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Family Conflict and Suicide Rates Among Men
by Dr. Hazel Mcbride
The Honourable Senator Anne C. Cools
Violence and Abuse within the Family:
The Neglected Issues
A Public Hearing June 9, 1995 & June 10, 1995
Transcript of Dr. Hazel Mcbride's Presentation
on the Relationship between family conflict and
suicide rates among men.
Dr. Hazel Mcbride, Child Psychologist, Mississaugua Ontario
Thank you very much. I ma very pleased to be here, and to see all
of the interest that we have in the issues. I am also please to
hear all the very good speakers peresnt. I wish to thank Senator
Anne Cools and Karen Woudstra for this public hearing, it's an
excellent idea.
I think that we also need to recognise the courage of fathers here,
who have not allowed themselves to be separated from their
children, against incredible odds, and I think that they deserve
applause.
The major area of my research for my Phd. Dissertation was in
suicide, and depression. Over the last 5 years we have completed
the largest study of completed suicide in North America. We are
currently putting the data together to be published piece by piece.
Now when we talk about depression, most of us have been depressed,
but the illness of depression is different from feeling depressed.
I think that it's important to understand the effects, of the kinds
of events that people are describing today, and to know what the
difference is. There's an illness depression and there's a feeling
of depression. The illness depression is severe. It is a physical
illness. It can lead to suicide, it can lead to death, it can lead
to people being totally disabled, not just for a little while, but
for their complete life. It can lead to people being in psychiatric
hospitals, and having a total breakdown. It has physical
symptoms.People lose weight, they can't sleep, they become
agitated, they worry. They can also have agitated depression where
they have panic attacks, and as I have said, they often become
suicidal, and they often complete suicide. Depression illness is to
be at a high risk for suicide.
Now in reference to the gentleman who was talking earlier about
suicide statistics from Stats Canada. The Stats Canada statistics
are artificially low, because what happens is that when you get a
suspected suicide to the coroner's office, often further testing
needs to be done to see if indeed it was a suicide. So what
happens is that it's categorized as undetermined, so it's often not
counted as a suicide, and often omitted later. So Stats Canada data
generally tends to underestimate suicide.
What we found when we looked at all the completed suicides in
Ontario over a three year period is that we have the third highest
rate of suicide in the entire world. This was the latest "who
report".
- for the youngest between the ages of 15 and 30
- females attempt suicide more
- males complete suicide more
Completed suicides
- In the under 15 age group, the ratio is 3 males to every female
- between 16 and 21, it becomes 4 males to 1 female
- by the age of 65, it becomes 17.5 males to 1 female.
- with increased age, in each group, suicide increases, also th
disparity between females and males increases.
- Elderly males in our society are the ones most at risk and who
get the least help
We muust note that not only does depression often end in suicide,
but there are other very serious consequences as well.
There is a very interesting study, that came out of Harvard. It's a
study that looked at why do some people live long lives and some
people die young, taking out accidents and suicide, just looking at
longevity. And they came out with one important factor. If you have
good genes, your parents live long, you'll live long. But what was
more interesting was the differences between the group who died
young and those who lived to that age of 80 or 90. There were only
three factors, and I think these are really important. At different
age groups there were different factors studied over 50 years, now
this study has run from 1920 until the present day, so when over
the long term when they really looked at the factors, there were
only three significant factors. One was smoking, the second was
alcohol abuse, and the third one, was one episode of major
depression before the age of 40. Now that is a new finding, and it
is frightening, becuase with the stress and resulting depression
that I have seen everyday, and I'm sure that many other people have
as well, that is mainly created in the court system and government,
custody and support enforcement agency and by legal bills. And all
these things are driving people, particularly men systematically
into depressive breakdown and suicide attempts.
And this isn't even looking at what it's doing to the children. The
killing of the father is most certainly not in the best interests
of the child.
What is the effect on the child? It's something that we don't even
look at, and we haven't even started. When do we start to deal with
these long term effects on the children?
