4 ms·

They go through a little timeline at the end of the article, re: the 15-year-old girl, G. - She spends over a week in the emergency dept. at Boston Children's.

They go through a little timeline at the end of the article, re: the 15-year-old girl, G. - She spends over a week in the emergency dept. at Boston Children's. - A bed opens up in the hospital proper; she spends another ~3 weeks there. - She moves to an inpatient treatment center (of the kind advocated by the doctor quoted above), spends a week there, and doesn't find it very helpful. - She returns home and spends the summer working at a fast-food place; she still self-harms but manages to hide it for a while. - In the fall, suicidal again (or perhaps she always was), she returns to the inpatient facility for two more weeks, then transitions into an outpatient program. - She's still having a hard time, so she goes to a different hospital and stays for three weeks. By now it's mid October 2021 (iiuc); her initial visit to Boston Children's was in late April. - The last update is that she continues to self-harm, has gotten better at hiding it, and has learned not to admit to adults that she's suicidal. Pretty f'ing bleak! Not that I would have any idea who or what to blame in such a situation. The silver lining is that this person is still alive, a year after the first hospitalization.

codingdave 4y ago
That is one story. There are others where it does work out, and learning some coping skills from inpatient was the start of healing. There are yet other stories where the inpatient program identifies a medical problem underlying the suicidal thoughts and they get on meds, figure out how to cope, and end up living a productive life. Our system does work for some people. But it is frustrating and fails others. If anyone wants to build a better one, please do. We need more answers, more options, and more help. ERs are definitely not the answer. The fact that a local family doc can fly someone to a trauma center on a helicopter for a life-threatening physical problem in a matter of minutes, while an equally life-threatening mental problem requires weeks or months of wait lists is a huge freaking problem. We absolutely should be looking for better answers. In the meantime, we do the best we can with what we have to try to save the lives of our children. We all hope for something better in the long run, but I at least appreciate that articles like this are exposing the problems.
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  "Our system does work for some people. But it is frustrating and fails others. If anyone wants to build a better one, please do." I don't know how we can achieve it, but we somehow need to get to a society which each individual cares for and engages with people in need, and not just wish them away to some system which is supposed to substitute for our own caring and engagement.
  - codingdave 4y ago
    > supposed to substitute for our own caring and engagement. That is an unfair portrayal. Parents are not psychologists, not nurses or doctors, and have limits. We can give our absolute most to care for our children and still need more help.
    - pmoriarty 4y ago
      I'm not suggesting that untrained people provide therapy, but simply engage with and help those in need in some way -- whether that be by volunteering in soup kitchens, schools, hospitals, shelters, senior centers, big brother / big sister programs, summer camps, scouts, tutoring, Kiwanis/Rotary clubs, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, etc. There are so many ways to help and become more engaged with one's community and people in need. If everyone did more social service of this kind instead of focusing just on themselves and their friends and family, while (at best) paying others to care for people in their community, we'd be so much better off. Kids and adults see a broken society where they and the people around them are just not cared about, ignored, left to rot, or are even actively attacked/harmed. That alone is traumatizing and disheartening. There's so much pain in the world and it's tempting to disengage and withdraw. A more caring world would be a psychological boon to everyone.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - collegeburner 4y ago
    This is not fair. Most parents really care about their children but just caring isn't always enough. They don't always know how to fix it. Teen years is when kids start becoming their own people, they do more without parents, keep secrets, and those are not problems, they need that to become adults. But it is not fair to tell parents both "give your kid space to grow" and qt the same time "you must know everything about your kid, if they are self harming and you do not know then you're a bad parent".
oneoff786 4y ago
This does not seem like a silver lining at all. This is a terrible outcome.
lostgame 4y ago
That’s about my experience. It was until I hid from everyone that I was suicidal, refused all help from the broken and abhorrent ‘mental health care system’, stopped seeking treatment - and finally realized that the system is there to put you away and stop bothering people (family, etc.) rather than to fix any of the actual underlying issues in your life - that I stopped being suicidal. Continuing to be forced into this kind of ‘treatment’ - one more hospital visit - would’ve been what killed me, for sure. I have never experienced such a deep-seated feeling of not just wanting - but needing, to die - outside of a mental health hospital. I cannot effectively describe the utter helplessness of already feeling totally hopeless - only to then be strapped to a table and restrained; while bright fluorescent lights pierce at you from overhead, completely alone and isolated - until you wish you’d just taken your life already - so you wouldn’t have to be experiencing…this. I’ve had maybe half a dozen friends who have been suicidal and gone through this hospital bullshit that worsens the situation rather than getting basic therapy and a shift in lifestyle that they need. This ER bullshit doesn’t help anyone. Everyone on the inside, when allowed to talk to each other - often talks about how we are working out our lies to tell our doctors so we can get the hell out of there. There’s no genuine desire for healing. It’s a prison. And all anyone who is forcefully admitted into that prison just wants out. I’m not suicidal anymore - because I chose to keep it completely inside - not tell anyone, and work on myself. I realized opening up about suicidal feelings, if you have them - is literally the worst thing you can do. You’ll end up in one of these institutions; the hell of a lot worse off than you were beforehand. The best you can do if you need therapy - is to make a call to a help line through a VoIP on a proxy, though a generated phone number on an application like TextPlus.
TheAceOfHearts 4y ago
How is it a silver lining to force someone to continue living and suffering in secret and against their stated will? Who cares about her wellbeing as long as we forced her to stay alive no matter what, right? Humans love to talk about empathy and yet it always seems to be completely absent when referring to suicidal individuals.
- kylehotchkiss 4y ago
  This story is about teenagers who haven’t even had the chance to touch adulthood or freedom. They have bright futures. These are not people with the full context of life who are able to make a sincere decision about whether they want to live. I once was in a similar situation in college and through therapy worked on my issues and now am very happy I’ve been alive - my best days were after the hard ones - and I’m willing to bet a lot of the HN audience has similar experiences
BeFlatXIII 4y ago
That's even bleaker than the "Slow Costly Death of Mrs. K_______" that Edward Tufte loves to use as an example of an annotated medical bill telling an extremely bleak end-of-life horror story.

