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What I have learned from my suicidal patients

theguardian.com

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Re: What I have learned from my suicidal patients

#171

Post by meiraleal »

sysbin wrote: post #14

I theorize society would be a better place if people could choose to end their life when they please by assistance in dying (commonly given to terminally ill). Although the idea is controversial I'm firmly attached to it from what I've witnessed in my life. Some people just have a terrible fate and nothing that comes in their life changes it because not everyone gets a good job, significant other, place to call home,…

And some people pass through terrible phases just to find happiness and fulfillment later. If we had the "right" to give up in bad times, a lot more people would kill themselves before they discovered that there is different ways to be happy. And btw, if you are deadset on killing yourself, you can choose end your life, as you don't care about anything anymore. To ask it to be legally and assisted is just more weakness.

Re: What I have learned from my suicidal patients

#172

Post by sdegutis »

0db532a0 wrote: post #155
sdegutis wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so incredibly confused. You live in reality. You exist. The things you can observe exist observably. People who choose to believe such existential nonsense remind me of the xkcd with the super soaker.

Maybe you should increase your scope beyond xkcd.

What kind of broken logic can conclude that this is the extent of my “scope” from what I said? An easier conclusion to arrive at is that I figure it’s one of the few memes we probably have in common, and chose it because memes are an excellent source of connotations.

Re: What I have learned from my suicidal patients

#173

Post by ghemsley »

meiraleal wrote: post #171
sysbin wrote: post #14

I theorize society would be a better place if people could choose to end their life when they please by assistance in dying (commonly given to terminally ill). Although the idea is controversial I'm firmly attached to it from what I've witnessed in my life. Some people just have a terrible fate and nothing that comes in their life changes it because not everyone gets a good job, significant other, place to call home,…

And some people pass through terrible phases just to find happiness and fulfillment later. If we had the "right" to give up in bad times, a lot more people would kill themselves before they discovered that there is different ways to be happy. And btw, if you are deadset on killing yourself, you can choose end your life, as you don't care about anything anymore. To ask it to be legally and assisted is just more weakne…

I see you don't have TRD then.

Re: What I have learned from my suicidal patients

#174

Post by ghemsley »

dokem wrote: post #61
sysbbinn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think should be done if a person fails to commit suicide alone but left a note requesting a mercy death if somehow were to survive with extreme brain damage.

The only people that fail at suicide are those that didn’t truly want to die.

As someone who has survived 5 or so serious attempts, I can say that it's not actually that easy unless you're a masochist, and that this comment thread strikes me as quite ignorant.

Re: What I have learned from my suicidal patients

#175

Post by ghemsley »

whatshisface wrote: post #7
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #2

>The soldier who hiked out on to the moor, lay down in the heather and overdosed. Émile Durkheim, the great sociologist, theorised as to why suicide is so common among military personnel – not simply because of the devastating effects of war, or because of their easy access to weapons, but because of the depersonalising effect of army training: “Military esprit can only be strong if the individual is self-detached, a…

One one hand, we have a growing body of research saying that almost nothing anybody does is rational, and that most "rational explanations" that people deliver are post-hoc rationalizations of something they did on a whim. The popular interpretation is that this represents evidence against free will, but that may be a little overblown. On the other hand, there is a parallel cultural trend of people arguing that suici…

Sorry, but you don't get it. Not all of us enjoy life that much. If I'm not getting what I want out of life, who are you to say that I have to stick around? It's perfectly reasonable to want to kill yourself given certain circumstances that are darker than I care to elaborate on right now, and you have no business saying otherwise. It should be up to the one suffering to decide when they've had enough. If you can't wrap your head around that, my guess is that you just haven't suffered enough. Everyone has their limit. I'm glad you are apparently far from yours but again, not all of us are so lucky.

Re: What I have learned from my suicidal patients

#176

Post by ghemsley »

marmadukester39 wrote: post #6
snagglegaggle wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are going in the right direction. Society needs to recognize that suicide must be some evolutionarily advantageous adaptation. Many people when pressed will say they think an individual has value, but that individual often sees no actions come from that sentiment. And if someone thinks they provide no value and are not wanted, it seems logical to unburden everyone else. It would be similar to how cats go…

Except that suicide burdens everyone around a person terribly.

