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In my view it's a harmful oversimplification that suicidal people are simply sick and need to get their mind fixed. I know it's not what you meant, but that's w

by jules 11y ago

In my view it's a harmful oversimplification that suicidal people are simply sick and need to get their mind fixed. I know it's not what you meant, but that's what reflexively rubbed me the wrong way about this comment because I have seen this attitude multiple times from other people who did mean that. One needs to consider that suicide is not just an affliction of the mind, it's also a product of the circumstances a normal person finds him or herself in. It's not just the thoughts that need fixing, it's the circumstances too. Usually this is a chicken and egg problem: the thoughts prevent the person from fixing the circumstances himself, and the circumstances reinforce negative thoughts. This way somebody can get sucked deeper and deeper into a black hole of increasingly irrational negative thoughts. Even if the thoughts are clearly irrational to an outsider, they are not to the person themselves. Therefore suggesting that they simply fix their mind does not help. In their view their mind is not just what needs to be fixed, it's also the circumstances. We all should do our best to not create such circumstances and to fix them when they exist. In the story of the OP for example, it's fair to say that the behaviour of the professor played a big role in almost causing his suicide. If suicide is caused by circumstances a normal person finds him or herself in, do we not bear a collective responsibility to prevent it, even if it's just a smile?

tptacek 11y ago
No. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal impulses, you are experiencing a medical emergency. Please get professional help as soon as possible.
- pen2l 11y ago
  "No."? Jules' thoughtful comment deserved better than that terse derision. And, the attitude of simplifying all of this to "get professional help asap" is not very productive. For one, not everyone can afford or access that kind of help. Two, pronto professional help can sometimes yield to bad choices very quickly. Blowing it up risks violating a depressed individual's privacy, they might see that as an action of offense. When a friend of mine was suicidal some odd years ago, I didn't just dial the phone for some professionals to get him, I tried to make it clear to him how much I valued his friendship and what it would do to me if he were to go away -- the guy is rocking life these days. Of course that's definitely not to say don't call for help, rather that this sort of thing demands a more considered response.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I'm sorry that I can't say this any more clearly: suicidal depression, or intrusive and/or detailed suicidal planning or impulse, is a life-threatening medical emergency. People experiencing it require medical assistance. Please do not attempt to judge for yourself whether or how much assistance is needed. The national suicide hotline in the US is: 1 (800) 273-8255 Given no other modes of helping someone that will result in them obtaining medical help, and assuming that suicidal thoughts have reached a point where they are intrusive and there is evidence of planning or intent, a 911 call is not unreasonable (you can also drive someone to the hospital).
    - throwaway459847 11y ago
      My opinion is that your attitude about this is too categorical. I have been in a position where I called a friend because I was frighteningly close to actually doing it. This is after many years of very aggressively pursuing professional mental help in therapy / outpatient settings (which all my close friends are aware of). If my friend had called 911 after I asked them not to, I would have considered it a betrayal. It would have set in motion a set of events that would cause extreme distress for me, and (I am fairly certain) not provided any greater relief than the years of medications and talk therapy I was already pursuing. And it would have breached the trust I feel in one of my closest friends in a way that I'm not sure could have been recovered. I believe this would have put me on a path towards having distance from my friends, and being more imperiled overall. If I couldn't trust my friend not to call 911, I never would have called them. Unless that national suicide hotline above promises absolute confidentiality and not involving authorities, I guarantee I will never call it. Everyone is different and I'm not giving any advice here. I'm just glad my friend didn't take the hard-line stance on this that you do.