Men Behaving Suicidally

Here's a shock: Richard Jeni, the comedian who killed himself in March, was mentally ill. That's according to the LA County Medical Examiner. Sad.

There's been quite the spate of celeb suicides this year, the most discouraging a recent murder-suicide involving Chris Benoit, a pro wrestler. He killed his wife and child, who was apparently retarded, over the weekend and then hanged himself. There have been various reports that this was a case of "roid rage" or insanity caused by steroids. Other reports have it that he suffered from depression. WWE claims that roids can't have been the cause and that deliberation was involved. Many on the Net also claim that steroid-induced rage doesn't exist.

I find it difficult to believe that a young man with a successful wrestling career would kill his wife and child--whatever familial difficulties they faced--without something else being afoot. As with Jeni, we can talk about depression and psychosis and mental illness all we want, but it's been clear to me for a long time that men in America simply do a horrible job of managing their own psychological well-being and turn on themselves and others in ways that are unmanly. That's for another day.

As for roid rage, I saw an example of it when I was in college in the 1980s. A guy I was friends with in the dorms took roids because he was a bodybuilder and one night he went completely insane at a party and trashed a dorm bathroom--he actually smashed a toilet with one kick--and withdrew from college a few days later. I've long wondered how life ended up working out for him.