As Matthew outlined yesterday, we regrettably say goodbye to a former commenter and reader of Live And Let’s Fly. My reflections differ from Matthew’s.
Suicide Prevention Hotline
If you or someone you know is suffering from suicidal thoughts, there are people who care and can help. Call or text the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 988.
Events That Unfolded
I struggled with whether or not to post this article at all. With some reflection and counsel, I felt it’s important to write this piece.
Months ago, Anthony Joseph Jr., once known as “Acura”, a commenter on our blogs and many other others in the Boarding Area community, began commenting profusely. His discourse moved from the topic at hand to politics and often into the conspiratorial.
At Live And Let’s Fly we have been clear that we support as much free expression as possible in the comments even when the opinions are ones we disagree with. We don’t allow everything, and what is and is not allowed remains our discretion. We aren’t a public forum, this is not a town square but we let people speak their minds, whatever that may be.
However, Mr. Joseph began violating some of our commenting policies and spamming the comment section with unrelated rants. We indicated that we wouldn’t continue to allow it but he continued to violate. Ultimately, he received a ban, something few have encountered here.
Following the ban, he began emailing Matthew and me lengthy political rants sometimes half a dozen in a short span.
I ignored his numerous emails simply out of a lack of energy and exhaustion.
Mr. Joseph then sent an email copying me and other bloggers that he would take his own life. He didn’t say where but that it would be that day. I was at Universal Studios Florida with my parents and my daughter. I took the threat seriously. I contacted the Orlando police and reported what was conveyed to me. I then met them near the park gates, answered their questions, and submitted what I had, which narrowed his possible location to a city near where he’d lived and provided a phone number for him he’d left in an email.
Out of their jurisdiction, they stated they’d forward the information to the local law enforcement in that area. I never heard from Orlando or the local police department again.
The following day, I received an email from an address I didn’t recognize that stated Anthony had passed. Though I checked for days following, I never saw an obituary confirming this until now.
Regret, Despair, Guilt
Anthony had reached out to me personally. He had commented on my family in these communications. We had exchanged a couple emails even after he was no longer allowed to comment on the blog. But once his emails became so exhaustive, I stopped replying.
Even though he was clearly looking for a connection, I failed him. I could have responded. I could have reached out.
I didn’t. I contacted the police instead to try to stop him from harming himself. Matthew reached out with a note. Neither of us was successful.
But I could have done more. I should have done more. I didn’t do enough. What’s more, I took more than a week to respond to the email from one of his family members because I wasn’t sure if it was true or not. That has me heartbroken, disgusted with myself, and in despair.
I could have done more. I should have done more. But I didn’t. What would it have cost me to return some emails? To pick up a phone? Could that have been the difference? Could that have saved his life?
Rumination On The Comment Section
There’s no question that Mr. Joseph was troubled. He found community, even when battling others, in our comment section.
Conversations in the comment section, regardless of the topic, devolve into political arguments. We are a divided people. Peers have taken the position to prune their comment section but we believe that silences voices with essential things to say. Other commenters suggest we should ban some commenters – but they tend to nominate those with whom they disagree. We don’t believe in that.
What’s more, it was only after Mr. Joseph was banned that his rhetoric increased, and having his voice removed, he succumbed to what was clearly deep-seated depression.
However, a travel blog’s comment section shouldn’t be so acrimonious that someone is led to an internal battle that they ultimately lose and it costs them their life.
I contemplated what to do about this very post. Should we turn off comments? Should there be a Live And Let’s Fly comment section at all? Newspapers almost uniformly don’t allow them, businesses don’t either. And if this isn’t reason enough to close the comments section, what is?
Final Thoughts
My heart goes out to Mr. Joseph and his family. He was troubled but I could have done more. I failed him when he needed someone the most. I pray I’ll be forgiven for failing to show compassion at the most critical moment.
“I could have done more. I should have done more.”
There is nothing you could have done. He was not looking to be fixed. What he was wanting, more or less, was to terrorize a lot of people before opting out of the life he was given. You were not going to heal his mental illness through the internet and emails.
I disagree. Or I would come at it from a different perspective. Yes, he could have done more. He probably could have written or talked with him more. But would it have made any difference in the end? That seems unlikely – although we will never know. I work with mentally ill patients everyday and it is a sad reality that not everyone gets better. But we all have to live with our own actions, and some reflection is not a bad thing.
Sorry Kyle, I disagree. What more could you have done, what more should you have done? Nothing good can come from beating yourself up over this or questioning how you handled it. You contacted authorities and provided all the information that you could during a family vacation. You didn’t know specifically where he lived.
No one specifically is responsible for this incident, not the people he named in his last post, not his family and certainly not you and Matt offering a comment section.
