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There is a problem with rigid medical definitions. There is a huge difference between the author of this, a young pregnant woman losing her husband, and say, so

There is a problem with rigid medical definitions. There is a huge difference between the author of this, a young pregnant woman losing her husband, and say, something like a middle aged person losing an elderly parent (as I did earlier this year). Of course it will take her far longer to recover (if at all). I would guess her grief is not "disordered" though. As she says she functions - she works, she looks after her child, she looks after herself. > We medicalize grief because we fear it. Absolutely right. There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west.

righthand 1y ago
In the west we’re trained to believe that if something happens there should be some sort of tangible reward on the other end, no matter how minute. Death takes and leaves nothing tangible and it’s the absence that drives us crazy. Since we’re trained this way we seek out some solution with the other trained aspect, spending money. Which in turn only temporarily numbs the grief until you deal with it. We also stigmatize mental health care in the west, telling people to “suck it up” or “get over it”. So our money spending usually doesn’t direct us to a more helpful path. I often wonder how dealing with death compares to the east where ancestors are commonly remembered, contemplated, and revered.
- Rooster61 1y ago
  > I often wonder how dealing with death compares to the east where ancestors are commonly remembered, contemplated, and revered. In what way is this not western as well? Implying that western culture does not remember, contemplate, and revere those that have gone before us is a bad take.
  - mc32 1y ago
    I also think seeking mental health is more popular in the west than the east where it's even less of a thing to seek.
  - xyzelement 1y ago
    I agree with you on the western religious tradition, but I think it's less true for the secular west today. With ample exceptions of course, a stereotypical "secular" person thinks of their ancestors as racist people that lived in an irrelevant time, and doesn't feel some sort of connection to them, or an obligation to continue them. So I think the poster you're replying to is kinda correct from a today point of view.
    - watwut 1y ago
      Your made up straw man secular person is, frankly, ridiculous. Like, we all get it, conservative Christians hate the rest of us and look down on us. Duh.
    - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
      > a typical "secular" person thinks of their ancestors as racist people that lived in an irrelevant time, I think you missed the "stereo" in front of your "typical".
      - xyzelement 1y ago
        I went ahead and added that "stereo" to my comment. I think you're right, but I also think that stereotype is grounded in reality with a lot of empirical observation. So yes, not exclusive but certainly common.
        SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
        Well, as a secular individual whose friend group is mostly secular people, I haven't see people express such black and white opinions, but I'm guessing we move in different circles. As far as observation is concerned, we tend to see what we want to see, don't we?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - righthand 1y ago
    In the way that most people don’t have a routine of that contemplation and remembrance and that individual self, ego, and your future is placed as more important in the day-to-day.
    - Rooster61 1y ago
      That's moving the goalposts. Implying that people do not go through that remembrance vs implying that they do not do so on a set routine are not the same thing. Not to mention that such a routine might very well be part of the medical therapy that we are talking about here.
- pastage 1y ago
  I wonder how traditions around death help us to deal with it. I feel completely incapable of handling death.. I do not know how to comport myself.
  - embwbam 1y ago
    A lot! Maybe it's obvious, but I've long thought that religion's primary function is to help people process death (and other suffering). Now that life isn't constant suffering, many of us have discarded religion, but then we are blindsided by death. I was very religious for 30 years, and have a very religious family. I've been athiest for more than a decade now, and it's sad to me that to leave religion behind I had to give up all my family traditions to process death. Those traditions are still there, but I can't relate to them since they are based on a belief I no longer agree with
- graemep 1y ago
  It used to be in the west. The Catholic Church discourages the scattering of ashes for just that reason - so that there is somewhere physical where people can be remembered. There was a tradition of memorial services. People still look after the graves of their loved ones. I also think its not a simple east-west divide. Different cultures have many different ways of dealing with death. The contemporary west does have a problem, although i doubt it is the only culture for which that is true. My family follows a mix of Christian tradition (e.g. memorial masses) and Sri Lankan (e.g. donations of food in memory of the dead).
  - righthand 1y ago
