Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I Tried To Kill Myself at Penn

pennmentalhealth.tumblr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 80 posts

Re: Why I Tried To Kill Myself at Penn

#71

Post by tptacek »

lutusp wrote: post #61
tptacek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this sentiment alarming. I'd ask you to reread the article, particularly the first quarter of it, and stipulate that the account is accurate. What do you think of this particular response to an actual suicide attempt? I'm sorry about your brother. I've lost close friends to suicide. For what it's worth: I don't blame them, anymore than I would blame someone who died of leukemia for their illness. But a suicide…

> I find this sentiment alarming. It's not a "sentiment", it's a case history. My brother created a list of guilty parties, people responsible for a suicide, but didn't include the suicide on the list. My nephew drew the obvious conclusion -- if he killed himself, this would place him outside any notion of responsibility, and he would get massive sympathy as well. It was unbelievably irresponsible to portray suicide…

I'm not here to judge anything your family did in response to a suicide. I'm sorry you had to deal with it at all. I don't have an opinion beyond that.

But I can be clinical about a case I read in a blog post by a stranger, and I remain interested in your response to that case.

Re: Why I Tried To Kill Myself at Penn

#72

Post by joesmo »

jarrett wrote: post #41
joesmo wrote: post #19

It's ridiculous that the author doesn't even consider that her taking prescribed Wellbutrin (and possibly other medicines) could have led to this. I'm quite sure such "anti-depressants" (what a misnomer) had a lot more to do with the suicide than anything Penn or any other institution or individual could possibly have. Of course, this is an extremely unpopular opinion, though based on medical cases and evidence, in o…

> I'm quite sure such "anti-depressants" (what a misnomer) had a lot more to do with the suicide than anything Penn or any other institution or individual could possibly have. Are you basing this claim on the following study? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupropion#cite_note-FDA-43 I'm not taking a stand on whether that study's conclusions are correct or incorrect. I'm just seeking to clarify how you reached your conc…

I'm basing it on the black box warning, personal experience, and the review of various patient cases both in person and (less so) anecdotal evidence online.

FDA Warning (partial) (http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=About_Medications&t...):

"In short-term studies, antidepressants increased the risk of suicidality in children, adolescents, and young adults when compared to placebo. Short-term studies did not show an increase in the risk of suicidality with antidepressants compared to placebo in adults beyond age 24. Adults age 65 and older taking antidepressants have a decreased risk of suicidality."

Re: Why I Tried To Kill Myself at Penn

#73

Post by daeken »

joesmo wrote: post #72
jarrett wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm quite sure such "anti-depressants" (what a misnomer) had a lot more to do with the suicide than anything Penn or any other institution or individual could possibly have. Are you basing this claim on the following study? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupropion#cite_note-FDA-43 I'm not taking a stand on whether that study's conclusions are correct or incorrect. I'm just seeking to clarify how you reached your conc…

I'm basing it on the black box warning, personal experience, and the review of various patient cases both in person and (less so) anecdotal evidence online. FDA Warning (partial) ( http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=About_Medications&t... ): "In short-term studies, antidepressants increased the risk of suicidality in children, adolescents, and young adults when compared to placebo. Short-term studies did not sh…

Antidepressants don't make people have suicidal thoughts. They give people just enough energy and ability to execute on plans, which sometimes include suicide.

Re: Why I Tried To Kill Myself at Penn

#74

Post by haberman »

tptacek wrote: post #70
haberman wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really interesting to notice the trade-offs. I went to a small-ish, teaching-focused college (The University of Puget Sound: http://www.pugetsound.edu/ ). And just as you say, I found that the faculty and staff was really supportive and concerned with our well-being. And while the faculty was very strong, I sometimes felt jealous of friends from the University of Washington (the nearby Huge Research Institution)…

As someone who has done a pretty serviceable job of building those kinds of courses for systems security: I wouldn't be jealous of that at all; the fundamentals of CS are what matters. If that's something that's still interesting to you, check out http://microcorruption.com .

> If that's something that's still interesting to you, check out http://microcorruption.com.

I was very excited to see that for just that reason. :) I think I peaked at #24 on the day it was announced, but I'm sure I've slipped quite a bit since then.

Fundamentals are important; agreed, but the difference between knowing the theory of buffer overflows and having actually exploited one is a huge to me. Now I can say that I have actually done that, thanks to you having packaged everything up so nicely on microcorruption.com, but even that isn't 100% of the experience I would like to have, because the environment is a lot different than what I program on day-to-day.

For example, I know that I shouldn't map any memory wx (and I explained this rule in my article about JITs: http://blog.reverberate.org/2012/12/hello-jit-world-joy-of-s...), but I don't really know why. I don't actually know what an attack would look like where having wx memory around makes an exploit easier.

Re: Why I Tried To Kill Myself at Penn

#75

Post by almosnow »

a3voices wrote: post #2

> I tried to kill myself at Penn because I felt so utterly alone. If I was the only person on Earth, I wouldn't kill myself. Life isn't about feeling happy all the time.

I don't get why you got downvoted.

