I saw the headline, read all the words, saw "Chris Seaton" and thought "oh this is about one of our guys!" before properly processing the final bit. God damn what a fucking shame, I hate this. RIP chrisseaton
Chris Seaton has died
151–160 of 213 posts
Re: Chris Seaton has died
#152what a terrible waste...
Re: Chris Seaton has died
#153Quoted post unavailable.
Had to finally make an account just to respond to a subsection of this comment.
>I wish people would stop treating suicide as a mental illness... like it’s somehow wrong and an intervention is needed.
>When someone wants to go, let them go.
There are circumstances where I would be inclined to agree, such as terminal illness. However, this generally doesn't match my understanding of mental health or suicide at all and might be exactly opposite. There is zero chance I would follow your guidance if someone came to me expressing suicidal thoughts and I really don't believe anyone should. I am not knowledgeable enough to defend that view so I hope someone with a deeper understanding of mental health can chime in.
Re: Chris Seaton has died
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lack of hope is the real killer, that's why it's so important to give a depressed person hope. Not optimism, hope.
You can’t give a depressed person hope though. And even if you could box hope up, how would you make it last? At the end of the day, depression is a chemical imbalance and hope isn’t going realistically fix that - maybe that depression is a result of brain injury, like a nasty bump on the head that has permanently damaged the way the brain works… Depression is a long way off being solved.
Depression is a state with causes. Remove the things that make it persist and it will go. If you’re talking about a chemical imbalance that itself is abnormal and could only truly respond to treatment like drugs (e.g. like schizophrenia and lithium) then I agree, but most depressed people have “normal” brains that are in a currently unhealthy state, so I’ll avoid arguing exceptional cases.
I’m also not suggesting that hope cures depression, I’m suggesting that hope prevents suicide. Basically, why kill yourself if there is hope? Depressed people aren’t being rational but then neither are optimistic people, each with their own distortions of reality. However, they’re not delusional, you might call it a state of hyper-realisticness that actually distorts through the destruction of possible branches in reasoning. An optimist thinks “it’ll be sunny tomorrow“, a depressed person thinks “it won’t be sunny again, ever”. Neither requires reasoning for their position snd can easily dismiss any given, but it can be done. Reason with an optimist and you will deflate them and they will react badly, usually we avoid this because it has little upside. Reason with a depressed person and they will also react badly but the upside is that it may sow the seeds of their remission.
Regardless of all their defences, distortions and dismissals, if they can be convinced there’s hope it will keep depression from being suicidal.
Re: Chris Seaton has died
#155My god this is awful. He was brilliant, accomplished, and kind. A few days ago he announced his 'permanent rest' ( https://twitter.com/ChrisGSeaton/status/1599108759183577088 ). I'd thought it meant from the Ruby community and that the replies asking if he needed help were reading too much into the wording.
The outpouring of love in the replies on that thread. It is tough to comprehend how that wasn't enough to prevent this.
My friend who suffers from depression said it was basically being in emotional pain all the time. She said she has thought a few times that ending her life would stop the pain. It's a horrible form of mental illness. It's pervasive and while she has a grip on it now, it's something she struggles with often.
I also have a friend who committed suicide a few years ago. He had 2 kids but as his other friends described, he had his demons since he was a kid. I wish I could have helped him more.
Re: Chris Seaton has died
#156Quoted post unavailable.
You appear to be telling others to respect choices or beliefs, yet you don't seem to be respecting the choices or beliefs of others. Ironically, your comment also feels remarkably unempathetic to me.
> There’s not a single individual there who is all smiles and mentally balanced after taking those calls.
The same issue exists in the police, in front-line medical staff, and also psych services. I have gentle friends that seem to cope with some awful shit at their workplace, and obviously we all have to deal with it in our own lives. We unfortunately don't live in a world of ideal happiness (work or personal).
In New Zealand the suicide line is run mostly by volunteers, a selection bias for the caring and empathetic, so it is choice of the volunteers to help. Perhaps you are only considering the downsides, without balancing the ledger with the upsides?
Do you think that employing emotionally detached people would be an improvement?
Re: Chris Seaton has died
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, I've read that for them its not even seen as making a choice. Earth is too freaking hard sometimes.
It's not a choice. It's not seen as a choice. The Choice is not between life-and-death but between suffering and ending your suffering. This is how the suicidal mind thinks. When suffering becomes greater than any other emotion it It's like a pressure that has to be relieved
I would have to agree with you, from personal experience. About 5 years ago I believe I might have overdosed by mixing OTC medication by accident, it was a combination of neurotropics and other focus medicine or at least after reflecting on the whole ordeal I believe this to be the case. I’ve never been one to consider suicide, never understood how someone could take their own life but at that specific moment in my life I felt that I was literally losing my mind and at any moment could go crazy and I would rather kill myself than to go crazy. So to touch on what you said, even a person that would never, ever do that under any circumstances within a sound mind can absolutely do it if the pain or suffering is so severe that killing one’s self is the only way one can save one’s self from what they’re going through.
I learned through that experience that the mind can be so fragile. My situation was induced from over the counter medicine. My heart goes out to individuals that have to deal with something like this due to mental disease… it really is something that affects everyone one way or another.
Re: Chris Seaton has died
#158Quoted post unavailable.
>like it’s somehow wrong and an intervention is needed. >When someone wants to go, let them go. Strong disagree, especially in cases where they have family and loved ones. Children and grandchildren have a moral right to continue seeing and enjoying time with their parents and grandparents. Spouses have a moral right to continue enjoying life with their beloved best friend. Outside of family I would say there probabl…
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Re: Chris Seaton has died
#159Apologies if this is the wrong time to ask, but there probably won't ever be a better one. I didn't know him, but often read his comments here. I frequently found them to be... frustrating. He seemed to have a particularly literalist bent, and would often seem to focus on small seemingly irrelevant inconsistencies rather the bigger argument. He usually wasn't wrong, but it made me wonder whether he was autistic, or otherwise out there on the Asperger's spectrum. I'd been meaning to ask him, but never found the right opportunity.
For those of you who knew him in real life, did this carry over? Or was I misreading him, as is so easy to do online. I don't ask this flippantly. I lean in the literalist direction myself, and often am unduly frustrated by the imperfections and inconsistencies of the world. Life's not easy if your mind demands a world that makes sense. It makes me wonder if this outlook was part of what pushed him over the edge. Thoughts?
Re: Chris Seaton has died
#160His dissertation about Ruby: https://chrisseaton.com/phd/specialising-ruby.pdf