The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted? • Hacker News Board

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#131

Post by touisteur » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 6:04 AM UTC

okareaman wrote: post #42

As someone who has struggle with suicidal ideation his entire life, whenever the subject comes up I try to educate people by quoting author David Foster Wallace (who commited suicide) with the best explanation: “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not becaus…

As usual DFW's writing is striking. I've had very strange experiences when starting antidepressants. For 2 or 3 weeks I'd have sudden urges to 'jump': incoming train at the station, walking over a bridge with fast cars under, walking on the pavements next to fast traffic. I'd see a truck coming and I'd feel such a rush to jump, to end it all. I had never felt so strongly about it, and usually had suicidal ideation at other moments, but never such urgent calls to action. I avoided any triggering situation and started listening to myself a lot more.

Apparently it's one of the first weeks' side effects but I wasn't prepared... After 2 weeks it started to fade and the drug started doing its work. But I think it was a huge dopamine rush coming without a counteracting 'I want to live' that was the most revealing about chemical imbalance and how suicide might be sometimes uninterpretable as 'just' psychological.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#132

Post by y6edgy5r » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 6:16 AM UTC

LorenPechtel wrote: post #101

autoexec wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of 515 people prevented by police from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge between 1937 and 1971, by the end of the 70s only 6% of them had committed suicide by other means. Perhaps much of that is because they got the help they needed following the incident. It probably also helps that they were a group made up of those who were able to be persuaded by police to not jump in the first place already showing at least…

Note, also, the prerequisite: For the police to talk them down they must have been on the brink but not jumped for some time, otherwise the police wouldn't be there to talk them down. I don't think the ones that are talked down are a remotely representative sample.

Throwaway for obvious reasons; i tried to kill myself and ended up in the icu for 3 days. i stood up because i didn't want to live any longer, took 3 bottles of anti depressants, and laid down to die. Luckily my girlfriend found me and cashed 911. I was depressed, i was taking anti depressants, but i wouldn't say the description in the original quote was accurate for my case, i didn't have a slow declinr into it. It was like a switch flipped in my head and i wanted to die, but now even when life is the hardest i wouldn't consider suicide, so it kinda was like a suicide vaccine for me.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#133

Post by awesomeusername » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 6:30 AM UTC

jsmith45 wrote: post #60

okareaman wrote: post #42

As someone who has struggle with suicidal ideation his entire life, whenever the subject comes up I try to educate people by quoting author David Foster Wallace (who commited suicide) with the best explanation: “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not becaus…

One flaw with the analogy is that a pretty significant portion of suicides (successful or attempts) are impulsive. Many people who attempt it have literally no idea they will when they wake up that morning. A 2001 University of Houston study of survivors of near lethal attempts showed that 70% of them had only decided to do it an hour or less before the attempt, and 24 percent had only spent 5 minutes before the atte…

One of the best posts ever here on HN on a difficult topic.

Lots of personal experience here (family). The suicidal 'mode' needs to be interrupted before death. Usually it lasts only an hour or two.

Helping one interrupt that mode is a learned skill that is very effective, and relatively easy to do.

This isn't universal of course, just my experience. If anyone reading this suspects someone is suicidal and they don't answer the phone at a time you know they are at risk, go see them asap. You might save a life.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#134

Post by quantum_magpie » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 6:33 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #109

dalmo3 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reacted the same way when I read that part too, but the rest of the comment illustrates it well with the failed attempts data. To go back to the analogy, it's as if they try to jump from the window, but there's a safety net that blocks them. They're stuck inside and the fire is mysteriously gone.

I don't think the fire is mysteriously gone in this imagining of the analogy. More like it is still there, but is survivable: still very hot, still very scary, but not clearly moving to inevitably consume you. I think this is just another place where the analogy breaks down. But that's ok, no analogy is perfect, but I think this one does have its uses.

I still think the original analogy works here - if you make sure that in the moment of panic the windows don't open to prevent voluntary and quick death, the person now has to suffer the agonizing pain of the flames for the rest of their life.

It holds even more true if we consider that a large part of suicides are not because someone wants to die - no - it's because someone does not want to live like in present situation anymore. Just like with the fire, the goal is not to die on a sidewalk - it's not dying in the fire. You attempt suicide as last resort - if you die, it's okay, it's final. If you don't, it perhaps changes something for the better.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#135

Post by axelroze » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 6:57 AM UTC

spaetzleesser wrote: post #88

If there was a simple and dignified way to end my life I think I would have done it multiple times already. My whole life so far has been a struggle with feeling that I am not fitting in, with social anxiety, depression and other stuff. There have also been good times but it seems whenever I start to believe that life is good, something happens, and the happiness is taken away. The older I get the more tired I get an…

> The older I get the more tired I get and I really don’t feel anymore like fighting to find a place in life where I feel ok.

