Suicide

@ for dru's sins.
thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

I think what I can't handle most about it is how some people feel that it's okay to guilt those who are suicidal. I've been suicidal for the best part of my life and I've got five attempted suicides in my past. Last time, I was told "What? That's so selfish!" and let me tell you, it just broke me more. I think it's okay for a person to think that suicide is selfish (even if I don't agree, I find it to be more selfish of another person to say "Live for me" as a form of trying to force someone else to go through hell for their benefit and not themselves) but I just cannot stand when it's expressed harshly to the person who is suicidal.

When suicidal you most often already feel like crap, someone guilting you isn't helping.

At the end of the day, I think that telling someone with a mental illness that they're selfish is the same as telling someone with cancer that they're selfish.

The Rumor:

At the end of the day, I think that telling someone with a mental illness that they're selfish is the same as telling someone with cancer that they're selfish.

Except it's been shown that loved ones have a much harder time dealing with somebody's death if that person die from suicide than if they die from cancer - source.

That doesn't make it any more selfish, though. It makes it harder for the loved ones, but not more selfish by the person who dies.

Whether the completion of suicide is selfish or not, telling that to someone who has just tried to complete suicide is bloody irresponsible.

@ kafka.
They still have no choice in having the disease or its symptoms.

I think it's quite obviously a selfish act. But people do selfish things all the time, it's probably good if you can recognise you're doing something out of selfishness - i.e. for yourself, to make yourself feel better - better than thinking you're killing yourself to make the world a better place, or something, when that's simply not true.

I also think that "wow, selfish" is obviously a harmful/unhelpful thing to tell someone who is/was suicidal. Have some tact when dealing with sick people.

And I think doing something selfish is less of a problem where it doesn't affect people as much. If you are responsible for the care of people - children, younger siblings, possibly other vulnerable family/friends - suicide is just as selfish, but closer to morally wrong. Further down the 'morally wrong' spectrum. Possibly 'taking responsibility' would boil down to putting them in the care of a healthy person, whether you are choosing to kill yourself or to get help, and you may be unable to actually make responsible choices at that point. But I don't think that makes shirking those responsibilities okay. It excuses your choice/s, it doesn't make them okay.

/thoughts.

for dru's sins.:

@ kafka.
They still have no choice in having the disease or its symptoms.

Yes, you do - you have a lot of choice because neither most cancers nor most mental illnesses kill you instantly. You have the choice to get regular check ups so that your cancer gets detected early on, as well as the choice of treatment plans. Of course, the more severe the consequences on others your actions have, the more selfish ignoring those consequences on others is.

The infantilization of people with mental illness which makes them out to be children with absolutely no control over their actions annoys me - you do have control over your life and you should be allowed full control over your treatment. Most people who commit suicide have been diagnosed with a mental illness (usually mood disorder or drug addiction), have attempted suicide before and spend a long period of time planning out their death - in other words, they're people who knew they are at risk of committing suicide before they became suicidal and who were suicidal for a long time, but during all that time they didn't create an appropriate support system for themselves in case they did end up seriously wanting to commit suicide - choosing instead to let themselves inflict immense sufferance on their loved ones - to me, that's both irresponsible and selfish.

kafka.:

during all that time they didn't create an appropriate support system for themselves in case they did end up seriously wanting to commit suicide - choosing instead to let themselves inflict immense sufferance on their loved ones - to me, that's both irresponsible and selfish.

That seems rather harsh. I don't think suicidal people are either completely unaware or completely aware of the extent that their choices affect other people. I suspect they know they are being selfish/irresponsible and this likely compounds their feelings of self-disgust/guilt, both putting off suicide, but confirming it as what they deserve. Analogous to the cycles of self-harm, though by no means the same. While a support system objectively seems like a great idea, if you don't think you deserve a support system, or you think it would make your offence to the world worse to be burdening other people with your need for a support system, it makes establishing such a system challenging at best. Whether people hit full-blown depression slowly over time or all of a sudden, the thoughts/feelings there may not be expected and that element of surprise/unfamiliarity probably also exacerbates the reluctance to make changes that someone would objectively recognise as positive.

pravda.:

That seems rather harsh. I don't think suicidal people are either completely unaware or completely aware of the extent that their choices affect other people. I suspect they know they are being selfish/irresponsible and this likely compounds their feelings of self-disgust/guilt, both putting off suicide, but confirming it as what they deserve. Analogous to the cycles of self-harm, though by no means the same. While a support system objectively seems like a great idea, if you don't think you deserve a support system, or you think it would make your offence to the world worse to be burdening other people with your need for a support system, it makes establishing such a system challenging at best. Whether people hit full-blown depression slowly over time or all of a sudden, the thoughts/feelings there may not be expected and that element of surprise/unfamiliarity probably also exacerbates the reluctance to make changes that someone would objectively recognise as positive.