My guess is that the burden must be worse for the person who commmits suicide. Or they wouldn't bother, would they? And similarly, if the burden is so great for those around them, why don't they kill themselves too?

It comes down to the fact that most people don't want to acknowledge their incredible privilege in being relatively unburdened by depression, I think.

I happen to know attempting suicide can be quite severely painful. Most people who try do not risk it lightly. And much of the time, in my experience, it's those "people around you" who are to blame for the person wanting to die in the first place. If we're being honest, most of us don't truly do everything we reasonably can to help those with aspirations towards suicide. Many people act as some of those in this comment section are, telling people they're being selfish and weak. How the fuck on Earth does that help matters? And before you assume I only care about myself or something, my best friend just killed himself a few months ago and I cried nonstop for days. I still support his right to do what he did.

It becomes blindingly obvious to me when a person has no idea what it's like living with chronic treatment resistant depression as soon as they open their mouths. It's just ignorance and priviliege and a total misunderstanding of the problem to blame someone who is suicidal for wanting to end their own suffering.

Re: What I have learned from my suicidal patients

#177

Post by sysbin »

trianglem wrote: post #165
sysbin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fate is a real thing and so I can see how SLS started as a joke. I didn't know of the term SLS (thanks for sharing).

Fate is not a “real” thing. What are you talking about exactly when you say fate?

Fate is a "real" thing. Predestination is another word for it. Everything is cause & effect and you cannot change the path you're on.

Re: What I have learned from my suicidal patients

#178

Post by 0db532a0 »

sdegutis wrote: post #172
0db532a0 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should increase your scope beyond xkcd.

What kind of broken logic can conclude that this is the extent of my “scope” from what I said? An easier conclusion to arrive at is that I figure it’s one of the few memes we probably have in common, and chose it because memes are an excellent source of connotations.

You're right to an extent. I absolutely believe in the utility of humour and satire as ways of illustrating certain ideas and forcing people to think. People on HN especially are much too prudish. These forms can be a lot more effective than a long piece of text.

What I mean, though, is that there's only so much information that a piece of humour or a comic strip can convey.

Also, you have to consider the crowd that xkcd caters to, and the crowd that typical American geek humour such as Big Bang Theory caters to in general.

Existentialism/Nihilism are common themes in geek humour, but negatively: these ideas are quick to be dismissed as edge-lording, and as 8-chan-incelling.

Geek culture and morality relies wholly on the self-supporting idea of science as the one and only source of truth. The geek's first reaction will of course be to dismiss any claim to the contrary, in humour and otherwise.

Re: What I have learned from my suicidal patients

#179

Post by mdrzn »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #141
nickthemagicman wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by 'real hope'? Just curious.

I hesitate to give a specific answer here, because I think many people will find different things are "hope" for them. And if I give what I found it will come off as unhelpful. When I was young I nearly succeeding is ending my life (early teens) and at that moment I knew I didn't truly want to die, but I so desperately needed the pain to end. So going down wasn't an answer, I had to keep going up no matter what and I…

I appreciate your comment.

Re: What I have learned from my suicidal patients

#180

Post by sdegutis »

0db532a0 wrote: post #178
sdegutis wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of broken logic can conclude that this is the extent of my “scope” from what I said? An easier conclusion to arrive at is that I figure it’s one of the few memes we probably have in common, and chose it because memes are an excellent source of connotations.

You're right to an extent. I absolutely believe in the utility of humour and satire as ways of illustrating certain ideas and forcing people to think. People on HN especially are much too prudish. These forms can be a lot more effective than a long piece of text. What I mean, though, is that there's only so much information that a piece of humour or a comic strip can convey. Also, you have to consider the crowd that…

Four other sources of truth I suggest you check out if you really like truth:

http://www.newadvent.com/fathers/index.html

http://www.newadvent.com/summa/

http://www.newadvent.com/cathen/index.html

http://www.newadvent.com/bible/gen001.htm

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