Now to move on to the children. I am looking at the effect of
parental deprivation. That means a child being deprived of their
parent. Now it's very difficult to look at this in Canada and the
United States because we do not have the kind of database we need
to collect the statistics. We don't know how many people got
divorced, how many have separated. So it's very difficult, but in
Europe, particularly in the Netherlands and Scandinavia, we have
excellent databases where they track everything. So they can do
these kinds of studies.
The second factor is that it's only over the last 20 years that we
have had an epidemic of divorce. So therefore we are now just
seeing adult children of divorced parents in large numbers. Large
enough in numbers that we can do studies and look at the results.
I am just going to quote here from a very reputable academic
European study that has been published in very accurate detail.
This study is on the long term effect of depriving a child of a
parent. In Scandinavia, an examination of 1,018 parents of adult
female twins, found that females separated from a parent prior to
17 years of age were at significant risk of major depression, and
generalized anxiety disorder.
In Germany, research has found increased incidents of suicide
attempts in patients who have experienced a loss in childhood, both
by separation and death of parents. The increase in suicidal
tendencies were mainly attributed to the loss of the father.
Another study in Scandinavia found that a significantly higher
number of adults who attempted suicide had lost a parent through
divorce in childhood. And in this particular study, they also
looked at loss of parental contact.
Another study, from India this time. Indiena researchers found that
children who were separated from both parents, or from the father
alone for a period of 3 months or longer(between the ages of 6
months to 5 years) suffered a higher risk by 2.5 to 5 times higher
for hysteria, emotional disorder and conduct disorder, than
children who were not separated from parents.
Another study, from Germany: Adults who were deprived of a father
in childhood, due to separation or divorce, not death, had a
significantly higher risk of suicide in adulthood.
From Great Britain: British researchers found that adults who
suffered early parental loss due to separation or divorce, have
significantly higher risk of developing agrohobia with panic
attacks and panic disorders as adults. This can be a crippling
condition.
Now just recently from North America, there was a study looking at
suicide in the Termite Study. Now those of you who haven't heard of
it, this was a study done in 1920 at Stanford University in
California. It looked at gifted children. They took 1,000 gifted
children and they are still tracking them today, this is one of the
longest running studies in the history of the world I believe. It's
been running now for over 75 years. The gifted children in thsie
case had I.Q.'s of over 135 and are tracked over their life span.
While looking at thies research, I came across a small study where
they looked at who had committed suicide in this group. Out of the
560 females in this group, 8 had committed suicide. Now obviously
there were many factors involved because suicide is not just the
result of one thing, it's a great complex of factors working
together. In one set of findings they found that in all eight
cases, these women had experienced a loss of a relationship with
their father. Now in those days, there were not as many divorces,
people often lived together by separate. We're looking back at the
1920's, 30's and 40's, so it's hard to tell, but what they did know
because they had worked with these people throughout their life,
was that, whether the father was there or not, there was no
relationship with the father, and the children were overly bound to
the mother. And this was found in all 8 cases.
It's hard to believe. It's something that judges just don't know
and it's obviously something that the Supreme Court of Canada
doesn't know, given it's recent decision in which it said
"separation from the father has no long term effect on the child".
I was aghast when I heard this. I found it quite appalling that
they would not take the time to find out if there were any long
term effects or that they would not have done just a little
computer search, or even ask someone, rather that assuming this.
and assuming it in such a way that it will affect the lives of
thousands of children, not only now, but as adults.
Now to go to short term effects of parental deprivation. There are
numerous studies on this. One of the better ones, Kergiac, did a
very long term study in 1988. He found that in the first year after
separation, non-custodial parental involvement was generally
associatled positively, with a good adjustment of children into
divorcing families, especially for children whose parents were
providing kind and loving support while experiencing conflict.
Otherwise it was a protective factor. The parents were in conflict,
having the other parents, not the custodial parents, involved
helped the child. They found that seeing conflict was related to
behaviour problems. Children showed the most behaviour problems if
their parents were in legal conflict andvisitation of non-custodial
parnets was not frequent and, or regular. Children with frequent
and regular visits showed the fewest behavioural problems. Regular
visitation by the non-custodial parents the first year, led to
higher self esteem in children later.