I don't think it's possible to say anything gentle about suicide - and, actually, maybe a more than usual degree of harshness is necessary to drive home the point that your life is yours, no illness will ever be able to take it away from you. I feel like people with mental health problems, whether they're suicidal or not, need to be told this because everybody's been telling them again and again that they're extremely weak, that they have no control over their life, that their illness is a death sentence and there's nothing they can do about it - but all that is not true, you can decide to live and then just live - even if for long periods of time you think you don't deserve to. For me, harshness and accusations of selfishness are a price worth paying for empowerment.

Not to mention that suicide isn't really the leading cause of death for people with serious mental illness. Mental illness shortens your life expectancy considerably not because it makes you very likely to commit suicide (something like 5% of people with SMI commit suicide so the risk is there, but it's not the whole story), but because it increases your chances of premature death due to coronary heart disease and stroke.

kafka.:

Mm, which is why I dropped the 'mental illness' part and was referring exclusively to 'people who are suicidal'. I completely agree with your points regarding people in general who have a mental illness.

@ kafka.
Oh. I'm glad I had a choice when i was 15 and I told my dad I wanted to go back to the hospital for treatment and he said no. Because when you're 15, you have no resources, and a parent says no... you just do whatever you want anyway?

I'm also glad I have a choice now, when I have no insurance and none of the non-profit groups in the area will help me. (That's probably why people below the poverty line are more likely to commit/attempt suicide... because they have so many choices they're not sure which one to make.)

I wish someone told these people i have a choice, because I don't feel I do.

for dru's sins.:

when I have no insurance and none of the non-profit groups in the area will help me.

why don't the non-profit groups help? who are they helping / what do they do?

@ kafka.
No you don't always have a choice in even getting treatment. Okay, I've been trying to get proper treatment since I was 19, and either I get mocked, or not treated right, or they push drugs on me that do nothing since I've got so many underlying issues, or they don't listen, or it takes ages to get another appointment, etc. And yeah, all those things have happened. I had a doctor snicker in my face and say "oh, so then it wasn't really serious" and wink at me after I told him about a suicide attempt.

All of these things, if you're depressed, weighs you down so much to a point where you don't want to ask for help or treatment, because it makes you feel worse. I'm 23, almost 24, and I'm just now on the way of getting my diagnose finalized and I'm on medication and I'm finally working with a doctor AND a therapist who are listening to me and who are willing to work with me and acknowledge my specific issues and not clump me together with others who are depressed and suicidal.

Also, some days it's impossible to even go out the door or pick up the phone to call anyone, and on those days, you don't just say "oh I'll make a choice to go get treatment now". And the waiting period sucks. Especially in the town where I live now.

I went to the ER, because a friend dragged me there after I'd sliced my arm up. I had to get stitches. I was crying and hysteric and they said "either we can forcefully committ you now, or we'll make sure to get a first meeting with you in three months". Neither of those choices seemed fair to me, since I've been hospitalized previously and that had disgusting consequences for me. So I was sent home, the same night, with stitches, and without even anything to help me sleep, and with the promise that I'd get my first appointment in three months.

So I find it so insanely offensive when someone tells me that my feelings, my actions, what is happening in my life that I can't control, is me being selfish and irresponsible.

Just because you're not getting help doesn't mean you haven't asked for it.

My aunt committed suicide in 2006.

My cousin committed suicide in 2005.
He developed schizophrenia following extensive cannabis use from his early teens.
As far as we know, the auditory hallucinations convinced him to continue to take his pills past the prescribed dosage.
The coroner ruled his death to be accidental.

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Suicide is never committed because you're thinking rationally and are mentally balanced. I don't think it's accurate to describe suicide as a permanent solution to a temporary problem for the majority. I don't think you can judge people as 'bad' or 'selfish' or anything negative for doing so. There are so many cases where suicide can be understood.

