8 ms·

Everywhere and Nowhere: A Journey Through Suicide

48 points by gringoDan 8y ago

foolzcrow 8y ago
Hitler also wasn't a big fan of informed consent.
Simulacra 8y ago
Related, something that really hit me and this community hard on suicide: https://gizmodo.com/the-agonizing-last-words-of-programmer-bill-zeller-5726667 https://gizmodo.com/the-agonizing-last-words-of-programmer-b...
- cjarrett 8y ago
  Thanks for these. I had never heard on Antrim before, and will be looking up some of his works as a result.
- Kenji 8y ago
  Holy shit, that was intense. Only read this if you feel emotionally stable and resilient. But it was worth the read.
- pdfernhout 8y ago
  Bill Zeller talks about difficulty overcoming early childhood trauma in his last words. He perhaps could have benefited from the techniques described in this book: "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma" by Bessel A. van der Kolk https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748 https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/01... "Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children. Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy—and a way to reclaim lives."
pdfernhout 8y ago
See also: Out of the Nightmare: Recovery from Depression and Suicidal Pain by David Conroy https://www.amazon.com/Out-Nightmare-Recovery-Depression-Suicidal/dp/0595414974/ https://www.amazon.com/Out-Nightmare-Recovery-Depression-Sui... "Out of the Nightmare. An all-out assault on the barriers that stand between you and recovery from depression and suicidal pain. decomposes recovery from depression into recovery from envy, shame, self-pity, grandiosity, fear, stigma, social abuse, and the double binds and vicious circles of the mythology of suicide. A drug-free approach to getting better and staying better. This book provides counselors with a bold new non-technical framework that is free from the prejudices that deter the suicidal from seeking help. It provides those who have lost a loved one to suicide with a broad array of new conceptual tools to understand the tragedy and to find help for stuck positions of bereavement. Most importantly, it provides all those who suffer from depression with hundreds of resources to find their way out of the nightmare." A suicide by an employee or within the families of employees touches many lives and can significantly impact productivity. Along with advice for suicidal individuals, the book includes suggestion for first responders, counselors, friends, and those who sadly are survivors of someone else's suicide. A major focus of the book includes deconstructing harmful ideas surrounding how people often think about or respond to those who have suicidal ideation and suggesting a more effective way of thinking about suicide prevention called the aggregate pain model. Some key ideas from the book are summarized here: https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/index.html https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/index.html "Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain. That's all it's about. You are not a bad person, or crazy, or weak, or flawed, because you feel suicidal. It doesn't even mean that you really want to die - it only means that you have more pain than you can cope with right now. If I start piling weights on your shoulders, you will eventually collapse if I add enough weights... no matter how much you want to remain standing. Willpower has nothing to do with it. Of course you would cheer yourself up, if you could. Don't accept it if someone tells you, "That's not enough to be suicidal about." There are many kinds of pain that may lead to suicide. Whether or not the pain is bearable may differ from person to person. What might be bearable to someone else, may not be bearable to you. The point at which the pain becomes unbearable depends on what kinds of coping resources you have. Individuals vary greatly in their capacity to withstand pain. When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources. You can survive suicidal feelings if you do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce your pain, or (2) find a way to increase your coping resources. Both are possible." One of the fundamental challenges in an organization or society is to destigmatize asking for help to avoid the classic dilemma those with suicidal thoughts face when they expect asking for help will only increase their pain from whatever reactions occur -- such as job loss or being ejected from a university community. By reconceptualizing suicide as an involuntary action that