I can see these are very important considerations. And even in the
cases where you have parental alienation syndrome. To say okay, we
have parental alienation syndrome in children who don't want to see
the other parent, therefore we can't force it, is very wrong. What
we're doing is we are *leaving the child with a disturbed
individual*. An individual who is abusing the children by making
those false allegations against their other parent.. In this
manner, you are most obviously setting this child up for a life of
psycho pathology. This is because the guilt is tremendous and to
just leave it is not the end. Maybe you can't force the child to
see the alienated parent, but you can put the children into
counselling whereby you can eventually look at some way of
repairing the damage done.
We cannot jsut allow these children to be left first of all, with a
parent that is abusing them, although in Ontario it is politically
correct to abuse them this way. Maybe this will change now that we
have a neww government, hopefully. But, however, it (parental
alienation) is a form of child abuse nontheless and it has to be
stopped. And I won't go into this too much because we heard a lot
about it and I can also say that I have come across so many of
these cases. I think that the gentleman that was up earlier who
talked so passionately about how he felt and what had happened to
him, he is the norm.
(ed. note the following was spoken with much emphasis)
THIS IS NORMAL. THIS IS THE KIND OF THING THAT I HAVE SEEN DAY
AFTER DAY AFTER DAY. I HAVE SEEN DEPRESSION, I'VE SEEN SUICIDE
ATTEMPTS. I HAVE SEEN MANY INDIVIDUALS PSYCHOLOGICALLY BROKEN. IF
THEY WERE DOING IT IN ANOTHER COUNTRY, WE WOULD CALL IT
PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE, OR WE WOULD CALL IT INHUMANE TORTURE. HERE
IN ONTARIO, IT;S POLITICALLY CORRECT TO COMMIT THIS CRIME AGAINST
HUMANITY ON A WHOLESALE SCALE IN FAMILY COURTS THUS GIVING A VENEER
OF LEGITIMACY TO UNSPEAKABLE HUMAN SUFFERING.
We know that the more life stress you have, the more punitive of
tragic events that happen to you, the more likely you will have a
breakdown. And again I emphasise I am talking about a mental and
physical illness, not just feeling blue. I'm talking about a long
term serious and often terminal illness.
LET'S LOOK AT THESE NON-CUSTODIAL PARENTS, JUST FINANCIALLY, THE
LEGAL FEES ARE $30,000, $50,000, $100,000 EVEN A MILLION. PEOPLE
ARE BROKEN FINANCIALLY. THIS DOES NOT HELP THE CHILDREN. WHO ARE WE
TRYING TO HELP HERE? THIS IS MONEY THAT SHOULD BE GOING TOWARDS THE
CHILDREN.
Secondly, we have the unrealistic support awards. You heard a lot
about that. Custody and access enforcement is something that needs
to be investigated by a Royal Commission. Because we so often have
a custody award that does not consider the well being of the
children nor that of the non-custodial parent, I have numerous
cases of people who have been absorbed into depressive breakdonwn,
who have been injured or in car accidents, or heart attacks, or
whatever, or have been laid off their job. The real crime is that
these people cannot then make the payments that they're supposed
to. There is no way to adjust it. When you call custody and support
enforcement, they say " we just enforce, we don't care" and I have
called them numerous times, and also the former attroney general
who says "I'm sorry, I can't get involved". This is her answer.
Another problem is unrealistic support awards. We have thousands of
cases where the people can never go back to work, because if they
do, the Family Support Plan will come and take their furniture,
they will take their car, they will take whatever they have.