Being alone is not "an issue", as the common status quo of occidental society tries to make us think.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I assume the following about the author: 1. He's an american. You were lucky to be born in a first-world country where you can really get to be EVERYTHING you want. Yeah, even with all the "McDonalds/Starbucks/DumbAmericans" criticism being born here gives you access to many things that 90% of the world population can only dream of. 2. He's a middle-class young man. Society, your family and the people that care for you set everything up so that you can go through this period of your life without worrying about anything else than GETTING BETTER AT THE THINGS THAT YOU LOVE in order to earn yourself a place in society that you will enjoy for the rest of your life. 3. "This same nurse was present when some of my friends came to visit to wish me a speedy recovery from my allergic reaction. After they left, she looked at me and said, “Look at all those friends you have!” " - He can be a cynical asshole as much as he would want, but the fact that he had people that took some time to visit him at the hospital because he was ill (i.e. FRIENDS) also makes him a very fortunate person.

What I'd like to say to the author of this post is this: I don't want to change your mind and I don't care, I just want to tell you what's going to happen next. Ten years from now you will meet someone who didn't have half the things that you have access to now, this person will be happy with his/her life and you will still be bitching about how terrible yours is "because of the government", "because of a significant other(or lack of it)", "because money", "because... because... because...". The day you stand in front of this person, you will see the person that you had been if you weren't just a little pussy and that day you will enter a state of depression that is nothing like you have ever experienced before; definitely not the kind of depression that you are used to see on your teen movies. And that day you will kill yourself... and that's it, that's you.

Re: Why I Tried To Kill Myself at Penn

#76

Post by pbsd »

haberman wrote: post #74
tptacek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has done a pretty serviceable job of building those kinds of courses for systems security: I wouldn't be jealous of that at all; the fundamentals of CS are what matters. If that's something that's still interesting to you, check out http://microcorruption.com .

> If that's something that's still interesting to you, check out http://microcorruption.com . I was very excited to see that for just that reason. :) I think I peaked at #24 on the day it was announced, but I'm sure I've slipped quite a bit since then. Fundamentals are important; agreed, but the difference between knowing the theory of buffer overflows and having actually exploited one is a huge to me. Now I can say…

If you can control what gets written to the wx memory, then all you have to do as an attacker is rewrite a function pointer or return address to that memory. Better yet, if you can rewrite a return address, you can "return" to a read call (or some fancier ROP chain) that will read the rest of your shellcode into the wx memory and execute it.

In either case, having that kind of memory around can only make things easier for an attacker, while by itself not being exactly a vulnerability.

Re: Why I Tried To Kill Myself at Penn

#77

Post by lutusp »

DanBC wrote: post #68
lutusp wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find this sentiment alarming. It's not a "sentiment", it's a case history. My brother created a list of guilty parties, people responsible for a suicide, but didn't include the suicide on the list. My nephew drew the obvious conclusion -- if he killed himself, this would place him outside any notion of responsibility, and he would get massive sympathy as well. It was unbelievably irresponsible to portray suicide…

How important do you think the list was as a factor? Is it the main factor? Or do you mention it to support a point?

I only brought it up to warn my brother of the dangers in making suicide look attractive, as a way to get sympathy. Once my prediction came to pass, obviously I dropped the topic. In any case, as far as I am concerned, the person committing suicide is entirely and solely responsible.

Re: Why I Tried To Kill Myself at Penn

#78

Post by Einstalbert »

Par_Avion wrote: post #54
grannyg00se wrote: post #37

"The night of my suicide attempt I called a friend and told him that I was contemplating suicide. He told me he was sorry and to call a suicide hotline. We have not talked about my suicide attempt since that night. " The word 'friend' is used over ten times referring to some human acquaintance or other but it really seems like this person doesn't have a single real friend.

Good catch. I feel like the author failed to mention this- There might've been a much different conclusion if she had found her niche.

I don't remember a single class or even a single conversation with a parent, pastor, other kind of leader figure, from my youth about "how to deal with friends or people who have problems." Sometimes you're lucky and get the, "How to find help if you feel like you're in trouble" resources but how in the hell does someone know how to handle this situation? I don't feel qualified to help anyone other than my immediate closest friends and family regarding the topic of suicide, and even then I feel overwhelmed just thinking about it. There are professionals out there who know what to say, when the saying is important to be done, as I know for sure that listening is a big component of help. I just have no words other than to share my own struggles, and oftentimes people don't want to hear about anything other than their own pit.

Re: Why I Tried To Kill Myself at Penn

#79

Post by lutusp »

DanBC wrote: post #67
lutusp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Treating a suicidal person harshly ... Wait, what? That's not what I said. I'm saying it's a mistake to give too much attention and sympathy to suicidal ideations.

I would equate that to being harsh.

It's a simple question of what works. Giving too much sympathy and attention to someone who discusses suicide is a bad idea. It is to suicide what an enabler is to a narcissist.

It's more constructive to think of a way to get the person to imagine something other than suicide, but in a way that doesn't encourage a repeat performance.

Re: Why I Tried To Kill Myself at Penn

#80

Post by dennisgorelik »

lutusp wrote: post #63
gizmo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very sorry you lost people to suicide. Compiling the list may just have been a coping mechanism for your brother, and I don't think it's fair to think it had anything to do with the son's suicide.

> Compiling the list may just have been a coping mechanism for your brother, and I don't think it's fair to think it had anything to do with the son's suicide. I didn't say it that way, either here or at the time. I only warned my brother that the list might provoke my nephew to kill himself, not that this would make my brother responsible. The actual suicide was, of course, solely the responsibility of the nephew.

Did your brother tell you that he was sorry for ignoring your advise, after your nephew killed himself?
Post reply on HN