Who knows?

What makes a man, who has a seemingly happy marriage with two teenage children a fantastic career and great future, commit suicide. In the case of Gary Speed, former Newcastle, Leeds, Everton, Bolton, Sheffield utd and Wales player this is what he had and that was what he did. On the Saturday before his untimely death, he was on football focus, a BBC sport show focusing on, yep you guessed it football. Gary was smiling and joking with the pundits and even had some thoughts and plans for the future. Why then take his own life?

1 million suicides occur around the worked each year with some 20 - 30 million attempted suicide each year 20-30 million! The world must be a dark dark place if that many people attempt or commit suicide . Where is the support network, do people actually know about then and if so why not seek help. There has to be an underlying reason why people commit suicide and one of those reasons is depression. Depression is not a sign of weakness or something we can just 'pull ourselves together' it is an illness which sufferers should not be ashamed of. If you can't talk to friends or family try to speak with a professional who has dealt with this condition before or someone who had or still is going through the symptoms of depression and see how they coped or how they are coping with it the condition.

We all have been depressed at some point in our lives. Maybe our partners have left us, lost a job, lost money gambling etc. How we cope with this depends on the type of people we are and thus the length of time the depression lasts for. If you have been sad/depressed in the past how many times has someone said 'shape up'  'pull yourself together', you don't know how lucky you are...' blah blah, not realising that you are actually hurting inside and external circumstances in most cases have no baring on your feelings, which may have been with you, suppressed in most cases for years.
This is possibly why there are so many successful (if that's the right word) and unsuccessful attempts at suicide. Depression is just not taken seriously by people or maybe they think everybody should adopt the british stiff upper lip. So sufferers tend to 'deal' with it and put on a brave face, instead of relieving this pain, which could manifest itself in physical pain, such as loss of sleep and appetite, mood swings, low immune system leading to more illness and so on.

Maybe this was the case with Gary Speed, who knows I doubt we will ever know, but with all the trapping of fame and fortune he was still a man who felt that taking his own life would ease the burden on himself, but has it began with his wife kids and other family members and friends?

What is also worthy of note is the fact TEN football players have now sought professional help due to Gary Speeds suicide.

RIP Gary Speed