By Charlton Stanley, Weekend Contributor
Jackson Attorney
Photo by Jackson, MS police department
As I write this, the news is still coming in, and the full story is far from being told. I will provide breaking news as I hear it, but our intrepid bloggers should consider the comments an Open Thread. If you have solid news to report, please do so, and source the information. Otherwise it is just gossip.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that conspiracy theorists are breaking out the tinfoil hats.
What do we know about the death of Mississippi attorney Mark Mayfield? He lived in Ridgeland, Mississippi, a bedroom suburb just north of the city of Jackson. He was 57 years old. About 9:00 Friday morning, he was found dead in his home of a single gunshot wound. There was a note, but authorities have not revealed the contents. That is not unusual. When I worked in the state that was general policy with investigators across the state. Sometimes suicide notes are poignant, sad, and express intense pain. Other notes have content so gross or inflammatory they could not be printed in a family newspaper. In cases of suicide notes, the families often are reluctant to permit release to the public. In other cases, the note may implicate other people in a crime, or include confidential information. If the latter is the case, release of the content of a suicide note risks compromising an ongoing investigation, especially if sealed indictments are involved. Nothing should be read into it if the note contents are not released and made public.
Mayfield was a major supporter of the Tea Party in Mississippi. They fielded a candidate to run against Senator Thad Cochran in the Republican primary, Chris McDaniel. During the run-up to the primary, several men gained illegal entry into the nursing home where Senator Cochran’s wife was staying. She has Alzheimer’s disease. The actual break-in was actually implemented by a Tea Party blogger named Clayton Kelley, who was arrested. A photo of Mrs. Cochran was posted on a website, presumably Kelley’s. It was taken down a short time later.
Kelley was arrested along with four men, including lawyer Mayfield. The others arrested in the incident were Richard Sager, a high school coach and John Beachman Mary of Hattiesburg. Mary was not taken into custody because of what were described as “extensive medical conditions.”
All the men face felony conspiracy charges. I have not found a complete list of all the charges, but I am sure some would have been added later. For one there is a major HIPAA violation.
My take on this as a professional who has worked in the field for more than forty years, is that Mayfield felt he had no options left. His career as a lawyer was over. He knew he would lose his license to practice and almost certainly was going to be sent to prison. Life as he knew it in the past was ended; that is, after he was released from prison.
There are many professions where one can recover and rebuild after a conviction. Martha Stewart is an example of reinventing oneself. On the other hand, actor Fatty Arbuckle never was able to reestablish a career. Having made a study of suicide over the years, and taught a doctoral level course on Thanatology, there is one overriding element almost all suicides have in common. The subject believes there is literally no way out of the bleak situation they are in. That leads to a feeling of hopelessness. This in turn causes a kind of tunnel vision in which they can envision only one way out.
Setting political issues aside for a moment, I believe this is a time for empathy for Mark Mayfield’s family and loved ones. His criminal defense attorney, Merrida “Buddy” Coxwell is a long time acquaintance of mine, and I believe he expressed it as well as I can, “…he was a client, but more importantly, he was a friend for almost 34 years. My heart is completely broken. This is beyond tragic and the people of this community and state have lost a good man…”
The recriminations can start later. I will say; however, that my contacts in Mississippi tell me the Tea Party regulars have tight sphincter syndrome regarding what Mayfield may have put in that note.
Sources:
—ooOoo–
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art is solely the author’s decision and responsibility.
The T-party may be the place where the suicide of the republican party is taking place:
(Raw Story).
To me, suicide is a result, not a cause.
People want to deny that civilizations, cultures, or societies can die, and especially, that they tend to put themselves to death.
That ensures the eventual suicide.
Different strokes for different folks.
People commit suicide, as do groups, for individual reasons.
It is just that they all eventually come under the same diagnosis: a mistake based on not knowing were they are, preferring instead to fantasize about where they are (You Are Here).
Stanley, I carefully read the ten commonalities. That was all I needed to avoid a defective picture in contrast with the book’s objective. Furthermore, I can prevent my own suicide with a rappel line and without understanding suicide at all. And I can choose not to use substance, among other things. Surey, you must agree? Like so many of us have tendencies to do all the time, you just throw in an extra sentence that means nothing (But you cannot prevent suicide without understanding it first). Why? Does it trigger some feel-good emotion otherwise missing in our existence? Is it the artist in us that wants to balance our poetry? Is it the blurt gene in us that rules? I really would like to know why we do these things?
“If the evolution of civilization has such a far reaching similarity with the development of an individual, and if the same methods are employed in both, would not the diagnosis be justified that many systems of civilization—or epochs of it—possibly even the whole of humanity—have become neurotic under the pressure of the civilizing trends? To analytic dissection of these neuroses, therapeutic recommendations might follow which could claim a great practical interest. I would not say that such an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to civilized society would be fanciful or doomed to fruitlessness. But it behooves us to be very careful, not to forget that after all we are dealing only with analogies, and that it is dangerous, not only with men but also with concepts, to drag them out of the region where they originated and have matured. The diagnosis of collective neuroses, moreover, will be confronted by a special difficulty. In the neurosis of an individual we can use as a starting point the contrast presented to us between the patient and his environment which we assume to be normal. No such background as this would be available for any society similarly affected; it would have to be supplied in some other way. And with regard to any therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most acute analysis of social neuroses, since no one possesses power to compel the community to adopt the therapy? In spite of all these difficulties, we may expect that one day someone will venture upon this research into the pathology of civilized communities. [p. 39]
…
Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature
to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They know this—hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension. [p. 40]”
(Civilization and Its Discontents, S. Freud, 1929, emphasis added).
