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Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

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Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#191

Post by vacri »

camus2 wrote: post #122
Mz wrote: post #24

I get the impression that this is a long, polite way of saying Steve committed suicide. The last time I was on HN and the topic of suicide came up, I wrote kind of a ranty piece that I am not up to editing it (to remove the rantiness) and reposting. The short version: If you know someone who is suicidal and you care about them, spend time with them. In person. Suicide is almost always committed when one is alone. My…

My brother committed suicide. He died for nothing,and nobody in the family even knows why he died. 10 years later, I feel like I dont care he died anymore, I just cant feel sorry for people committing suicide, it accomplishes nothing,except destroying a family ,making relatives feel guilty all their life. Suicide is the most selfish thing one can do, that's my opinion.

Most (not all) people who commit suicide aren't in their right minds and aren't thinking clearly. Denigrating it as being selfish misses the point of what's going on for the person.

it accomplishes nothing

It accomplishes nothing for you. For the person committing suicide, it frees them from significant pain of some sort. That might be psychological pain due to a disturbed mental state, but it's still pain.

Guilt is a hard one and you have to learn to deal with it and move on, but blaming the victim isn't going to help there.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#193

Post by VolatileVoid »

justzisguyuknow wrote: post #164
camus2 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother committed suicide. He died for nothing,and nobody in the family even knows why he died. 10 years later, I feel like I dont care he died anymore, I just cant feel sorry for people committing suicide, it accomplishes nothing,except destroying a family ,making relatives feel guilty all their life. Suicide is the most selfish thing one can do, that's my opinion.

I used to think the same thing. I have never been suicidal so I don't know from personal experience, but I recall reading something that helped me understand suicide as something more than self-absorption. That the pain of deep depression is so real and intense that it can be compared to physical pain, and when it gets strong enough, simply ending it becomes its own imperative. That suicide is like jumping from a bur…

Depression isn't just /like/ physical pain. It can cause real, physical pain. Pain, for which you go to doctors who say "oh, you're fine." Pain for which you go to dentists only to hear "oh, you're fine."

In many (most? all?) people depression has a physical manifestation. It hurts. It aches. It's not a "hole in your heart," it's like having the flu. All the time. It's not like a toothache. It is a toothache. This distinction has to be made because it's important: the pain is real - even if it is just created by brain chemistry.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#194

Post by einhverfr »

doktrin wrote: post #176
einhverfr wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm assuming you wouldn't say "pneumonia is socially constructed". If you did, I would read that as "pneumonia isn't real". That's a complicated question. I probably would not say pneumonia is socially constructed. I would say that health insurance is, just like any other contract. > I honestly don't know what you're trying to say. Ok. Let's try again. The science of mental health, like all science, rests on assump…

That's a cogent explanation. I can see where you're coming from, and I appreciate you taking the time to elaborate. > This problem is manageable in the physical sciences but it is totally unmanageable when studying the human condition. The problem is that people exist in a social context and that is formative regarding the brain. Therefore, if you are studying mental health of middle class Americans, you have no real…

> For instance, most of the literature I could find does agree that there is a biochemical basis for schizophrenia.

Basis != the phenomenon though. But try reading Julian Jaynes' "The Bicameral Mind" which will give you an idea into at least one possibility into how culture fits into it.

That there is a biological aspect to mental illness is beyond dispute. However that does not make it a biological phenomenon. There is probably a biological aspect to language too. That doesn't mean that language is biologically determined.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#195

Post by mikeash »

grahamburger wrote: post #189
mikeash wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be saying that if he died of cancer instead of mental illness? People have this bizarre idea that mental illness somehow doesn't "count". That you have to fight it, and that if you lose, it's your own fault. You are, right here, blaming the victim of the disease. Your brother died from a mental illness. It killed him, just as surely as cancer or a heart attack might have killed him. You'd never, ever, ever…

Actually I might say about someone who had a heart attack or cancer. A father whose doctor and family begged him to change his diet and exercise habits for years before his fatal heart attack, or a mother who continued smoking even after the cancer set in, for example. Yes, mental illness is very much like any other illness, and like any other illness it can often be prevented and managed through lifestyle changes un…

Refusing to take preventive measures could potentially be called selfish. (Although it's much less clear with mental illness where the disease itself hinders such action.) The death itself is not, especially since these things can still kill you even if you do everything right.

