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Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts

nytimes.com

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Re: Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts

#31

Post by graeme »

rhuppert wrote: post #13
graeme wrote: post #6

Serious question: is someone who attempts suicide in the same group as someone who successfully commits suicide? For instance, far more men commit suicide. But far more women attempt suicide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide I'm sure there are other differences. To me, the questions are: 1. Why do people fail at suicide attempts? 2. Will information that dissuades a failed suicide attempt di…

1. Men are more "successful" because they tend to use more violent methods - guns, jumping off high places, etc. Women are more likely to use pills. Sometimes attempts are more of a call for help than ending one's life. 2. Your question is unclear to me, but most people who have attempted and failed to commit suicide regret that decision.

I suppose I meant: will the stories of suicide survivors help stop those who are planning to commit suicide, using a method that is likely to succeed?

But of course stopping suicide attempts (that are destined to fail) is a worthy goal too.

Re: Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts

#32

Post by chaired »

dfc wrote: post #24
evanlivingston wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean that suicide is perceived as something to prevent, but I don't often see the conversation about _why_ we are preventing it. Clinical depression is a beast, and many people who pursue treatment seriously continue to struggle with it their whole lives. I think great minds like David Foster Wallace prove how persistent depression is. Suicide is a real escape from the incredible pain that depression can cause, yet…

Why did it take "a great mind like DFW" to accept how persistent depression is? I doubt you meant it but I found the dfw bit to be offensive. You seem to deny the serious pain and suffering my friend experienced simply because he was not a celebrity and/or had an average IQ? The reason I say it is offensive (and that you did not intend it to be) is that it seems as if pre-DFW you assumed my friend was just not smart…

When it happens to a high-profile figure, people grapple with the issues in the public sphere. It raises awareness.

Re: Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts

#33

Post by chaired »

Swizec wrote: post #10
dclowd9901 wrote: post #4

"...in the past few years, scores of them have come together on social media and in other forums to demand a bigger voice in prevention efforts." Wha-? I'm by no means a heartless person. However, I truly believe if you don't want to live any more, that it's your right and your responsibility. I'm not in your head. I don't know what you're thinking. Most of the time, I won't even know that you're depressed. Many peop…

Here's the thing though, depression is a treatable-ish illness. Suicide is a symptom. Isn't the usual approach to at least treat symptoms, if you can't immediately cure the underlying illness?

I'm sorry, but as a long-time sufferer, I feel compelled to disagree with this viewpoint wherever I see it, to represent people like me. I've been suicidal and depressed on and off for about 20 years. From in here, it doesn't seem anything like an illness at all. The flu is an illness. This is having lived through an absurd number of absurd events, emotionally draining and also traumatic in the long-term. It's having been abused. It's having exhausted yourself pouring all the energy you have into being your best, excelling, achieving, pleasing everyone, but having one dream after another expectation shattered, and having to learn a new framework for living with it. It's cumulative rejection. It's guilt over things you can never undo. It's finding no pleasure in life, only monotony, the grind, suffering, disappointment, and loneliness. It's wondering what's wrong with you that everyone you know got married, have kids, own homes, advance in their careers, buy nicer cars, but your life is still just like a single college student's.

It's not quite my brain, and it's not quite my mind. It's my life, which in a sense is my mind. Which may or may not be my brain. I think that current psychiatry is confused about which level of abstraction is the one to target - not too surprising, since it's circular, almost strange-loopy. Also, people, even most professionals, don't really know what to do or say when the problem really is your life.

Re: Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts

#34

Post by mbillie1 »

chaired wrote: post #27
mbillie1 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post consists of 1) an undocumented / unproven assertion, 2) a laughable generalization, and 3) an offensive generalization.

I'm not saying what he said was valid, but I am saying that neither being offensive nor being a generalization needs to have a bearing on truth value. Another: All else being equal, women get a lot of attention and praise, while men generally have to compete harder for such things.

> neither being offensive nor being a generalization needs to have a bearing on truth value.

Of course, but neither being offensive nor being a generalization (especially of that magnitude) belongs in a mature discussion, either.

> All else being equal, women get a lot of attention and praise, while men generally have to compete harder for such things.

All else, however, is not equal. Feel free to examine average salaries in the US, or perhaps simple human rights in many other countries.