    I agree it’s not a simple divide. I was trying to paint that there are many reasons why we handle death poorly in the west and I honestly only know a raindrop about the east. I can only fathom the handling of death and the reasons why gradients across the globe in every direction.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  > We also stigmatize mental health care in the west, telling people to “suck it up” or “get over it”. I think this idea is ~10 years out of date. If anything, we now seem pathologize every behavior and personality quirk into a mental health issue. At least on social media, it's also trendy to have a mental health issue to the point that people will claim to have ADHD because they're easily distracted by their phones. I've also lost count of the number of big "content creators" who casually mention their therapist or going to therapy. If there is a stigma, it's not found among the younger generations.
  - righthand 1y ago
    I do not agree. While there may be a flux of people who have therapists, the majority do not and that is why you hear about it on Youtube. I do agree that younger people are trying to take more care of their mental health but I do not see healthy reasons for which they are chasing that improvement. For example the “pursuit of happyness” is indoctrinated and people think they always need to be happy. At the same time I think people are self-diagnosing which I do not include as “health care” as I meant it, but rather self care or even passive-hypochondria.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    I think for people over 50, I guess "Gen X" and older, this is still often true. I've never considered therapy or medical help for any way that I was "feeling" and certainly have had times of grief and loss and sadness in my life. In some of those moments, when peers or friends noticed it, the gist of their advice was to “suck it up” or “get over it”. I am also introverted, procrastinate, am not very organized, and am not very good at housekeeping. My view on how I would change those things would be to just suck it up and do better, if I had to. And when it matters, that's what I do. I don't mean to say that this is the only correct way to approach life but it is how I look at things.
    - samarthr1 1y ago
      I tol am unfortunately also introverted, prone to procrastination and seem quite unable to keep my house as spotless as I would like Do you have any advice for overcoming my problem with atleast procrastination (i suspect that it is probably causing the other two issues).
xyzelement 1y ago
Sorry for your loss, and thank you for your perspective. >> Absolutely right. There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west. I never thought about it but it likely stems from loss of religion, like many other problems. If I see my life as insignificant in the chain of generations - as a conduit between ancestors and descendants - and believe in the soul at least as a metaphor - then personal death or that of others is sad, but is in the context of a deeply meaningful existence. On the other hand, if I am closer to atheistic hedonism/nihilism - there's nothing else but me and my thoughts and experiences, then my existence or non-existence takes on a very heavy weight - and we project that onto others.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  All the atheistic/agnostic people I know believe they are insignificant in the grand scheme of nature, not just in the chain of generations of people. If anything, I find religious people are the ones who believe humans are special.
  - xyzelement 1y ago
    I think you're right on the word level but I think there's a difference about what significance and insignificance means to these groups. As a religious person, I see my life as insignificant compared to Gd, and compared to the chain of generations, but what I do with my life is extremely significant. As in, whether I bring children into this world and raise them well, is massively significant. So maybe the way to say it is - religious people see themselves as insignificant in the context of much greater significance. The other view of insignificance is that nothing is significant - including myself. I don't subscribe to that.
    - resize2996 1y ago
      Equating these things with a "Belief in god" belies a narrow view of spirituality.
    - krapp 1y ago
      Do you really believe atheists are incapable of recognizing the significance of children or of caring about them?
minitoar 1y ago
I think it’s medicalized because often this set of symptoms is associated with inability to function and it can be treated medically with eg therapy.
moron4hire 1y ago
> We medicalize grief because we fear it. I think that's backwards. I think the problem is that we, the general populace, fear medicalization. The medicalization of grief specifically or other emotional issues generally is unrelated. These sorts of diagnosis criteria are created for a reason. I highly doubt psychiatric medical practitioners are developing them to pack people up into bins so that they can be marginalized. They create these criteria to be able to have a shared language to speak about issues and try to develop treatment regimens. And it's not their fault that the lay population takes it out of context and screams, "NO NO NO! I'M NOT BROKEN!" It's that reaction that is the problem. That reaction that, "someone who fits this criteria is by-definition broken", with "and broken people are irredemable" followed closely behind. It belies a belief that they feel this way about other people, too. The truth is, everyone deals with issues that would fit some criteria in the DSM-5. It's just part of the human condition. Some people are able to manage these issues on their own and some people are not, and that doesn't make them broken anymore than the fact that some people can dunk a basketball and some cannot. But, if you're 5'9" and had a job to put a ball in a basket 10 feet off the ground, wouldn't you want to focus on learning to shoot rather than try techniques you've observed 6'9" people use with ease?
