All over social media this past week, people have been lamenting the loss of Anthony Bourdain. They talk about him like he was a friend and lament his suicide as their loss.
Let me make this clear: Anthony Bourdain was a man of privilege. He literally had the world at his feet and had access to the finest of everything, including mental health resources. Instead, he took his life and left his 11-year-old daughter to deal with a lifetime of untold trauma.
His action is disgusting. Was he suffering from mental illness? Yes. Do those that, say, abuse children also suffer from mental illness? Yes. In both instances, due to the act, children and loved ones are left with wounds that will stay with them their entire lives.
Their entire lives.
If this guy abused his daughter, we’d not celebrate him. But he still delivered a dump-truck load of dysfunction on her, dysfunction that will impact her as long as she lives, and we lament our loss?
How about we shame this for what it is – a selfish, cowardly, and hurtful act?
Why in the world would you so traumatically hurt the ones you supposedly love?
Spare me the depression that leads to the "they're better off without me" self-talk that can occur. We do stuff for people we love because we love them. Up to and including sucking it up and finding some way, any way, to go on.
Likewise, when you have a kid, your job is to take care of them, and certainly not to emotionally cripple them for the rest of their lives. When you have a kid, your rules change. It's not about you anymore.
What Anthony Bourdain did was not heroic, understandable, or justifiable. It was sick and abusive.
God bless his poor little daughter. She's going to need it.
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