Anyone reading his posts, agree or disagree with him, realized he was taking this too far and had issues. Professional help is out there if someone wants it, for whatever reason he didn’t. RIP Anthony
Kyle do not feel guilty. You and Matthew did what you were able to do. Threatening suicide is a manipulative act. Yes Anthony was ill, but was still hanging on and appeared unwilling to get the medical attention he so needed. There was nothing you could do about that. Sometimes we have to protect our own sanity.
Prayers for the Joseph family
Kyle,
I’m going to echo what others have said but from a different perspective, the perspective of one that has gone down that really dark and ugly road myself….there was ZERO you could have done!
Depression is an ugly disease and can’t ‘be treated unless the patient wants to be treated by professionals
Please don’t beat yourself – you did all you could do!
Sometimes we cannot help. We do our best and hope for success. Mental illness is a dark place. Condolence for the Joseph Family. Its never easy loosing a loved one.
You’re beating yourself up way too much. You called the authorities. Matthew offered him counsel. You two did 10x more than most people would have. If you’d indulged his obsessions and responded to his missives, you might have made things worse.
The Canadian rock band Rush wrote a song about suicide called “The Pass”; the words at the end of the song ring true:
All of us get lost in the darkness,
Dreamers learn to steer by the stars.
All of us do time in the gutter,
Dreamers learn to look at the cars.
Turn around and turn around and turn around.
Turn around and walk the razor’s edge,
Turn around and walk the razor’s edge,
Turn around and walk the razor’s edge,
Don’t turn your back and slam the door on me.
You did what you could. He made the tragic choice to turn his back and slam the door on those who cared about him.
What about those posters like aaron and billy bob who would continue to bully him?
Seems like they have some responsibility.
What about you bullying me?
Dude, you have long been an a.. Hat that should have been banned if rules were relatively consistent. You and Aaron. Hell, half your comments veer off topic to your religion of politics.
We’re you looking in a mirror when you typed that? You have gone out of your way to attack me for posts that had nothing to do with you. You recently said my brain was rotten in an unprovoked attack on me. Did I go cry that you should be banned? Grow a pair
That has to be in the running for one of the most asinine comments you have made. Which is a pretty long list.
You voted for a guy that stole nuclear secrets and showed them to guests at his club. What you say about any subject holds no water and you should live the rest of your life in shame.
Loser
I have never voted in my life.
I hope those secrets made it into the hands of the Chinese and Russians and whoever else could use them.
Too dumb to fill out a ballot I assume… better to leave voting to those who made it past 4th grade. I’ll give you credit for knowing your limitations. Good for you
Lol…are you proud of that?
That says all anyone needs to know about you, your maturity level, and lack of any form of intelligence. What a angry, miserable little coward you are. You deserve the miserable life you live in your trailer in whatever fascist state you exist.
And the best part is I bet you’ve never flown anywhere in your life.
MAGA mouth breather…close your mouth
Why are you so angry?
Another bad night In the bathhouse?
Calling him out for his racist and homophobic bs posts isn’t calling, it’s calling a spade a spade.
Sorry, isn’t bullying is what I meant to say.
Whatever helps you wash the blood off your hands.
The worst kind of person – b!tches and moans but can’t even be bothered to vote to do anything about it. What a weak coward.
No blood on my hands. At all.
I feel compelled to respond as a clinical psychologist. Those of us who work with very distressed people at risk of suicide frequently second guess our decisions when the worst happens. As clinical professionals, we balance compassion with what is cynically called “risk management” in the business – doing the right things to ensure the safety of our patients and documenting what we have done to minimize professional liability.
Here’s the thing: we can have done all the right things in safety planning, such as providing resources, documenting that the patient denied intent and left our clinics indicating they are safe and would know what to do if not – and the worst still happens. In a tragic case that happened to a colleague, it was within 24 hours of the patient being deemed “at low risk” based on documented statements, appearance, espoused hope etc. The act of suicide is often highly unpredictable and rash, and you never know what random thought process or impulse can cause somebody at risk to end their life. As a statistician colleague once told me, “Suicide is a rare event, and rare events are inherently difficult to predict.” What I have just said applies to people with waxing and waning ideation and who have made clear statements denying intent (which we always ask about in risk assessment). In contrast, people who make *clear* statements signalling intent are much more likely to follow through and the best we call can do, whether near or from afar, is to notify emergency responders, which is what you did Kyle, when he indicated his intention. You and Matthew were never obligated to respond to his unstable ramblings, beyond perhaps referring him to the crisis line or 911. Matthew went beyond and directed him to a source of ultimate hope, whether you agree with his Christian beliefs or not. I thought that was incredibly kind. (If you were only put off by Matthew’s “religious talk”, then I think you’re missing the point of what being a good human being is about.)