occurs when total pain exceeds resources for coping with pain, David Conroy provides a morally neutral way for organizations and society to think about suicide prevention in a productive way. Rather than focus mainly on intervening in a crisis, organizations can rethink their operations to reduce participant pain and to increase coping resources. This helps everyone in the organization, not just those who have reached a threshold where pain is very close to coping resources. Early intervention is much cheaper and more successful than waiting for a crisis. This model shows how organizations can approach suicide intervention in hundreds of way. One of those ways is also making people aware of success stories where individuals overcame depression and related suicidal thoughts. Aggregate pain includes physical pain, emotional pain, and social pain. Reducing pain in any area by even a small amount may bring a person below a threshold for suicide. Similarly there are many types of coping resources from interacting with a friend, to going to a funny movie, to receiving adequate health care, to interacting with a pet. There are also some short-term coping strategies like denial or drinking which may have long-term negative consequences that become new sources of pain when done to excess. More coping methods for transcending depression can be found in books listed here: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations-Reading-List https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... (Posted in memory of Robin Rochlin Cooperman -- a good friend from college who became a psychiatrist to help people who had mental illness and related challenges. I dearly wish she was still around for many reasons -- including to discuss such books with.)
jf 8y ago
A list of suicide hotlines are available here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SuicideWatch/wiki/hotlines https://www.reddit.com/r/SuicideWatch/wiki/hotlines Here are the numbers for the United States: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) Veterans press 1 to reach specialised support. Online Chat: http://chat.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/LifelineCh.. http://chat.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/LifelineCh.... Crisis Text Line: Text "START" to 741-741 Youth-Specific services (voice/text/chat/email) from the Boys' Town National Hotline: http://www.yourlifeyourvoice.org/Pages/ways-to-get-help.aspx http://www.yourlifeyourvoice.org/Pages/ways-to-get-help.aspx Spanish: 1-800-SUICIDA
- AndrewKemendo 8y ago
  Despite almost everyone who has made an attempt on their life saying it's counterproductive and patronizing, this is consistently the first response on any thread or discussion about suicide. I think this is symptomatic of the broader total failure to understand what could lead someone to suicide, and the tendency to assume what someone in crisis knows or just ditching them off. Maybe just accept that suicide is a human right and engage individuals in crisis as individuals with unique problems.
  - staticautomatic 8y ago
    I've been to the edge and back. It never occurred to me to call a hotline and it never would, but I have no doubt that other people might benefit from it. If the prospect of saving a life isn't enough to get past some abstract hand-wringing then I don't know what is. The point of the hotline isn't to fix you or permanently stave off a desire to kill yourself. The point is to buy enough time for you to get real help.
    - chris_wot 8y ago
      Maybe. But they don't do it passively. They will call the police.
      - 8y ago
UI_at_80x24 8y ago
To be human is the ability to defy our instincts. From the simplistic "I choose not to eat", to the extraordinary "I choose to end my life." I strongly believe that suicide is only a cultural taboo, and thus it is 'safe' to label it as a mental illness. I have struggled with wanting to end my life for 35+ years. "Talking about it" does not work. Medication/Meditation/Mediation has not helped. To put it simply; I do not wish to exist. I tried to kill myself once. [Dammit i suck at everything! /joke] Not a single day goes by where I don't think about doing it again. I regret failing. And yet I get up and go to work every day. There is a momentum to living. It is just a habit. I take no pleasure from my hobbies. I no longer have solace within peace and quiet. I am unable to escape in the written word. If I could end my life and know my family would be cared for financially I would in a heartbeat. My obligations keep me alive, and it is a torture. I am surrounded by people who love me, and would be devastated by my death. As near as I can tell, this is the meaning of life; and I want it to end.
