For many, Robert Enke had it all. At 32, the Hannover 96 keeper was considered one of the front runners for the national squad starting position in South Africa next year. That is, until he deliberately stepped in front of a moving train last Tuesday.
Unbeknownst to almost everyone in his life, Enke suffered from depression but was too scared to reveal it. He was, as is usually the case, considered a highly affable man, which made his suicide all the more shocking. It would not be until Teresa Enke made a statement after his death that he had been suffering from depression that the truth would be revealed to his teammates, fans, and the media.
More than 45,000 people attended Enke’s memorial at Hannover stadium today, where stunned teammates carried his rose covered coffin to the center of the pitch. Supporters, many in tears, held aloft the team’s colours in a show of solidarity.
Of course, there were mitigating circumstances that most knew nothing about that compounded Enke’s depression. The first was the death of his daughter Lara at the age of 2 due to heart failure. The second, and most telling, was his concern that if his depression was ever revealed that his newly adopted 8-month-old daughter would be taken away from him and his wife. So Robert Enke suffered in fear of what might occur were his depressive state made public, and believing that there was no other alternative, he stepped in front of a train.
Perhaps the severity of Enke’s depression had taken its toll and he could no longer bear it. Perhaps he did it to ensure that his wife would not have to endure losing another child. No matter the reason, Enke’s father went on the record after his death and stated that his son has suffered from depression “for a long time”.
A stadium full of strangers gathered to mourn the passing of a man that they didn’t know, though adored given his feats on the pitch. The same cannot be said of countless others that take their own lives due to their own battles with mental illness. Like Enke, many of them were simply too afraid of what they perceived would be the negative repercussions of revealing the truth – of what others would think and how the stigma of mental illness would ultimately impact their lives. And that, of course, leads us to the real question. To those of you that view mental illness as something fearful or negative, which is better, life or death?
To my immediate right there is a container filled with medication that I must take on a daily basis to regulate the effects of the mental illness that I have suffered from my entire life – Type 2 Bipolarity. Three years ago I found myself in an emergency room having accidentally overdosed on Ativan having mixed it with alcohol after enduring months of debilitating dysphoric mania. Had I actually intended to take my own life, the 45 or so pills that I took that night would have more than accomplished the task. Thankfully, that was not my intent, and when I hit the floor in the room next to where my parents were watching television, they were able to act in time. I would spend the following days in a psychiatric ward confronting the reality that I was, in fact, mentally ill, and in doing so came to the conclusion that it was nothing to be ashamed of. I was lucky. A few more months of the state in which I was suffering and I could very well have found myself in the same position as Robert Enke.
When someone close to us, or that we revere for whatever reason, is diagnosed with cancer, or a similar illness, the reaction is one of understanding. After all, who chooses to get cancer? Why that same reasoning is not applied to those that suffer from mental illness will forever remain a mystery to me. Having been in the darkest of places, I can assure you that no one would chose to ever go there willingly. So why are the two perceived differently? What within us does not allow our humanity to see the similarity? And when will the time come when the Robert Enke’s of the world won’t have to fear the perceived repercussions of admitting the existence of their illnesses in fear of losing everything?
If you live your life, day in and day out, in fear of losing everything, suicide becomes an answer, not a problem. And in saying that, who then is to blame for that reality? The individual, or the social stigma that they must contend with that drives them to it? Most of you will claim the former the reason, and therein lies the problem.
