Stress, burnout and suicide? How does an unsustainable lifestyle contribute to suicide being the option of choice?
In July 09, successful UK lawyer Catherine Bailey drowned herself. Wife and mother of three children, Catherine juggled career and family life. Since the economic downturn, her work had increased significantly and legal experts advise that such lawyers work a 60 hour plus week, including evenings and weekends. Many lawyers, particularly if they have children, take work home with them so that they can spend as much time as possible with their family. Pressure no doubt mounted further with her company’s financial losses and increased redundancies.
The coroner said it was likely she was suffering from post natal depression. Even if this label could be attributed, common sense tells us that this pressure and lifestyle is unsustainable. What influences a person choose a lifestyle that is so pressurised that it suicide is an option? Why look for reasons for her suicide? A mother of three who only returned to work 6 months earlier needs no explanation for why she is feeling stressed, anxious, depressed and unable to cope. Social and cultual pressures to ‘have and be everything’ are so great for many that we conform to living a life that is dictated by ‘shoulds, oughts or musts’. We look around us and say ‘What is wrong with me? Everything else is coping and achieving all these things – why can’t I’.
I encourage you to examine your lifestyle and ask some yourself some pertinent questions:
- What do I really want from my life?
- What is important to me?
- Do the different aspects of my life bring me satisfaction and joy?
- Do I spend enough time with the people I really care about?
- Do I spend enough time with myself reflecting on my life’s journey?
If you have answered ‘no’ to the last three, it is time for change. You alone are responsible for your life choices. Don’t be hoodwinked into living a life dictated by social and cultural expectations – and don’t, like Catherine Bailey set your life up in such a way that suicide is the only option to regain the balance.