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Daddy isn’t coming back

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Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#81

Post by anonporridge »

SigmundA wrote: post #74
anonporridge wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a bit of the wrong analogy. There's a big difference between judging someone unworthy of life and acting to kill them, and judging that someone is not worth the energy and struggle to fight against their own drive to throw themselves off a cliff. We're not collectively strong enough to save everyone. Getting strong enough is a goal to aspire to, but the dark reality is that in our state of weakness, w…

Never heard of "put them out of their misery"? Not acting and letting them destroy themselves can be worse in many ways to them and others around them rather than "acting to kill them". This is a hard truth, I am not advocated mercy killings but doing nothing to help them can be worse in many than doing something for all involved, which is why most advocate for doing something to help even is it seem futile, sometime…

I think it really depends.

Ultimately there's a never ending ethical conversation of when or if one ever has a duty to act to help others. I'm inclined to be believe there's a lot of cases where you ethically do have a duty to act, but we're not going to resolve the debate of where that line is here.

But there does exist a practical limitations to what you can do to save someone. A key rule of any kind of emergency response is to always prioritize your own safety first, because if you don't you risk creating an additional victim and making the situation worse for everyone. That can be an incredibly hard thing to accept when you see someone suffering and dying, but it's the truth.

If you jump in the water to save a drowning person, there's a high chance in their panic, they drag you down and you both drown.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#82

Post by jonny_eh »

BurningFrog wrote: post #19
podgaj wrote: post #10

I have schizoaffective bipolar disorder, and aspergers. I was making $130,000 a year as a network engineer at Cisco in 1999 before I became too sick to work anymore. Right now I am homeless living in my van with a transmission about to go. I have attempted suicide three times already. I keep thinking about doing it again. No one wants to provide me the best medicine, stable housing. I make $1700 on disability but I c…

> The fact that I cannot get housing just proves no one cares. All it proves is that there is a big housing shortage. Have you tried taking your van somewhere where housing is dirt cheap? I hear small poor towns are better at taking care of the downtrodden too. Walk into the church poor people go to, and see what happens.

> All it proves is that there is a big housing shortage.

Which is a symptom of people not caring.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#83

Post by jarito »

valenaut wrote: post #28
ellyagg wrote: post #24

Statistics also suggest that, singularly among illnesses, people with schizophrenia fare better in the developing world, where the rates of remission are higher. It's because developing countries are low-compliance societies. Humans weren't evolved to live in high-compliance societies and a lot of us don't care for it at all. Some of us get by. Others don't.

What do you mean by high/low compliance?

Not the OP, but I assume they mean the requirement by society on how well individuals conform to the expectations of that society. In high compliance societies, individuals are ostracized / punished for non-conformance - think atheists in a religious society. In low conformance societies, individuals are able to maintain a high level of privacy or society is more tolerant of divergence.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#84

Post by AmericanChopper »

wpietri wrote: post #44
AmericanChopper wrote: post #6

I can’t stand articles that start with “we need to talk about…”. What the author is really saying is “This topic is important to me, and I’d like to pressure you into having the same views on it as I do”. Regardless of the merit of those views, the only thing that ever comes after “we need to talk about…” is a description of some hardship the author (or somebody the author knows) faced, an explanation of how that sha…

The author didn't even write that. The subhed is typically written by an editor. So in addition to being grossly uncharitable, I believe your anger is directed at the wrong person.

I really don’t think it’s grossly uncharitable at all. The details of the editorial process aren’t especially relevant, the article itself is some grim anecdote being used to promote a policy agenda. Regardless of the merit of the position being promoted, it’s intentionally emotionally manipulative, it’s anti-rational and anti-intellectual. It’s also entirely based upon the presupposition that the problem they’re talking about only has one cause, and one possible solution. Framing issues in this way means that any criticism of the presuppositions of, or conclusions draw by the author, is likely to be seen as disparagement of a clearly sympathetic person. It’s not a rational way to discuss a problem, and it’s incredibly low quality journalism.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#85

Post by skissane »

jstx1 wrote: post #9

Knowing that you're at high risk of suicide or have other serious mental health problems is also a good reason to avoid having kids. This isn't directed at the author of the article or their partner; it's how I think when I plan my own life.

I have a long history of suicidal thoughts, and I’ve even acted on them a few times when I was younger (albeit half-heartedly-if I’d been really serious about it I wouldn’t be here now.) I don’t know if that makes me “at high risk of suicide” but likely people like me are at greater risk than people who don’t have that history.

And yet, having kids has actually made it easier for me to resist those thoughts. They haven’t gone away completely, but I feel more confident that I’m not going to act on them, and their frequency and intensity has definitely declined as well. Maybe I could do that to my wife or family or friends, but I could not do that to my own children. I think that, if there is such a thing as hell-if I did that to them, I’d be going straight there.

