Off the back of another whistleblower ending up dead, who seemingly had information dangerous to an organisation they worked for, I wanted to write about two reasons that I know of for people in this situation to commit suicide. Sadly both of these reasons benefit the guilty and should be known about by anyone who is considering blowing the whistle.
Paranoia
People who are genuinely in a position of having information that they want to share about their organisation’s wrong doings are generally good and caring people. These types are motivated by a moral code that is greater than the fear of going public. They are also typically not used to doing stuff like this and are doing this for the first time. With this lack of experience and a mindset that is unaware of the consequences of their planned action, they are unaware of the results of their action on themselves. This leads them to a dark place for them, perhaps for the first time in their life.
Imagine if you can an office worker who learns about a wrongdoing by colleagues, and has access to the evidence that proves that this “thing” happened. They will be in a mental moral dilemma about doing anything, and this is the start of the paranoia. They may have been pushed to the limit that their morals can take and may have seen prior transgressions that upset them, and yet they did not do anything about it. This mental dilemma is actually a fracturing of their own confidence, and if they go further it will increase.
So this person takes the first step to obtain or copy the evidence, then they keep it secret. Their act and the ownership now of dangerous material will play on their psyche, and again effect their confidence in themselves. Next they will make contact with an outside organisation to tell them of the information they hold, and the paranoia will ramp up massively at this point as they now know someone else knows and that person has an expectation on them. They also will not know if that person is able to keep silent about what they have been told, so this huge increase in their vulnerability will further modify their thinking, and again their normal confident selves will be altered.
They will become super sensitive to any mention of the leak, the detail of the information held, or the fact that the organisation knows something is up, and there is a perpetrator out there. In some cases the organisation will know there is a breach and start a witch hunt, but in most cases they will have no idea, however in either case the person at the centre of this leak will be probably more paranoid than at any time in their life.
It is at this point that they may start thinking if they are strong enough to carry on with this endeavor. If they go ahead and present the information to the third party they may have to go into hiding, and even if they do not do anything the pressure is on them greatly, worrying about who knows and what they will do next. They will experience great paranoia at what may happen and who knows what. In this place of extreme worry they may be threatened by people who know what they have done, or they may falsely imagine that people are threatening them.
It is here that the idea of suicide becomes favorable perhaps to going ahead with further action. The concern about what is known and what is not known can become intolerable, and seemingly innocent things can appear to indicate that someone is on to them, and maybe in some cases this is actually true. Also perhaps now the news has gotten out into the public sphere too, and articles and news items are being shared. So in a state of absolute fear, with one possible future being the receipt of the expected information by the third party, who is maybe pressuring them, then living with the exposure that will follow. And another future being the person is not able to release the information and is found out, leading to a loss of their job, or worse a court case and possible jail time. In this time the person finds that they are not strong enough to continue. So suicide seems to be the only way to escape the predicament they find themselves in.
Fear Of Discovery
People who are after attention to satisfy their ego will have seen in the past how other whistle blowers have gotten attention and they think it is a great way of feeding a need they have. Maybe they also have a grudge against their organisation and want to see them fail. They will decide that making something up and concocting evidence will be a great thrill for them, and so they fabricate evidence and go to a third party to tell them.
Unlike the first case this kind of person will revel in the news of a potential whistleblower and will enjoy the search for who has said what, and may even indicate to others that it has been themselves, as a way of garnering attention. Their love of the power of secrets will drive them to pretend that they have evidence of some wrong doing, which never happened.
They will more than likely go ahead and present the false evidence and again enjoy the news and that gossip along with the fear of others in their organisation thinking their livelihoods are on the line. However the false evidence will likely be disproved by counter evidence and this is the origin of the issues for this type of attention seeking whistleblowers.
They will likely double down to the third party on the truth of their claim and promise further evidence, which they don’t have. Their need for attention will be in overdrive and they will still need feeding, even though the attention is now poisonous to them. They will continue with their charade way past the reasonable point and it will likely become obvious to those in the organisation and outside that this person has made up the allegations. They will of course deny everything, but will now fear discovery and punishment.
In a state of fear that rivals anything they have previously experienced, the media may turn against this whistleblower, and they realise the game is up, however they have a final trick up their sleeve. There is a way they can make themselves look credible and continue the game perhaps for decades after. They understand that killing themselves will perform two actions, it will prevent them from facing any consequences of their lies, and it will also make it look like someone else has killed them for what they know and were about to reveal, and this will keep the guessing game going on for years, and probably make them famous, not that they will be around to experience it!
So they commit suicide as a means of becoming immortal in the eyes of the public. They will think that the people will forever consider them a brave whistleblower who was killed for what they knew by an evil organisation that didn’t want the evidence they had getting out.
Rules
So if you are thinking of whistle blowing, consider the above carefully.
If you are disingenuous, then don’t do it for attention, period.
If you are genuine, then know what will happen to you psychologically, it will not be easy for you initially. There will likely come a point where you feel that suicide might be an easier option, but here’s something to think about; people who conspire are generally not very intelligent and will then also not know what is going on, and your worst enemy will be your paranoia. Ultimately decide for yourself if the information you have is worth the pain you will go through and if you feel that the public’s knowledge is of greater benefit to you than your own need for freedom.
Also remember that your own potential suicide will actually benefit the evil organisation and they will not change as a result of your death, as you will have been just another hurdle that they successfully cleared.
In the end only you know what you have to do.