02.25
A woman who has attempted suicide four times has been banned from jumping into rivers, canals or onto railway lines.
Bath magistrates granted an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) against Kim Sutton from Odd Down. The 23-year-old was rescued three times from the River Avon in Bath last year after trying to take her life. She was also found hanging from a railway parapet and police had to stop trains to rescue her. Sutton could be jailed for breaking the order.
On Thursday, magistrates sentenced her for three public order offences after deciding at an earlier hearing that throwing herself into a river did constitute disorder. The Asbo seeks to prevent her doing anything which could cause alarm or distress to the public.
- BBC News
Mental health, and the care of people who suffer from problems with it is an important subject for me. I very much feel that our social structures do nothing but let people down when they really need support. People who have mental issues need real help – sometimes this may only be a temporary measure whilst others need longer term care but our attitude to mental health is draconian and simplistic in the extreme. Voluntary admission into specialist units or anti-depressants are generally the way open to sufferers and yet the varying problems and their degrees of seriousness would indicate that the help and treatments available should be as wide and varied.
This woman who has attempted suicide so many times needs help. Not asbo’s or prison or punishments – somehow I don’t think any of those will help at all very much. Magistrates in the UK are well known for being, shall we say, out of touch with the rest of society, but to ban someone from jumping in a river whilst trying to commit suicide strikes me as a little stupid. If this woman is as distressed as her actions indicate then how the fuck is that supposed to help?
I wanted to be all sarcastic with this entry but halfway through realised that I couldn’t. The idea of banning someone from jumping into rivers so that they don’t become a nuisance makes my head ache with astonishment and the sarcasm became a bit lost when put up against the complete lunacy that makes this entry-worthy in the first place…
Presumably the argument would be that her actions are more a “cry for help” than an attempt to end her life.
then the answer would be to help no? and not further distance this person from ‘normal’ society by branding her an anti-social nuisance…
i’m sure there are lots of details about this that we just don’t know about – but even so, someone who hangs herself off of a railway bridge in order to end her life does not deserve to be criminalised surely?
even having pondered this most of the afternoon I still can’t think of a situation where this type of behaviour is best dealt with by an asbo…
The problem is really ‘who can help her’? To say she should help herself is preposterous, as if that were the case dealing with mental illness wouldn’t be an issue.
The authorities generally have more ‘pressing’ matters to deal with in terms of crime and keeping the general peace. They don’t have the time required to actually help mentally ill patients.
The obvious answer is government medical organizations – however these tend to be under-funded, over-crowded and can usually only treat symptons. Much like putting a band-aid on a severed limb.
Traditionally these people would have been cared for by their families or by the community, but with many communities becoming more and more isolated this support structure really doesn’t adequately exist any more for many people.
Personally, I suffer from bi-polar disorder and have been in and out of treatment for years. A few years back I was at a particularily low period in my life where friends withdrew completely as they didn’t want to deal with me, my family was dealing with other problems at the time and I was pretty much alone in a new city. If it wasn’t for one very dear (and patient) friend I don’t expect I’d be here today.
In Vancouver we have a big drug problem – which is usually related to mental illness for many people. Most of these people live on the street after falling through all of the ‘safety nets’ and really have no other options. Most ‘normal’ people in the community only see them as a problem that needs to go away, not as people that they could actually help.
Perhaps if the local community started to take an interest and show some compassion these people could not only be helped back into society, but also provide a meaningful contribution. More often than not I’d expect that if these people had more ties to the community, there would be less of a chance of them tying themselves to a bridge.
There’s no easy answer is there Bryan?
The reason I’m so passionate about this subject is because of someone who I crossed paths with some years ago – he started his ‘bad period’ with a spectacular breakdown and went on having serious issues for some years afterwards. His illness was puncuated with spells of ‘voluntary’ psychiatric care and ‘dribbling’ drugs – as he called them. Some years after he’d recovered he committed suicide in a way that said a lot about his life – unfortunately I can’t comment any more than that for various reasons. Needless to say, despite all the friends he had, some ran a mile and some got even closer and in the end it didn’t change a thing – but it did make the journey less isolating for him maybe…
I think the biggest thing that would really help is for society to stop talking about mental health issues in such hushed tones as if it’s something to be embarrassed about. It isn’t. Chemical imbalances in the brain can cause all sorts of weird and not-so-wonderful effects and the upshot is mental health problems. If people were more open about their state of mind and how these things affected them then it wouldn’t be so stigmatic maybe.
A while ago I blogged about my period of depression. I know a lot of people looked at that and thought, ‘big deal’, but to me it was. My background and upbringing meant that the midly severe depression that I experienced absolutely knocked me for six and if it hadn’t been for my wife and son being so supportive I don’t know how I would have coped. That said, there are still people I talk to who don’t understand the whole issue of mental health and instead bury their heads in the sand or resort to humour to avoid talking about it – that’s far more common than it should be.
Anyway, that all said I’m pleased to note that the UK’s press also picked up on this story yesterday (Saturday) and also condemned the whole thing. Hopefully the person in question will now receive some decent help and not be criminalised instead.
This story really hits home for me. I recently attempted suicide at my university, and was met with a stern message that my behavior was unacceptable by community standards. The reality is, killing myself would have been devastating for those around me. It’s been a bitter pill to swallow, but I guess the only answer is to accept that what I did was wrong.
My behavior did subject me to possible disciplinary consequences. I currently live in a dormitory, and the director of the campus housing contacted my therapist (w/o my permission, btw) to discuss whether or not I should be allowed to stay in my dorms, or should be forced to live somewhere else. The message that I got (and I’m not saying this is what they meant to tell me) was that if I was truly suicidal then I needed to take it somewhere else.
I guess I don’t know enough about the Kim Sutton case to really say. Their hope may be that, by condemning her behavior, they may be able to dissuade her from doing it again. But I think people who want to die are really not thinking clearly. They may even resent the fact that other people are forcing them to live for their own selfish purposes. I guess I don’t know.
I can’t remember when I wasn’t depressed AND SUCICIDAL. i’ve tried to commit suicide several times; but NOT FOR ATTENTION. (i only want to end the pain i continue to feel. ~this is likely true for the person in this story.) HOPEFULLY, DR.s & OTHERS, WILL SOON UNDERSTAND CHRONIC INTENSE MENTAL OR PHYSICAL PAIN IS NOT THE SAME FOR ALL. REQUIRING STRONGER OR MORE FREQUENT MEDICATION AVAILABILE, FOR THESE PEOPLE TO HAVE ANY QUALITY OF LIFE WORTH LIVING. ~ALTHOUGH VERY SAD, DEATH CAN BE “FREEDOM OF CHOICE”.