I’m not privy to your private correspondences with the reader but I’m sure, above all else, you and Matthew were kind and concerned to the extent you could be. You are not mental health or crisis professionals. You are not responsible for people in crisis who repeatedly espouse an intent to end their lives. When the reader conveyed that intent was imminent on his part, you did all you could have done, which was calling 911.
It is also important to know that those who wish to end their lives are doing so out of a belief that they lack autonomy or agency to change their outcomes, save for one final desperate act. They believe they have run out of all options except one. This is why well meaning attempts to keep them alive (begging, cajoling, eliciting promises) often backfire because these are viewed as efforts to remove the last bit of agency they possess.
It’s easy to second guess yourself but ultimately this is to assume the responsibility for keeping alive another human being with complete autonomy and agency for his actions. You and Matthew are limited and did your best within your limitations of knowledge and empathy until you could no longer do so because of his instability. In my book, you did your absolute best in a tragic situation. I hope you give up the second guessing and reserve compassion and kindness for yourselves.
@kyle,
You really have nothing to be sorry for, other than, at most, allowing people like Billy and Aaron to sully the section. Honesty, most newspapers have turned off comments because they don’t want to be challenged on their consistent propaganda. Its fairly easy to filter keywords and filter the kooks from the real people with legitimate concerns and many major outlets just refuse to listen to their customers. Which is why trust in media is at an all time low. Anyway, I’m not sure suicide is entirely preventable. This is a sad circumstance, but I don’t think you should feel responsible.
I bet you think you aren’t a kook, You anarcho-capitalist… whatever that means. You also called me a dildo last week. That’s very hurtful, I think I might cry
You’re more of a flashlight.
Fleshlight
Calling people out for ignorance and hate speech isn’t sullying the section, its calling out people for, as you would say, being a..Hat.
Telling the truth is hate speech to people who hate the truth. Your definition of hate speech is always one sided. People who talk about hate speech never consider anything that offends Christians, Whites, Men, traditional Women, or Straight people as hate speech. People who bring up hate speech do so because they can’t win the argument on merits. They can’t deny that some groups commit more crimes than others in proportion to their population or certain breeds of dogs are more violent due to genetics so they scream hate speech and seek to bully people into submission.
F off with that. your side is calling in bomb threats to target stores, shooting kids faces off at malls, and rallying outside disneyworld with nazi flags. My side just wants gays and minorities to have equal rights. Not the same
Whatever you say groomer.
Groomer? Like who?
Mark Foley?
Dennis hastert?
Roy Moore?
Matt Gaetz?
Ali Alexander?
Bryan Slaton?
Catholic priests?
You have heard of rinos right? The people who pretend to support freedom but always undermine us from within and are owned by either Israel, lobbyists, or both. Gaetz is the one exception on your list. He appears to be a patriot who of course is targeted by leftist operatives. Still, we never know. Pence turned out to be a rino cancer.
“Telling the truth is hate speech to people who hate the truth. Your definition of hate speech is always one sided.”
So being against racism and homophobia means a person hates the truth? What kind of nonsense is that?
“People who talk about hate speech never consider anything that offends Christians, Whites, Men, traditional Women, or Straight people as hate speech.”
Such as? Asking for equality and justice is now hate speech? Again, what kind of silly nonsense is that?
“People who bring up hate speech do so because they can’t win the argument on merits.”
No, it’s calling out people for their hate.
“They can’t deny that some groups commit more crimes than others in proportion to their population or certain breeds of dogs are more violent due to genetics so they scream hate speech and seek to bully people into submission.”
Nope. Again just more nonsense.
My dude, on that flight attendant thread your posts were just about half of the nastiness. You’ve done your major part sullying up comments section. And you calling out everyone you disagree with an ignorant racist homophobic troll bigot (or any combination of those words)? Literal cyber bullying.
You don’t have a moral high ground to stand on, so please calm down the rhetoric. If anything, I’m a bit disturbed at your nonchalant attitude considering your name is near front in center of a terrible thing that had just transpired, like it’s business as usual from you.
Insinuating that any poster here had anything to do with what this guy did is pretty low, even for a lowlife incel Trump supporter. This guy was not some innocent flower that attracted negative attention for no reason. Nobody should feel good that he offed himself but nobody should feel even an infinitesimal amount of responsibility either.
If I killed myself tonight (I’m not) and I made a post that you caused it for hurting my feelings(which isn’t even what he did in his post mentioning Aaron or UANYC), would you be at all responsible? Obviously not.
You are using this to drive a narrative that the liberal posters you hate are somehow evil scum that drove him to suicide. You are pure trash to use this guy’s death to admonish posters you don’t like.
But you’re evil so there is that.