IT'S TERRIBLE. UNTIL I GOT INVOLVED, ABOUT A YEAR AGO, IN WORKING
WITH THESES MEN, I COULD NOT BELIEVE THAT IN A DEMOCRACY CITIZENS,
NOT CRIMINALS, COULD BE TREATED IN SUCH A MANNER AND BE STRIPPED OF
THEIR RIGHTS. AND I FIND IT MORE FRIGHTENING BECAUSE IF WE DO IT TO
ONE GROUP, IT COULD HAPPEN TO ALL OF US. ALL OF US CAN BE STRIPPED
OF OUR RIGHTS, AND I THINK WE HAVE TO PUT A STOP TO IT *NOW*.
Now I talked about harassment. The problem is that there is no
accountability for false allegations or support recieved by the
custodial parent. I know of numerous cases and I'm sure other
people do as well where the awards are going to the custodial
parent and the children never get a cent of it. Some of these
children are 25, 26, 27, 28 years old. We watched a program Friday
night in about a young man in his mid 20's where the support that
was awarded to his mother was 50% of his father's salary. His
father lives in a basement one room apt. His mother kept all the
money, never passed one cent of it to either of her sones, who had
to go into debt to go into University and now she spends half the
year in the Bahamas. This is something that we have to resolve.
THE LOSS OF CHILDREN, WHEN YOU TAKE A PERSON'S CHILD, THAT IS A
LOSS, THAT IS A BEREAVEMENT OF A SIMILAR MAGNITUDE TO THE DEATH OF
A CHILD. IT IS NOT SOMETHING THAT SHOULD BE DONE LIGHTLY, AND IN
OUR COURTS TODAY, IT IS BEING DONE, VERY, VERY LIGHTLY WITH
ABSOLUTE IMPUNITY AND WITH NO REGARD FOR THE CONSEQUENCES TO THE
CHILD NOW OR IN THE FUTURE, OR TO THE FATHER. WHAT GOOD IS THE
FATHER TO A CHILD IF HE IS A BROKEN MAN. THEY KNOW HE CAN'T SUPPORT
THE CHILD, HE CAN'T EMOTIONALLY BOND WITH THE CHILD. THE CHILD IS
THE GREATEST LOSER ALL THE WAY THROUGH.
Now to the enforcement of court ordered access. We all know about
this disgusting situation and it's a terrible, powerless feeling.
In the United States there are states where denial of court ordered
access is illegal and people are immediately arrestd if they deny
court ordered access. In Canada, or more specifically in Ontario
nothing happens and there is a gentleman here who could probably
speak on that. He went to court because he was denied access and it
was only at the 18th time that the judge fined his wife $1. And he
still has no access. I MIGHT ADD, THIS IS NOT JUSTICE.
From what I can see, in Family Law Courts it appears that there are
no rules, regulations or proof of claim required. The Criminal
Courts in which I testify far more often, there are rules of
evidence and requirement of proof.
I had a case of false allegation last summer which is interesting.
The mother has a long psychiatric history and has been in and out
of psychiatric hospitals. She is quite disturbed. The father had
been attacked be her numerous times, this has been very well
documented by the psychiatrist and we have the documentation, The
son made false allegations, the father was arrested, taken to jail
and had a lie detector test done. This was a man that had never had
as much as a parking ticket in his life before. He was absolutely
distressed by this. He was ill. He almost lost his job over it.
Fortunately we had a very good police office who's name is
Detective Wesly, who did an excellent job of investigating
thoroughly and proved conclusively that it was a false allegation.
Unfortunately, what happened was we had to charge the child with
mischief, not the mother, Because the mother was smart enough to
have the child make the accusation. The child was charged and then
when we went for the custody hearing, the judge said "I don't thing
this court thing is relevant, let's just ignore it" and he did. The
child is still with the very disturbed mother. The father, for his
own safety, had to move to the other end of the country. This was
not solved in the family court and really needs to be addressed for
the child's sake.
False accusations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.
Everytime I get someone seeking help, I don't even have to read the
affidavit. I can tellyou what it's going to say. It's first going
to start off saying they shouted and there was verbal abuse, and
then they threw something and if that doesn't work, two months down
the road we're going to get the "he hit me" and hence we we're
going to get the stalkingm then we're going to get the harrassment
and then we are going to get the beating and sexual abuse and then
some of them get even better.