XorNot 1y ago
> Absolutely right. There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west. Someone always rocks up to say this in these threads, and then never actually offers any suggestions of what they think an alternative should look like. It's in the same vein as people who complain no one ever talks about serious subjects, and I'm just wondering why they think I want to get into discussing the meaning of life in the workplace cafeteria. Seriously, what is the alternative meant to be? A celebration of death? Constantly reminding people that everyone will die and you'll be forgotten completely in about 3 generations? Why focus on the inevitable rather then actually living?
- pizzathyme 1y ago
  An alternative would be: + Yes, allowing people to have a celebration goodbye party before they go + Allowing for medically assisted dying on a person's own terms + More open conversations about: directives, how people would like to be treated when they near death, wills, inheritances, funerals. These are all taboo topics + A natural part of life
- overfeed 1y ago
  > Someone always rocks up to say this in these threads, and then never actually offers any suggestions of what they think an alternative should look like. It's a broad observation about culture - there's no "alternative" to a well-established culture, no single forum comment will change society. > Seriously, what is the alternative meant to be? ... Constantly reminding people that everyone will die and you'll be forgotten completely in about 3 generations? I think you're on to something here; there's an inherent conflict between ruthless individualism that tells people they can do anything they put their mind to, and the stark, limiting reality of mortality. That's a bummer, so don't think or talk about it, or it'll mess with your grindset. Collectivist cultures already embraces the idea that one's life is more than just about the individual, so grief and talking about death are far less radioactive. Religions that embrace ancestral spirits being presence offer comfort in continuity; her husband isn't really gone, and he may even watch ober their daughter, and even help her in math exams. In that light, dying is less of a big deal - more of a transition really - compared to oblivion, which is super heavy. I'm not saying these are better
pizzathyme 1y ago
I'm so sorry for your loss. I agree with what you say about "disordered", the language is hostile. In a less morbid area, I feel the same way about ADHD - "attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder". For some people this is problematic, but others can function fine and happily with this. In those cases, why is it a "disorder"? Why can't it just be "how some people are"?
- enobrev 1y ago
  I think there's something of a pendulum here, and I agree it's swayed too far to over-diagnosing ourselves. But I also think of my father who passed a couple years ago. We didn't have much of a relationship. He had friends, but never close ones. He was weirdly mean or weirdly seclusive or weirdly awkward at times - and also incredibly intelligent and occasionally gracious and hilarious. After he passed, I wondered if he might have been somewhere on the spectrum - but his peculiarities were simply ignored. A poor boy, in a poor urban neighborhood, with a dead father, being raised by an immigrant mother and immigrant siblings doesn't get diagnosed with much of anything - if they see doctors at all. And hey, he had a near photographic memory, and did great in school, so what's there to worry about? It's always been "how he was", and that's probably ok, but I do wonder if he would have had a better or somehow different life if he knew more about _why_ he was the way he was.
- KittenInABox 1y ago
  In my understanding ADHD is one of the few conditions that is extremely well studied and consistently appears to be a certain % of the population regardless of nationality with very strongly correlated negative outcomes with their suite of symptoms. I'm talking addition, obesity, and a shortened lifespan directly related to their ADHD. This seems like a disorder to me. If someone has attention difficulties and can function fine they obviously don't have a disorder vs someone who has attention difficulties and as a result becomes addicted to cocaine.
  - fleshmonad 1y ago