My stance on suicide is that it's your life, do with it as you will. At the end of the day, it is someone's choice to seek help or to end their life. You can't make the decision for them, unless they're being sectioned and under suicide watch.

People who are suicidal obviously need help, and I don't think it's fair to judge the suicidal. If you've never been in the situation where the only foreseeable positive outcome in your mind is to die, by your own hand, then you can hardly judge someone for feeling that way. It is a heavy anchor to bear, and it drags people down further than you can imagine. Callously demeaning the burden of these thoughts by writing them off as 'selfish' or 'irresponsible' or anything of the like shows a fundamental lack of humanity in my mind.

I've studied suicide in the context of Religious Studies and I find it abhorrent that even today, the Catholic church refuses to allow grave sites of those who have committed suicide within their sacred grounds, and their is still some teachings of suicide as a mortal sin.

( My uncle who lost his son as mentioned above believes in psychics, however, and a cold reading from a psychic left him the message that suicide is not a mortal sin. However, that is not for this thread. Just thought I'd mention it. )

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Aside from this, I support voluntary euthanasia, while opposing involuntary euthanasia. I think most people would agree with this - it is our life, and if you have a serious degenerative disease that would rob you of your dignity, then it should be within your rights to request euthanasia by a practiced medical doctor. On the other hand, I cannot see any scenario where involuntary euthanasia could be supported.

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Finally to my super long post, I just want to say that if anyone on mibba feels suicidal, I will answer any and all messages. I've been there, and I will listen. I'm not a medical professional, but sometimes talking to a stranger about these things can be soothing.

@ kafka.

It could merely play into the underlying confirmation bias of the individual. Trying to break the negative thought patterns and such down is not black and white. I don't think being harsh is the right approach but also agree that ignoring or pussy-footing around the issue doesn't help either.

You have to be compassionate and as understanding as possible. Not once has any of the counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists or doctors I've seen have implied that it would be a selfish act because it's not a helpful thing to say. Saying that there is things that can be done and challenging negative thought patterns as they arise is more beneficial.

Unless you attack the negative thinking pattern, anything said (whether said in the best interests of the person or not) may just be put back into a confirmation bias which does...nothing.

As for me, I cannot say that I think suicide is a good idea even though I feel like killing myself most days. There's just too much uncertainity there. Whilst I think it's impossible to prevent every suicide, there has to be available access to decent enough services at every level of mental health issues and what have you. I'm sort of behind euthanasia but there would need to be very stringent restrictions to prevent criminal activity. I just fear that some awful person would forge the will of some old guy with dementia.

@ pravda.
Whenever I call, they're too full. Probably with women who have kids or families. I'm not saying that to be rude or judmental, but it does seem like single people without children get the shaft when it comes to the welfare/help system in this country. I could get insurance... if I got knocked up.

@ The Master.

Well, mental health professionals could not possibly be biased since they've only been the instruments of discrimination against people with mental illness for the last forever. I don't think the emphasis should be on guilt-tripping - in treatment or general discourse about mental illness, it should be on empowerment. And, yes, this empowerment implies that selfishness becomes a possibility - which, again, is something I'm willing to live with if it means mental illness sufferers are no longer portrayed as being essentially powerless idiots*.

* yes, I know, if you take into consideration the usage of the word in the last few hundreds of years, the English language makes it more or less impossible for anybody except people with developmental or mental disorders to be idiots.

@for dru's sins

Suicide is very rare among 15 year olds, legally a parent can't refuse you medical treatment if doing so seriously endangers your life (which is not to say it doesn't happen, but that it's an extraordinary circumstance - the fact that people sometimes get hit by cars while crossing the street doesn't mean that nobody has the choice to cross any street) and you're alive right now so you must have had some kind of support system that did work.

Of course I have no way of knowing very much about how charities work in the US, but in the UK I know of several mental health charities that offer you advice and support if you're having trouble managing your finances or are being discriminated against in any way. My hunch is that such organizations exist in the US as well, you should try to seek them out.

(I mention the situation in the UK rather than in Romania because I think in we-only-stopped-using-mental-health-facilities-as-state-prisons-20-years-ago Romania the level of institutional and cultural ableism is too unusual to allow for any kind of accurate comparisons with Western countries.)