People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living • Hacker News Board

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#261

Post by s1artibartfast » Sat, May 20, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

comeondude wrote: post #253

As somebody who have been in and out mental hospitals, this is very familiar. At one point in my early twenties, I was literally thinking about killing myself every single waking second. Finally I decided to throw in the towel, and got around to planning my end. Sat there, ran through various scenarios in my head. All the way up to putting the gun in my mouth and pulling the trigger. My imagination always terminated…

Thanks for sharing your harrowing journey.

The part that resonates with me is the need to see a third alternative between death and the status quo. It is easy to feel trapped and without agency, and this leads to a downward spiral. In my experience and opinion, the key to finding a way out is reclaiming agency and belief that you have the power to change. Willpower is a tricky thing. If you think you have it you do, and if you don't think you have it you don't. It is largely a mystery to me how people go from one to the other.

In my case, one thing that helped is realizing I had choices and wasn't as trapped as I felt. I could leave my family, and my job if I wanted. I could always quit it all and live in a shack somewhere reading books. Just knowing I had the power of choice and wasn't trapped gave me the strength to make progress.

I now think trained helplessness and philosophies that view humans only as a product of their environment are extremely dangerous.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#262

Post by naasking » Sat, May 20, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

cesaref wrote: post #113

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, I personally know folks that have been clean for decades, and went through worse. I’ll be hanging out with a bunch, tonight. Addiction is a very strange problem. Lots of folks have opinions on it, but I have experience with it. And that’s about all I’ll say on the matter.

I've always found it interesting that addictive behaviour is often seen as a virtue by our society if it's about the 'right sort of thing' (as far as society is concerned). We end up considering people as 'dedicated' or 'committed' to some cause or other. If they are a workaholic, or pious, or a sports superstar, or a concert pianist, chances are there is an addictive personality that just happens to have gotten atta…

There's a constructive/destructive dimension to all behaviours, even addiction. Constructive addictions have probably created a lot of great art, innovations and achievements, where destructive addictions ruin the lives of a person and those around them. Not that addiction in any form is necessarily healthy, but it seems obvious that constructive ones are more healthy than destructive ones, for all involved.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#263

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Sat, May 20, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #258

plandis wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally know many people that were once far worse off than that gentleman, and are now doing quite well This sounds extremely callous unless you were the dead man’s therapist or close personal friend. Surely you’re not going to infer you understand the situation from news articles. > proven alternate solutions Plenty of people seek help and yet still die of alcoholism despite trying to fix the addiction. There…

> Surely you’re not going to infer you understand the situation from news articles. Surely you're not presuming you understand the horrors that the OP has himself witnessed or been privy to? For all you know the OP could have been working with addicts for 50 years and literally seen it all. Maybe be a bit more charitable.

> 50 years

42, actually.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#264

Post by harimau777 » Sat, May 20, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #208

Name_Chawps wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You truly think housing and food have anything to do with it? We live in the richest society in history, and also the most suicidal. Why don't people living in true poverty around the world feel depressed and kill themselves like we do? Why do we kill ourselves? It's because we have no communities anymore. Many of us are alone. Some call it a loneliness epidemic. And we've replaced community with social media. Our so…

I think it is more than just loss of communities, although that is a big part of it. It is also a hallowing out of the human experience and the inability to enjoy simple pleasures available to anyone alive. Consumerism is so deeply entrenched in the minds of people that they usually blame their unhappiness on a lack of material goods and external factors. Meanwhile, There are millions or billions of people who can fi…

If they have a spouse and kids, then perhaps they are simply better off than someone who is wealthy but alone.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#265

Post by daevout » Sat, May 20, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

That might be true for the subset of suicides the author has studied, but there are about as many reasons humans commit suicide as there are reasons they commit homicide, which is to say, infinite varieties.

There's religious (Heavean's Gate, that recent kenyan cult), protest (self-immolating monks), media spectacle (Yukio Mishima), honor (seppuku, the samurai ritual mishima was immitating), shame (pompei), escape (L pills) fiancial ruin (1929 brokers), and fads (90s school shooters). Then there's suicide as a way of life (downtown SF, opioid epidemic).