- umvi 8y ago
  I believe there is still hope for you to enjoy life and experience joy again. I'll stop short of recommending things to try since I'm assuming you've tried it all already, but you never know what the future will hold.
  - Razengan 8y ago
    I am sure that most people who expound the joys of life when talking someone down from suicide, mean well, but I feel they're mostly trying to convince their own selves that life is always worth living.
    - elwell 8y ago
      That could well be the case sometimes, I personally disagree though. I genuinely am full of joy most days. For me, I attribute this to every step I take against my habit of walking away from God, and especially the manifestation/experience of God's love in my relationship with my wife. So if I attest to that, it's an appeal to truth for the sake of someone else, not because I'm struggling to believe. Though even if that were the motivator, it seems like a healthy enough mechanism of society.
Razengan 8y ago
I believe suicide should be seen as a beautiful release for some people. It's twisted and bizarre that this is such a taboo in human society, almost globally (I appreciate exceptions like Dignitas [0] in Switzerland.) Why do we endorse "My Body, My Choice" when it comes to decisions like abortion, but take that choice away when it comes to suicide? Why is the termination of life support for terminal patients seen as a mercy, but vehemently denied when someone who is otherwise healthy rationally chooses to die? What if someone is simply bored with life? Would you force someone to play a game they don't enjoy, or can't ever win at? I'm afraid suicide may never be universally accepted as a human right, for primarily these two reasons: 1: It acknowledges the possibility that life is pointless, which threatens many of our entrenched belief systems. 2: Money. If people could cleanly (without pain, guilt, taboo etc.) end their life anytime they want, it could seriously disrupt the economy. When people are no longer forced to live, many industries would make less money than they do (finance, healthcare, therapy, anything that relies on cheap labor, and so on.) [0] http://www.dignitas.ch http://www.dignitas.ch
- staticautomatic 8y ago
  Most non-terminally ill people who attempt suicide aren't making a rational choice to die at the time they attempt it.
  - throwaway34985 8y ago
    Anecdotally in my experience there are three categories of people who wish to suicide: 1. People with a terminal illness. Enough said. 2. People acting on impulse and/or not getting proper help. Sure they need some crisis intervention to offer a chance for them to receive proper help. 3. People who have been getting proper help for a long time. They simply lose hope. They view the long time they have been getting proper help as seeming proof they will never feel life is worth living. They dispassionately read coronial reports and suicide methods, carefully put their affairs into an orderly state (in particular financial arrangements for dependents), acquire the required resources to execute a painless while assured lethal plan that imposes no safety risks to others, then go off and do it. I was in the latter group, but I messed up by saying goodbye to my wife after a little wine (combined with Effexor) and that resulted in the full force of the law whack the shit out of me (and the fact it's obvious you're in this latter group means they take it far more seriously than if it seemed a fleeting impulse). Anyway by any objective measure the third group are making a rational choice to die. It should not be the community's right to dictate they should indefinitely live in pain.
chris_wot 8y ago
The problem with recovering from suicidal thoughts is not the fact you wanted to commit suicide. It is how the emergency and health services treat you. For a long time now, they have been putting people in seclusion, traumatizing a lot of people. They take away any autonomy, and the ED staff literally don't care about you - they are too busy dealing with critical cases and they see you as a waste of resources and an annoyance to be dealing with. Ironically, if you want to leave you won't be allowed to. It's perverse and disgusting. I strongly recommend speaking to family and friends and do NOT call the police, ambulance or any other official service. And whatever you do, you do not call suicide hotlines - they must call the police if they think you are about to commit suicide so they aren't confidential, despite what they claim.
