PSA: Most suicides occur while the person is alone. Company can be a strong deterrent to attempting suicide.
Thanks in part to an incurable medical condition, I'm sometimes suddenly suicidal and basically deranged. At such times, my adult sons don't leave me alone.
They mostly try to avoid discussing it with me. They don't try to make me feel better or act like unpaid therapists because it not only doesn't work, it's actively counterproductive.
Their policy is to take care of me physically (food, drink, warmth), keep me company and "do not engage Teh Crazeh."
In other words, trying to argue with me at such times about how irrational I am amounts to adding fuel to the fire. It just makes me more upset.
I've lived with this a long time, so I'm often able to just tell them "I'm not right and can't be trusted to be alone right now."
As my health improves, such incidents have become fewer, farther between and shorter in duration. It happened a lot while homeless. It's been much less common since getting back into housing.
Having fought depressions myself, I recognize the pattern of "depressives talking bullshit".
In depressive episodes your mind believes strongly in how hopeless your situation is. When people challenge that conviction, you'll only come up with more reasons, no matter how hare-brained or even psychotic at times. It's just the way it works...
> Most suicides occur while the person is alone. Company can be a strong deterrent to attempting suicide.
This is a lot more complicated than you're making it out.
plenty of people kill themselves in front of their family. Others kill themselves when their family are in the home. Others kill themselves in public. Others kill themselves in hospital wards when they're on 15 minute observations. These are not a tiny fraction of the total number of people who kill themselves.
EDIT: I'm glad you've found something that works _for you_, but it's really important to recognise that your experience is not usual, and that many people would find it invalidating.
This shows that living alone is a risk factor, but it also shows that most people who die by suicide do not live alone.
Page 55 suggests that it's external support that helps, not support by the family:
> 149. In 834 (43%) the patient lived alone. They were less likely to receive additional social support from outside the home (e.g. from a relative, friend or neighbour) as part of their care plan compared to those who did not live alone (138, 44% excluding unknowns vs. 270, 71%
Really glad to hear that your sons are there for you. Even gladder to hear that such incidents are fewer and farther between! I can only imagine how much harder it must've been without housing.
Great summary of the suicide literature. This is why it's okay to restrain suicidal people against their will - it's temporary madness most of the time
If your happy but very drunk friend wanted to tapdance on the edge of a tall building, would you restrain them if necessary? Or if someone high on shrooms was trying to drink bleach?
A suicidal mind is often one caught in the temporary throes of delusion and irrationality, even if it comes from internal wiring going haywire instead of external substances.
Preventing someone from killing themselves is in their best interest most of the time for that reason. Suicidal impulses are most often fleeting relative to normal lifespan.
These kinds of results also point to how much of an impact guns have on suicide rates.
Guns make it a lot easier to attempt suicide and achieve it. In the US, guns are often more readily available than medical treatment. If you have a gun laying around, and you have a short bout of suicidal ideation, that can be an unfortunate combination.
On top of that, people believe it will be less painful than other methods, increasing the appeal.
Virtually any other method of suicide takes more effort and time. The more time an attempt takes, the less probable the patients are to go through with it, and the more likely the attempt is discovered in time.
Methods seem to vary a lot by country, and some of the highest-rate countries don't primarily use guns, so I'm not sure other methods can be easily dismissed as less dangerous. For example, Belgium's overall suicide rate is higher than the USA's, and the most popular method there is hanging (a majority of male suicides, and a plurality of female suicides) [1]. Of course I can't say that the rate wouldn't be even higher if Belgium had more guns, but it manages a quite high rate without them.
I'd be interested to read any research on how drugs impact suicide rates (particularly if it prevents people who would have otherwise committed suicide). As easy it is to get guns, I think drugs actually a bit easier to obtain despite being the thing that's illegal (due to gun purchase wait period).
Suicide by car accident seem close in both effort and time, but maybe the reason we don't hear about it is that determining suicide in those cases is quite hard.