In Family Court there doesn't seem to be any requirement of proof.
The affidavits that come in and read the same, like fantasy from
Dynasty. No one asks for proof and if they are shown to be untrue
the judge will often just say they are irrelevant. In this
particular case that I am speaking about, it started a year ago,
with affidavits, like rehashed soap opera scripts, just as I
previously described, but now we're getting amazing details that
are very similar to the Bernardo case coming in. The lawyer called
me and said, "I don't think I can read these". Now this sounds
funny, but it's so tragic, these fantasy allegations are destroying
a man and his family. This is so tragic and no-one, repeat no-one
investigates. If people make these types of allegations in family
court, the police should be immediately called in. The allegations
should be investigated as a criminatl matter. It should be stopped
one way or another and the perpetrator charged. Unfortunately this
is not happening in Ontario.
WE ALSO HAVE A LACK OF CONTROL OF HOW SUPPORT PAYMENTS SHOULD BE
SPENT. IT'S PAY UP AND SHUT YOUR MOUTH. DON'T ASK. AND WE ALL KNOW
THE STORY OF THE FATHER PAYING THE MONEY, THE CHILDREN NOT SEEING
IT AND THE CHILDREN TURNING UP IN RAGS. THERE SHOULD BE
ACCOUNTABILITY, WHETHER IT IS MALE OR FEMALE, IS YOU HAVE MONEY,
YOU SHOULD BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THAT MONEY AND THE CHILDREN SHOULD
GET IT.
The other thing is loss of all control of parental rights. These
people are not bad people. These are people who have had bad
marriages. This should not be a crime. You should be abl to still
look at the child's best interest. And these people instead have
been treated as criminals, with one difference. They are not
presumed innocent, but they are often presumed guilty. And that is
very, very, wrong.
PAUL BERNARDO HAS MANY, MANY MORE RIGHTS THAN THE FATHERS IN THIS
ROOM.
Let me wrap up here very quickly. I am currently following a froup
of gentlemen with whom I am looking into the psychiatric sequel of
these false allegations, denial of access, the back stabs and all
of this kind of stress. What we are seeing is very high rates of
clinical depression, anxiety disorders, panic attacks, mental
breakdown, psychotic breakdown, reactive depression, suicide
threats, suicide attempts, completed suicide and sometimes when you
push a person too far, you get violence and you get murder/suicide.
Recently in the United States, there was a case of a young man who
was very attached to his son, he had always been close to him.
There was a custody dispute, he did get to see his son, but
gradually the child had been alienated. Finally the ex.wife went to
the Supreme Court and had the child's name changed so the child
couldn't even have the father's name. The father had a breakdown,
shot his son and himself. You can't push people to the point where
the have nothing left to lose.
THE ULTIMATE SADNESS IS THAT WE KNOW WHAT WORKS, BUT WE WON'T DO
IT. NOT THAT WE WON'T, BUT OUR GOVERNMENT WON'T DO IT.
We know all sorts of things that work, we know that joint custody
works, we know support tied to access works, we know court ordered
course in divorce and separation work and are very cheap to run. I
just read a new article from The American Psychological Association
paper this month, they say that in over 30 states where they have
a video prepared by a specialist from Ohio State, that when parents
go to court they first have to watch the tape and have divorce
counselling, it works and the rate of conflict goes down
dramatically when this happens. This is cheap for what the video
costs, we could do it.
Creative support, shared parenting and mandatory divorce
counselling for all children. All children should be put into
divorce counselling, court ordered so that they can withstand
whatever is going on.
I would like to mention one more thing. On the Monday following the
last time I spoke out like this, there was an investigator from the
Attorney Generals Office checking on me. I may be arrested after
this hearing. Last Friday I spoke out on CFRB and again the
Attorney Generals Office was checking on me.
(Senator Anne Cools)"...a week is a long time."
(referring to the election just prior to this hearing that caused
a change in government)
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