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        This too is an issue that medical advice to friends and family regarding suicide covers explicitly: to wit: do not commit yourself to confidences regarding suicidal impulses. You may need to break those confidences to ensure the safety of those you care about, and the commitments may harm your own judgement about your best course of action. There are a variety of things you can do before calling 911; "call an ambulance NOW" is not the message I am trying to send. If you're someone I know well enough to judge the credibility of a plan to kill yourself (which could mean "complete stranger" is the plan is particularly credible), and I become aware of such a plan, I would feel obligated to ensure you saw a doctor, with the word "ensure" chosen carefully. At this point I feel like I'm replying to comments on these threads more out of habit and standard message board compulsions than anything else, and, given that the topic we're discussing is sensitive, I'm going to force myself out of the thread now.
- jules 11y ago
  I did not say that you should not get professional help. You make it sound like it's the same as calling an ambulance for a physical medical emergency. It's not. Care needs to be taken in how to get that professional help, and the story does not end with seeking professional help. Don't "Your mind is dangerously ill. I've called these professionals to cure it." Such a response can immediately turn a person off seeking professional help, the exact opposite of what you hope to achieve. Do "You are in a difficult situation. Here's what I can do to help alleviate these circumstances, and maybe it's a good idea to get professional help to help you deal with this situation." It's always better to convince a person to seek help than to do it for them. Frame it as if the situation is at fault, and it's normal to have such difficulties in that situation and it's normal to require help for that. Do not frame it as a "psychological medical emergency" if you can at all avoid that. If the person does not want to get help you can always call professional help anyway.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I'm sorry if we're perhaps disagreeing pointlessly. So long as we're on the same page (as we may have been from the beginning) that significant suicidal impulses aren't something people should be talked out of by their friends, I'm not sure we have anything to productively disagree about. There are a variety of conditions that can make a person suicidal. Depression isn't the only one. In some of these cases, the resolution of the problem may involve changes to environment or circumstances. In others, the resolution might be chemical. In still others, prolonged inpatient treatment may be required in order to ensure safety. What's true in all cases is that the decisions about how to proceed in resolving the emergency should be made by people trained to do it. As you can see from many other comments n the thread, our intuition on how best to help suicidal friends and acquaintances are, at best, unreliable.
- RivieraKid 11y ago
  No. The guy above is right.
joshuahutt 11y ago
On the one hand, I agree, we should all do everything we can to prevent suicide. It's the right thing to do, and it may very often be the case, as in the above account, that small positive actions can have disproportionate results. On the other hand, we need to be diligent to avoid assuming responsibility for the actions of others. If we look at suicide prevention as an assumed responsibility, it can be hard to avoid feeling guilt when someone close to us takes their own life. We should always be good to each other, and we should reach out to others in kindness, whether they appear to be in need or not. But, we should be careful with how we relate to the actions of others, lest we fall into a trap that we cannot get out of.
- jules 11y ago
  That's a good point. It's good to be conscious of the fact that the person you're interacting with may not be in a healthy state of mind. Had the professor known that his behaviour would cause such distress to Tim Feriss, he wouldn't have acted like that (so he is not guilty: he didn't do it intentionally). If we are all a bit extra nice on the off chance that the other person is depressed, that would not only help depressed people, but also people who are not depressed. But I can see how it can be hard to avoid feelings of guilt like that. Perhaps it helps to view it the same way as charity: you can donate to a charity for the third world poor, but that does not mean that you have to feel guilty about poverty that you didn't fix. Similarly, you can donate to the "happiness charity" without feeling guilty if you cannot prevent all suicides.