I saw a fascinating interview with Kevin Hines, a guy who attempted suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, and lived. He said he immediately regretted it after he jumped.
It seems like there is something about there being no turning back that totally transforms one's perspective. Why, after weeks, months, or years of planning suicide, are peoples' perspectives able to totally flip in an instant, precisely when it's too late?
In my circle of friends, there was a similar tragic case: Someone suicidal took deadly poison with delayed effect (5-10min), immediately regretted it and called one of my friends for help. (Sadly, the ambulance couldn't save him.)
The very pessimistic philosopher Emil Cioran (author of e.g. De l'inconvénient d'être né, "The Trouble With Being Born") who beside his suicidal thoughts died at age 84 once said in an interview, that suicidal thoughts are paradoxically the reason, why he stayed alive: The knowledge of the choice to end existence if the suffering is too much makes it possible to endure its insufferableness.
Maybe it is this choice, to live or not, that makes a lot things bearable? And it's much harder if this choice is gone for whatever reason, in one direction or another?
In England suicide prevention is a Public Health duty, and public health is normally located within local authorities (a form of local government). So there are a variety of suicide prevention approaches across the country, but they should all be informed by the national suicide prevention strategy.
Kent and Medway felt one problem was with "male help seeking behaviour". They did a lot of work to understand what this actually means, then they released material that appealed to men. They avoid use of mental health language (eg, "depressed"), and they use the words that men use themselves "knackered", "stressed", "regret" etc.) https://www.kent.gov.uk/__data/assets/image/0005/95009/relea...
Any traumatic experience will have an effect. Why is that at all strange?
Have you ever wanted to ask a girl out for weeks, months or years, only to realize you are completely incompatible once you get her? Life is like that, especially when you're younger :)
Maybe this is one problem that VR can solve. Virtually simulated suicides? Virtually simulated anything. You don't have to die or hurt yourself, try X in a safe simulation first to see if you really want to go through with it.
I'd rather say that the urge to kill yourself is fundamentally irrational. Yes, there are relatively "rational" suicides, but these are very rare.
But it may take going to the edge to realize that you want to live and want to die at the same time. An irrational suicidal urge does not remove your survival instinct or will to live, it can only hide it, at best.
I believe that this conflict is at the center of many "strange" or counter intuitive behaviors around suicide.
As someone who chronically ideates about suicide (but has never attempted), things like VR rock climbing and (real life) bungee jumping have just made me scared of jumping. But it doesn't make me not want to die, it just makes me want to do it a better way that's less scary
Doubtful. If anything I could see it making people more comfortable with it. Could trigger a copy-cat-like effect where people already fantasizing about it could see getting through the VR experience as a "success" they are ready to emulate.
This is actually an interesting question, and people are being entirely too dismissive in down-voting you. Everything from "assisted experiences" in VR to Neuralink could offer really interesting options for those going through something so terrible.
Why should it? AIUI, suicidal people actually want their suffering to end. Going through a VR suicide is totally useless to achieve their actual goal. I think you mistake the motivation. Most people dont kill themselves because they are thrill-seekers. The suicide is a means to and end, literally.
The other day a lady jumped off the bridge in a suicide attempt. A passing tourist dived in and rescued her from the river below, someone else went out on a paddle-board to rescue the pair of them and the air ambulance arrived shortly thereafter to take her to the hospital.
The river is tidal and not always that deep. Luckily she didn't jump at low tide when she could have broken her legs or ended up crippled for life. As it happened she ended up in the mental health ward. I imagine they will put her on drugs such as lithium and she will lose her mind. Or they might find they have no reason to keep her in and she might discharge herself to try again.
However, if she had crippled herself then she would not be able to attempt the same thing - jumping off the bridge. But her body would be a living reminder constantly with her of a failed suicide attempt. There would be some impostor syndrome going on with that, people going the extra mile for her due to her being disabled, not through birth or accident but through a failed suicide attempt.