    Function in what context? I have been diagnosed with ADHD at age seven. I have had many checkups and am currently medicated. I can tell you that I wouldn't need to if I didn't have to work a menial wageslave job. Interestingly I can focus perfectly fine when doing interesting stuff without medication and it has always been this way. What you are saying is that there is some proper definition of disorder, which would sensibly be defined relative to some "normal" human baseline. Tell me you know one "normal" human, why you see this person as "normal" and how it would be useful to use this as a reference for the big spectrum of human personality and mental fitness. I can tell you from experience that I didn't need medication when I wasn't forced to attend 12 useless meetings a week, use inefficient and stupid software and one would just let me get my shit done. I have quite a few friends who have had very similar experiences, and the idea of ADHD is just used to pathologize and medicate someone so he can work and be a "positive contributor" to whoever above them. Add here the necessary disclaimer that my experience is not universal and there may be people gravely suffering from it, etc. I do too, even with medication, but at least I can generate some bucks for management.
LeafItAlone 1y ago
>a young pregnant woman losing her husband, and say, something like a middle aged person losing an elderly parent This isn’t really your point, but this person lost their husband at 40. By some definitions, that is middle aged. In the general view of things, not young. That doesn’t really change much, but I was thinking of a mid-twenties before I realized who it was.
- anonymars 1y ago
  Don't take this the wrong way, but what point are you trying to make? What was your goal here?
Balgair 1y ago
> There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west. It's because we have a dearth of true elders right now. Not in age, but in temperament and learning. I got interested in story telling during COVID and managed to find a great author (K.M. Weiland) that went in deep on the archetypes of story. Her hook was essentially: "What happens after the Hero's Journey/happily ever after?" And then she got real deep on her idea of the 6 phases of life. Her work is properly about how to write a plot, but man does it apply more broadly. The pertinent one here is the 'Crone' stage of life [0]. You're no longer the 'King' of your little fief, you had to give up the power and make way for the next generation. But now what? The journey of the Crone is essentially learning that Death is a part of Life, that Death is not Evil, Death is a Friend. K.M. Weiland admits that less and less people ever make it through the stages as you go along. But, I think right now in the West, we have a lot of boomers that never really progressed past the Hero stage, let alone the Queen or King stages. There should be more Crone and Mage people around, but the boomers were retarded in their development. Just look at RBG, Feinstein and Pelosi (to name but a few), grappling on to power like the Tyrants or Sorceresses (strong shadow archetypes of the Queen and King) and never letting go, to the classical harm of the kingdom/hearth that such stories tell. Facing Death is hard, very hard. But is something that we all must do. Realizing that Death is not Evil, but a part of life, and one to be welcomed at times, that is something that very few of us can do. [0] https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/archetypal-character-arcs-pt-6-the-crone-arc/ https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/archetypal-chara...
- incr_me 1y ago
  I've always been averse to this sort of Jungian schema (it's a Freudian baggage I have -- Mourning and Melancholia has much value on the present topic!), but more and more I'm seeing how much wisdom was lost in the historic disavowal of myth and archetypal thought. Since having a child, my wife and I have been repeatedly stunned at how incapable our own parents are. I don't mean a mere absence of help with babysitting (although they suck at this, too), I mean they just have no idea how to deal with us or our kid as living beings. They shrink at the first sign of difficulty. They want absolutely no relationship with death. We've had to find new elders elsewhere; they really aren't easy to find but they do exists.
kruffalon 1y ago
What a great article! > Absolutely right. There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west. This is one of my favourite topics. I had forgotten to bring "cowardice" to the table when thinking about death (etc) I've mostly thought of it as some kind if vague unspecified fear, thank you for injecting this word and concept into my jumble of thoughts. I've been using "dignity" to try and make my thoughts more clear, but cowardice clearly has a place at the table too. When thinking about suicide I have thought of that way to die as potentially needing bravery (as in being able to do something you fear). The topic of death is dear to me me not only for personal reasons but I also think this relates to quite a few aspects of our societies and not only the obvious ones like how (if we can afford it) seem to overtreat people medically rather than give them proper palliative care and their close ones time and space to be there at this grand moment in life, that death ultimately is :) It feels weird to use words like: bravery, cowardice, dignity and fear, they feel like from another era, possibly only a fictional era of knights, damsels and dragons. And somehow I sense that that feeling of weirdness somehow is connected to the medicalisation of "everything" and also our longer work hours and expected increased efficiency. As if we hide and disallow the big important things in life only then will we agree to work the way we do. But then in the other hand we can cure a lot of disease and I can type this on a tiny screen keyboard and post this to the internet, so... I don't know, I only know that there is something wrong with death.