the_jeremy 8y ago
Also pro-suicide legalisation, also recommend anything but telling authorities (hotlines, therapists) about a full suicide plan. Being stuck in a mental health hold for a week does nothing to help anyone, especially given the abysmal state of many of these facilities.
- throwaway34985 8y ago
  Even telling psychologists partial plans will cause them to freak out. Here in Australia they do have professional association guidelines (which boil down to there must a realistic, specific plan with timing to warrant breaching privacy), and the Privacy Act has provisions as to when privacy can be violated (also very narrowly permitted), but you're talking about psychologists here as opposed to engineers or lawyers. So they will break the law, you will end up scheduled, and your mental health will end up an order of magnitude worse than at any point in your life. I'd suggest if you are suicidal and you have already been seeing a specific psychologist for a while, the best thing to do is stop seeing that psychologist as their approach is not offering you hope. Switch to someone with a completely different treatment modality. Psychologists are as varied in quality as any other profession, but if you are increasing losing hope and thinking about suicide, it's time to switch.
  - the_jeremy 8y ago
    Sure, I should have been more clear. I meant that you can tell a therapist that you are having suicidal ideation (thoughts about suicide) without a problem, as long as it's clear you don't have any specific plans or timelines to act on them. I agree that a partial plan could possibly trigger a "better safe than sorry" approach to putting you in emergency detainment.
    - throwaway34985 8y ago
      My experience was I had a full plan, but deliberately avoided disclosing the legal triggers, expecting the law would apply on two levels: (a) the psychologist did not meet the threshold to breach privacy and (b) even if scheduled the legal requirement to only provide treatment in the least restrictive environment would ensure I am released given I have a demonstrable level of compliance in the community. What actually happened was the psychologist violated the law by telling them I had unusually strong legal knowledge of the Mental Health Act and as such I would say whatever is required to not be scheduled. So I got scheduled on information they should not even have, and did not assess the minimally restrictive criteria competently because they had reason to believe I was unusually knowledgeable of the legislation. These days I have a mental health lawyer ready to call the moment these people look at me the wrong way and I'll send him in. My level of cooperation with mental health will be zero in the future. At least in NSW the requirements to be scheduled are not strictly followed, so having a lawyer on retainer is the easiest way of dealing with these lawless do-gooders.
towaway1138 8y ago
If this is a problem for you, as it is for me, you might find the depression and suicide groups on reddit to be some solace. Beyond that, I think of suicide as more of something to put off than something to "cure". What can you do to put it off for a bit longer? Sometimes distraction, sometimes drinking, sometimes just getting out into nature somehow. There's a lot to be said for detaching completely from poisonous people and environments. You might think that you can't leave your awful job, declare bankruptcy, or never talk to your mother again, but you can. And maybe you should. One thing to consider is the subjective acceleration of time. We all experience that each year seems to pass quicker than the one before, for the most part. I realized at some point that this makes suicide a lot less urgent, at least at my age (50s). Putting it glibly, we'll all be dead soon enough--what's the hurry?
- goldfeld 8y ago
  Patience to live and die is the finest of arts.
cleandreams 8y ago
Nobody seems to have read this article although many people seem to identify with the topic because of their own suicidal feelings. I found the article very moving and I learned a lot about suicidal illness. The article is brutally honest. I understood how it could be that a person would not think about the pain their suicide would cause. I appreciated the amount of hopelessness and pain the author was in. One thing that is clear is that his pain is his mother's pain is his sister's pain is his family's pain... It's a large and complex family system, that has beget this suicidal person. It gave me a lot of compassion.