“In other words, a society does not ever die ‘from natural causes’, but always dies from suicide or murder — and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown.” – “A Study of History”, by Arnold J. Toynbee
The autopsy by Toynbee is a version of what Freud was talking about.
Why does it take a psychologist to do one suicide autopsy, but a historian can do it for hundreds of millions we call a “society.”
C’mon, think kids! 😉
Chuck Stanley
…
Ever hear of a psychological autopsy?
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Great concept.
That is what historian Toynbee did to various empires and societies that committed suicide.
He says it is quite common, in fact it is the rule.
Samantha, with all due respect, are you a licensed psychologist? Why should people trust your take on human emotions more than those who have studied them and done the work to become credentialed?
Now, even the WSJ is loosing it.
They have a conspiracy theory that 2,000 veterans were lobotomized by psychologists (Forgotten Soldiers).
Can history repeat itself.
22 soldiers a day, or more, are committing suicide.
Bolton’s piece on shame is as conflicting as Leatherdale’s. To label a baby’s disappointment as shame, borders on professional misconduct. Things are never as complicated as too many of us always make them out to be. I can use simplicity to counsel any individual, and do it better than a room full of psychologists bent on obfuscation.
Samantha,
Did you read the original article? I taught a doctoral level course on the subject. I have every one of Ed Shneidman’s books and many of his articles published in journals. Of course I know he wanted to prevent suicides. So do I. But you cannot prevent suicide without understanding it first.
Ever hear of a psychological autopsy?
The main stream media rag “News Weak” has lost it.
They are saying conspiracy theorists engender “The Plots to Destroy America”.
I don’t think Senator Bob Graham, who has an official conspiracy theory, is doing anything but trying to save America from committing suicide (video in comment, supra).
Like all prior empires have done (Toynbee, supra).
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2014/06/blind-willie-mctell-news-4.html“>Blind Willie McTell News – 4
Stanley, Snyderman’s book objective is suicide prevention. Did you take that into consideration before defending him? The reason I will not check into a hotel room more than 18 floors high is because my rappel line is only 65 meters long and I want to survive, not burn. Anyone truly interested in preventing suicide, would certainly include the risks of highrise occupancy without provisioning at least a rappel line. And there is no cheaper way to insure your life. I have read about those aviation suicides you recount.
Chuck Stanley
Dr. Edwin Shneidman co-founded the American Association of Suicidology. You can find almost more than you wanted to know about the subject at their web site …
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“In other words, a society does not ever die ‘from natural causes’, but always dies from suicide or murder — and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown.” – “A Study of History”, by Arnold J. Toynbee
Annie
Thanks for the link on shame.
on 1, June 29, 2014 at 5:47 pmsamantha
A Hollywood script writer could’ve done better.
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Like Milan Kundera.
samantha,
Those were choices and do not fall under the same rubric. When I saw the events at the twin towers live on CNN, it reminded me of the pilots in WW-1 who jumped from their burning planes. They had no parachutes and no self-sealing gas tanks. Better to just get it over with quickly than burn to death slowly as the plane descended. Those people literally had no choice about whether they were going to die. They were going to die, unwillingly, so their only option was how.
The soldier who jumps on a hand grenade to shield buddies also comes under a different category.
Shneidman coined the term “psychache” to describe the complex of emotions leading up to intentional self-demise.
The jumpers and the soldier can’t be classified as intentional self-demise.
Stanley, when you consider the 9-11 suicide victims, who jumped from the Twin Towers because they believed what was out front in mid air was better than what was behind, then Shneidman sure has missed the mark on more than 1 of his 10 commonalities. It’s as though he drew ten black lines, then filled in the blanks without considering everything. A Hollywood script writer could’ve done better. Or fifth graders, too.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-zesty-self/200905/what-we-get-wrong-about-shame
What we get wrong about shame.
Leatherdale’s contrast of shame verses remorse could not be more confusing. Her patients probably are all as conflicted as her article. There is shame and there is remorse. Why would one co-mingle the terms to muddy the water, especially for patients who probably are already in muddy water? Maybe it’s strategy, to keep patients coming back.
You’d be far better off forgetting about Leatherdale while you are ahead. Just accept Milan’s definition, and go with it.
Emotions, mediated by hormones, for example, can only come from within, that is, unless someone injects you with, say, testosterone, in which case you won’t want to sleep alone tonight. Emotions, however, can be triggered by external events, perceptions, etc.
NIck Spinelli,
What were the circumstances of Vince Foster’s “suicide?” Did it meet your criteria? The guy had just arrived in the Capitol of the World having won the most important election on the planet. Intuitively, he should have been elated and attending a grand ball. But no, he goes to a national park that is outside the jurisdiction of law enforcement and inside the jurisdiction of the park service. It just so happened he was the bearer of the Clinton “Ark of the Covenant.” Oops!
And how about the suicide of the pilot of Malaysian Air Flight 370? Suicide by autopilot after deliberate acts to curtail communication and change course multiple times. Something like the Egypt Air pilot only he subjected the passengers and crew to hypoxia first; he needed a little “quiet time,” huh?
Flags. Maybe an absence of flags is a flag post facto.
http://www.whywesuffer.com/o-shame-where-is-thy-secret-source/
If I’m understanding this correctly the emotion shame can be felt springing from internal sources and external sources.
Dr. Edwin Shneidman co-founded the American Association of Suicidology. You can find almost more than you wanted to know about the subject at their web site. http://www.suicidology.org
Shneidman posited there were ten commonalities in virtually every suicide. He discussed them in great detail in his book, The Suicidal Mind. A summary of his list is at the link. (PDF warning, may load slow)
http://suicidepreventioncommunity.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/shneidman_10-commonalities.pdf