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Daddy isn’t coming back

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Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#191

Post by coolsunglasses »

sen wrote: post #130
skissane wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

Same here, I agree and relate to every bit you said. I always thought it'd be a bad idea for me to have kids, my childhood/early-adulthood was absolute chaos, abuse, serious depression, homelessness, the works. Met "the one", we wanted kids, a decade later I can see it's the best thing that ever happened to me. My brain can still be a very scary place, but they give me purpose/direction/motivation to do better and ma…

Living for others even when you know the end is coming and you'd otherwise prefer to end it is true love. You are setting an example of courage for your family that they will remember.

I will remember too. God bless you.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#192

Post by kirrent »

rainonmoon wrote: post #153
GDC7 wrote: post #149

The fact that people in here are considering waiting to have a kid till they can self-diagnose themselves as mentally stable enough not to kill themselves, is itself an indicator that people who clicked on this HN thread are at higher risk for depression. Me included. The non-depressed person goes about the world as they owned it, thinking nothing but good things will come their way, they have the confidence to try h…

You'd probably find a lot to like in the book Lost Connections by Johann Hari. The main thrust is the impact society has had on mental health, in contradiction to the notion that depression is merely a "chemical imbalance".

I'd steer clear of Hari. Having listened to an interview with him I found interesting I did a fair amount of digging into the sources of his claims. Some of his claims were known and fairly uncontroversial in the medical establishment but the manner he presented them, against some straw-man of medical practice, was a bit misleading (examples - https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2018/jan/...). Still, that didn't worry me because I'm sure plenty of people do receive the standard of care he was arguing against. As that article above suggests, best practice care is expensive and time-consuming.

Where he really lost me was that every fascinating and surprising claim presented by him with absolute certainty that I looked into was either an exaggeration or wrong. As an example, he had a striking statistic that the modal number of friends people used to be able to rely on in an emergency was something like 4 or 5. Ten years later in the present day that number has dropped to 0. Putting aside the fact that a mode can be pretty misleading, I still thought it was an interesting difference in only ten years so I was disappointed to find that the most credible explanation in the literature seems to be that it's an artefact of survey design. Even the original paper he got the statistic from was pretty equivocal on the validity of the finding, so even if he was a bit lazy in not reading through later papers, he still should have been less confident.

I haven't read his book though. The above is just to say, caveat lector.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#193

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

anm89 wrote: post #180

This is the part where every one piles in posting suicide hotline numbers. I would argue most of those people do not have any experience with, or understanding of those hotlines and it's just a trite thing to throw out to show support like "fuck cancer". You should seriously understand what you are signing yourself up for if you call one of those numbers on yourself or someone else. For one you are volunteering that…

If you don't mind me asking, is there anywhere I can read more about this aspect of the system?

This comment seems really extreme and it's a perspective I haven't really seen anywhere else.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#194

Post by R0b0t1 »

perl4ever wrote: post #187
R0b0t1 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also studies that show the more times you are committed the more likely you are to commit suicide, i.e., that psychiatric hospitals cause suicidal ideation.

Evidence of suicidal ideation is a specific example (and probably the most common) of what gets people involuntarily admitted to a mental ward. In fact, there are almost certainly more people admitted on that basis than actually have it, because if someone is not clearly a danger to themselves or others, but seriously needs help, the easiest way for emergency personnel to fudge it is by reporting a mention of suicide…

No, you prove it.

If incidence of suicidal ideation goes up with number of involuntary holds then it means that psych facilities are not treating the problem. That is enough: that they are provably not treating it. First do no harm means you have to be causing good; ambivalence is treated as likely harm because it is invasive.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#195

Post by akerl_ »

xwdv wrote: post #188
yokoprime wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think jail is the other choice.

Being dead is still a better choice than being trapped in that system and carrying the stigma your whole life IMO. It becomes a permanent problem that you cannot escape.

It seems pretty tautologically impossible for being “trapped in that system” to be a more permanent problem than death.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#196

Post by R0b0t1 »

Invictus0 wrote: post #169
R0b0t1 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also studies that show the more times you are committed the more likely you are to commit suicide, i.e., that psychiatric hospitals cause suicidal ideation.

Or perhaps the most suicidal people are more likely to be committed? Causation seems very hard to show here.

If incidence of suicidal ideation goes up with number of involuntary holds then it means that psych facilities are not treating the problem. That is enough: that they are provably not treating it. First do no harm means you have to be causing good; ambivalence is treated as likely harm because it is invasive.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#197

Post by c22 »

anm89 wrote: post #180

This is the part where every one piles in posting suicide hotline numbers. I would argue most of those people do not have any experience with, or understanding of those hotlines and it's just a trite thing to throw out to show support like "fuck cancer". You should seriously understand what you are signing yourself up for if you call one of those numbers on yourself or someone else. For one you are volunteering that…

I agree with your general sentiment, but speaking as someone who has been in jail and also involuntarily committed on multiple occasions, jail is much much worse.

All the downsides you listed apply to jail time also, but the food is more terrible, the environment more restrictive, and the opportunities for extricating yourself (if you are reasonably cogent) are greatly reduced.

Also, ironically, being in jail on suicide watch is preferable to being in general population.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#198

Post by R0b0t1 »

chillwaves wrote: post #159
R0b0t1 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's well known that someone with, say, Down's syndrome may need a full time handler and is extremely unlikely to be a productive member of society (they'd need to be twice as productive, to make up for their handler). Many couples when informed of Down's risk choose to abort.

I would rather spend the resources to help that person than enable another sociopathic billionaire, who would be far more dangerous to society.

We're not talking, in these instances, of someone who is mentally able but with a mobility issue, we are talking about people who will never contribute to society. That's money taken away from you, not some billionaire.

That said -- rounding up people and killing them is insane. But failing to test for birth defects and not working to prevent them is also insane.

Some ways this thread is going are kind of concerning, like, we don't know why people are depressed, so doing something like selecting against people who are liable to be depressed is probably a huge mistake. We could end up with generations that are poorly equipped to solve problems under pressure, etc, or whatever depression may naturally exist to help the host do.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#199

Post by kreeben »

cyberpunk wrote: post #186
downut wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, well I had no intention of implying that all of life is suffering, but the succinctness of my comment can be read that way, sorry. Your take is quite reasonable, IMHO. The gist of a lot of the quotes that search brings up is more or less the same: without suffering, it may be more difficult to understand how deeply good the pleasant experiences of life are. Which for me, would include looking out the window at th…

Oh, your friend in Belgium doesn't appreciate what he has, I come from a small island off the west coast of Scotland, where rain is rather common... You could resent it, or you could install roof windows, a log burner and invest on a decent whisky and have the best possible environment for getting deep into a hardback book that possible exists (possible enhanced by a collie dog laying on your feet). Life is weird. We…

Anyone who can find joy in a glass of whiskey and a terrific hardbook is going to be fine, is what I think, no matter what obstacle, unless they go too hard on the books.

Re: Daddy isn’t coming back

#200

Post by youreawesome »

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…

It's heartbreaking our social institutions failed you so badly that you needed to call a suicide hotline to connect with someone, even though you weren't suicidal. However that's not a test call. In telecom people who install phone systems are legally required to call 911 just to make sure it works. It usually takes five seconds and then they hang up, because they know emergency hotlines might be understaffed and they need to be available for people in emergencies. One thing you might consider is calling your bank or some commercial call center where company policy prevents representatives from hanging up on customers. There's so many people who are lonely and have no one else to call, so they turn to these hotlines. It's still not great, because it contributes to hold times and makes it harder for the person who picks up to meet their quotas, but you'd at least be freeing up resources for the people who at risk.
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