Loss of former Miss USA

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
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As a general comment, people with clinical depression have trouble accessing help. Depression robs you of initiative and energy. For a family member, I had to intervene and find help because the person was not able to pick up the phone.

Once help is accessed, there is no guarantee either, and apparently that was the situation here.

In the case of psychiatric facilities, often insurance forces discharge before treatment has fully taken, and also if the person stops making progress.

None of this may apply here. I don’t know the situation. Something could have happened that caused an impulsive act, or there could have been longstanding major depressive disorder, a brain-based illness. No matter what, it is tragic and sad.

My Dad committed suicide. It disturbs me when people put blame on a person who does that.

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Might I “suggest” that discussion of mental health / access to treatment / stigma attached / personal experience with mental health / other OT comments be saved for another thread. I don’t believe that such discussion of was what OP envisioned for this thread.

Similarly, let’s respect her memory and not speculate about what assistance she did it did not request.

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Clearly no “fully functioning” person does something like this.

RIP to this young woman and I really feel for her family, who must be out of their minds with heartbreak. She is the same age as D1 and I cannot imagine losing her to something like this. So tragic.

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And do you know for a fact that she chose not to seek medical treatment? Sometimes treatments don’t work, or don’t work quickly enough. Have you ever read potential side effects of anti-depressents? Almost always they include suicidal thoughts or tendancies.

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Agreed. Just pointing out that not every family tragedy is a system failure.

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I am glad that they listed the cause of her death. To keep suicide a taboo word does not help people to tell a friend that they are thinking about it.

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I read an essay she wrote recently. She was talking about turning 30 and how she was “running out of time to matter in society’s eyes.” WOW.

“Each time I say ‘I’m turning 30,’ I cringe a little,” she wrote. “Sometimes I can successfully mask this uncomfortable response with excitement; other times, my enthusiasm feels hollow, like bad acting.

Society has never been kind to those growing old, especially women. (Occasional exceptions are made for some of the rich and a few of the famous.).

I fought this fight before and it’s the battle I’m currently fighting with 30,” she wrote. “How do I shake society’s unwavering norms when I’m facing the relentless tick of time? It’s the age-old question: What happens when ‘immovable’ meets ‘unstoppable?"

It’s hard to fathom how a smart, accomplished, and talented woman could be thinking in those terms at the age of 30. When I was 30, I still felt very young. And the decades since have been wonderful. It seems she was seeing 30 as the beginning of the end. I get that people who enter beauty pageants could get a skewed vision of what constitutes personal worth when they are literally constantly being judged largely on their looks. But this young woman had worked so hard to get multiple degrees and was on the road to professional success. To feel her best years might be behind her at the ripe old age of 30-that’s just tragic.

Apparently she was ■■■■■■■ and bullied online for not being beautiful or feminine enough to deserve to win that pageant. She said it was relentless and difficult to take.

Social media has harmed many a sensitive young person. I feel lucky that there was no such thing in my formative years.

Very very sad.

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I will repeat something which is important.

Depression is an disease like cancer. Like cancer it is the result of our own biological system going awry, and like cancer, poor people get worse treatment, are more likely to not have it diagnosed, and like cancer, poor people have worse prognoses

Also, like cancer, depression can be cured, but just as often it will go into remission, to come back at a later date. Also, like cancer, there are some terminal cases, which we do not know how to treat, and which are invariably fatal.

We actually know more about cancer, and have better treatments for cancer than we do with depression.

Short of locking a person up, and never letting them out of a padded room, there is no way to keep a person with terminal depression from eventually dying. The mental pain and anguish that they feel, and the strength of the suicidal ideation can be so strong that a person can see death as their only release.

Depression is also an insidious disease, because it takes control of our brains, and uses every bit of input that we get to feed into that pain and anguish. You’re beautiful? It will tell you that people only like you when you are beautiful, and once you are a bit older, everybody will abandon you. It will tell you that everybody actually hates you, and only tolerates you because they have use for you now. You’re smart? It tell you that you’re not, and that you’re just faking it, and that people will eventually discover it and your life will be ruined, or “so what” it hasn’t helped you. You’re popular? Everybody actually hates you and only tolerates you out of pity, so when they lose patience, they will leave you.