righthand 1y ago

In the west we’re trained to believe that if something happens there should be some sort of tangible reward on the other end, no matter how minute. Death takes and leaves nothing tangible and it’s the absence that drives us crazy. Since we’re trained this way we seek out some solution with the other trained aspect, spending money. Which in turn only temporarily numbs the grief until you deal with it. We also stigmatize mental health care in the west, telling people to “suck it up” or “get over it”. So our money spending usually doesn’t direct us to a more helpful path. I often wonder how dealing with death compares to the east where ancestors are commonly remembered, contemplated, and revered.

Rooster61 1y ago
> I often wonder how dealing with death compares to the east where ancestors are commonly remembered, contemplated, and revered. In what way is this not western as well? Implying that western culture does not remember, contemplate, and revere those that have gone before us is a bad take.
- mc32 1y ago
  I also think seeking mental health is more popular in the west than the east where it's even less of a thing to seek.
- xyzelement 1y ago
  I agree with you on the western religious tradition, but I think it's less true for the secular west today. With ample exceptions of course, a stereotypical "secular" person thinks of their ancestors as racist people that lived in an irrelevant time, and doesn't feel some sort of connection to them, or an obligation to continue them. So I think the poster you're replying to is kinda correct from a today point of view.
  - watwut 1y ago
    Your made up straw man secular person is, frankly, ridiculous. Like, we all get it, conservative Christians hate the rest of us and look down on us. Duh.
  - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
    > a typical "secular" person thinks of their ancestors as racist people that lived in an irrelevant time, I think you missed the "stereo" in front of your "typical".
    - xyzelement 1y ago
      I went ahead and added that "stereo" to my comment. I think you're right, but I also think that stereotype is grounded in reality with a lot of empirical observation. So yes, not exclusive but certainly common.
      - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
        Well, as a secular individual whose friend group is mostly secular people, I haven't see people express such black and white opinions, but I'm guessing we move in different circles. As far as observation is concerned, we tend to see what we want to see, don't we?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- righthand 1y ago
  In the way that most people don’t have a routine of that contemplation and remembrance and that individual self, ego, and your future is placed as more important in the day-to-day.
  - Rooster61 1y ago
    That's moving the goalposts. Implying that people do not go through that remembrance vs implying that they do not do so on a set routine are not the same thing. Not to mention that such a routine might very well be part of the medical therapy that we are talking about here.
pastage 1y ago
I wonder how traditions around death help us to deal with it. I feel completely incapable of handling death.. I do not know how to comport myself.
- embwbam 1y ago
  A lot! Maybe it's obvious, but I've long thought that religion's primary function is to help people process death (and other suffering). Now that life isn't constant suffering, many of us have discarded religion, but then we are blindsided by death. I was very religious for 30 years, and have a very religious family. I've been athiest for more than a decade now, and it's sad to me that to leave religion behind I had to give up all my family traditions to process death. Those traditions are still there, but I can't relate to them since they are based on a belief I no longer agree with
graemep 1y ago
It used to be in the west. The Catholic Church discourages the scattering of ashes for just that reason - so that there is somewhere physical where people can be remembered. There was a tradition of memorial services. People still look after the graves of their loved ones. I also think its not a simple east-west divide. Different cultures have many different ways of dealing with death. The contemporary west does have a problem, although i doubt it is the only culture for which that is true. My family follows a mix of Christian tradition (e.g. memorial masses) and Sri Lankan (e.g. donations of food in memory of the dead).
- righthand 1y ago
  I agree it’s not a simple divide. I was trying to paint that there are many reasons why we handle death poorly in the west and I honestly only know a raindrop about the east. I can only fathom the handling of death and the reasons why gradients across the globe in every direction.
AlexandrB 1y ago
> We also stigmatize mental health care in the west, telling people to “suck it up” or “get over it”. I think this idea is ~10 years out of date. If anything, we now seem pathologize every behavior and personality quirk into a mental health issue. At least on social media, it's also trendy to have a mental health issue to the point that people will claim to have ADHD because they're easily distracted by their phones. I've also lost count of the number of big "content creators" who casually mention their therapist or going to therapy. If there is a stigma, it's not found among the younger generations.
- righthand 1y ago
  I do not agree. While there may be a flux of people who have therapists, the majority do not and that is why you hear about it on Youtube. I do agree that younger people are trying to take more care of their mental health but I do not see healthy reasons for which they are chasing that improvement. For example the “pursuit of happyness” is indoctrinated and people think they always need to be happy. At the same time I think people are self-diagnosing which I do not include as “health care” as I meant it, but rather self care or even passive-hypochondria.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  I think for people over 50, I guess "Gen X" and older, this is still often true. I've never considered therapy or medical help for any way that I was "feeling" and certainly have had times of grief and loss and sadness in my life. In some of those moments, when peers or friends noticed it, the gist of their advice was to “suck it up” or “get over it”. I am also introverted, procrastinate, am not very organized, and am not very good at housekeeping. My view on how I would change those things would be to just suck it up and do better, if I had to. And when it matters, that's what I do. I don't mean to say that this is the only correct way to approach life but it is how I look at things.
  - samarthr1 1y ago
    I tol am unfortunately also introverted, prone to procrastination and seem quite unable to keep my house as spotless as I would like Do you have any advice for overcoming my problem with atleast procrastination (i suspect that it is probably causing the other two issues).

