The Tragedy of Vanessa Ford
Vanessa Ford had it all. Equity partner in a major law firm, at the top of her game, adoring and adored mother of two wonderful boys, and with a soul-mate husband who thought she was the most amazing person in the world. ““The perfect person to be around”, he described her, going on to say, “She was good at everything.”
On September 15, 2023 Vanessa’s team closed the deal on the sale of Everton Football Club, a huge and complicated corporate transaction. To pull all these complex and interconnecting threads together she had been working eighteen hour days, week after week, for months on end. She drove herself because it was, as she put it, “the best work I’ve ever done”.
A week later, after all the loose ends were gathered and sorted, she attended a celebration party, stayed over with a colleague, and returned home early the next morning. By then the house was empty.
Vanessa called a mental health helpline, wrote a note to her family, took a bottle of gin and left the house on foot. A short distance away she came to the bridge over a rail line, climbed over the barricade and jumped in front of a train. She was 47.
The coroner’s inquest found “incredibly high” levels of alcohol in her blood. He went on to say that while there was “no doubt” that Ford had “taken her own life”, there was “insufficient evidence” that she fully intended to take her own life. In other words, because of Vanessa’s high level of intoxication, the coroner couldn’t say for sure if she was able to form a suicidal intention.
Not all of us jump in front of trains, but most of us know all about eighteen hour days and taking phone calls in the middle of your kid’s birthday party, calls that end just as the last guests are leaving. In law, medicine, police and emergency services, we all have our own legends and bragging rights about all-nighters and family holidays cut short.
More than once, I’ve watched the sun rise while still at work. On one occasion a colleague and I settled a complicated estate case and went to the local greasy spoon for an early breakfast to celebrate. More than once I’ve gone home to shower and change and head straight back to court. On another occasion a partner and I had worked all night responding to a late-served Notice of Motion. Exhausted at 5:00 AM we were headed for the door when the fax machine began to spew out an amended Record. The other team had pulled an all-nighter, too, and now we had to return to our desks to respond.
Whether it’s adrenaline, pride, stellar billings, or stubbornness, insane work hours and the sacrifice of family and personal life are endemic to many of the professions. We write ourselves into our own legends, we’re ten feet tall, bulletproof warriors. Until we’re not.
All the professions talk a good line about work-life balance, and most of them provide “professional help” for those who ask. The problem is that most don’t ask, afraid of admitting to weakness in the company of superheroes. Who wants to be seen as the weak link, the underachiever, the kid amongst the adults?
The result is that the “great professions” suffer shockingly high rates of alcoholism, self-medication, multiple divorces, and suicide. And many practitioners work far beyond “normal” retirement years, in large part because they have become so habituated to craziness that they fear a transition to normal. Ask me, I know.
The solution? Well, we’re not going to fix the whole world, but we can start with you and me. It begins with confiding in someone you trust, utterly.
Just saying out loud that you’re stretched to the breaking point, and maybe beyond, is a huge relief and the beginning of hope. Possibly someone within your work group, but probably not. A spouse, a sibling, a trusted friend– someone you’re comfortable telling your deepest secrets and fears. You’d be amazed how wise and perceptive they are, and how freeing it is just to tell somebody else that your life has become crazy, and you can’t continue that way.
And if you don’t have anyone else, call me. I may not be wise and perceptive, but I’d be happy to listen, and point you in a good direction. For free.