Yesterday we had a comment on our story, Rob Taylor Took The Ultimate Jump which prompted us to do a little extra digging.

I was saddened to hear of this. My first thought was perhaps he never quite got over the death of that boy at Midmar Dam a few years back, and who can blame him.

Besides a number of professional controversies surrounding his property development ventures, Rob Taylor suffered a number of personally-troubling incidents at key points in what may have been his journey toward depression, or drug use.

News24 reported the following.

In 2006, he was present when a child, Clinton Aupias, fell from a boat and drowned in Midmar Dam.

“He felt responsible for the boy’s death. I think such an incident would have a devastating impact on anyone.

“I met with him after the accident and he was extremely disturbed,” said [a close friend of his,  Brigette] Delport.

In 2009 two accidents at Angels’ Way within two weeks also disturbed him.

In the first case, a student skydiver sustained second degree electrical burns to her leg, back and arm when her parachute became entangled in power lines after a freefall jump.

In the second, Hymne Cajeux of Durban died after she reportedly activated her parachute too low for it to open properly.

“All these had a terrible impact on Rob. It seems as if he was blaming himself for these tragedies and he was living with guilt and had a huge burden on his shoulders,” said Delport.

Numerous comment threads on the matter featured readers who claimed to suffer from a variety of mental health ailments, including bipolar dissorder and manic depression.

Asked if Taylor’s reported behaviour prior to his death was symptomatic of manic depression, bipolar disorder, or some other related mental health ailment, Cape Town counselling and health psychologist, Dr. Despina Learmoth, had this to say:

I would also question drug abuse. For example, cocaine addiction or crystal meth addiction (and therefore abusing high quantities of the drug) can lead to this kind of behaviour which appears as mania or a type of psychotic process.

Addicts often end up committing suicide. High levels of dopamine in the brain are said to contribute to manic behaviour and the aforementioned drugs produce these high levels when abused. However, individuals suffering from an underlying psychotic process or mania are often mistakenly assumed to be using substances.

Based on the fact that this man is obviously a successful business man, a type of bipolar disorder does seem to be the most likely explanation for his behaviour. But without a thorough review of clinical notes or a clinical interview we can merely speculate.

Perhaps he was just very depressed?

The generous acts could have been attempts to assuage his guilt.

The “generous acts” referred to by Learmoth included the spontaneous donation of his Audi R8 in January 2010, and allegedly numerous skydiving aircraft. Taylor also once offered his Lamborghini Diablo to a traffic officer as a means of punishing himself.

Taylor’s family were unavailable for comment.

CLICK HERE to read a close friend’s explanation of events

CLICK HERE to read the original post.

[Source : News24]