U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#351

Post by least » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 10:59 AM UTC

myself248 wrote: post #347

least wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By most accounts, the sequence of committing suicide has much worse outcomes for the individual than forceful intervention by police.

You say that like there's a difference. The first person I know who committed suicide, did so after being arrested for something that shouldn't have even been illegal. But the ordeal into which he was plunged by law enforcement was too much to handle. He was very stressed out by the shame of being in the newspaper and such, but nobody realized the degree until it was too late. The second, too. Different details but o…

> You say that like there's a difference.

There is a difference. Actively preventing someone from committing suicide, taking them from the absolute brink of destruction, is the first step towards recovery. Intervention works.

> The first person I know who committed suicide, did so after being arrested for something that shouldn't have even been illegal. But the ordeal into which he was plunged by law enforcement was too much to handle. He was very stressed out by the shame of being in the newspaper and such, but nobody realized the degree until it was too late.

I'm sorry to hear that, but that's entirely non sequitur to my point.

> Want to make someone feel hopeless, start by sending police in place of counselors.

Intervention by police to prevent someone actively trying to kill himself results in better outcomes for the person than the person actually killing himself. Or it could be firefighters. Or a random passerby. Police are sent because they are what is available.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#352

Post by staticman2 » Wed, Jul 20, 2022, 4:36 AM UTC

parineum wrote: post #335

ezrast wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tens of thousands of people in the USA are currently incarcerated for possession.

And if you become a cop, you can choose not to arrest those people.

Cops don't have to follow orders from a chain of command? They get to still be cops after refusing to follow orders from management?

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#353

Post by R0b0t1 » Wed, Jul 20, 2022, 10:56 PM UTC

zahma wrote: post #348

R0b0t1 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately various studies have shown that people who are involuntarily committed are more likely to commit suicide. This is not a benign association: it is clear that psychiatric holds and the ensuing care at the very least are likely pointless and as no ontervention is free are likely actively harmful. Assholes like yourself are why I need to bring a gun to my doctor visits. I might need to murder the doctor in…

I’m the asshole here for trying to help people who might harm themselves? I don’t think you have a clue what’s happening on services like this. We’re not advocating that people get locked up against their will. You’re out of line.

Your other comments indicate you agree with involuntary holds. These usually do no good and remove agency form the person. What actually works is a more tender individualized intervention, but of course that is expensive and family may not know of warning signs.

Some of the worst people I've met are the EMTs who do these calls. Some believe they are doing no harm. They are worth killing, and I am not sure whether I could avoid doing that if someone exposed themselves like that to me.

Re: U.S. transition to 988 suicide and crisis lifeline begins Saturday

#354

Post by blooalien » Tue, Jul 26, 2022, 3:19 PM UTC

aperson_hello wrote: post #328

Banana699 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry about your parents, there is nothing that makes me more uncontrollably sad and incapable of holding my tears than the slow decline of aging and disease, even more so when the decline happens to those who raised you, the ones that have been your earliest memory of what healthy and adult humans look like. You appear to have a very different mental model of assisted suicide than the comment you're replying to.…

There are people whose brain chemistry is so screwed up that no amount of treatment is going to fix their depression. Treatment-resistant severe depression is a big issue. Is it society's role to prevent that person from doing what they want to do to when that thing would also avoid the constant pain that they're currently undergoing? Why isn't it up to that person to make the choice to end their own suffering? I'm n…

On top of which, we now live in a society where insulting, ridiculing, and just generally harassing or terrorizing anyone "different" (but especially those with depression or other "mental issues") is the normal behavior of most humans, making any attempts to live a "normal" life pretty much an impossible to tolerate waking nightmare hell-scape for many who suffer with "major depressive disorder" (or whatever it's being called this week.)