My dear, I expect nothing less from you given some of the racist comments we’ve seen from you on here. Calling out hate speech is bullying to you because you don’t like people calling you out for you sh*tty comments. I’m disturbed by your racist comments about black people, so yeah, my moral highground is definitely a few meters above yours.
Wow. I am astounded by the incredible arrogance and mistruth of this post.
But don’t worry, I’ve recently started to avoid wrestling with pigs, because I learned you would just get dirty, while the pig likes it, which is why I completely ignore certain others even if they keep haplessly replying to my posts. And once more, I’ll try to be the bigger person here. Cheers
“Wow. I am astounded by the incredible arrogance and mistruth of this post.”
The truth is as foreign to you as raw meat is to a vegan.
” I’ve recently started to avoid wrestling with pigs, because I learned you would just get dirty, while the pig likes it, which is why I completely ignore certain others even if they keep haplessly replying to my posts. And once more, I’ll try to be the bigger person here. Cheers”
Given that you are one of the biggest pigs on here (by your definition), good for you for realizing that about yourself. Hopefully it will make you a less hateful person down the line, Cheers.
Comments sections on travel blogs are mostly useless, apart from maybe generating slightly more traffic.
In this particular case though, there was obviously a lot more going on in this person’s life than what’s going on in a comment section.
My personal opinion is that these comment sections do more harm than good, the goal is to talk about travel, points, etc and not to get into fights.
I’d shut it down if I were you, but that’s just me.
These travel blogs would not be of use to the readers without comments. We can skim the headlines from various blogs and news media but being able to give input is why people read them. Less and less go to TPG anymore because it pushes a one sided narrative and there is no chance to give input or offer alternative views or alternative information. A lot of topics around travel involve controversy because of the political nature of the decision making and its impact. The people who are afraid of comments always are anti choice/anti freedom/pro liberal/pro communist/pro big government bureaucracy. They are afraid of free speech because they can’t win arguments on the merits.
+1
Perfectly said
Well stated John! The comments are why this is my favorite travel blog.
Suicide really can’t be prevented. It’s genetic. The quicker we understand that, the quicker we can practice the solution that will cause suicides to drop. Mental illness is heritable. Kids born to people with mental illness are much more likely to have mental illness. By encouraging people with mental illness not to have kids, those genes will disappear and suicide wouldn’t be common like it is today. We can also identify pollutants that lead to increased risk of damage that can cause mental illness.
Yes, medications exist but those medications when first started actually increase the risk of suicide and many of the school ————- from SH to the trans at the Christian school she used to attend were on them. EST actually is now equal or better than pills for depression, although, it only works for 12 months with the hope people will do better by then. Pills and EST can’t change genetics and no one should blame themselves if someone committed suicide. Nothing can stop a person who is determined.
RIP. He is at peace now.
Kyle, in Florida, law enforcement officers can enact the Baker Act (a 72 hour psychiatric hold) for observation for someone deemed an imminent danger to self or others. You reached out to LEO in Orlando who likely then communicated this to wherever Mr Joseph was located and sadly he was not reached in time. You did what you could, truly. Short of turning back time or miraculously curing his illness, there is little to gain by second guessing your actions. Life is short and regrets at this point have little benefit. Forgive yourself for being human and imperfect, as we all are.
Are Anthony’s three online tormentors (Aaron, Billy Bob, and UA-NYC) really all just the same angry person? Asking for a friend.
Oh please. Calling put people for hate speech and other nonsense comments does not make someone a tormentor.
Matthew and Kyle can check and see none of the people you mentioned have the same IP address. Some of the other people posting on here? It would be interesting to see…
Wikipedia is really nasty that I would not be surprised if someone committed suicide because of them. They have anonymous youngsters who vote for each other to become “administrators”. Then, as administrators, they can act very arbitrarily and use specious reasoning to ban people. Often, some spy on others, claiming they are looking for “sockpuppets” but usually fail to look at the wisdom or lack of wisdom in what those others are posting. Often, it’s because the administrators have a political viewpoint that differs so they use their iron fist.
In contrast, Kyle and Matthew are not psychos, like some of those Wikipedia people are.
As disturbing as this is, my many years in the mental health field indicates to me that, if a person is truly determined to commit suicide, they will do so. I remember many cases when patients were placed in protective custody only to commit suicide upon release. Several of my airline friends have done so and, yes, it pains me everyday. I often wonder what I could have done differently but the harsh reality is: nothing. My sympathies to his family and friends. Rick
A tortured mind and soul are finally at rest.
Just back from two wonderful weeks in Central Europe and read through all the posts on this sad situation. My recommendation to Matthew and Kyle is to keep doing what you’re doing. Write about airlines, flights, lounges and hotels. Please keep the comments section. Immediately kill comments when they turn political. This is about travel. It’s why we make our visits to Live And Let’s Fly. Period.