The idea that this is all caused by "suffering" that could be prevented through increasingly sophiaticated treatmant plans or perhaps extended social welfare programs is a peculiar modern secular idea. I wonder if people who believe this sincerely are staving off their own suicide this way.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#266

Post by baggsie » Sat, May 20, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #212

zozbot234 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AA and other twelve-steps programs are not inherently "religious-based". They only ask you to believe in some power higher than yourself that you can tap into as a source of inner sternness and restraint. You can call that a spiritual outlook if you like, but it's a very mild one and quite far from any organized or established religion. And it actually works quite well as far as helping people to stop drinking and st…

There have been many that linked it to being cultist (e.g. [1]). > And it actually works quite well as far as helping people to stop drinking and stay off alcohol for the long term. In any case, that is my biggest issue with AA and a lot of other "abstinence" programs (particularly those mandated by courts): they all but mandate that complete and utter sobriety is the only acceptable way instead of helping people to…

I just wrote a long reply detailing why moderation isnt an option for people like me, but as usual the best explanation of my relationship with alcohol comes from the Westwing:

> I'm an alcoholic. I don't have one drink. [pauses] I don't understand people who have one drink. I don't understand people who leave half a glass of wine on the table. I don't understand people who say they've had enough. How can you have enough of feeling like this? How can you not want to feel like this longer? [pauses, sighs] My brain works differently.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#267

Post by NotYourLawyer » Sat, May 20, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

burningoof wrote: post #6

This is dark, but it’s interesting to me that the people who jump from a burning building and the people who end themselves on their own time are performing the same calculus. Nobody wants to die, but when your life starts to look like a burning building, sometimes the window doesn’t seem so bad.

That’s not the same calculus at all. The burning building is “I’m gonna be dead in 5 minutes no matter what I do. Might as well make it quick instead of excruciating.”

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#268

Post by Der_Einzige » Sat, May 20, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

colineartheta wrote: post #248

laratied wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will get a ton of denial about this but you aren't wrong. On the other hand it is really easy to not get married and not have kids. Then the equation is quite different. 40s and 50s isn't all that different than 22. I would even say better in most ways. Your vision of marriage is even kind of romantic still. The married guys I know it is more like depression because of separation and knowing the wife is fucking a…

This reads comically incel-ish. “Women know their value”, like a self-respecting man doesn’t? Why aren’t your male friends doing the same thing, then? Life doesn’t end at 40, for either sex. With/without a family, married/divorced, the choice to develop and grow as a human is always your own.

The average man on HN has had far less sex than the average man. This is simply the fate of nerdy computer touchers and is why we get "incel content" here. In coding, you trade your sexual market value for actual money. It's a sad dynamic, and I think a little bit of "life imitating art" given that the "nerd jock" dynamics seem to be uniquely an American thing.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#269

Post by Der_Einzige » Sat, May 20, 2023, 4:43 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #208

Name_Chawps wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You truly think housing and food have anything to do with it? We live in the richest society in history, and also the most suicidal. Why don't people living in true poverty around the world feel depressed and kill themselves like we do? Why do we kill ourselves? It's because we have no communities anymore. Many of us are alone. Some call it a loneliness epidemic. And we've replaced community with social media. Our so…

I think it is more than just loss of communities, although that is a big part of it. It is also a hallowing out of the human experience and the inability to enjoy simple pleasures available to anyone alive. Consumerism is so deeply entrenched in the minds of people that they usually blame their unhappiness on a lack of material goods and external factors. Meanwhile, There are millions or billions of people who can fi…

Mental illness and mental issues are systemically underdiagnoaed in the third world. I do not believe for a single second that third worlders have better mental health than first worlders. The average third worlders has seen ultra traumatic experiences that simply do not happen to the average first worlder.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#270

Post by vaidhy » Sat, May 20, 2023, 4:44 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #190

kayodelycaon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Last time, it took me 5 months to replace a psychiatrist. I had to wait almost a month to get on waiting list. There is no online sign up. It’s all by phone. Most of the time , you call and it goes to voice mail. You leave a message and never get called back. The few times I have gotten a person, most of them said they weren’t taking new patients. If you miss more than one appointment without calling the day bef…

I mean, your experience in the US is exactly like mine in European public care system looking for a psychiatrist or other more niche doctor: Multi month long waiting lists, doctors who are full and don't take any new patients, needing to go private out of pocket. Even the good private ones are booked weeks into the future.

But it is the private health care in US. There is no other option unlike you who can choose to go private. And I would guess that your out of pocket payment will not cause you to go to bankruptcy.