48 points by gringoDan 8y ago

Hitler also wasn't a big fan of informed consent.

Related, something that really hit me and this community hard on suicide: https://gizmodo.com/the-agonizing-last-words-of-programmer-bill-zeller-5726667 https://gizmodo.com/the-agonizing-last-words-of-programmer-b...

cjarrett 8y ago
Thanks for these. I had never heard on Antrim before, and will be looking up some of his works as a result.
Kenji 8y ago
Holy shit, that was intense. Only read this if you feel emotionally stable and resilient. But it was worth the read.
pdfernhout 8y ago
Bill Zeller talks about difficulty overcoming early childhood trauma in his last words. He perhaps could have benefited from the techniques described in this book: "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma" by Bessel A. van der Kolk https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748 https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/01... "Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children. Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy—and a way to reclaim lives."

pdfernhout 8y ago

See also: Out of the Nightmare: Recovery from Depression and Suicidal Pain by David Conroy https://www.amazon.com/Out-Nightmare-Recovery-Depression-Suicidal/dp/0595414974/ https://www.amazon.com/Out-Nightmare-Recovery-Depression-Sui... "Out of the Nightmare. An all-out assault on the barriers that stand between you and recovery from depression and suicidal pain. decomposes recovery from depression into recovery from envy, shame, self-pity, grandiosity, fear, stigma, social abuse, and the double binds and vicious circles of the mythology of suicide. A drug-free approach to getting better and staying better. This book provides counselors with a bold new non-technical framework that is free from the prejudices that deter the suicidal from seeking help. It provides those who have lost a loved one to suicide with a broad array of new conceptual tools to understand the tragedy and to find help for stuck positions of bereavement. Most importantly, it provides all those who suffer from depression with hundreds of resources to find their way out of the nightmare." A suicide by an employee or within the families of employees touches many lives and can significantly impact productivity. Along with advice for suicidal individuals, the book includes suggestion for first responders, counselors, friends, and those who sadly are survivors of someone else's suicide. A major focus of the book includes deconstructing harmful ideas surrounding how people often think about or respond to those who have suicidal ideation and suggesting a more effective way of thinking about suicide prevention called the aggregate pain model. Some key ideas from the book are summarized here: https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/index.html https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/index.html "Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain. That's all it's about. You are not a bad person, or crazy, or weak, or flawed, because you feel suicidal. It doesn't even mean that you really want to die - it only means that you have more pain than you can cope with right now. If I start piling weights on your shoulders, you will eventually collapse if I add enough weights... no matter how much you want to remain standing. Willpower has nothing to do with it. Of course you would cheer yourself up, if you could. Don't accept it if someone tells you, "That's not enough to be suicidal about." There are many kinds of pain that may lead to suicide. Whether or not the pain is bearable may differ from person to person. What might be bearable to someone else, may not be bearable to you. The point at which the pain becomes unbearable depends on what kinds of coping resources you have. Individuals vary greatly in their capacity to withstand pain. When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources. You can survive suicidal feelings if you do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce your pain, or (2) find a way to increase your coping resources. Both are possible." One of the fundamental challenges in an organization or society is to destigmatize asking for help to avoid the classic dilemma those with suicidal thoughts face when they expect asking for help will only increase their pain from whatever reactions occur -- such as job loss or being ejected from a university community. By reconceptualizing suicide as an involuntary action that occurs when total pain exceeds resources for coping with pain, David Conroy provides a morally neutral way for organizations and society to think about suicide prevention in a productive way. Rather than focus mainly on intervening in a crisis, organizations can rethink their operations to reduce participant pain and to increase coping resources. This helps everyone in the organization, not just those who have reached a threshold where pain is very close to coping resources. Early intervention is much cheaper and more successful than waiting for a crisis. This model shows how organizations can approach suicide intervention in hundreds of way. One of those ways is also making people aware of success stories where individuals overcame depression and related suicidal thoughts. Aggregate pain includes physical pain, emotional pain, and social pain. Reducing pain in any area by even a small amount may bring a person below a threshold for suicide. Similarly there are many types of coping resources from interacting with a friend, to going to a funny movie, to receiving adequate health care, to interacting with a pet. There are also some short-term coping strategies like denial or drinking which may have long-term negative consequences that become new sources of pain when done to excess. More coping methods for transcending depression can be found in books listed here: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations-Reading-List https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... (Posted in memory of Robin Rochlin Cooperman -- a good friend from college who became a psychiatrist to help people who had mental illness and related challenges. I dearly wish she was still around for many reasons -- including to discuss such books with.)

jf 8y ago

A list of suicide hotlines are available here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SuicideWatch/wiki/hotlines https://www.reddit.com/r/SuicideWatch/wiki/hotlines Here are the numbers for the United States: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) Veterans press 1 to reach specialised support. Online Chat: http://chat.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/LifelineCh.. http://chat.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/GetHelp/LifelineCh.... Crisis Text Line: Text "START" to 741-741 Youth-Specific services (voice/text/chat/email) from the Boys' Town National Hotline: http://www.yourlifeyourvoice.org/Pages/ways-to-get-help.aspx http://www.yourlifeyourvoice.org/Pages/ways-to-get-help.aspx Spanish: 1-800-SUICIDA

AndrewKemendo 8y ago
Despite almost everyone who has made an attempt on their life saying it's counterproductive and patronizing, this is consistently the first response on any thread or discussion about suicide. I think this is symptomatic of the broader total failure to understand what could lead someone to suicide, and the tendency to assume what someone in crisis knows or just ditching them off. Maybe just accept that suicide is a human right and engage individuals in crisis as individuals with unique problems.
- staticautomatic 8y ago
  I've been to the edge and back. It never occurred to me to call a hotline and it never would, but I have no doubt that other people might benefit from it. If the prospect of saving a life isn't enough to get past some abstract hand-wringing then I don't know what is. The point of the hotline isn't to fix you or permanently stave off a desire to kill yourself. The point is to buy enough time for you to get real help.
  - chris_wot 8y ago
    Maybe. But they don't do it passively. They will call the police.
    - 8y ago

