"Paris Jackson 'wanted attention not death'" the headline at News.com.au says.
And then there was this little piece of reporting from TMZ:
Law enforcement sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ ... based on the information the L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. has gathered ... "She wanted attention." One source involved in the case tells us ... her call to a suicide hotline is compelling evidence "she wanted to be saved." The source added, "It makes no sense if you really want to die to call a hotline, where the person on the other end will get an ambulance over to your house."The wiser parts of the internet (and Perez Hilton) took people to task for turning this into a story about fame and attention whores. All too often female depression and suicidal thoughts are dismissed as being something less than lethal. It's a need for attention. Or a cry for help. My own experience with depression and suicidal thinking makes me doubt the idea that it is a warning sign. It's not a symptom that there's a problem. It's the problem. In the moment that you are there you aren't hoping to be found.
But you are really happy when you aren't dead.
This is a truth about those who attempt suicide and live: they are happy to be alive. That doesn't mean that in that moment of attempt they were not serious about being dead. Nobody would doubt that leaping from the Golden Gate Bridge represents a serious attempt to end your life. Yet most of the people who survive the experience report being happy they did. They regret the decision before they hit the water and are glad to be alive. Yet nobody would classify someone jumping from a bridge as just wanting attention or making a cry for help.
The Jackson story is made more interesting by the fact that around the same time, Stephen Fry was opening up about his own suicide attempt last year. Fry has been open about living with bi-polar disorder and his past suicide attempt. He also gives one of the best explanations of the suicidal state I've ever read.
"There is no 'why', it's not the right question. There's no reason. If there were a reason for it, you could reason someone out of it, and you could tell them why they shouldn't take their own life."
Interestingly enough there is someone who thinks that there actually is a reason to suicide and they've figured it out. In a Newsweek story that not enough people are going to read, FSU Professor Thomas Joiner shares his universal theory of suicide. His research shows that suicide is driven by three conditions happening at the same time. A sense of not belonging, the feeling of being a burden to others, and overcoming the fear of death. If you have the first two you will have suicidal attempts or thoughts, but when you add the third factor you get the success.
Even if this is the "why", Fry is correct that it can't be reasoned. If you feel like you don't belong or that you are a burden then just being told by someone you do won't help. Feelings are not overcome by facts.
Joiner's theory also explains why female suicide attempts often looks like attention seeking behavior. Women aren't socialized to be as comfortable with violence as men. While boys play war or die repeatedly playing video game, girls are socialized to be nurturing and caring. The fratboys of Jackass have no trouble placing themselves in physical harm while the ladies of Teen Mom only place their psyches on the line. It's very likely that Paris Jackson was feeling as if she did not belong and burdensome. The far of dying (and of putting her family through another funeral) placed her on the phone for help.
If anything, we should be lauding the girl for that call. She should be given a medal for going and getting help instead of dying. Instead she's labeled as attention seeking and her pain is dismissed as not real.
This is a big deal. It's a big deal because this year more people will die from suicide than from any other cause of death. And I don't want someone to not pick up the phone and ask for help out of fear of being charged with seeking attention.