Having children has given me a new and very compelling reason to not kill myself. The best reason I’ve ever had. It also has given me a new motivation to try to keep a lid on my own “craziness”, which I think has helped my mental health as well. OTOH, it has also led to a lot of stress, and no doubt that stress has aggravated some of my mental health issues. Still, I think overall, the positive benefits of fatherhood on my own mental health have outweighed the negatives.

The only situation I can foresee myself now actually going through with suicide, is if both our kids died (say in a car accident), or if I’m terminally ill and trying to hurry along the inevitable. Outside of those two scenarios, I’m definitely not doing it. I don’t think I could have been so firm about that before having children.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#86

Post by agumonkey »

aerovistae wrote: post #35

Not a comment on the story itself, but rather on the postscript which follows it: > If you are struggling to cope or have been affected by anything in this story, please contact the Samaritans in the UK at 116 123 or jo@samaritans.org. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. More information at mind.org.uk, samaritans.org and save.org Years ago, unhappy but not suicidal, I decided to ca…

Called an emergency line after hallucination episode. Woman meant well but was very limited in her suggestions and empathy.

I don't blame them though. That said whether or not they're optimal.. it's often a good last resort option. Many people might have avoided tragedy through some mild listening. I've seen it happen on other venues.

[0] To be fair.. most psychology professional I ran into were far from perfect.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#87

Post by mikeflynn »

muuglay wrote: post #79

Suicide is a hard topic. My mom did it. I don't talk to my father. I might be autistic or have aspbergers, and I dont understand why I wake up. I'm a robot emulating a human. I have to do weed to grt any mystery of a cosmic connection because we are strange primates. I hate my job which causes a disease of more when even after excelling in a fang job making over seven figures, I feel very little joy. I just have hope…

If you aren't already working with a therapist, I would encourage you to do so. I think it would really help, but either way I hope you find what you're looking for.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#88

Post by rksprst »

SapporoChris wrote: post #3

I have a black thought on this. I would be happy if someone corrected me. When something breaks, sometimes we repair it, sometimes we throw it out. The more valuable the item, the more we will spend to fix it. However even with the most valuable items, we sometimes reluctantly decide that it is broken beyond repair. Are people like this? Are some simply too broken to fix? I feel awful thinking this, but I wonder if t…

I don't think your example works - when a valuable item is broken beyond repair that is a fact (based on known physics / science). If I snap a ruler into two pieces I know there is no way to bring it back to the state it was originally in - a single piece. We can glue it back and use other mechanisms but it won't be exactly the same - we know this definitively. The same cannot be said about mental illness.

We do not have the knowledge and science to make such a statement about mental illness. In fact, medical science and research shows the opposite, that we are learning more and getting better at treating mental illness.

Mental illness is usually not a downhill spiral to death, but a roller coaster that you can jump out of. Your perception of being beyond repair depends where on the roller coaster you are.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#89

Post by aerovistae »

ccvannorman wrote: post #69
windowshopping wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I have two options going forward: 1. Despite my bad experience, recommend suicide hotlines in the hopes that they work even though they didn't for me. 2. Recommend against suicide hotlines while explaining why and cautioning that my experience may or may not be representative of the norm. I'm going with #2 for the time being, yes.

Why do you feel recommending anything at all is required? 3. Share my experience, acknowledge this is a single data point, and withhold recommendation.

This is a good point, and phrased better and more openly than the other replies.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#90

Post by csomar »

SapporoChris wrote: post #3

I have a black thought on this. I would be happy if someone corrected me. When something breaks, sometimes we repair it, sometimes we throw it out. The more valuable the item, the more we will spend to fix it. However even with the most valuable items, we sometimes reluctantly decide that it is broken beyond repair. Are people like this? Are some simply too broken to fix? I feel awful thinking this, but I wonder if t…

That's not how it works in real life. Family (and maybe generous government healthcare) will take care of "too broke" to give any yield, in the future, people. Anyone else who isn't lucky to have that kind of support will find himself in the streets.

And that's fine. Societies can only function if the yield from the people it invested in is higher than the investment. This is why socialized healthcare is tricky. If you invest too much, you might be wasting resources and endangering all of your society. If you invest too little, you might be leaving people who would otherwise be productive once the investment is made.

> Are some simply too broken to fix?

There is no one too broken to fix but how compatible people are with their environments. A duck will leave its baby if it thinks it can't cross the river. Its brothers did cross, and thus it has to go forward, carry on and leave the weak behind. On the other hand, if the duck was living in your backyard and eating from your food; it would not have to do such a difficult choice. Its baby will not need to cross any river and thus it'll keep taking care of it.

> I feel awful thinking this, but I wonder if there is some truth to it.

It's life. Netflix has great series (Planet Earth) that you can watch. We are not really different from animals, we just happen to live in a different environment.

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