Suicide

The man had psychiatric issues. Perhaps there was bullying going on, or perhaps it was paranoia and/or over-sensitivity on his part.

The judge adjourned the inquest to get more information, rather than basing his decision purely on the widow's opinion of what went on - maybe we should exercise similar caution, rather than calling for the "bully" to be "outed" in some sort of witch hunt.

I remember a case a good few years back where a young lad committed suicide, and his parents blamed his principal for "bullying" him, because he'd had to have a chat with him about his behaviour in class. The principal, a very gentle well-respected caring man - who was already blaming himself unnecessarily - ended up having a complete mental breakdown himself, spent months in a psychiatric hospital, and never returned to work. He and his family ended up suffering almost as much as the other family involved; completely unnecessary in my opinion, but I guess the parents needed SOMEONE to blame.

My point is, the widow in this case may feel the same way. Doesn't mean the rest of us have to jump on it.

Ursus Horribilis wrote: »

It's not helped by the way HR deals with it. They made a bollix of it where I worked and I'm not sure the end result improved anyone's lot. I've heard equally bad stories from friends' workplaces. It seems to be rare that a bully gets a P45 and they work out ways to be more subtle. The issue just rumbles on until someone leaves.

Same in a place I used to work. I left in the end, since nothing was being done about it since it was reported many months before. Well, apparently it was addressed but nothing changed. I left and my formal complaint left with me so they didn't have to do anything.

I have been bullied in School and in the workplace after that, however I never let bullies get to me or let them get away with it. In school I was suspended a few times for fighting back, one day I broke a 12 year olds nose and gave him a right hammering, that ended his bullying days of course I was portrayed as a bully myself but I was merely been reactionary. I was taught always fight back and never let the bullies win, I have done this all my life and it is a good lesson to teach a kid to use his fists to defend himself.

Later in my early twenties I started work in a hotel and a jumped up prick of a bar manager tried the same stuff, it started as verbal comments and then moved to rota changes and general abuse, I was logging abuse and one evening in January when he was all boasting about his new Audi and I driving a 10 year old car myself, he made some particularly vile remark to me and within seconds I had him knocked unconscious and only for the bar man and manager holding me back I'd probably have killed him there and then.

Guards were called but my solicitor defeated the hotel and the bar manager, there was no civil or criminal charges and the manager was fired and never came back to work after two Foreign members of housekeeping revealed his sexual harassment of them, and that cost the Hotel north of €100,000.

I resigned the job but didn't sue the hotel as I think I thought him a life lesson that evening. For the poor guy who died in Munster Joinery why he didn't just do the same to those bullies is beyond me. These people are predatory and like a fox will circle on a weak rabbit but won't go for those who will stand up to them.

theguzman wrote: »

I have been bullied in School and in the workplace after that, however I never let bullies get to me or let them get away with it. In school I was suspended a few times for fighting back, one day I broke a 12 year olds nose and gave him a right hammering, that ended his bullying days of course I was portrayed as a bully myself but I was merely been reactionary. I was taught always fight back and never let the bullies win, I have done this all my life and it is a good lesson to teach a kid to use his fists to defend himself.

Later in my early twenties I started work in a hotel and a jumped up prick of a bar manager tried the same stuff, it started as verbal comments and then moved to rota changes and general abuse, I was logging abuse and one evening in January when he was all boasting about his new Audi and I driving a 10 year old car myself, he made some particularly vile remark to me and within seconds I had him knocked unconscious and only for the bar man and manager holding me back I'd probably have killed him there and then.

Guards were called but my solicitor defeated the hotel and the bar manager, there was no civil or criminal charges and the manager was fired and never came back to work after two Foreign members of housekeeping revealed his sexual harassment of them, and that cost the Hotel north of €100,000.

I resigned the job but didn't sue the hotel as I think I thought him a life lesson that evening. For the poor guy who died in Munster Joinery why he didn't just do the same to those bullies is beyond me. These people are predatory and like a fox will circle on a weak rabbit but won't go for those who will stand up to them.