xyzelement 1y ago

Sorry for your loss, and thank you for your perspective. >> Absolutely right. There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west. I never thought about it but it likely stems from loss of religion, like many other problems. If I see my life as insignificant in the chain of generations - as a conduit between ancestors and descendants - and believe in the soul at least as a metaphor - then personal death or that of others is sad, but is in the context of a deeply meaningful existence. On the other hand, if I am closer to atheistic hedonism/nihilism - there's nothing else but me and my thoughts and experiences, then my existence or non-existence takes on a very heavy weight - and we project that onto others.

lotsofpulp 1y ago
All the atheistic/agnostic people I know believe they are insignificant in the grand scheme of nature, not just in the chain of generations of people. If anything, I find religious people are the ones who believe humans are special.
- xyzelement 1y ago
  I think you're right on the word level but I think there's a difference about what significance and insignificance means to these groups. As a religious person, I see my life as insignificant compared to Gd, and compared to the chain of generations, but what I do with my life is extremely significant. As in, whether I bring children into this world and raise them well, is massively significant. So maybe the way to say it is - religious people see themselves as insignificant in the context of much greater significance. The other view of insignificance is that nothing is significant - including myself. I don't subscribe to that.
  - resize2996 1y ago
    Equating these things with a "Belief in god" belies a narrow view of spirituality.
  - krapp 1y ago
    Do you really believe atheists are incapable of recognizing the significance of children or of caring about them?

minitoar 1y ago

I think it’s medicalized because often this set of symptoms is associated with inability to function and it can be treated medically with eg therapy.

moron4hire 1y ago

> We medicalize grief because we fear it. I think that's backwards. I think the problem is that we, the general populace, fear medicalization. The medicalization of grief specifically or other emotional issues generally is unrelated. These sorts of diagnosis criteria are created for a reason. I highly doubt psychiatric medical practitioners are developing them to pack people up into bins so that they can be marginalized. They create these criteria to be able to have a shared language to speak about issues and try to develop treatment regimens. And it's not their fault that the lay population takes it out of context and screams, "NO NO NO! I'M NOT BROKEN!" It's that reaction that is the problem. That reaction that, "someone who fits this criteria is by-definition broken", with "and broken people are irredemable" followed closely behind. It belies a belief that they feel this way about other people, too. The truth is, everyone deals with issues that would fit some criteria in the DSM-5. It's just part of the human condition. Some people are able to manage these issues on their own and some people are not, and that doesn't make them broken anymore than the fact that some people can dunk a basketball and some cannot. But, if you're 5'9" and had a job to put a ball in a basket 10 feet off the ground, wouldn't you want to focus on learning to shoot rather than try techniques you've observed 6'9" people use with ease?

