Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself • Hacker News Board

Re: Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself

#31

Post by DanBC » Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 2:15 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #3

> In considering people’s motivations for killing themselves, it is essential to recognize that most suicides are driven by a flash flood of strong emotions, not rational, philosophical thoughts in which the pros and cons are evaluated critically. That sounds very likely to me, but given my utter inexperience with suicidal thoughts or acquaintances, I'm wondering if there is any proper evidence corroborating it. What…

Suicide prevention measures often aim to increase the time it takes to complete suicide by even a few minutes. "Reducing access to means and methods" is the jargon.

Thus, in the UK, pills are usually supplied in blister packs rather than bottles. This small measure helps reduce suicide. When paracetamol sales were restricted (32 tablets from a pharmacist; 16 over the counter (but actually it's 100 from a pharmacist if you can persuade them and unlimited if you have a doctors prescription)) completed suicide decreased for a while. (Numbers have since returned to near the same level.)

When people hear this they say "But if you're going to kill yourself you'll just do X". This ignores the very real fear that people have about hurting themselves. It's a big step to get over. And some people are considerate of others (in a weird way). They don't want to step in front of a train because they know the driver will be traumatised.

The Oxford Centre for Suicide Research has probably the best collection of information about attempted and completed suicide. (http://cebmh.warne.ox.ac.uk/csr/)

(As for the article: I thought it was really good. Obviously people are different and it will be closer for some than for others.)

Re: Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself

#32

Post by mindcrime » Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 2:25 AM UTC

roflc0ptic wrote: post #2

"So there you have it. It’s really not a pretty picture. But, again, I do hope that if you ever are unfortunate enough to experience these cognitive dynamics in your own mind—and I, for one, very much have—or if you suspect you’re seeing behaviors in others that indicate these thought patterns may be occurring, that this information helps you to meta-cognitively puncture suicidal ideation." I tend to think there's no…

I tend to think there's not a lot of value in talking publicly about suicide due to the Werther effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide), and I know that for my own part reading about suicide tends to reinvigorate some pretty unfortunate cognitive patterns.

This x 1000. Personally I would love to and end to the recent deluge of articles touching on / talking about suicide. Awareness of the issues surrounding the aaronsw case are important, yes, but too much suicide talk is not healthy, IMO.

Re: Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself

#33

Post by codex » Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 2:26 AM UTC

In my opinion, suicide is an evolutionary trait design to unburden the group when the self is no longer felt to be of any worth; e.g. contributing positively. If this were true, then placing the suicidal individual in a completely different environment; one in which they might be more successful, might be therapeutic. For example, relocated to another country with a foster family. More easily said than done.

Re: Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself

#34

Post by graue » Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 2:35 AM UTC

codex wrote: post #33

In my opinion, suicide is an evolutionary trait design to unburden the group when the self is no longer felt to be of any worth; e.g. contributing positively. If this were true, then placing the suicidal individual in a completely different environment; one in which they might be more successful, might be therapeutic. For example, relocated to another country with a foster family. More easily said than done.

There is a problem with this theory: it hypothesizes a benefit to a group, but no benefit to the individual who commits suicide. Individuals who do not have the gene(s) that predispose toward committing suicide would therefore be more fit than individuals who do, and these gene(s) would never become widespread.

I believe this was one of the main points of Dawkins' The Selfish Gene: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene

Re: Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself

#35

Post by suicidethread1 » Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 2:41 AM UTC

darius42 wrote: post #6

Speaking as someone who has been suicidal, I think that that article is a lot of hot air. This is what it felt like to be suicidal: Imagine the worst heartbreak you have ever felt, and multiply this by ten. Imagine the worst anxiety you have ever suffered and multiply this by ten. Imagine that every second feels like a minute, in each of those minute-long-seconds, you feel like a lion is just about to jump out from a…

I worked hard in 2011 to pull my wife back from suicide while I tried to carry on running my business. She came close more than once. I've supported her closely through the patchy public mental health system, private therapy and so on. [And she's in a better place now, but I don't stop watching]

It's interesting that you and someone else here don't recognise those symptoms. But when I deconstruct my wife's experience of suicidal ideation, the article's summary match what I observed pretty closely, in terms of the escalation. She left her job due to latent anxiety, had mental health issues, blamed herself strongly, this turned out to stem from a teenage trauma I'd known nothing about. There more anxiety, drinking, an overdose and a very scary amount of "disinhibition". In the end a 3-day stay in a secure ward and lots of drugs was the start of a slow recovery.

It doesn't describe her mental state. I don't think I knew it well enough, and I'm not sure she'd be able to tell it to you, as your own pain is clearly hard enough to put into words.

But from the outside, I know what I saw, and that article covers. If you know or support someone with mental health problems, you'd do well to think about their behaviour in terms of those categories.

[an HN regular with a throwaway account]

Re: Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself

#36

Post by Alex3917 » Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 2:59 AM UTC

graue wrote: post #34

codex wrote: post #33

In my opinion, suicide is an evolutionary trait design to unburden the group when the self is no longer felt to be of any worth; e.g. contributing positively. If this were true, then placing the suicidal individual in a completely different environment; one in which they might be more successful, might be therapeutic. For example, relocated to another country with a foster family. More easily said than done.