He might not have had the strength of character you have, also not everyone has dynamite in their fists to teach the bully a lesson- so physical violence is not always the solution, some would say it never is.

theguzman wrote: »

I have been bullied in School and in the workplace after that, however I never let bullies get to me or let them get away with it. In school I was suspended a few times for fighting back, one day I broke a 12 year olds nose and gave him a right hammering, that ended his bullying days of course I was portrayed as a bully myself but I was merely been reactionary. I was taught always fight back and never let the bullies win, I have done this all my life and it is a good lesson to teach a kid to use his fists to defend himself.

Later in my early twenties I started work in a hotel and a jumped up prick of a bar manager tried the same stuff, it started as verbal comments and then moved to rota changes and general abuse, I was logging abuse and one evening in January when he was all boasting about his new Audi and I driving a 10 year old car myself, he made some particularly vile remark to me and within seconds I had him knocked unconscious and only for the bar man and manager holding me back I'd probably have killed him there and then.

Guards were called but my solicitor defeated the hotel and the bar manager, there was no civil or criminal charges and the manager was fired and never came back to work after two Foreign members of housekeeping revealed his sexual harassment of them, and that cost the Hotel north of €100,000.

I resigned the job but didn't sue the hotel as I think I thought him a life lesson that evening. For the poor guy who died in Munster Joinery why he didn't just do the same to those bullies is beyond me. These people are predatory and like a fox will circle on a weak rabbit but won't go for those who will stand up to them.

Thinly veiled aren't I a tough guy validation-seeking post

I think it’s a bit unfair that dignitas won’t have you as a customer if the reason is due to mental illness..

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

What if you've a terminal illness and are kinda ok-ish at the moment ?


It seems better to plan ahead, select your moment and die in style instead of ending your days in some daft hospice rotting away

I'm pretty sure Capt'n Midnight's quote isn't referring to suicide in response to a terminal, or life altering diagnosis.

On the workplace bullying.
My wife was bullied by my sister in law. They worked together. A falling out between myself and SIL had been a long time coming, long before I met my wife. My SIL was a long term cancer in our family, stirring trouble for drama. After she had (another) toxic meltdown on a night out five years ago, I, personally had had enough of her and went no contact again. We no longer went out with my brother and his wife after her public meltdown but we would thereafter only be in each other's company at family events where she, expressly, would be shunned.

She, being a serial bully since her school days, with her false front of confidence, upon realizing she'd been cut off again scrambled to find a coherent explanation for the lack of contact. Our family and extended family/friends were all quite close, her own toxic reputation preceded itself within it and thus it would have been immediately obvious that she was the cancer in the family. She created a poisonous accusation to explain my decision to cut contact which was that I no longer had time for my brother, someone I was particularly close to and who was good friends with my then girlfriend himself.

She had invented a weapon with which she bullied my wife with, harassed her, intimidated her under the guise of 'fixing' this new problem. It became relentless. She obsessively targeted my wife. All of it was brazenly done at work, in plain sight of staff and also one to one behind closed doors. She also cyber bullied her by 'dog whistling' on Facebook i.e. As people have pointed out, she would be posting anti-bullying affirmations while simultaneously bullying my wife. She played the victim with work colleagues, haranguing people into a clique against her. She never once contacted me, who was supposed to be at fault, the person abusing her man-child of a husband.

It was a nightmare for my wife. The vindictiveness of it impacted her mental well being and it took a physical toll, she lost weight due to the stress. She went to the line manager eventually but it was dealt with by telling them both to ignore each other essentially. Getting word of that, my SIL, slandered and smeared my then girlfriend in the months after it stitching her up as a trouble making bully who was trying to her fired. My SIL was using personal family issues which were none of her concern, bullying her, and she merely looked to have it stop. They did nothing beyond effectively saying "You go this way, you go that way". If there was any degree of competence or enforcement of their code of duty, then my SIL would have been sacked. The amateurish set up, a healthcare company, emboldened bullying.