It tells you that you are, essentially useless, and don’t deserve to live.

Sometimes it takes everything away, and your life becomes grey and meaningless, and not worth the effort, and the only way to keep people from demanding that you do things is to get away from it all.

Even under treatment, it’s a race against time, since, if a person has suicidal thoughts, the question is whether a successful regimen of therapy and drug will be found before it’s too late.

This young woman had a terminal disease which killed her.

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It’s entirely possible that the tsunami of hate messages directed at her on social media (including people telling her to kill herself) may have been overwhelming. Literally no one on CC (unless secretly a celebrity of color) can possibly know how horrible that feels and I doubt that there are many mental health professionals who have a clue about how to deal with it.

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I like the cancer analogy. Like cancer, adult patients may try different treatments, which may or may not work, or may forego some or all treatment all together.

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Yes, completely believe all of the above.

Also, many/most? suicidal people are not doing this out of selfishness or are cavalier about how their suicide will affect loved ones. They often truly believe that they are a burden to their loved ones and this will free them from that burden.

SO scary and heartbreaking to be the loved one of a severely depressed/suicidal person.

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Someone with clinical depression is not a fully functional adult.

Depressions is a horrible disease.

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Perhaps we mean different things. Most people with depression are legally competent and thus have autonomy in their medical decisions. This young woman clearly was, living independently and employed. There would be no basis to question her legal competence or medical decisions, regardless of whether you agree with them. Ending one’s life, through either affirmative actions or refraining from treatment, may not be a choice some would make, but it is legal in every state.

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If you pose a threat to yourself, you can be pink-slipped so competence is actually not legally recognized. The involuntary admission can be extended past three days unless the patient wins with a judge. Patients are locked in, have no shoelaces or staples, and an aide accompanies them when showering. I assume you know these things.

In this case, the young woman was not hospitalized. If she had told anyone her plans, she could have been involuntarily placed in a hospital. Sad this didn’t happen.

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This is terrible. I’m sad for this young woman, her family, all of her friends, and anyone who looked up to her as a role model. It’s a huge loss.

I have empathy for anyone who’s facing challenges. We sometimes get posters here who complain bitterly that they make too much to get aid at their ~$75k/year elite dream college so their kid has to settle for a (still elite, highly selective) ~$40k/year school instead. It’s easy to get irritated at people if you believe they’re not open to taking advantage of the resources they have because so many have so little, but it doesn’t solve anything. I can have empathy for both.

I think the rate of depression has increased since the start of the pandemic. I read recently that it might be one of the side effects of having Covid. Whatever the cause, it’s a horrible illness. My thoughts and well wishes are with anyone who’s affected by it.

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Sometimes it has nothing to do with how affluent someone is or how much access they have to mental health resources. Sometimes the demons win. That’s the huge misconception about depression - that it’s something a person can “get over” or “take a pill for” or throw money at. I unfortunately know of more people than I should who had everything in life that should have made them “happy”, people who had actively been in treatment, people with very supportive family & friends checking on them, but the demons won out. For many people who have depression, it’s a lifetime battle that can take a turn at any time.

That’s why we can’t continue to brush suicide under the rug and not talk about it because it’s “not my kid/friend/family member”. The pandemic has taken a serious toll in many ways that are unrelated to contracting the virus.

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Very sad about Cheslie
I was also sad to hear of the January suicide of Regina King’s son Ian, her only child.
Such devastating losses.

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As much as I wish there was never a pandemic, it has had some positive effects on access to mental health. Telehealth has been a wonderful addition. The ability to access a therapist/doctor online and have medication sent across state lines has made things so much easier. As it pertains to college students, being able to see your doctor/therapist from school instead of only when you are home on break lets doctors check in with kids (as long as the kid is in the same state).

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Is this true for all states? The ability to see a therapist online when at school in a different state?

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I don’t think it is consistent.

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