Re: Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts

#35

Post by PeterisP »

Swizec wrote: post #10
dclowd9901 wrote: post #4

"...in the past few years, scores of them have come together on social media and in other forums to demand a bigger voice in prevention efforts." Wha-? I'm by no means a heartless person. However, I truly believe if you don't want to live any more, that it's your right and your responsibility. I'm not in your head. I don't know what you're thinking. Most of the time, I won't even know that you're depressed. Many peop…

Here's the thing though, depression is a treatable-ish illness. Suicide is a symptom. Isn't the usual approach to at least treat symptoms, if you can't immediately cure the underlying illness?

Actually, is it known how large proportion of suicides is caused by clinical depression?

I can imagine suicide cases brought on by real hardship such as a hopeless&painful disease; unescapeable debts in a poor society, or cases such as teenagers married to someone against their will with no chance of escape; these wouldn't be caused by an illness but it's hard to figure out on how to estimate the proportions.

Re: Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts

#36

Post by altero »

mbillie1 wrote: post #23
altero wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part do you actually disagree with? If you have two persons with the same body mass, both of them drink 1 liter of whiskey. I bet in one case it will be 'really bad hangover' and in second case it will be 'suicide attempt'.

I disagree with absurd stereotypes such as "men in general are treated like shit" and "most women are emotionally blackmailing their families".

OK. Let's do the stats.

Men are 95% of homeless, 90% of prisoners, 95% workplace deaths, 80% suicides...

In second case:

I went unnecessary offensive, call it "most women cry for help" whatever.

The fact is that people who are at risk of suicidal behavior are equally distributed between genders [1]. Also mental illnesses such as schizophrenia are equally distributed [wikipedia].

So I see two options why women have much higher suicidal attempt rate:

- it is a cry for help

- men suicide attempts are under reported

[1] www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9501750

Re: Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts

#37

Post by Swizec »

chaired wrote: post #33
Swizec wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing though, depression is a treatable-ish illness. Suicide is a symptom. Isn't the usual approach to at least treat symptoms, if you can't immediately cure the underlying illness?

I'm sorry, but as a long-time sufferer, I feel compelled to disagree with this viewpoint wherever I see it, to represent people like me. I've been suicidal and depressed on and off for about 20 years. From in here, it doesn't seem anything like an illness at all. The flu is an illness. This is having lived through an absurd number of absurd events, emotionally draining and also traumatic in the long-term. It's having…

I know how you feel and I definitely would call myself only in remission from depression. It never really goes away, but you learn to live with it. Or at least I did.

If you need someone to talk to, contact info in my profile.

Re: Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts

#38

Post by pantalaimon »

rhuppert wrote: post #13
graeme wrote: post #6

Serious question: is someone who attempts suicide in the same group as someone who successfully commits suicide? For instance, far more men commit suicide. But far more women attempt suicide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide I'm sure there are other differences. To me, the questions are: 1. Why do people fail at suicide attempts? 2. Will information that dissuades a failed suicide attempt di…

1. Men are more "successful" because they tend to use more violent methods - guns, jumping off high places, etc. Women are more likely to use pills. Sometimes attempts are more of a call for help than ending one's life. 2. Your question is unclear to me, but most people who have attempted and failed to commit suicide regret that decision.

Apparently not so in China?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide#C...

Re: Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts

#39

Post by softatlas »

I've contemplated suicide off-and-on since age 6. It's just a working part of my language. No successful attempts, or failed attempts, or whatever grammar is being built here.

It might partly be influenced by a Tourette's like underlying structure, which would here make it more publicly, or in terms of a biological profile, a symptom. Usually all we see are symptoms in the narration of science.

Re: Suicide Prevention Sheds a Longstanding Taboo: Talking About Attempts

#40

Post by matteotom »

dfc wrote: post #21
mbillie1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on this? I think it would be virtually impossible to prevent suicide, not to mention various things perhaps not treated as suicide but which are self-caused deaths (repeatedly engaging in very-very-high-risk activity, for example).

There are lots of cultural and legal forces that deter suicide. (hopefully you were not being pedantic with prevent/deter) * Cultural shame of surviving family. * Suicide is a sin in some religions. * Suicide voids most life insurance policies.

I think in most cases, suicide only voids life insurance policies for the first 2 years of having the policy. It makes sense, since it prevents people from buying life insurance when they plan to kill themselves.
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