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The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark That Kills You

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Re: The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark That Kills You

#71

Post by Devthrowaway80 »

ekianjo wrote: post #58
warfangle wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people are really depressed, they don't kill themselves. Because they have no energy to. Once they go on antidepressants, they go on suicide watch. It's the most dangerous time. Because they'll still be depressed, but they'll finally have the energy to get up. And they just might have the energy to do themselves in.

> Once they go on antidepressants, they go on suicide watch. It's the most dangerous time. Because they'll still be depressed, but they'll finally have the energy to get up. And they just might have the energy to do themselves in. Not sure if you can really generalize this much. There are several studies studying the effect of antidepressants on suicide rates, and it's true that some of them seem to lead to more suic…

Warfangle is correct, I was warned specifically about this when I started treatment. When you go on an SSRI, your fatigue lifts before your mood does, which can lead to a few dangerous weeks.

Re: The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark That Kills You

#72

Post by simonswords82 »

sevenless wrote: post #55

The section talking about contagion was interesting. What follows is pure speculation on my part and a bit of a ramble. I believe many mental illnesses, depression, suicidal behavior and anorexia among them, can be characterized as contagious. And perhaps some other things that aren't usually described as mental illnesses. The border between belief, religion and mental illness seems a bit fuzzy (echoes of Snow Crash)…

This is a very interesting thought process. Tumblr and 4chan in my mind are extreme examples of the unsterilised Internet you refer to....

> Consuming unfiltered internet might be looked on in a few years like drinking unsterilized water

For the last year or so I've decided to avoid news outlets as much as possible. So I've updated my Reddit subscriptions to remove anything that might be a news channel, I no longer frequent the BBC news website, and avoid newspapers and TV news as best I can.

The constant fear mongering and general bad news is at times overwhelming but oftentimes just unnecessarily miserable (IMO). It's like being given a long list of problems you can't do anything about. So I've decided to simply switch it off.

I would much prefer your approach where my news could somehow be "sterilised", taking out anything that is overtly negative leaving only factual stories (e.g. business, technology and so on).

Re: The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark That Kills You

#75

Post by gumby »

I was struck by the comment by the woman who answered the suicide line: "Maybe I am giving them a little love."

I spent years answering the phone on a crisis line. Some people's problems just didn't seem that bad, yet they were overwhelmed nonetheless. Some people had such crushing burdens I was astonished they could even talk.

I didn't find it uplifting, in fact it drained me. I am astonished by her ability to do it for almost 20 years. I guess it was a form of catharsis for her as well.

Re: The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark That Kills You

#76

Post by e12e »

As someone who grew up in Tromsø, Norway (69 degrees northern latitude), I've always found the idea that long winters and depression go together a strange one (That's not to say there aren't a lot of people in Tromsø that struggle with sleep[1], or that there are no winter depressions).

As a counterpoint to this article's title (but not content, really), there was an interesting piece a while back about seasons and psyche:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/the-norweg...

TL;DR: Mindset matters. If you don't like winter, then a long dark winter isn't much fun: "The survey results indicated that wintertime mindset may indeed play a role in mental health and well-being in Norway. The Wintertime Mindset Scale had strong positive correlations with every measure of well-being we examined, including the Satisfaction with Life Scale (a widely used survey that measures general life satisfaction), and the Personal Growth Composite (a scale that measures openness to new challenges). The people who had a positive wintertime mindset, in other words, tended to be the same people who were highly satisfied with their lives and who pursued personal growth."

[1] On a somewhat related note, I highly recommend the Norwegian original film "Insomnia" (the basis for the American remake with Al Pacino): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119375/

Re: The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark That Kills You

#77

Post by [deleted] »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #36
dirktheman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the title doesn't say it will tell you why the suicide rate in Greenland is so high... Fact is, it isn't completely clear why the rate is so high. Rapid modernization, decades of Danish control, a disappearing culture/way of life and lack of mental health facilities can all be named as factors. Sorry were annoyed and feel like you've wasted your time on a well written, well researched human interest piece…

>To be fair, the title doesn't say it will tell you why the suicide rate in Greenland is so high... It is highly suggestive that it will though. > Fact is, it isn't completely clear why the rate is so high. Then why bother writing an article about it at all ? > And yes, sometimes you need to know just the bare facts. No, I always want just the bare facts. Anything else simply isn't relevant. You may call it "well res…

[deleted]

Re: The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark That Kills You

#78

Post by jensen123 »

exDM69 wrote: post #18

I live 60 degrees northern latitude in a country with bad suicide statistics and the winters do get pretty harsh on you mentally. And there's still millions of people living norther than I do. Highest suicide rates occur during the spring, around the vernal equinox not around the darkest time of the year. If you've never experienced the northern spring where each day is 10+ minutes longer than the previous, you'll ne…

> Highest suicide rates occur during the spring, around the vernal equinox not around the darkest time of the year.

If you don't take vitamin D pills or consume (lots of) cod liver oil, then your vitamin D levels will be lowest in the spring. If I remember correctly, at around 60 degrees north, you have to wait until the end of April until you get vitamin D from the sun.

Re: The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark That Kills You

#79

Post by eli_gottlieb »

wille92 wrote: post #59

Whenever I read about tribal communities coming into modernity, I can't help but think that our "first-world" culture gets a lot wrong. These communities seem to have a deep sense of narrative--you're a part of a greater cultural story, a spiritual story that's connected with place, nature, and family. There is a journey laid out for you rich with sacrament (e.g. the rite of passage to become an Inuit hunter in this…

Know any "greater cultural stories" that don't involve obviously false claims about the supernatural, obvious structural oppression of entire categories of people, or obvious rationalization of exploitative power structures?

Re: The Arctic Suicides: It's Not the Dark That Kills You

#80

Post by JackFr »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #39
dirktheman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tl;dr: Astronaut battles AI with hidden agenda, defeats AI, gets abducted by aliens. "The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended..." Not every story should be structured as a scientific document.

No, fiction shouldn't, because the whole point of fiction is to entertain. The point of news it not to entertain but to inform.

Fiction does more than entertain, the best fiction exercises our humanity in ways which might not be possible with nonfiction.

Nonfiction need not read like crop reports or scientific papers. The best analogy is to photography. Photography is by its nature nonfiction, and yet we recognize that all photographs are not equal. Some are beautiful, some are moving, some are dry and clinical. They all inform, but some do more.

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