XorNot 1y ago

> Absolutely right. There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west. Someone always rocks up to say this in these threads, and then never actually offers any suggestions of what they think an alternative should look like. It's in the same vein as people who complain no one ever talks about serious subjects, and I'm just wondering why they think I want to get into discussing the meaning of life in the workplace cafeteria. Seriously, what is the alternative meant to be? A celebration of death? Constantly reminding people that everyone will die and you'll be forgotten completely in about 3 generations? Why focus on the inevitable rather then actually living?

pizzathyme 1y ago
An alternative would be: + Yes, allowing people to have a celebration goodbye party before they go + Allowing for medically assisted dying on a person's own terms + More open conversations about: directives, how people would like to be treated when they near death, wills, inheritances, funerals. These are all taboo topics + A natural part of life
overfeed 1y ago
> Someone always rocks up to say this in these threads, and then never actually offers any suggestions of what they think an alternative should look like. It's a broad observation about culture - there's no "alternative" to a well-established culture, no single forum comment will change society. > Seriously, what is the alternative meant to be? ... Constantly reminding people that everyone will die and you'll be forgotten completely in about 3 generations? I think you're on to something here; there's an inherent conflict between ruthless individualism that tells people they can do anything they put their mind to, and the stark, limiting reality of mortality. That's a bummer, so don't think or talk about it, or it'll mess with your grindset. Collectivist cultures already embraces the idea that one's life is more than just about the individual, so grief and talking about death are far less radioactive. Religions that embrace ancestral spirits being presence offer comfort in continuity; her husband isn't really gone, and he may even watch ober their daughter, and even help her in math exams. In that light, dying is less of a big deal - more of a transition really - compared to oblivion, which is super heavy. I'm not saying these are better

pizzathyme 1y ago

I'm so sorry for your loss. I agree with what you say about "disordered", the language is hostile. In a less morbid area, I feel the same way about ADHD - "attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder". For some people this is problematic, but others can function fine and happily with this. In those cases, why is it a "disorder"? Why can't it just be "how some people are"?

enobrev 1y ago
I think there's something of a pendulum here, and I agree it's swayed too far to over-diagnosing ourselves. But I also think of my father who passed a couple years ago. We didn't have much of a relationship. He had friends, but never close ones. He was weirdly mean or weirdly seclusive or weirdly awkward at times - and also incredibly intelligent and occasionally gracious and hilarious. After he passed, I wondered if he might have been somewhere on the spectrum - but his peculiarities were simply ignored. A poor boy, in a poor urban neighborhood, with a dead father, being raised by an immigrant mother and immigrant siblings doesn't get diagnosed with much of anything - if they see doctors at all. And hey, he had a near photographic memory, and did great in school, so what's there to worry about? It's always been "how he was", and that's probably ok, but I do wonder if he would have had a better or somehow different life if he knew more about _why_ he was the way he was.
KittenInABox 1y ago
In my understanding ADHD is one of the few conditions that is extremely well studied and consistently appears to be a certain % of the population regardless of nationality with very strongly correlated negative outcomes with their suite of symptoms. I'm talking addition, obesity, and a shortened lifespan directly related to their ADHD. This seems like a disorder to me. If someone has attention difficulties and can function fine they obviously don't have a disorder vs someone who has attention difficulties and as a result becomes addicted to cocaine.
- fleshmonad 1y ago
  Function in what context? I have been diagnosed with ADHD at age seven. I have had many checkups and am currently medicated. I can tell you that I wouldn't need to if I didn't have to work a menial wageslave job. Interestingly I can focus perfectly fine when doing interesting stuff without medication and it has always been this way. What you are saying is that there is some proper definition of disorder, which would sensibly be defined relative to some "normal" human baseline. Tell me you know one "normal" human, why you see this person as "normal" and how it would be useful to use this as a reference for the big spectrum of human personality and mental fitness. I can tell you from experience that I didn't need medication when I wasn't forced to attend 12 useless meetings a week, use inefficient and stupid software and one would just let me get my shit done. I have quite a few friends who have had very similar experiences, and the idea of ADHD is just used to pathologize and medicate someone so he can work and be a "positive contributor" to whoever above them. Add here the necessary disclaimer that my experience is not universal and there may be people gravely suffering from it, etc. I do too, even with medication, but at least I can generate some bucks for management.

