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I suggest that you think a bit more deeply about this. It's possible that the administrator was being thoughtless, but there's another interpretation -- it's a
by lutusp 13y ago
I suggest that you think a bit more deeply about this. It's possible that the administrator was being thoughtless, but there's another interpretation -- it's a bad idea to give suicide attempters too much attention. By responding with too much sympathy, one can become a "suicide enabler", the suicide equivalent of a narcissistic enabler.
If a person threatens suicide and gets nothing but attention and sympathy, this can trigger a cyclical, escalating pattern of threats and sympathetic responses that can sometimes trap the person into going through with the suicide.
Here's a true story -- many years ago one of my brothers committed suicide. After a few weeks, another brother told me he was compiling a list of people he felt were responsible for the suicide. My first comment was, "Is [the suicide] included on the list?" Of course, he wasn't. My next comment was that the list was dangerous -- the suicide's son would see how attentive and sympathetic everyone was being and he might begin to think suicide was a good idea. My brother didn't really understand what I was saying, the list got created and passed around, and a few years later, the suicide's son committed suicide also.
True story.
- tptacek 13y agoI find this sentiment alarming. I'd ask you to reread the article, particularly the first quarter of it, and stipulate that the account is accurate. What do you think of this particular response to an actual suicide attempt? I'm sorry about your brother. I've lost close friends to suicide. For what it's worth: I don't blame them, anymore than I would blame someone who died of leukemia for their illness. But a suicide has many victims, and I can't blame you for being angry either.
- lutusp 13y ago> I find this sentiment alarming. It's not a "sentiment", it's a case history. My brother created a list of guilty parties, people responsible for a suicide, but didn't include the suicide on the list. My nephew drew the obvious conclusion -- if he killed himself, this would place him outside any notion of responsibility, and he would get massive sympathy as well. It was unbelievably irresponsible to portray suicide that way, and it had a predictable effect. But the responsibility for suicide rests solely with those who kill themselves. > I've lost close friends to suicide. For what it's worth: I don't blame them ... I do. To me, if suicides understand that they'll be held responsible, that they will be judged to have ungratefully thrown away the gift of life, they shouldn't expect sympathy, that might have a beneficial effect on the suicide rate.
- DanBC 13y agoHow important do you think the list was as a factor? Is it the main factor? Or do you mention it to support a point?
- lutusp 13y agoI only brought it up to warn my brother of the dangers in making suicide look attractive, as a way to get sympathy. Once my prediction came to pass, obviously I dropped the topic. In any case, as far as I am concerned, the person committing suicide is entirely and solely responsible.
- tptacek 13y agoI'm not here to judge anything your family did in response to a suicide. I'm sorry you had to deal with it at all. I don't have an opinion beyond that. But I can be clinical about a case I read in a blog post by a stranger, and I remain interested in your response to that case.
- gizmo 13y agoI'm very sorry you lost people to suicide. Compiling the list may just have been a coping mechanism for your brother, and I don't think it's fair to think it had anything to do with the son's suicide.
- lutusp 13y ago> Compiling the list may just have been a coping mechanism for your brother, and I don't think it's fair to think it had anything to do with the son's suicide. I didn't say it that way, either here or at the time. I only warned my brother that the list might provoke my nephew to kill himself, not that this would make my brother responsible. The actual suicide was, of course, solely the responsibility of the nephew.
- dennisgorelik 13y agoDid your brother tell you that he was sorry for ignoring your advise, after your nephew killed himself?
- DanBC 13y agoWhen someone expresses suicidal ideation you get that person support because suicidal thinking is a risk factor for attempted and completed suicide. Treating a suicidal person harshly because you don't want to encourage suicidal behaviour is a sub optimal strategy if your aim is to reduce the numbers or people attempting suicide and dying from suicide. Suicide is a significant cause of death so it's probably a good thing to better understand suicidal thinking and behaviour.
- lutusp 13y ago> Treating a suicidal person harshly ... Wait, what? That's not what I said. I'm saying it's a mistake to give too much attention and sympathy to suicidal ideations.
- DanBC 13y agoI would equate that to being harsh.
- lutusp 13y agoIt's a simple question of what works. Giving too much sympathy and attention to someone who discusses suicide is a bad idea. It is to suicide what an enabler is to a narcissist. It's more constructive to think of a way to get the person to imagine something other than suicide, but in a way that doesn't encourage a repeat performance.