There is a problem with this theory: it hypothesizes a benefit to a group , but no benefit to the individual who commits suicide. Individuals who do not have the gene(s) that predispose toward committing suicide would therefore be more fit than individuals who do, and these gene(s) would never become widespread. I believe this was one of the main points of Dawkins' The Selfish Gene : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…

"It hypothesizes a benefit to a group, but no benefit to the individual who commits suicide"

If you know you can't pass on your own genes, then the next best thing is to pass on the genes of your family or close relatives. Committing suicide may (or may not) make that more likely.

I don't think there is necessarily an evolutionary reason for suicide, but it certainly seems to fit within an evolutionary framework.

Re: Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself

#37

Post by xijuan » Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 3:08 AM UTC

I am glad that people here are very understanding and very open about what they have experienced. I think I have been there. I don't know how bad my situation was comparing to some of them described in the comments. I have fought hard to get myself back up. I remember I tried so hard to seek help. Reflecting back, I think I really just wanted a peace of mind knowing that I will get better if I could see a doctor. What horrified me was not what I had to go through. What horrified me is how some people start to treat me afterwards. They would treat me as a mental patient; they would think I am dangerous and crazy.. They also think I probably would be able to achieve anything in life anymore. I feel so sad about this. I have never been treated like this.

Re: Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself

#38

Post by im3w1l » Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 3:14 AM UTC

graue wrote: post #34

codex wrote: post #33

In my opinion, suicide is an evolutionary trait design to unburden the group when the self is no longer felt to be of any worth; e.g. contributing positively. If this were true, then placing the suicidal individual in a completely different environment; one in which they might be more successful, might be therapeutic. For example, relocated to another country with a foster family. More easily said than done.

There is a problem with this theory: it hypothesizes a benefit to a group , but no benefit to the individual who commits suicide. Individuals who do not have the gene(s) that predispose toward committing suicide would therefore be more fit than individuals who do, and these gene(s) would never become widespread. I believe this was one of the main points of Dawkins' The Selfish Gene : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…

Well if you sacrifice to save a group that also has the gene (e.g. extended family / tribe) it would work out.

Re: Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself

#39

Post by nostrademons » Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 3:31 AM UTC

ghc wrote: post #13

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few pieces of evidence that suggest long-term depression can impact neurogenesis, which could lead to altered cognition. I don't know if that's a prevalent theory, and as the author points out, it doesn't explain non-depressive suicides. I can, however, answer this anecdote with another anecdote. I've been dealing with suicidal thoughts for about 5 years, and at some points some very limited self-harm. On…

Aren't impulses like that relatively common? I can recall hundreds of times where I felt a sudden impulse like that since about the age of 10, all triggered by finding myself in a situation where something not normally dangerous presented a very real possibility of death. I always figured my brain was using that impulse to viscerally play out the consequences in my head so as to scare the living daylights out of me (…

Yeah, they're really common; I remember discussing them in Intro Philosophy course in college. Most people have had a moment where they're in a situation that could lead to death and wonder "What if I..."

Thinking back to when I was 13 and suicidal, the big difference is that now, when I'm mentally healthy, it's a "What if I...?" thought, while back then it was an "I should..." thought. I remember looking out my front door at the traffic going by in the street and thinking "If I just run outside and into the road in front of a car, it'll all be over." And it was like I got tunnel vision, like that impulse was all the universe consisted of. It's like the article said, about thoughts tending toward concreteness.

I wonder, too, about how this relates to a another comment here about it being crucial to increase the physical time necessary to commit suicide. Our driveway was a good 160 feet long; I wonder if a major factor was that it'd take a good 15 seconds to run the length of it, and on some level I realized I'd chicken out before I got to the street. (I didn't get much farther than opening the door before thinking "What the hell am I doing?")

Re: Being Suicidal: What it feels like to want to kill yourself

#40

Post by nostrademons » Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 3:40 AM UTC

graue wrote: post #34

codex wrote: post #33

In my opinion, suicide is an evolutionary trait design to unburden the group when the self is no longer felt to be of any worth; e.g. contributing positively. If this were true, then placing the suicidal individual in a completely different environment; one in which they might be more successful, might be therapeutic. For example, relocated to another country with a foster family. More easily said than done.

There is a problem with this theory: it hypothesizes a benefit to a group , but no benefit to the individual who commits suicide. Individuals who do not have the gene(s) that predispose toward committing suicide would therefore be more fit than individuals who do, and these gene(s) would never become widespread. I believe this was one of the main points of Dawkins' The Selfish Gene : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The…

The article mentions this, tangentially - human beings are the only species (we know of) capable of empathy and theory of mind, the ability to put yourself in another's shoes. And one side effect of that is the ability to feel shame, to feel like you're a worthless individual because of your effect on the group, which in pathological situations can result in eliminating yourself from the gene pool. It's not that there's a gene for suicide, it's that there're genetically-based traits like empathy, ambition, and pain-tolerance that when combined with a hostile environment can result in suicide. (One of Aaron Swartz's traits commonly referenced in his eulogies was how unusually empathetic he was.)

It's very well-documented that there are some genes that can be adaptive in some situations and fatal in others. For example, sickle-cell anemia is highly adaptive in sub-Saharan Africa where it confers immunity to malaria, yet results in debilitating blood clots when expressed in some individuals. Suicide is the mental version of this: not a genetic trait in itself, but a side-effect of a collection of genetic traits that are usually beneficial in isolation.