UI_at_80x24 8y ago

To be human is the ability to defy our instincts. From the simplistic "I choose not to eat", to the extraordinary "I choose to end my life." I strongly believe that suicide is only a cultural taboo, and thus it is 'safe' to label it as a mental illness. I have struggled with wanting to end my life for 35+ years. "Talking about it" does not work. Medication/Meditation/Mediation has not helped. To put it simply; I do not wish to exist. I tried to kill myself once. [Dammit i suck at everything! /joke] Not a single day goes by where I don't think about doing it again. I regret failing. And yet I get up and go to work every day. There is a momentum to living. It is just a habit. I take no pleasure from my hobbies. I no longer have solace within peace and quiet. I am unable to escape in the written word. If I could end my life and know my family would be cared for financially I would in a heartbeat. My obligations keep me alive, and it is a torture. I am surrounded by people who love me, and would be devastated by my death. As near as I can tell, this is the meaning of life; and I want it to end.

umvi 8y ago
I believe there is still hope for you to enjoy life and experience joy again. I'll stop short of recommending things to try since I'm assuming you've tried it all already, but you never know what the future will hold.
- Razengan 8y ago
  I am sure that most people who expound the joys of life when talking someone down from suicide, mean well, but I feel they're mostly trying to convince their own selves that life is always worth living.
  - elwell 8y ago
    That could well be the case sometimes, I personally disagree though. I genuinely am full of joy most days. For me, I attribute this to every step I take against my habit of walking away from God, and especially the manifestation/experience of God's love in my relationship with my wife. So if I attest to that, it's an appeal to truth for the sake of someone else, not because I'm struggling to believe. Though even if that were the motivator, it seems like a healthy enough mechanism of society.

Razengan 8y ago

I believe suicide should be seen as a beautiful release for some people. It's twisted and bizarre that this is such a taboo in human society, almost globally (I appreciate exceptions like Dignitas [0] in Switzerland.) Why do we endorse "My Body, My Choice" when it comes to decisions like abortion, but take that choice away when it comes to suicide? Why is the termination of life support for terminal patients seen as a mercy, but vehemently denied when someone who is otherwise healthy rationally chooses to die? What if someone is simply bored with life? Would you force someone to play a game they don't enjoy, or can't ever win at? I'm afraid suicide may never be universally accepted as a human right, for primarily these two reasons: 1: It acknowledges the possibility that life is pointless, which threatens many of our entrenched belief systems. 2: Money. If people could cleanly (without pain, guilt, taboo etc.) end their life anytime they want, it could seriously disrupt the economy. When people are no longer forced to live, many industries would make less money than they do (finance, healthcare, therapy, anything that relies on cheap labor, and so on.) [0] http://www.dignitas.ch http://www.dignitas.ch

staticautomatic 8y ago
Most non-terminally ill people who attempt suicide aren't making a rational choice to die at the time they attempt it.
- throwaway34985 8y ago
  Anecdotally in my experience there are three categories of people who wish to suicide: 1. People with a terminal illness. Enough said. 2. People acting on impulse and/or not getting proper help. Sure they need some crisis intervention to offer a chance for them to receive proper help. 3. People who have been getting proper help for a long time. They simply lose hope. They view the long time they have been getting proper help as seeming proof they will never feel life is worth living. They dispassionately read coronial reports and suicide methods, carefully put their affairs into an orderly state (in particular financial arrangements for dependents), acquire the required resources to execute a painless while assured lethal plan that imposes no safety risks to others, then go off and do it. I was in the latter group, but I messed up by saying goodbye to my wife after a little wine (combined with Effexor) and that resulted in the full force of the law whack the shit out of me (and the fact it's obvious you're in this latter group means they take it far more seriously than if it seemed a fleeting impulse). Anyway by any objective measure the third group are making a rational choice to die. It should not be the community's right to dictate they should indefinitely live in pain.