LeafItAlone 1y ago

>a young pregnant woman losing her husband, and say, something like a middle aged person losing an elderly parent This isn’t really your point, but this person lost their husband at 40. By some definitions, that is middle aged. In the general view of things, not young. That doesn’t really change much, but I was thinking of a mid-twenties before I realized who it was.

anonymars 1y ago
Don't take this the wrong way, but what point are you trying to make? What was your goal here?

Balgair 1y ago

> There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west. It's because we have a dearth of true elders right now. Not in age, but in temperament and learning. I got interested in story telling during COVID and managed to find a great author (K.M. Weiland) that went in deep on the archetypes of story. Her hook was essentially: "What happens after the Hero's Journey/happily ever after?" And then she got real deep on her idea of the 6 phases of life. Her work is properly about how to write a plot, but man does it apply more broadly. The pertinent one here is the 'Crone' stage of life [0]. You're no longer the 'King' of your little fief, you had to give up the power and make way for the next generation. But now what? The journey of the Crone is essentially learning that Death is a part of Life, that Death is not Evil, Death is a Friend. K.M. Weiland admits that less and less people ever make it through the stages as you go along. But, I think right now in the West, we have a lot of boomers that never really progressed past the Hero stage, let alone the Queen or King stages. There should be more Crone and Mage people around, but the boomers were retarded in their development. Just look at RBG, Feinstein and Pelosi (to name but a few), grappling on to power like the Tyrants or Sorceresses (strong shadow archetypes of the Queen and King) and never letting go, to the classical harm of the kingdom/hearth that such stories tell. Facing Death is hard, very hard. But is something that we all must do. Realizing that Death is not Evil, but a part of life, and one to be welcomed at times, that is something that very few of us can do. [0] https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/archetypal-character-arcs-pt-6-the-crone-arc/ https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/archetypal-chara...

incr_me 1y ago
I've always been averse to this sort of Jungian schema (it's a Freudian baggage I have -- Mourning and Melancholia has much value on the present topic!), but more and more I'm seeing how much wisdom was lost in the historic disavowal of myth and archetypal thought. Since having a child, my wife and I have been repeatedly stunned at how incapable our own parents are. I don't mean a mere absence of help with babysitting (although they suck at this, too), I mean they just have no idea how to deal with us or our kid as living beings. They shrink at the first sign of difficulty. They want absolutely no relationship with death. We've had to find new elders elsewhere; they really aren't easy to find but they do exists.

kruffalon 1y ago

What a great article! > Absolutely right. There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west. This is one of my favourite topics. I had forgotten to bring "cowardice" to the table when thinking about death (etc) I've mostly thought of it as some kind if vague unspecified fear, thank you for injecting this word and concept into my jumble of thoughts. I've been using "dignity" to try and make my thoughts more clear, but cowardice clearly has a place at the table too. When thinking about suicide I have thought of that way to die as potentially needing bravery (as in being able to do something you fear). The topic of death is dear to me me not only for personal reasons but I also think this relates to quite a few aspects of our societies and not only the obvious ones like how (if we can afford it) seem to overtreat people medically rather than give them proper palliative care and their close ones time and space to be there at this grand moment in life, that death ultimately is :) It feels weird to use words like: bravery, cowardice, dignity and fear, they feel like from another era, possibly only a fictional era of knights, damsels and dragons. And somehow I sense that that feeling of weirdness somehow is connected to the medicalisation of "everything" and also our longer work hours and expected increased efficiency. As if we hide and disallow the big important things in life only then will we agree to work the way we do. But then in the other hand we can cure a lot of disease and I can type this on a tiny screen keyboard and post this to the internet, so... I don't know, I only know that there is something wrong with death.