Scott Hutchison

[RiG]

I'm not going to pretend I was a fan of FR. I had heard of them but hadn't listened to them at all and yet this news has still hit me in the feels somewhat.

Yet again, a young male unable to open up about how they are feeling has taken their own life. It's just not right and it's a sad indictment of the culture across the UK that men are often unable to open up about how they are feeling. This stigma desperately needs to be addressed. I agree with the post above about moving on from the "It's okay to not be okay" philosophy. If you are feeling down but you can't talk to your pals about it there are folk out there who will listen and try and help.

• Samaratins 116 123
• CALM 0800 58 58 58
• Papyrus 0800 068 41 41
• Breathing Space 0800 83 85 87

Give them a call, try not to suffer in silence. Opening up to someone whether you know them or not is the best thing you can do.

[The Moonster]

I think the fact that in Scott's twitter outbursts he talks about how he feels he's not been good to the people closest to him but yet his close friends and family say the complete opposite shows how complex mental health issues can be. The guy was loved by everyone and everybody who met him thinks he's a lovely person, yet he thinks he's been so awful to the ones he loves that he feels he doesn't deserve to live any more.  I don't know what the answer is for people who can inexplicably feel that way.

I don't like out-pourings of grief when celebrities die but I'm definitely pretty sad about this. 

[Rodhull]

7 minutes ago, The Holiday Song said:

I wonder if we need to push on from the “It’s okay to not be okay” philosophy which, whilst true, doesn’t make people better. Particularly folk like Scott.

Anyway RIP to the guy. 

I don't really see how that message is inherently wrong though. It's not meant to be a cure, but encouragement for people that it's okay to seek help.

I think going the other way again would dissuade some people from speaking out surely?

[Guest bernardblack]

What worries me here is that we knew he was struggling and he had spoken out in interviews etc and yet this still happened. Beyond devastated

[The Holiday Song]

4 minutes ago, Rodhull said:

I don't really see how that message is inherently wrong though. It's not meant to be a cure, but encouragement for people that it's okay to seek help.

I think going the other way again would dissuade some people from speaking out surely?

I don’t mean moving away from it, sorry if not clear. More using that as a starting point and then expanding on it to help people get better. From personal experience it seems you hear a lot about not being okay is okay, but that’s kinda where it ends. Depression is chronic for some people, it’ll always get worse unless something changes.

[Boostin' Kev]

I remember listening to the debut album when it was released, it's not the kind of music I enjoy tbh. Listened to Floating in the Forth after reading about this and it is pretty grim. Did he get help after writing that? 

[Hedgecutter]

21 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

I think the fact that in Scott's twitter outbursts he talks about how he feels he's not been good to the people closest to him but yet his close friends and family say the complete opposite shows how complex mental health issues can be. The guy was loved by everyone and everybody who met him thinks he's a lovely person, yet he thinks he's been so awful to the ones he loves that he feels he doesn't deserve to live any more.  I don't know what the answer is for people who can inexplicably feel that way. 

At times some people just feel that the world be a better place without them and that it's worth taking the hit for those you care about. The longer these thoughts go on the more you can manage to convince yourself that it's the case. 

This is why it absolutely infuriates me when people automatically assume that suicide is a selfish or cowardly act, which is sadly still part of the aforementioned social stigma. 

[NotThePars]

I think he had the ability to talk about it and he seems to have been fairly open about how he felt. Talking about it isn’t enough. There needs to be a complete overhaul in how we think about mental health and how it’s addressed by the government and society at large. It’s a tremendously alienating and lonely time at the moment and I can’t see it getting better for a long time.

[Busta Nut]

Fucking gutted.
 

[Richey Edwards]

10 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

I think he had the ability to talk about it and he seems to have been fairly open about how he felt. Talking about it isn’t enough. There needs to be a complete overhaul in how we think about mental health and how it’s addressed by the government and society at large. It’s a tremendously alienating and lonely time at the moment and I can’t see it getting better for a long time.

I believe that society has a tendency towards "normalising" mental health problems with warm words and the whole "it's ok not to be ok" thing, rather than looking deeper into them and having more services in place that encourage and empower people to overcome them. Talking about mental health is obviously a very positive thing, but there is a misconception that talking about mental health will solve the problem on it's own. This has given birth to White Knights begging people who are depressed to speak to them before they "do anything stupid". The truth is that, when it comes down to it, only the person who has depression (or any other mental health problem) has the power to defeat their own mental health illness. They just need guidance and encouragement from friends, family members, professionals etc to empower them to do so. Talking about mental health is only the start, it isn't the goal.

Most mental health problems are very complex and deeply ingrained in the mind of the sufferer, so it takes more than warm words and pills to cure them.

People might disagree, but that's just me talking from experience as someone who has had crippling depression in the past.

 

Anyway, I am pretty gutted about this. It is very sad that such a talented man whose music resonated with so many people felt that the only way out of how he was feeling was to take his own life. Rest in peace Scott.

[DA Baracus]

Yeah talking alone doesn't always help, especially with those who have deep issues.

I always hear that admitting that you have a problem/suffer from depression is a huge help, and perhaps it is for some folk, but didn't do anything for me. I've been to counselling numerous times (in fact I've got another appointment on Monday) and whilst it might help a bit, it seems like more of a short term solution. I've also called pretty much all of the phone lines mentioned, but they all just say the same thing; go see your GP. I've seen my GP and I've been on medication for 3 years now. During that time I've done things like self harm and had serious suicidal thoughts. I've also felt pretty decent and had many good days/weeks/spells. A single shite day though can really f**k you up.

It's a tough one. No idea what the solution is. Is there even one?