chris_wot 8y ago

The problem with recovering from suicidal thoughts is not the fact you wanted to commit suicide. It is how the emergency and health services treat you. For a long time now, they have been putting people in seclusion, traumatizing a lot of people. They take away any autonomy, and the ED staff literally don't care about you - they are too busy dealing with critical cases and they see you as a waste of resources and an annoyance to be dealing with. Ironically, if you want to leave you won't be allowed to. It's perverse and disgusting. I strongly recommend speaking to family and friends and do NOT call the police, ambulance or any other official service. And whatever you do, you do not call suicide hotlines - they must call the police if they think you are about to commit suicide so they aren't confidential, despite what they claim.

the_jeremy 8y ago

Also pro-suicide legalisation, also recommend anything but telling authorities (hotlines, therapists) about a full suicide plan. Being stuck in a mental health hold for a week does nothing to help anyone, especially given the abysmal state of many of these facilities.

throwaway34985 8y ago
Even telling psychologists partial plans will cause them to freak out. Here in Australia they do have professional association guidelines (which boil down to there must a realistic, specific plan with timing to warrant breaching privacy), and the Privacy Act has provisions as to when privacy can be violated (also very narrowly permitted), but you're talking about psychologists here as opposed to engineers or lawyers. So they will break the law, you will end up scheduled, and your mental health will end up an order of magnitude worse than at any point in your life. I'd suggest if you are suicidal and you have already been seeing a specific psychologist for a while, the best thing to do is stop seeing that psychologist as their approach is not offering you hope. Switch to someone with a completely different treatment modality. Psychologists are as varied in quality as any other profession, but if you are increasing losing hope and thinking about suicide, it's time to switch.
- the_jeremy 8y ago
  Sure, I should have been more clear. I meant that you can tell a therapist that you are having suicidal ideation (thoughts about suicide) without a problem, as long as it's clear you don't have any specific plans or timelines to act on them. I agree that a partial plan could possibly trigger a "better safe than sorry" approach to putting you in emergency detainment.
  - throwaway34985 8y ago
    My experience was I had a full plan, but deliberately avoided disclosing the legal triggers, expecting the law would apply on two levels: (a) the psychologist did not meet the threshold to breach privacy and (b) even if scheduled the legal requirement to only provide treatment in the least restrictive environment would ensure I am released given I have a demonstrable level of compliance in the community. What actually happened was the psychologist violated the law by telling them I had unusually strong legal knowledge of the Mental Health Act and as such I would say whatever is required to not be scheduled. So I got scheduled on information they should not even have, and did not assess the minimally restrictive criteria competently because they had reason to believe I was unusually knowledgeable of the legislation. These days I have a mental health lawyer ready to call the moment these people look at me the wrong way and I'll send him in. My level of cooperation with mental health will be zero in the future. At least in NSW the requirements to be scheduled are not strictly followed, so having a lawyer on retainer is the easiest way of dealing with these lawless do-gooders.

towaway1138 8y ago

If this is a problem for you, as it is for me, you might find the depression and suicide groups on reddit to be some solace. Beyond that, I think of suicide as more of something to put off than something to "cure". What can you do to put it off for a bit longer? Sometimes distraction, sometimes drinking, sometimes just getting out into nature somehow. There's a lot to be said for detaching completely from poisonous people and environments. You might think that you can't leave your awful job, declare bankruptcy, or never talk to your mother again, but you can. And maybe you should. One thing to consider is the subjective acceleration of time. We all experience that each year seems to pass quicker than the one before, for the most part. I realized at some point that this makes suicide a lot less urgent, at least at my age (50s). Putting it glibly, we'll all be dead soon enough--what's the hurry?

goldfeld 8y ago
Patience to live and die is the finest of arts.

cleandreams 8y ago

Nobody seems to have read this article although many people seem to identify with the topic because of their own suicidal feelings. I found the article very moving and I learned a lot about suicidal illness. The article is brutally honest. I understood how it could be that a person would not think about the pain their suicide would cause. I appreciated the amount of hopelessness and pain the author was in. One thing that is clear is that his pain is his mother's pain is his sister's pain is his family's pain... It's a large and complex family system, that has beget this suicidal person. It gave me a lot of compassion.