Would you mind giving me the name of your practice so I can make sure that nobody I care about ever, ever goes there?

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#196

Post by mikeash »

gruseom wrote: post #186
mikeash wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not shocked. It's a sadly common opinion. I do think you're full of shit, though. Depression is completely different from things like sadness and anger. There is a superficial outward resemblance, but that is all. They are conflated because people who have never experienced it try to slot it into what they know, so they decide that depression is just the sadness they know, but stronger. It's not. But no, I'm sure…

have control over their own feelings and that Prozac is no better than a lobotomy dreamdu5t said neither of those things, and there's no need to be rude.

No, he didn't outright say them, he just heavily implied them. Note that the "control over their own feelings" bit comes from a different thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7229432

What's rude is going around telling people that depression is made up and comparing SSRIs to lobotomies. Getting a bit snippy when faced with such an affront is only natural.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#197

Post by seabee »

hrkristian wrote: post #132
l33tbro wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool sentiment, but what makes you think other "hackers" have the formal background to reach out and to a depressed person? If i was depressed, the last person I'd want to talk to about it are my hacker friends. The vast majority of the population simply have no idea how to talk to mentally ill people.

Depression doesn't really need a qualified person. You're not talking to a mentally ill person, at least not in the sense that you cannot spring a bolt in a depressed person's mind and have him go on a killing spree. The blue sticker says you'll happily talk, and also listen if they have something profound to get off their chest. That's really the important part, it's not about giving advice.

Just to be clear we're not trivializing the condition, you're right that some sufferers of depression don't really need a qualified person (particularly if they have a good support network and sufficient strength of mind) but some people only turn around after CBT, for example.

I do agree with the general thesis that talking to someone willing to listen has a neutral to positive effect. I'd also suggest it's especially helpful for people who feel they can't or shouldn't talk to anyone else they know about it.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#198

Post by downandout »

camus2 wrote: post #122
Mz wrote: post #24

I get the impression that this is a long, polite way of saying Steve committed suicide. The last time I was on HN and the topic of suicide came up, I wrote kind of a ranty piece that I am not up to editing it (to remove the rantiness) and reposting. The short version: If you know someone who is suicidal and you care about them, spend time with them. In person. Suicide is almost always committed when one is alone. My…

My brother committed suicide. He died for nothing,and nobody in the family even knows why he died. 10 years later, I feel like I dont care he died anymore, I just cant feel sorry for people committing suicide, it accomplishes nothing,except destroying a family ,making relatives feel guilty all their life. Suicide is the most selfish thing one can do, that's my opinion.

I feel like I don't care he died anymore

I hope you are just angry that he committed suicide, and don't actually mean that. If you do mean that, you shouldn't be surprised that he killed himself. Suicidal people tend to look frantically for any reason they can find to not carry through with it. This kind of cold, judgmental attitude shown by a loved one at the wrong time can be the final straw.

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#199

Post by hengheng »

pserwylo wrote: post #93

There is an organisation called BlueHackers.org [0] which was started at the Open Source Developers Conference. It has a strong presence at linux.conf.au as well. The organisation started from a very brief lightning talk that went something along the lines of (me paraphrasing from memory): "Who here in this room has experienced depression?" (for which the person asking the question put their hand up. After a few seco…

I'd like to get one of these stickers. Can you send them by mail or something?

Re: Tell HN: My Brother Died Last Week. His Death Will Not Be In Vain

#200

Post by rmc »

l33tbro wrote: post #104
pserwylo wrote: post #93

There is an organisation called BlueHackers.org [0] which was started at the Open Source Developers Conference. It has a strong presence at linux.conf.au as well. The organisation started from a very brief lightning talk that went something along the lines of (me paraphrasing from memory): "Who here in this room has experienced depression?" (for which the person asking the question put their hand up. After a few seco…

Cool sentiment, but what makes you think other "hackers" have the formal background to reach out and to a depressed person? If i was depressed, the last person I'd want to talk to about it are my hacker friends. The vast majority of the population simply have no idea how to talk to mentally ill people.

Another reason to put the sticker on there is to spread awareness and end the stigma. Some people think that mental illness isn't a real illness. But if you have something wrong with your lungs, you go to a lung doctor; so if you have something wrong with your head/mind, you should go to a mind doctor.
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