Oh my god

[one_undone]

Burt Bacharach and Angie Dickinson's daughter, Nikki Bacharach, killed herself -- apparently over her inability to cope with her Asperger's syndrome, if this article is to be believed: http://tinyurl.com/2vhcn9

How very sad.

:(

Comments

[angiepen]

Wow, yeah. :( And that one commenter asked a very good question -- I wonder whether the whole concept of "Asperger's ravaging her brain" was the way Nikki saw it or the way someone else saw it and impressed upon her? :/

Angie

[one_undone]

Unfortunately, either is likely. Both are sad. =/

[jrittenhouse]

I saw this when it happened; sad and terrible.

There's a very long time friend of mine that has a pretty strong AS or mild autism, I'm not sure which, and they've been more and more shredding out over their difficulties with the world; won't take any positive steps towards dealing with it, just wants a flick of a wand and it's all gone. Of course, no such thing. I've lost any idea as to what the heck to tell them...

It's sort of a situation where I would not be terribly surprised to hear from their parent one day that they'd committed suicide. Horribly saddened, because I've known them for 25 years, but...

[lilirose]

I heard about this when it happened back in January. It's terribly sad, but I think it's disgusting that the family is publicly blaming the suicide on the fact that she had Asperger's.

I think it's fair to assume that she committed suicide because she suffered from depression. I'm willing to believe that possibly the depression was brought on becasue she wasn't recieving the proper understanding and support needed by a young adult with Asperger's, but I'm not willing to believe that "her brain was ravaged" or that she had no provocation whatsoever other than Asperger's.

I was also extremely suicidal in my early 20s and made several suicide attempts (not "suicidal gestures"- I honestly intended to die. For example, taking 150 Soma and 100 Esgic at a time when I expected to be alone for at least 48 hours is not a "gesture

[one_undone]

Well, I can see what you're saying, but I think it's important to realize that not everyone who simply doesn't cope well with their disability is clinically depressed. Some people are just impulsive or make poor decisions and have poor insight and judgment. Even if in their day to day lives they seem to manage okay -- even with some struggling -- that doesn't mean that there isn't the sort of person who, at a certain point, reaches their tolerance for frustration, decides they don't want to do this anymore, and makes the terrible decision to kill themselves. As you know, Aspies have differing abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and although it would be easy to assume they were brushing things under the rug with the "ravaged her brain" bit, it may well have been that her reasoning was so impaired because of her Asperger's that she was experiencing lapses in judgment which were severe enough that she took her own life

[lilirose]

I realise that all Aspies are different, of course, but I can't agree that "lapses in jugdement" that could cause a decision to suicide are a possible symptom of AS. I cannot see AS being a direct, genuine cause of suicide in the absence of any mental health issue of any other kind. (Asperger's is a neurological syndrome, not a mental health problem.)

I could easily see a person with AS making a huge mistake that lead to accidental death (for example, some Aspies I know are unable to feed themselves without help, and I know at least one who came dangerously close to starving to death because he lacked the ability to discern the pain he was feeling as "hunger" and also lacked executive functioning skills to cook himself a meal). But I can't wrap my brain around the concept that a lack in judgement could cause a person to actively commit suicide when there is no mental illness present.

Maybe we'll just have to agree to disagree on this.