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National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

suicidepreventionlifeline.org

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Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

#31

Post by andrewtbham »

Tichy wrote: post #30

I'd be curious to know what they teach the people manning the phones. Sometimes I ponder volunteering, but honestly, atm anybody talking to me would probably be more suicidal afterwards than before. Are there even universal things to say? Perhaps somebody religious needs to hear "god loves you no matter what", whereas I for example found solace in thinking about atheism and evolution theory. Probably the first talks…

I was a counselor at one and yes they will train you on what to say. Generally, you will be trained not to give a lot of advice, but to do reflective listening. It was interesting for me and has helped a lot in my personal life.

Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

#32

Post by ieze »

sergiotapia wrote: post #20

I kind of find it in poor taste to post this link at this point in time. Just my thoughts.

It's well meaning.

"Hearing about a suicide seems to make those who are vulnerable feel they have permission to do it" -- David Phillips https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide

Unfortunately http://www.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/16e15s/i_transcribed_... was posted and front-paged yesterday.

Google returns a local suicide prevention line number when you google suicide. Perhaps social media sites should discourage posting on the subject at the time of submission, or trying to wrap such content with reminder to the readership that they matter.

Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

#33

Post by ieze »

bjxrn wrote: post #16
fourstar wrote: post #2

Not trying to be facetious here, but are there some kind of statistics somewhere out there that show how effective suicide hotlines are? I always hear about them, but have yet to hear about someone who used one successfully. E.g. X% of people have been dissuaded by suicide attempts after speaking to a suicide hotline.

I don't have the numbers at hand, but I've heard of a study saying that suicide very often is a very impulsive action. Saying that in most cases there's less than an hour between deciding to commit suicide and the action itself (numbers might be off here). Looks like I got it from a Freakonomics podcast [1]: "One academic study looked at attempted suicides in Houston among 15 to 34 year olds. It found that in 70 perc…

In the UK a certain over-the-counter drug that can be used to commit suicide is only sold in quantities insufficient for suicide.

There is nothing to stop a person from going to several shops, but the measure is effective because that takes longer.

Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

#35

Post by pfortuny »

igorgue wrote: post #10
fourstar wrote: post #2

Not trying to be facetious here, but are there some kind of statistics somewhere out there that show how effective suicide hotlines are? I always hear about them, but have yet to hear about someone who used one successfully. E.g. X% of people have been dissuaded by suicide attempts after speaking to a suicide hotline.

I called one once, it's pretty effective, even though his advice didn't work or was dumb, I think just having somebody to listen to you is good enough, during that time nobody, meaning none of my friends, was answering my calls.

A lot of times one just needs someone to just LISTEN and be sympathetic (that is, supportive without being hypersensitive)...

It may be what is called 'empathy'.

Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

#37

Post by pfortuny »

wissler wrote: post #36

"Please don’t pathologize this story." -- Aaron's friend, Lawrence Lessig http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bull...

Well, with due respect, we are as entitled as Lawrence to give an explanation and try to find an answer.

What to Lawrence may be 'a reason' to many of us is not: you are valuable even in jail.

So we try to find a better explanation than 'as he did not want to go to jail, he decided to kill himself', which is quite simplistic.

Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

#38

Post by ameen »

I've always wondered why suicide is so common among us young programmers. (Ilya, Bill Zeller, etc)

As programmers we're able to control how our code behaves, but life on the other hand has too many variables, most of which are beyond one's control - and the only thing one can control is their lives. The will to live can do amazing wonders, but when that will fades -- life doesn't make sense, its just a waste of time and resources.

Re: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

#39

Post by tomjen3 »

ameen wrote: post #38

I've always wondered why suicide is so common among us young programmers. (Ilya, Bill Zeller, etc) As programmers we're able to control how our code behaves, but life on the other hand has too many variables, most of which are beyond one's control - and the only thing one can control is their lives. The will to live can do amazing wonders, but when that will fades -- life doesn't make sense, its just a waste of time…

Suicide is extremely common among males (compared to women, men end up killing them at self at something like a 10:1 ratio, even though more women than men try to kill them self), particularily young males.

Guess who is most likely to be a programmer?

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