Due to the nuances of a suicide attempt I am not sure that the statistics in this article have much real meaning. Also, what comprises an attempt? A walk into the woods where no rope gets hung from any branch is still an aborted attempt if the intention on the first step was hanging. But actually jumping off the bridge is past that point of no return. There is grey area in this, the teenager taking too many pills can be put down as a 'cry for help' even if there is a point of no return being crossed.
Survival is also a grey area, not just in terms of physical quality of life but mental. The mental health wards of a hospital will put people on pills that take out the high and low notes of someone's mind, turning them into a functional zombie. Survival needs to be qualified as not needing the harsh medication that goes with being processed by the authorities.
I had this weird and strong question the other day: how come evolution didn't manage to wipe out suicidal gestures. Why don't we just fall into a partial coma when our mind is overwhelmed by events. It's a bit odd.. alas evolution is no silver bullet (sic):
I am 45 and am 99% sure I won't make it to 46. This isn't some unexplained "out of nowhere" ideation. It's a consequence of being beat down and taken from over and over, then having to make due with less and less, rinse, repeat. There is a breaking point. In my experience most suicidal people I come across are so because of the same chronic loss and suffering. Pills and therapy and hotlines don't help. They are plasters ignoring root causes. Root causes take time and money and that's too much to ask.
I posted over a year ago in a desperate attempt to find a job that I could do despite all my issues. I'd been fighting for that for years. Because there is no social system where I am, not one that helps people. Culture here is about bootstraps and anyone who doesn't pull them or have them is a mooch loser who "deserves" what they get. I couldn't get myself anywhere better because of my issues. So I had to try and make due in the same grind but with far less ability and energy. One kind soul, the only one in all this time, offered such a job and I tried to get there, things got worse for me from a few sides and I slid back and couldn't go. I am still TRYING and hoping, but hope isn't enough. You have to be able to act, and the ground has to stay under you and not collapse.
We all know how difficult work and earning can be even when we are young and healthy and love what we do, imagine doing it when in constant pain, with no family who loves you, with no access to high quality medical care. Imagine seeing everyone around you grind and be exhausted and not having the opportunity and endurance they do. Not being able to go home and enjoy something after work because it takes all your mettle just to survive a day.
I have taken to using HN to vent my feelings on this topic when it comes up, and probably sound like a one trick pony. I am not even sure I care anymore. I used to worry what impression I would leave. That I might upset someone or ruin an ally with my depressive state. It all seems like it is irrelevant now as I won't make it anyway. Years ago when I still had some shreds of bootstraps I couldn't get any help from people or systems. I am incredibly resentful because I believe I could have built something then to get through this life and do some good. Now I feel most of the time like I won't make it regardless. I feel only social support/financial security/medical access would even possibly give me a chance..and society and family have decided I am not "worth" that. My value has been recorded and notated. You cannot really beat a system like that. Once you lose you means to grind and become a drain on profits you become a thing to be disposed of rather than a person. Nobody WANTS to be in these shoes. Nobody CHOOSES it.
Same situation here, a bit earlier (36) but same path. You have all my support.
One thing that feels well-spent time for me is, fighting for men’s rights. Can only be done by suicidal people, because people will smash you for opposing feminism. But men need guys who can do it, so I do it, and I lose friend after friend, family, workplaces, NGOs (I used to help refugees) (well, I’ve done the whole charity experience, been everywhere, I’ve always donated a lot) and I’m kicked from social network after social network. Male feminists would dream of seeing me die in a mass grave, anonymously like a USSR political opponent. And that’s exactly how it will end up.
But it is really hard to take myself from the bootstraps and write another blog article, film another video or explain another thing about it. On the positive side, thousands of men have stunning words when they discover my work, like « I was sure, thanks for gathering the statistics » or « I’ve been looking for a channel like yours, who understands men, for 2 years » or « I’ve been watching your videos straight on for the last 72 hours ».
