Father of Tremont Waters found dead from suicide

InstaFace

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Sep 27, 2016
21,766
Pittsburgh, PA
ESPN:

The father of Boston Celtics rookie Tremont Waters was found dead in a West Haven, Connecticut, hotel on Thursday, according to police.

The medical examiner's office on Friday ruled that Ed Waters' death was a suicide.

Waters, 49, was found dead by police around noon Thursday after they responded to a report of an injured or ill person.

Tremont Waters, a point guard at LSU, was drafted in the second round (No. 51 overall) by the Celtics in last month's draft. He was averaging 10 points and 5.3 assists in four games during the Las Vegas Summer League. The Celtics do not have a summer league game scheduled for Friday.
Wishing him strength at this time. Guess that'll be a wrap for his summer league participation.

edit: this seems as good a time as any to note that there are many opportunities to get trained in Mental Health First Aid and to be both more sensitive to, and more prepared to help deal with, the needs of your friends and acquaintances. People you know are probably going through some rough shit, everyone needs some help sometimes, and few of us truly get the help we need.
 
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Big John

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Dec 9, 2016
2,086
He was in the right age bracket for a widowmaker but taking his own life with his son on the verge of realizing his dream seems absolutely senseless. I guess I will never understand human nature.
 

mauf

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He was in the right age bracket for a widowmaker but taking his own life with his son on the verge of realizing his dream seems absolutely senseless. I guess I will never understand human nature.
If you think of it not as human nature, but as a disease of the brain, it makes a bit more sense. A person who succumbs to suicidal ideation is a lot more like a person who suffers a stroke and can’t speak than he/she is like a person who has trouble getting motivated to complete an unpleasant task. Hence, saying “why would a person kill himself when his son is on the verge of achieving his dream” is a lot like saying “why doesn’t that strike victim speak when he has so much to say,” and not at all like saying “why doesn’t my kid clean his room.”
 
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RG33

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Nov 28, 2005
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He was in the right age bracket for a widowmaker but taking his own life with his son on the verge of realizing his dream seems absolutely senseless. I guess I will never understand human nature.
Don’t worry about understanding human nature, start with googling what mental illness is.
 

Big John

New Member
Dec 9, 2016
2,086
Why now? He went 49 years without committing suicide. Did his son's success trigger it? I understand that depression can be a killer. But the timing baffles me.
 

IdiotKicker

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Nov 21, 2005
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Somerville, MA
Generally with mental illness, it doesn’t have anything to do with anything external. It’s not supposed to make sense in context. If it did, there wouldn’t be anything wrong. When you’re going through depression/anxiety, you aren’t thinking about the outside world. You’re thinking about how to escape the torture you go through every day. Ed Waters got to a place where he couldn’t see another way out. And it’s really, really sad.
 

djbayko

Member
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Jul 18, 2005
25,895
Los Angeles, CA
Why now? He went 49 years without committing suicide. Did his son's success trigger it? I understand that depression can be a killer. But the timing baffles me.
You're trying to apply rational thought to someone who may not have been capable of thinking rationally. One of my best friends from college and roommates during our early professional years committed suicide. When he had his initial breakdown, it was so heart wrenching trying to talk to him and help him realize that all of his problems weren't that big a deal (they really weren't). Also, I don't know the story here, but the medication designed to keep you mentally healthy, if not carefully monitored, can have an adverse effect and trigger suicidal thoughts, as I'm quite certain they did with my friend (his prescription ran out, he went to the hospital in an episode, and they turned him away with nothing more than a prescription which never got filled).
 
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luckiestman

Son of the Harpy
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Jul 15, 2005
32,620
Why now? He went 49 years without committing suicide. Did his son's success trigger it? I understand that depression can be a killer. But the timing baffles me.

Maybe he thought he was done. His son didn’t need him anymore. A couple years back, a poli sci prof blogged a suicide note that said:

“I first began to weigh the costs and benefits to taking my life when I was a teenager (I suspect, roughly from the time I realized that I could). Suicide is, of course, a taboo. And the first rule of taboos is: don’t discuss the taboo! The second rule is: if you must discuss the taboo, express your opposition and then close the discussion.

So I learned early on not to discuss it.

When I got married I mostly stopped thinking about the suicide option. When we had children I stopped completely. It literally just wasn’t an option to me.

And its important to explain that I experienced these as exogenous choices. I don’t know whether you feel you are able to choose the thoughts that enter your mind, but aside from changing the stimuli (e.g., reading a book, watching a film, engaging in conversation), I did not exercise much control over the thoughts that entered my mind when I was not actively engaged in something. My mind generated thoughts, seemingly independent of my will.

So, until my children became adults, the suicide option just disappeared. I was thus surprised when, after my kids became adults, it returned. But it did.

When I left my ex-wife I was well aware that my time on the planet might be shorter than my body’s life expectancy. I knew I didn’t want to stay in the marriage, but I was far from confident that I would want to live a solitary life. And so it has come to pass

In closing, I want to thank each and everyone one of you who interacted with me, in person and/or virtually, and especially those who I interacted with frequently and came to know. I was fortunate to live a very rich life, and despite my challenges and frustrations, y’all were the reason for it. Though I chose to exit rather than persist, I have been very privileged, and I thank you for being a part of my life.



Live well, and to steal a line from one of my fraternity brothers, “Go hug somebody!””
 

terrynever

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Aug 25, 2005
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pawtucket
Generally with mental illness, it doesn’t have anything to do with anything external. It’s not supposed to make sense in context. If it did, there wouldn’t be anything wrong. When you’re going through depression/anxiety, you aren’t thinking about the outside world. You’re thinking about how to escape the torture you go through every day. Ed Waters got to a place where he couldn’t see another way out. And it’s really, really sad.
My younger brother killed himself in 2012. Your words are so true. We went through the stages of trying to make sense of it but eventually you realize that was not Larry, it was the mental illness. Still, you always think you could have done more.