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Great summary of the suicide literature. This is why it's okay to restrain suicidal people against their will - it's temporary madness most of the time If your

• jMyles 7y ago
  > Or if someone high on shrooms was trying to drink bleach? Wait, what?
• stevewodil 7y ago
  It would be interesting to talk to these people and ask if it was the suicide attempt itself that made them not attempt again. If you prevent the attempt will it have the same effect?
  • staticautomatic 7y ago
    I think it probably depends on whether they tried because they lost all their coping mechanisms or because they were angry. I'm one of the former and I don't think I'd ever attempt it again but it seems people who attempt as an act of rage are more likely to repeat. I'm not confident that stopping someone would have the same effect as them living through it.
  • aj91fl48znv3mpk 7y ago
    Speaking for myself, virtually all self administered methods used can be quite painful with an uncertain outcome, due to imperfect information. As I started going through an attempt, as the pain increased, I backed off and realized I had no idea what I was doing and needed to stop. I suppose people that attempt suicide don't see another way of solving whatever they perceive to be the doomsday singularity in their life.
  • DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I attempted suicide at age 17. I have been hospitalized twice on a suicide watch. For me, yes, the failed attempt has served as a deterrent. Due to various intractable issues, my life has sucked for a long time. Adding more scars, more people thinking I'm merely crazy and more medical bills won't in any way enhance my life. I don't want to survive another failed attempt and I'm usually in no position to make sure I succeed. So, for me, yes, it's been a factor. /Anecdata
  • bayesian_horse 7y ago
    In my opinion the misconception is that suicidal ideation means no will for self-preservation. On the opposite, the urge to think, speak and act on suicidal ideation is at odds with various other emotions and instincts. One way of threading this needle is to perform attempts which are obviously going to fail, maybe eben intentionally so. It may take any kind of attempt, be it intentionally or accidentally unsuccessful to lead to treatment or at least the acknowledgement of all parties involved that the problem is actually bigger than a bout of self-pity or lack of character.
  • rincebrain 7y ago
    I know people who have said the primary reason they don't attempt suicide again is not that they feel life is improving or worth living, but because each attempt further reduced their QoL and they're terrified of what another unsuccessful attempt might yield.
• AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  > the temporary throes of delusion and irrationality On the other hand, this phrase describes about 80% of all human behavior in my experience.
• autokad 7y ago
  i agree to a large degree, though even 1/10 is an appalling rate of suicide vs the general population of 1/5000~
  • robocat 7y ago
    It looks to me like you are comparing a lifetime figure against a yearly figure. Suicide figures are usually given on an annual basis, but we often mistake the figures for lifetime risk, and we are then surprised with how common suicide is within our own experience/extended acquantancy.
    • autokad 7y ago
      thats true, but my statement remains correct regardless. correct me if i fudge my math. 1- 1/5000 =.9998. .9998^72 = .985702, thus <1.5% chance of suicide over a life time. .1 is still appallingly high vs .015 (and I think 1/5000 is actually a generous estimate, rates are age adjusted so its hard to apples to apples, but according to wikipedia its 13.42 / 100k - much less than 1/5k).
  • bayesian_horse 7y ago
    From the numbers it could very well be that a lot of the ones who die in a subsequent attempt could be bipolar or have some other serious comorbidity in addition to "just" major depression. There are multiple conditions which can lead to depressive symptoms and suicidal tendencies. Some are more malign than others, which is a strange thing to say about conditions that make you want to kill yourself. But basically, suicidality in bipolar patients can only be significantly reduced by exactly one specific medication.
    • hiram112 7y ago
      Are you referring to Lithium or just saying they need one more medication, on average, to get them out of their very deep hole?
      • bayesian_horse 7y ago
• manicdee 7y ago
  You made quite the leap of logic there. The article is about people whose suicide attempts failed, and ended up with them alive in hospital. Of these people, only about 10% will successfully suicide later. There is no connection between these incidents and your justification for restraining suicidal people against their will. I am certain that there is evidence to support your claim, but this is not it.
  • JKCalhoun 7y ago
    I see your point, but I also don't see much of a leap. If 90% who survived suicide did not attempt suicide again it sort of does suggest that had more people survived their suicide impulses they would also be one-timers. Sadly, sometimes one impulse is the last. I read about bridge jumpers who survived (I think it was the Golden Gate Bridge, FWIW) and most said the instant they left the bridge they had a rush of clarity and profoundly regretted what they had just done. Haunts me still to think about the ones that didn't survive but likely had that same moment of horror.
    • temporaryvector 7y ago
      >If 90% who survived suicide did not attempt suicide again it sort of does suggest that had more people survived their suicide impulses they would also be one-timers. It might also suggest that those who survived a suicide attempt used half-hearted measures because it was an impulsive act, while at least some (though we'll likely never know that actual proportion) of those who did not survive their attempt went to greater lengths to ensure their death because their act was more premeditated and planned out than impulsive. What about the other 10%? Was there a second impulse, then a third one? Sad as it may be to contemplate, not all suicide is a spur-of-the-moment thing, some people will go to great lengths to get their affairs in order and ensure their own death.
    • manicdee 7y ago
      I think the point is that they have to execute to get the release from the insanity. Pulling people back from the brink might stop them trying this time, but perhaps it’s that moment of clarity after all the noise and chaos inside their head has finally been resolved by making a decision and following through, that leads them to recognise the more sensible decisions they should have taken.
• duxup 7y ago
  I remember working through rounds of depression and constantly confused and doubting my interpretation of .... anything / everything. It was hard to understand the differences I perception when depressed and not. One day a doctor almost as an aside said "When you are depressed, you don't see the world the way it is, but you also can't comprehend that entirely or maybe at all." I finally understood why it was just so different on either end of the depression and non depression world and also how far "off" my ability to understand certain things were.
  • drivingmenuts 7y ago
    What is the difference? I mean, the world is the world and the things that happen don’t change just because one sees them in a different way. Put another way, even if I wasn’t depressed, I’d still be single, diabetic and have a ton of debt. What about that would change?
    • agumonkey 7y ago
      some people still see these problems are not damaging enough to be sad - failing love relationship can also be pain, some love the peace of being single - diabetic may be managed (maybe your case is harder though, I cannot assume it's easy) - some can find support to fill debt and like to rise above it as a challenge Much in life is interpretation, and accepting damaging emotions as truer than neutral or positive is not my favorite choice. Best wishes
    • bayesian_horse 7y ago
      Optimism for one thing. Non-depressive people usually think their problems are conquerable and they can find some enjoyment here and there. For another, the perception/prediction of effort is very much different. In a depressive episode patients will estimate all tasks as fundamentally harder, leading to huge problems in motivation and making decisions. It's quite analogous to how increased gravity on another planet would affect your movements and decisions about your movements. When the capacity for enjoyment or positive emotions is reduced, you won't be seeking enjoyment as much. Which is a vicious cycle, of course. So yes, depressive symptoms are a big hindrance, even if you have other big problems, none of which I would want to diminish.
• qwsxyh 7y ago
  > This is why it's okay to restrain suicidal people against their will Well, it isn't.
• tomjen3 7y ago
  If you believe that, then you should also be willing to exempt anyone who has given notice in advance (let say 2 weeks). If you are not, then please don't go and lord your believes about peoples lives over them.