I spoke with my brother but he was a browbeaten doormat, himself bullied into compliance with her poison. He needed to grow a pair of balls for himself by then, while her abuse towards he himself was his own business, to have her extend it towards my then girlfriend warranted action from him. Yet he believed his wife completely. He had to believe or else his life would be even more hellish than it already was due to her incessant abuse of him. He chose the easy way out and threw my wife under the bus to avoid confronting his odious wife. He staunchly believed her lies which blamed my wife, while she herself played the innocent victim who was trying to protect him. The company eventually folded, my wife worked in a similar role, in another practice in the same building. Even then my SIL showed up one day with her mother and in the foyer of the building slandered my wife as a bully by way of warning the staff who still worked there. Their toxic message was that my SIL had been a victim of that bully. Needless to say it was not a pleasant experience for my wife. The bullying extended beyond the work place.

My brother never confronted her. Instead, I confronted her and did his talking for him in spelling out what an absolute **** she was being and for enabling a split between us all. I knew damn well things would never be the same but I said what needed to be said. There was right and wrong. Seeing that she was exposed, she, a grown woman, went to her parents who contacted me with accusations of harassment and with the express purpose of shutting me down. It was a vindication of sorts to witness a then 28 year old woman go to her Mammy and Daddy to bail her out. I threatened the controlling bubble she had over my brother by calling her to account. He was firmly under the impression that she had been bullied in various guises since her primary school days. He was gullible as it was but he wasn't stupid. Seeing his brother calling out her subterfuge rattled her completely. She didn't want him comprehending her manipulative duplicity.

Ever since, my brother was isolated from me. He never answered the phone, any text messages between us were monitored. Even his reply's were dictated by his controlling wife. We met again with our Dad to witness but the poison she had browbeaten him into believing was now entrenched and it permanently ended our relationship. He said he believed whatever she told him. Period. My attitude was that if he stubbornly believed a proven liar he could **** off. I'd bitten my tongue for the best part of a decade, watching her being increasingly abusive towards him (and sometimes even myself) but seeing her extend her bullying towards my girlfriend, whose only mistake was befriending her, was completely out of order. I let him know he was being made a fool of, protected his future SIL's reputation and cleared my conscience to that end. Falling out with him was a no-brainer for me, his mentally closed shop attitude coupled with his complete lack of candor about his wife's behavior being the push I needed to cut ties.

I was unsurprisingly labelled a bully as well for pointing out obvious truths and the narrative quickly changed becoming that I was actually the one manipulated and the one bullied into compliance by my bullying girlfriend. They even went as far as inventing fictional people from her old job she had supposedly bullied before my SIL started working there and defamed her character within my own family. When my wife left that new role, it became that she'd actually been fired from it for bullying another new starter. The reality that there was just two people in the practice was irrelevant. :pac: This was an obsessively dangerous person we had happily cut out, who even after that, monitored us both. The manipulative bent being that my wife supposedly had previous form and my innocent SIL was simply another victim of her bullying. This is what everyone would be told thereafter. I never grasped how dangerous it actually was. For me, her behavior was just that of a deeply insecure nobody with the emotional capacity of a 5 year old who craved any attention and habitually provoked people by bullying them to get that attention. Someone who subsequently played the victim card with her family to elicit even more attention and sympathy. Having never been bullied myself, I never grasped the impact it has on the person being bullied; my girlfriend.

The penny dropped for me after my wife confided in me recently that, during the height of the bullying, it got so bad that, after work one winter evening, she went to the local beach. She couldn't cope. Knowing that she couldn't swim, she planned to wade fully clothed into the sea and let herself succumb to drowning. She, luckily, snapped out of it but to be standing on a windswept beach in the middle of winter thinking of ending your life was the dark place she was inhabiting mentally. And all because of a psychotic little cnut who was threatened by who my wife is and the kindness she represents.