Try to study philosophy, especially metaphysics, and confront any fears about life or death you might be having. It won't change your life situation (no windfall of cash) but it will change the way you see things and that can be huge.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#136

Post by IntrepidWorm » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:05 AM UTC

LorenPechtel wrote: post #101

autoexec wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of 515 people prevented by police from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge between 1937 and 1971, by the end of the 70s only 6% of them had committed suicide by other means. Perhaps much of that is because they got the help they needed following the incident. It probably also helps that they were a group made up of those who were able to be persuaded by police to not jump in the first place already showing at least…

Note, also, the prerequisite: For the police to talk them down they must have been on the brink but not jumped for some time, otherwise the police wouldn't be there to talk them down. I don't think the ones that are talked down are a remotely representative sample.

Right- any studies on the mindset of those who attempt suicide and survive, or those who attempt but are talked down by responders or family/friends are obviously tainted by survivorship bias.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#137

Post by axelroze » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:16 AM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #19

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's funny how no one gives a flying fuck about your suffering and will actively encourage it for their own benefit right up until you start talking about suicide. Of course, 90% of the time that's because they see an opportunity to sell you on a new drug, religion, or ideology.

Yeah, this bugs me too. We shouldn't be talking about suicide prevention. We should be talking about preventing suffering.

We can't prevent suffering.

Cooperative systems like all sorts of communism don't work because people are by nature lazy and even worse greedy. Everyone maximizes their needs and minimizes their abilities.

Hence we are left with competitive systems like contemporary capitalism where pressure to perform and be better than the others directly leads to suffering as inevitably there will be losers. The winners also don't fare much better as well. It is often a Pyrrhic victory.

Cursed if you do. Cursed if you don't.

And in the end to feel better about ourselves, we the society, tell people it is worth living so they do their stressful job for a few more decades and enjoy a few weeks of free time a week to play Candy Crush on their iPhones they are still paying via installments.

But even if looked beyond politics and social organisation perfect prevention of suffering is impossible until medicine reaches some state of seamless merging with (bio)robotics. Ironically the competitive pressure might actually be the way we reach such a state of science. Ray Kurzweil is talking a bit about this in the book about the Singularity.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#138

Post by jlos » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:40 AM UTC

FinanceAnon wrote: post #66

It's impossible to measure, but I wonder what % of suicides happens because of the culture that we live in. A lot of times when you read about someone commiting suicide it's blamed on that individual or their mental health - but is that really the root issue? How many of the suicides wouldn't happen if society was set up in a different way?

The is basically Durkheims conclusion: suicide is the outcome of sociological, rather than psychological, forces. [0] There is an argument that a lot of the mass shootings are actually better classified as a type of suicide under this model as well [1]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_(Durkheim_book)

[1] https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/08/mass-shoo...

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#139

Post by lazerpants » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 7:55 AM UTC

cmehdy wrote: post #30

I like the article for the most part. I've noticed many comments here are lacking the empathy that is so fundamentally needed in this world to help those who suffer alleviate the pain, so as a fellow struggling one I figured I could throw my words to the wind. People more readily mentally visualize somebody without a leg, somebody with open fractures. Not so much for mind stuff, it's not concrete enough to most until…

Thank you for writing this, it's a very thoughtful explanation of what some of us have experienced.

Re: The undiscovered country: Can suicide be predicted?

#140

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 11:35 AM UTC

axelroze wrote: post #137

nicoburns wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this bugs me too. We shouldn't be talking about suicide prevention. We should be talking about preventing suffering.

We can't prevent suffering. Cooperative systems like all sorts of communism don't work because people are by nature lazy and even worse greedy. Everyone maximizes their needs and minimizes their abilities. Hence we are left with competitive systems like contemporary capitalism where pressure to perform and be better than the others directly leads to suffering as inevitably there will be losers. The winners also don't…

> Cooperative systems like all sorts of communism don't work because people are by nature lazy and even worse greedy.

A very simplistic take. Human beings lived in cooperative communities for millennia. To a certain extent it wouldn't be unfair to say that our natural state is one of cooperation within a community. It's large scale civilization we haven't figured out how to deal with.