures I saw last week - yes, the topic is finally receiving media coverage - did not include shooting as a common method. Here's an article I saw yesterday, suggesting a link between antidepressants and youth suicide.

In other disturbing news, an 88-year-old man from the Wellington suburb of Newtown - not far from me - was found in his apartment, having been dead for a year. It's a shocking indictment of the society we now live in. If and when I buy a property, I'll make sure I pop in on my neighbours from time to time.

Triple birthday celebrations

Yesterday I didn't feel good at all. The morning's strategy meeting went by in a complete haze; at some stage I was probably informed of what work I might have been expected to do in the next few months and in what order, but everything in that meeting just bounced off me. While my colleagues discussed high-level business plans or made in-jokes that I pretended to understand, all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there. However my ears did prick up at the mention of suicide exclusions. Currently we pay out on suicides as long as the policy has been in force for a certain length of time, but because suicides make up a significant percentage of our death claims it was suggested we exclude them completely. This matter was discussed for all of thirty seconds, and I don't think we'll actually go through with the proposal, but it's only an issue at all because so many New Zealanders are killing themselves. Our suicide rate is above the OECD average and almost twice that of the UK. Why should it be so high in such a beautiful country as New Zealand? The best explanation I can come up with is that a relatively high proportion of Kiwis live in rural areas and are therefore isolated; many of these people also have access to guns. But maybe it's also because kiwi blokes don't feel they can talk about their problems. I really don't know.

After the meeting I raced off to see Andy - I was half an hour late. He could tell I wasn't at my best and that my work was probably having an impact, so he brought in a woman to assist me with my work situation. She was very helpful. I told her exactly what was going on - Andy said if it was a job interview I'd have given a good demonstration of what not to say - but there was no point in dodging the issue. So far I've managed to control myself, but I'm concerned that if I stay in my current job much longer, I might suddenly blow up and injure myself or someone else.

Yesterday was Andy's birthday. It was also Uncle Dan's 69th birthday so I emailed him, wishing him all the best at what must be a very difficult time. I don't know what it is about August 21st, but Bazza's speedo also clicked over (mentioning Bazza and speedo in the same sentence just gave me a really bad mental image). I was the only person to call him yesterday - evidently nobody else knew or cared that it was his birthday. Apparently he's dropped a few kilos since I last saw him. We'll hopefully get a game of tennis in next weekend. While he's got a new racket and should be fitter and meaner than ever, I've been almost completely absent from the court of late, so I imagine I'll be in for a tough time despite my good record against him.

The woman from the flat down the road never got back to me. I called her yesterday but she had forgotten who I was. She then remembered, so we talked for a couple of minutes until her phone cut out. I tried ringing her back but couldn't get through. I very much doubt I'll ever hear from her again. I never got my hopes up too much - I've learnt not to - but even I expected things to go a bit further than this.

I wasn't in the greatest of moods last night so I broke my "no poker till September" promise, thinking that might make me feel better, which I guess it did. I entered the next available freeroll tournament on PokerStars which happened to be razz, a game that shares some similarities to badugi and deuce-to-seven in that high cards are bad and pairs are bad. I made the top 5%, but eventually bombed out in 133rd place after 2¾ hours.

Dad came up with a clever idea for deriving an income from my puzzles, so I've spent some time today on that. I sent off my CV to a couple of agencies and did a long session on Bazza's exercise machine. It's been a gorgeous day outside, but as has so often been the case lately, it was wasted on me.