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Mourning loss as a remote team

sofuckingagile.com

391–400 of 408 posts

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s exactly because suicide is socially contagious that it makes sense to stigmatize it and not openly discuss it.

That makes zero sense at all. People learned this person committed suicide and the organization decided not to address it. That is strictly worse than addressing it no matter how you slice it.

The organization is liable for their own communications. They aren’t liable for the rumor mill. It doesn’t have to make sense objectively; the organization’s actions only have to make sense from their perspective and incentives.

OTOH, I’ve worked at office buildings that provided a clear view of a jumper, and there were formal communications that counseling was available to anyone who witnessed the jumper and felt they needed it. Which sort of underscored the fact that jumpers in the middle of busy downtown areas aren’t broadly reported to anyone who wasn’t likely to have directly seen them in the first place.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#392
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised how normal this is, historically, among remote-first companies (pre-pandemic). A decade or so ago, I worked at a remote-only company with 1600 employees and we never cammed up. We had a large number of employees with serious medical conditions or other personal issues that prevented them from holding down normal jobs and really appreciated not having to go on video.

> We had a large number of employees with serious medical conditions or other personal issues that prevented them from holding down normal jobs and really appreciated not having to go on video. This is the reason I treasure my current company. The work I do works around my disability perfectly, they don't demand I have video on, they're very understanding of my health issues, ... I got seriously lucky and hope I don'…

Can I ask, what's the disability?

When a company wants a video meeting, what are, to you, better ways to say "please join the meeting with video, but if you have a disability that makes you not want to use video, that's totally fine"?

I hope you're doing ok in spite of the disability

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#393
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it's illegal to report deaths as suicides in New Zealand media as well. https://mentalhealth.org.nz/media/reporting-and-portrayal-of...

That link says something different: "a description of the death as a suicide before the coroner has released their findings and stated the death was a suicide"

Sorry about that! I should learn to read a bit more. It's very rare you ever see any reporting done on suicides. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/80143183/new-zealand-suicid...

I guess to be safe they sort of publish it without many details. Just "Person found dead at such and such".

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#394
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the NHS can't keep up, the private sector needs to be partially subsidized, in my opinion.

That is already happening. The NHS is paying the private sector to perform operations due to long wait times (it will take half a decade for the waiting list to go down)...but these are usually the same NHS doctors, working in the same hospitals...they are just being paid 3x the price, it is the worst of all worlds (doctors are an extremely powerful lobbying group in the UK, they have tightly controlled entry to the…

Here in South Africa the private healthcare system is excellent. There's also public health care which is good in some places, atrocious in other. If you've got medical insurance you're good.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you’re depressed, you don’t have the energy to do the beneficial things you’re recommending above. That's just not true. You can't do all of them, of course, but you can take one step at a time over the course of months/years. It's a positive feedback loop that really does help. >If you’re depressed, you don’t have the energy to do the beneficial things you’re recommending above. Again, I'm not sure this is true…

This comment highlights just how different each person’s journey is. > For many people, there's no obvious cause for their depression, but they "just are" And for many people, their depression can be traced back to specific events or situations. Mine: C-PTSD from a pretty screwed up childhood. Most people I know would never know, but I’m working to build an entirely new way to frame the world and my responses to it.…

>And for many people, their depression can be traced back to specific events or situations.

It isn't an either-or situation. As you said, everyone has a different experience.

When I spoke to professionals or listened to others having the "mental health conversation" the focus was entirely on dealing with trauma or, if there was no trauma, taking antidepressants because clearly my brain was broken.

Being told to "draw the rest of the fucking owl" was one of the most eye-opening and empowering things I heard, precisely because the conversation focuses on people with experiences similar to yours.

I was told by society and doctors that I was a victim of my neurochemistry and that could never change. Turns out I was just bad at looking after myself as an adult. I am now less bad at it, and one day hope to even be good.

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#396
post #216

Ive been on fmla since first week of jan. i'm trading self harm for more time. the thoughts are killing me slowly until i lose the battle. i'm desperatly trying to bring myself to call EAP and get in a hospital but that scares me even more. I tried to resign my remote job and they refused to accept it and sent the cops. i don't know why i'm sharing this here. The entire company went on holiday and i volunteered for t…

Hey, you matter. The world is pretty fucking broken and you have every reason to feel how you do. I don't have pithy advice, I'm just another guy on the internet. But things can change. I promise they can. I don't know how or when, but they can. And you're not alone. I promise there are so many people fighting the same battle. Don't give up.

thanks, im trying

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#397

Ive been on fmla since first week of jan. i'm trading self harm for more time. the thoughts are killing me slowly until i lose the battle. i'm desperatly trying to bring myself to call EAP and get in a hospital but that scares me even more. I tried to resign my remote job and they refused to accept it and sent the cops. i don't know why i'm sharing this here. The entire company went on holiday and i volunteered for t…

I can relate, and I was in a similar situation not too long ago. I remember dreading weekends because there was nothing to stop me from curling up in a ball and crying the whole day. And honestly, if you've taken advantage of FMLA, you're actually doing better at taking steps to help yourself than I was! Medication really helped me. I've been on bupropion for about two years, and it's made for a drastic improvement.…

haha i was almost admitted against my will from my answers at the doc

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#398

Ive been on fmla since first week of jan. i'm trading self harm for more time. the thoughts are killing me slowly until i lose the battle. i'm desperatly trying to bring myself to call EAP and get in a hospital but that scares me even more. I tried to resign my remote job and they refused to accept it and sent the cops. i don't know why i'm sharing this here. The entire company went on holiday and i volunteered for t…

Screw the job. Join a group fitness class, an amateur sport, something with other people that isn’t a job. Leave mid day. Take a walk. What are they going to do, fire you? Who cares.

facts

Re: Mourning loss as a remote team

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit of a chicken-or-egg problem. If you’re depressed, you don’t have the energy to do the beneficial things you’re recommending above. So I come back to the idea that you need to look inward, into the core causes of your depression, and make some sort of peace with them — freeing you to move forward. Therapy helps.

>If you’re depressed, you don’t have the energy to do the beneficial things you’re recommending above. That's just not true. You can't do all of them, of course, but you can take one step at a time over the course of months/years. It's a positive feedback loop that really does help. >If you’re depressed, you don’t have the energy to do the beneficial things you’re recommending above. Again, I'm not sure this is true…

Fair - people definitely have different paths, and I don’t mean to suggest that therapy is a panacea. I will say however that not all therapy is focused on trauma; it can also address patterns of thought and behavior which are not conducive to your happiness. In short, I think good therapy is often about learning how to have deeper relationships with yourself and with others through being able to practice vulnerability in a safe, controlled environment. That’s helpful to people whether or not they’ve suffered deep trauma, as feeling connected to others is often the first step out of depression.

I agree “just doing stuff” can help to. But for many people, as others have pointed out, such advice is not immediately actionable. People can be made to do stuff, but if they hate doing those things then they’ll still be depressed.

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