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Ecomom's Founder and CEO Jody Sherman Passes Away

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21–30 of 47 posts

Re: Ecomom's Founder and CEO Jody Sherman Passes Away

#21
post #2

If you're feeling this way please just TELL somebody. If you're ready to kill yourself, what more do you have to lose by just letting someone know?

Why suicide is bad thing?

It depends on how you define bad. On whole, it isn't (based on my personal definition of 'bad'). The power to control your own destiny, to choose the manner and date of your death is a great freedom that should not be deprived to anyone willing to exercise it.

Sometimes, the world is a hopeless place and the future holds little for you. But that is for you to decide, not someone commenting on the internet. Sometimes, your life is great, and you want to end on that highnote and not watch it slowly erode. I won't judge a stranger as good or bad based on their life choices, because I am not their judge. I had a grandfather that chose to drive to a park, watch a beautiful sunset, and finish it off with a shotgun. He was not a bad man, he didn't need to be "cured", in fact, he probably had 10 years of life ahead of him, but he chose not to live it. And that is a beautiful choice, just one of the infinite number of choices any of us can make.

Re: Ecomom's Founder and CEO Jody Sherman Passes Away

#22
Before suicide was announced, it was my gut feeling (not knowing him at all) based on the earlier msuster's post about him that mentioned a recent tattoo 'I'm awesome' on his hand. When reading that, it struck me as a very disturbing signal indicating problems and suicide risk.

I mean, IMHO you make such a tattoo if you're (a) young, stupid and drunk, in which case you might do anything whatsoever or (b) you have a serious internal hurt or a selfesteem issue - and a temporary, fluctuating one, since you felt awesome when you made it, but you knew that you often feel not awesome and need to be reminded of it. Which is something that really correlates to people with clinical depression episodes or bipolar episodes - that also are a big suicide risk.

Maybe I'm oversensitive to such signals since I've been thinking a lot about these diseases, but they should matter.

Re: Ecomom's Founder and CEO Jody Sherman Passes Away

#23
I have to wonder if the flood of posts about suicide on a site like HN might actually push someone over the edge.

There were quite a few Aaron Swartz related threads and "let's save his legacy" etc. type posts.

I'm picturing someone that is depressed, followed those weeks on HN and is thinking to themselves "well if I kill myself people will remember"

Maybe I'm just a cynic though.

Re: Ecomom's Founder and CEO Jody Sherman Passes Away

#24
post #16
post #2

If you're feeling this way please just TELL somebody. If you're ready to kill yourself, what more do you have to lose by just letting someone know?

From what I read there are several causes of suicide: * Legitimate reasons, e.g., you're a French resistance fighter captured by Gestapo and if you speak under torture innocent people will be deported to Auschwitz (okay, had to "Godwin" this preemptively); you are elderly and are terminally ill with a very painful illness and want to die with dignity. I think suicide should be legal and legitimate for individuals in…

For the diseases you mention, it's not only the perception and nontreatment - I mean, the currently used drugs generally reduce the positive symptoms, but the negative symptoms remain, and the suicide risk is serious even if the patient understands it and is being treated.

Re: Ecomom's Founder and CEO Jody Sherman Passes Away

#26

The risks of the high wire act, the vertical mountain wall climbing is that you can fall. We need to think up workable nets and ropes for people pushing the edges.

Two thoughts come to mind. (And that's all they are, just thoughts, possibly contradictory ones at that.)

One, we're all climbing the vertical mountain wall. It's called life. This even applies to those who seem to have it easy. Suicide is not limited to high flyers.

Two, pushing the edges and suicidal thoughts often have the same roots. And I'm not just talking bipolar.

Re: Ecomom's Founder and CEO Jody Sherman Passes Away

#27
post #5

requiescat in pace

I'm curious. Was there a reason to write that in Latin, other than to be pretentious?

Getting on the pretension train: the latin is "may he rest in peace", which I like better and find less pushy than "rest in peace". It's not imperative, it's imploring $deity or the universe to ease their passing. Rest in peace is a backronym of RIP anyways.

Re: Ecomom's Founder and CEO Jody Sherman Passes Away

#28
post #14
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other reasons too. Having been there myself, the big one I've seen in myself and with friends in similar situations is that the depressed individual feels worthless and "unfixable" at their core because of their: - past behaviour (e.g. they did something considered seriously socially unacceptable and feel they can't tell anybody lest they be ostracised forever , or people already know about it and they are…

And the most recent study suggest suicide has now passed car accidents. http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/09/2...

On Twitter, I would follow a 911 tweeter. I could not believe how many people were killing themselves by jumping from heights in NYC. And they never made the MSM news at all.

Re: Ecomom's Founder and CEO Jody Sherman Passes Away

#30
post #2

If you're feeling this way please just TELL somebody. If you're ready to kill yourself, what more do you have to lose by just letting someone know?

Why suicide is bad thing?

Because it's irreversible, and people contemplating suicide are often being impulsive or illogical, yet feel as though they are being completely logical. Maybe they're chronically sleep-deprived, or having a vitamin deficiency or drug-interaction. The problem is that they will think they are making a decision of their own free will.

This is why things that affect your very thinking are so insidious. Think of sleep deprivation or hypoxia. Ever watched a video of someone trying to draw simple shapes while not getting enough oxygen? The crucial point is that they think they are okay.

When I was feeling suicidal it seemed like the only logical solution to a set of unsatisfiable constraints. However, none of these were particularly hard constraints. As a relatively privileged person I was ashamed to reach out for help, because I felt I was letting everybody down. Don't be ashamed. It can do weird things like convincing you that it's better to kill yourself than inconvenience your self and others by e.g. quitting a job, or failing some courses.

To make a coding analogy -- sometimes your client / management etc. tells you they want X and Y and Z. The set of solutions to X and Y and Z is empty. However, if the constraints were relaxed, X and Y is solvable. Y and Z is also solvable. Maybe they didn't really want X anyway. This closing down of options seems to be a common pattern, however it's often false.

Very few people are actively being tortured to the point where death is the only logical escape. Typically, there's more of a spiral inward where more and more options disappear until only one seems to be left. Typically there are so many steps along this path that removing a few constraints or realizing that they're not really there can make all the difference.

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