codingdave 4y ago

That is one story. There are others where it does work out, and learning some coping skills from inpatient was the start of healing. There are yet other stories where the inpatient program identifies a medical problem underlying the suicidal thoughts and they get on meds, figure out how to cope, and end up living a productive life. Our system does work for some people. But it is frustrating and fails others. If anyone wants to build a better one, please do. We need more answers, more options, and more help. ERs are definitely not the answer. The fact that a local family doc can fly someone to a trauma center on a helicopter for a life-threatening physical problem in a matter of minutes, while an equally life-threatening mental problem requires weeks or months of wait lists is a huge freaking problem. We absolutely should be looking for better answers. In the meantime, we do the best we can with what we have to try to save the lives of our children. We all hope for something better in the long run, but I at least appreciate that articles like this are exposing the problems.

pmoriarty 4y ago
"Our system does work for some people. But it is frustrating and fails others. If anyone wants to build a better one, please do." I don't know how we can achieve it, but we somehow need to get to a society which each individual cares for and engages with people in need, and not just wish them away to some system which is supposed to substitute for our own caring and engagement.
- codingdave 4y ago
  > supposed to substitute for our own caring and engagement. That is an unfair portrayal. Parents are not psychologists, not nurses or doctors, and have limits. We can give our absolute most to care for our children and still need more help.
  - pmoriarty 4y ago
    I'm not suggesting that untrained people provide therapy, but simply engage with and help those in need in some way -- whether that be by volunteering in soup kitchens, schools, hospitals, shelters, senior centers, big brother / big sister programs, summer camps, scouts, tutoring, Kiwanis/Rotary clubs, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, etc. There are so many ways to help and become more engaged with one's community and people in need. If everyone did more social service of this kind instead of focusing just on themselves and their friends and family, while (at best) paying others to care for people in their community, we'd be so much better off. Kids and adults see a broken society where they and the people around them are just not cared about, ignored, left to rot, or are even actively attacked/harmed. That alone is traumatizing and disheartening. There's so much pain in the world and it's tempting to disengage and withdraw. A more caring world would be a psychological boon to everyone.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- collegeburner 4y ago
  This is not fair. Most parents really care about their children but just caring isn't always enough. They don't always know how to fix it. Teen years is when kids start becoming their own people, they do more without parents, keep secrets, and those are not problems, they need that to become adults. But it is not fair to tell parents both "give your kid space to grow" and qt the same time "you must know everything about your kid, if they are self harming and you do not know then you're a bad parent".

oneoff786 4y ago

This does not seem like a silver lining at all. This is a terrible outcome.

lostgame 4y ago

That’s about my experience. It was until I hid from everyone that I was suicidal, refused all help from the broken and abhorrent ‘mental health care system’, stopped seeking treatment - and finally realized that the system is there to put you away and stop bothering people (family, etc.) rather than to fix any of the actual underlying issues in your life - that I stopped being suicidal. Continuing to be forced into this kind of ‘treatment’ - one more hospital visit - would’ve been what killed me, for sure. I have never experienced such a deep-seated feeling of not just wanting - but needing, to die - outside of a mental health hospital. I cannot effectively describe the utter helplessness of already feeling totally hopeless - only to then be strapped to a table and restrained; while bright fluorescent lights pierce at you from overhead, completely alone and isolated - until you wish you’d just taken your life already - so you wouldn’t have to be experiencing…this. I’ve had maybe half a dozen friends who have been suicidal and gone through this hospital bullshit that worsens the situation rather than getting basic therapy and a shift in lifestyle that they need. This ER bullshit doesn’t help anyone. Everyone on the inside, when allowed to talk to each other - often talks about how we are working out our lies to tell our doctors so we can get the hell out of there. There’s no genuine desire for healing. It’s a prison. And all anyone who is forcefully admitted into that prison just wants out. I’m not suicidal anymore - because I chose to keep it completely inside - not tell anyone, and work on myself. I realized opening up about suicidal feelings, if you have them - is literally the worst thing you can do. You’ll end up in one of these institutions; the hell of a lot worse off than you were beforehand. The best you can do if you need therapy - is to make a call to a help line through a VoIP on a proxy, though a generated phone number on an application like TextPlus.

TheAceOfHearts 4y ago

How is it a silver lining to force someone to continue living and suffering in secret and against their stated will? Who cares about her wellbeing as long as we forced her to stay alive no matter what, right? Humans love to talk about empathy and yet it always seems to be completely absent when referring to suicidal individuals.

kylehotchkiss 4y ago
This story is about teenagers who haven’t even had the chance to touch adulthood or freedom. They have bright futures. These are not people with the full context of life who are able to make a sincere decision about whether they want to live. I once was in a similar situation in college and through therapy worked on my issues and now am very happy I’ve been alive - my best days were after the hard ones - and I’m willing to bet a lot of the HN audience has similar experiences

BeFlatXIII 4y ago

That's even bleaker than the "Slow Costly Death of Mrs. K_______" that Edward Tufte loves to use as an example of an annotated medical bill telling an extremely bleak end-of-life horror story.