She felt that it would make the bullying go away. She was a happy, popular and loved person and colleague. I guess this made her a target for my SIL, a malignant narcissist. She was on the brink of breaking up with me as she thought this might also stop it but she also didn't want to allow this asshole, who was out to get her, win so to speak. We were blissfully happy to be together, this rankled with my SIL clearly, but such are the dark thoughts you can go through when you are being systematically and intentionally destroyed by a hateful, vindictive, malicious and dangerous piece of work. This skillful, bullying clown still manages to maintain close ties with my immediate family who have bought into their deflection that there are two sides to the story. She has predictably portrayed herself as the heroic do-gooder, the narcissistic scut pretending she was trying to protect me from wife and got herself bullied in the cross fire. :rolleyes:

The poor man in Munster Joinery could have lashed out, fought fire with fire but he shouldn't have had to. The company has a code of duty to employee's. It was clearly not enforced. Like my wife, he dreaded Sunday evenings with the thoughts of having to go back to work knowing what awaited them. Nobody should feel that way about their work. They were the one's who needed to deal with the bullying, they didn't and that man sadly took the ultimate option. It made the bullying go away but the man's friends and family have been devastated because of a bully who was enabled by an indifferent and inert company.

What a mark that is against that company. What a warning it ought to provide to other companies about the ramifications of workplace bullying. In my wife's case, she made all the formal complaints available, she followed the procedures she needed to in order to protect herself from a bully. Not only did her doing that not stop the bullying, ironically, it actually made it far worse, as that company's indifference and ignorance enabled that psychotic bitch to fester and deflect with her well honed victim playing routine. There should be serious consequences for any workplace bully. It should be taken so seriously that it can have the capacity to destroy your reputation and career if you do it. Companies should have adequate policies to police it, but more importantly, adequate staff to enforce those policies. The bully in Munster Joinery should have been fired. Their reputation for being a dick preceded itself and nothing was ever done about it. They were asked to stop but continued in spite of that and the man made the bullying stop by ending his own life. That bully, like my SIL, was allowed to fester, enabled and emboldened to create such a toxic (and ultimately tragic) working environment.

We have had no contact with either of them for years now. My SIL has been cunning enough to realize that publicly confronting us, the supposed bullies, will merely back fire on her. I would wipe the floor with her and her dope of a husband. Instead, she does what any bully does, she cowardly lies to and manipulates my immediate family (out of sight from us, with no right of reply) with my henpecked brother enabling her vitriol every step of the way. If they were to even breath in our direction in future, I will not be as nice as I so clearly was. It infuriate me to this day how lenient and accommodating I was. I didn't get it until my wife explained her the state of mind. When diplomacy, tact, discussions and giving your point of view do nothing, a fist to the face, and the solid threat of more to follow, is ultimately the only language such bullies understand and becomes the only way to make them go away for good. I am personally presented within my own family as a bully so I guess if you are in for a penny, you may as well be in for a pound.

I see people are calling that the bully should not be named and shamed. If it is found that they have played a part in this man's suicide then it should be public knowledge. The key word from the article is relentless. This was not a case of someone making a smart comment and the person being mocked, took it to heart and then killed themselves. It was relentless.

With that, they should be named and shamed if they hold any semblance of responsibility. It should present a clear and present warning to any work place bully and to those who enable them. Effectively, don't bully. If you continue it has the power to drive people to suicide and when you do get named and shamed don't expect any lenience because it shouldn't have been conducted in the first instance. To do otherwise would be a disservice to John Broderick and his family and give the message to other workplace bullies that should their bullying result in suicide they too will be afforded protection. My wife got driven to the brink herself and that cancer in my family effectively got away with enabling that.

I went to my doctor and talked to him about work and stress and suicidal thoughts. He was fantastic and really helped me and he saved my life, literally. Then he went and hung himself a few months later.

My company goes on about mental health but when I went to them and said, I have mental health issues I was met with blank dumb as fcuk stares. So I just lie now and say everythings grand because if I don't Ill have to deal with further comments about you know, that time I had that episode and took a few weeks off work, to doss or whatever.

we, as a society, do not know how to deal with mental health issues. end of.