by jules 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

No. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal impulses, you are experiencing a medical emergency. Please get professional help as soon as possible.

pen2l 11y ago
"No."? Jules' thoughtful comment deserved better than that terse derision. And, the attitude of simplifying all of this to "get professional help asap" is not very productive. For one, not everyone can afford or access that kind of help. Two, pronto professional help can sometimes yield to bad choices very quickly. Blowing it up risks violating a depressed individual's privacy, they might see that as an action of offense. When a friend of mine was suicidal some odd years ago, I didn't just dial the phone for some professionals to get him, I tried to make it clear to him how much I valued his friendship and what it would do to me if he were to go away -- the guy is rocking life these days. Of course that's definitely not to say don't call for help, rather that this sort of thing demands a more considered response.
- tptacek 11y ago
  I'm sorry that I can't say this any more clearly: suicidal depression, or intrusive and/or detailed suicidal planning or impulse, is a life-threatening medical emergency. People experiencing it require medical assistance. Please do not attempt to judge for yourself whether or how much assistance is needed. The national suicide hotline in the US is: 1 (800) 273-8255 Given no other modes of helping someone that will result in them obtaining medical help, and assuming that suicidal thoughts have reached a point where they are intrusive and there is evidence of planning or intent, a 911 call is not unreasonable (you can also drive someone to the hospital).
  - throwaway459847 11y ago
    My opinion is that your attitude about this is too categorical. I have been in a position where I called a friend because I was frighteningly close to actually doing it. This is after many years of very aggressively pursuing professional mental help in therapy / outpatient settings (which all my close friends are aware of). If my friend had called 911 after I asked them not to, I would have considered it a betrayal. It would have set in motion a set of events that would cause extreme distress for me, and (I am fairly certain) not provided any greater relief than the years of medications and talk therapy I was already pursuing. And it would have breached the trust I feel in one of my closest friends in a way that I'm not sure could have been recovered. I believe this would have put me on a path towards having distance from my friends, and being more imperiled overall. If I couldn't trust my friend not to call 911, I never would have called them. Unless that national suicide hotline above promises absolute confidentiality and not involving authorities, I guarantee I will never call it. Everyone is different and I'm not giving any advice here. I'm just glad my friend didn't take the hard-line stance on this that you do.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      This too is an issue that medical advice to friends and family regarding suicide covers explicitly: to wit: do not commit yourself to confidences regarding suicidal impulses. You may need to break those confidences to ensure the safety of those you care about, and the commitments may harm your own judgement about your best course of action. There are a variety of things you can do before calling 911; "call an ambulance NOW" is not the message I am trying to send. If you're someone I know well enough to judge the credibility of a plan to kill yourself (which could mean "complete stranger" is the plan is particularly credible), and I become aware of such a plan, I would feel obligated to ensure you saw a doctor, with the word "ensure" chosen carefully. At this point I feel like I'm replying to comments on these threads more out of habit and standard message board compulsions than anything else, and, given that the topic we're discussing is sensitive, I'm going to force myself out of the thread now.
jules 11y ago
I did not say that you should not get professional help. You make it sound like it's the same as calling an ambulance for a physical medical emergency. It's not. Care needs to be taken in how to get that professional help, and the story does not end with seeking professional help. Don't "Your mind is dangerously ill. I've called these professionals to cure it." Such a response can immediately turn a person off seeking professional help, the exact opposite of what you hope to achieve. Do "You are in a difficult situation. Here's what I can do to help alleviate these circumstances, and maybe it's a good idea to get professional help to help you deal with this situation." It's always better to convince a person to seek help than to do it for them. Frame it as if the situation is at fault, and it's normal to have such difficulties in that situation and it's normal to require help for that. Do not frame it as a "psychological medical emergency" if you can at all avoid that. If the person does not want to get help you can always call professional help anyway.
- tptacek 11y ago
  I'm sorry if we're perhaps disagreeing pointlessly. So long as we're on the same page (as we may have been from the beginning) that significant suicidal impulses aren't something people should be talked out of by their friends, I'm not sure we have anything to productively disagree about. There are a variety of conditions that can make a person suicidal. Depression isn't the only one. In some of these cases, the resolution of the problem may involve changes to environment or circumstances. In others, the resolution might be chemical. In still others, prolonged inpatient treatment may be required in order to ensure safety. What's true in all cases is that the decisions about how to proceed in resolving the emergency should be made by people trained to do it. As you can see from many other comments n the thread, our intuition on how best to help suicidal friends and acquaintances are, at best, unreliable.
RivieraKid 11y ago
No. The guy above is right.

joshuahutt 11y ago

On the one hand, I agree, we should all do everything we can to prevent suicide. It's the right thing to do, and it may very often be the case, as in the above account, that small positive actions can have disproportionate results. On the other hand, we need to be diligent to avoid assuming responsibility for the actions of others. If we look at suicide prevention as an assumed responsibility, it can be hard to avoid feeling guilt when someone close to us takes their own life. We should always be good to each other, and we should reach out to others in kindness, whether they appear to be in need or not. But, we should be careful with how we relate to the actions of others, lest we fall into a trap that we cannot get out of.

jules 11y ago
That's a good point. It's good to be conscious of the fact that the person you're interacting with may not be in a healthy state of mind. Had the professor known that his behaviour would cause such distress to Tim Feriss, he wouldn't have acted like that (so he is not guilty: he didn't do it intentionally). If we are all a bit extra nice on the off chance that the other person is depressed, that would not only help depressed people, but also people who are not depressed. But I can see how it can be hard to avoid feelings of guilt like that. Perhaps it helps to view it the same way as charity: you can donate to a charity for the third world poor, but that does not mean that you have to feel guilty about poverty that you didn't fix. Similarly, you can donate to the "happiness charity" without feeling guilty if you cannot prevent all suicides.