[Hedgecutter]

39 minutes ago, Richey Edwards said:

The truth is that, when it comes down to it, only the person who has depression (or any other mental health problem) has the power to defeat their own mental health illness. They just need guidance and encouragement from friends, family members, professionals etc to empower them to do so. Talking about mental health is only the start, it isn't the goal...

... People might disagree, but that's just me talking from experience as someone who has had crippling depression in the past.

Sometimes talking in depth to ones closest to you is near impossible when you know it'll have some of them near-constantly worried about you and what you'll possibly do if you leave the house alone, even if it is genuinely just to get some milk from the local shop.  That's a fear and burden that you don't really want to place on their shoulders if you can avoid it, although I appreciate that dealing with such events should be part and parcel of any serious relationship.

This is also me talking from experience.  There are posters on here that know more about my experiences of depression than my long-term partner does for this very reason as I know it would (possibly continually) affect her fairly badly if she knew the full details.  The only other person in the know without P&B affinities is my GP.  I actually feel quite bad about this approach to date, but that's just the way of it.  As people have already highlighted, you don't think these things through particularly well at the time. 

[Venti]

Sad news. Didn't really know the band tbh. Reading that one of their songs is called 'Floating in the Forth' is pretty eerie.

[Adam]

Body confirmed as being Scott. 

Quite eerie and probably morbid on my part, but was thinking if he was singing Floating in the Forth in his head as he made his way to the bridge.  I was listening to that very song this morning and whilst it has always been quite a sad song, the lyrics sent a chill down me today, just thinking what he must have been going through.

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

It's always been a very poignant, beautiful song with some fantastic imagery. That second verse was always a little haunting, but now it's almost unbearably so.

[HenryHill]

Talking will help a lot of folk but not everyone. But sometimes, no matter how many pills you have, all the psychology, cbt, psychiatrists amd mindfulness in the world just gets blown away. I would have been dead years ago, but being a complete wimp and a lack of convinient guns or very high buidlings has got in the way long enough for me to come out the other side

[smpar]

A couple of my pals are into them and whilst I’ve known of them for years, I just never got round to giving them a go. Since he was reported missing, I’ve listened to a few songs and I could tell straight away why people have connected with Scott, his music and his writing. You can tell that there will be thousands of folk out there who will be utterly devastated at losing Scott.

I have heard some amazing stories about him and he genuinely seemed like a fantastic person. How somebody who was loved so intensely by so many people, yet felt that he didn’t deserve to live any longer, is a chilling reminder that we are still a long, long way away from fully understanding those who are living with mental health difficulties.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

With the type of society we live in where there is so much pressure to conform to one way or another, to always be happy, to be rich, successful, to look a certain way, making money the be all and end all, or saying its not alright to be single/unemployed/pc/un pc or whatever other pressure is placed on people by their peers/society we’ve created a mental health monster. You can see the cause in every generation, with todays teenagers its mostly appearance based, with the older generation it largely stems from finances or some other bullshit pressure to conform to ‘normality’ and thus make anyone who’s different feel like an absolute outcast. The biggest cause of suicide imo is society, our lack of awareness of others suffering and our own self obsession.

Im not sure to what extent any of that applies to Scott, perhaps he belongs to that tragic category of beautiful people who made other people feel in the same way Robin Williams etc did, where their own pain inspired the amazing things they created but ultimately became too much for them.
I hope his family can reflect in the genuine shared feeling of sympathy and empathy many people have for them and take some comfort from knowing just how much of an impact he made on people, which might mean little now but in time can help them.

However if this encourages us to have a conversation about suicide and perhaps even inspires 1 person to call breathing space at that crucial time then that would be a positive thing.

I lost a loved one to suicide, in truth her mother battled to keep her alive every day for 17 years, the pain she felt was extraordinary and despite every approach imagine-able she just had to end the pain, knowing the impact of this on her parents and all the rest of us who loved her its something that causes a great degree of pain which persists and will forever, the tragic thing being some felt the need to tell her to ‘pull herself together’ etc which imho is a disgusting thing (which also doubtlessly made her feel even more isolated) but a clear sign we really don’t understand depression/suicide nearly as much as we claim to.

If you genuinely have concern for a loved one then speak to them, don’t be afraid to ask them ‘are you thinking about suicide’ because in all the training i’ve had thats the one thing we are told that is a very important thing to discuss. If you believe you have a loved one in crisis you really need to get them assessed, they may be angry at the time but i’d rather have my loved ones here and angry at me than not.

[thistledo]

Had never listened to him, except one night before a Hearts v Thistle game when the stand opened, he had a hell of a voice and I actually quite enjoyed it, but never went out my way to listen to more. Spent the last couple of hours shuffling Frightened Rabbit on Spotify and his music is very much what I'm into. Odd feeling listening to it now knowing what's happened. Tragic loss. 

[banana]

1 hour ago, DA Baracus said:

It's a tough one. No idea what the solution is. Is there even one?

There's a cocaine/drugs thread on the go at the moment too with folk talking about their generally rough experiences. The talk here is similar, but is also wondering about solutions to address the symptoms. No-one (bar the guy who brought up the current treatment of men) is scratching the surface never mind digging deep to understand the causes from which solutions can be posited.

Everyone has different causes, what are the patterns? Abuse? Loneliness? Meaning? Purpose? Usefulness? Health? Status? Relationships?

From these, are folk just not as well prepared to bear these problems, to fix them if possible? Someone mentioned stoicism as a bad thing, I disagree as long as that stoicism includes taking ownership of and fixing your shit. We're less stoic now than in any time in history, the reduction doesn't seemed to have helped.

What has happened in society to increase the severity and frequency of the causes above?