It’s cheerful, but what I wanted was, a (sane) wife, probably a sane world who cares as much for men as for women, a bit of love, and building something. And being millionaire doesn’t change anything to that. Suicide by defending men’s rights against the lies that feminists say.
Do you ever get jealous reading about those medieval monks who would just live in a monastery and read, meditate/pray and copy-down books all day?
I do. When I'm acknowledging my worst depressive tendencies, I feel so much resentment for the way we're told that living revolves around constant productivity and being valuable to others. I think when I want an "out", I really just want to be out of that.
I've had these feelings my whole life though. When I was 14, I was 100% sure I would never make it to 18. I ended up getting hospitalized and changing schools midway through highschool. The therapy and drugs didn't really help the root cause, but the experience made me feel like I had permission to fail in a way. I felt I then knew what it was like to be completely useless and written off by everyone as without value, but it was sort of empowering in a weird way. I felt like I was in the bonus-round of a video game. Not chasing death but not really afraid of it either. Later on, I realized I was less angry with the world when I just accepted myself as a hopeless outlier with no intention of properly assimilating and that people's expectations of me were going to end up aligning accordingly anyhow.
But I think some people need ways to "drop-out", at least for a period. Back in the past, I think monasteries let people with that need escape. I don't know how we're expected to do it today. I wish I did.
A multiple-suicide-attempt survivor I met once remarked that she felt a mixture of rage and despair at "not even being able to die right". As much as people like to believe that people don't really want to die, sometimes they really do.
It's also an interesting argument for stricter gun control - guns make it incredibly easy for suicidal people to follow through on that impulse. The amount of suicide deaths by gun in America is a testament to this.
It's about as interesting as reducing the speed limit in regards to cars. Sure, we keep killing innocent people, but we have places to be and stuff.
America was founded on genocide and cultured Europeans thought it was a good idea to kill entire populations who weren't Übermensch less than 100 years ago.
Yeah, but that seems like it is one of many, many reasons for more reasonable gun control, yet the US does nothing. If a school full of slaughtered 1st graders or a parking lot full of murdered country music fans hasn't prompted us to do anything, I don't think arguing about people killed by their own hand will change anything, sadly.
In darker moments I always think that eventually, this is an inevitable outcome for someone like me. But as somebody who's also experienced help that worked, even if for only a time, I wish that you (we) can hold on to some hope and trudge on. Maybe life will surprise us and we'll go at it till the end. Good luck.
If you ever need someone to talk to, the national suicide hotline is 800-273-8255. It’s free and open 24x7.
As someone who struggle(s|d) with ideation, I realized that I too was on that path. If I kept idealizing suicide then I’d eventually succumb. Some recommendations:
1. Find a therapist with whom you can build a relationship.
2. Be open to medication. Even if side effects can hurt your quality of life, you’re clearly already suffering from QoL problems.
3. Keep an emotional journal. In it, also track common culprits like sleep, food, alcohol, etc. this can help you identify and avoid triggers.
4. Strongly consider active exercises to change your outlook. Force yourself to have a social life and hobbies. Cognitive behavioral therapy also has a number of (sometimes touchy-feels, yet effective) exercises. You can learn more from the book “Feeling Good”
This could be an argument against assisted suicide, which probably has a higher completion rate than unassisted suicide. If people want to kill themselves, let them do so themselves. There's a good chance they won't actually follow through.
A big part of assisted suicide is that you have to make it through counseling first and can only do it if you can rationally convince the doctor that you have no better option.
You'll never get it if your reasoning is "my life sucks and nobody likes me".
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|6 years ago|reply
Thanks in part to an incurable medical condition, I'm sometimes suddenly suicidal and basically deranged. At such times, my adult sons don't leave me alone.
They mostly try to avoid discussing it with me. They don't try to make me feel better or act like unpaid therapists because it not only doesn't work, it's actively counterproductive.
Their policy is to take care of me physically (food, drink, warmth), keep me company and "do not engage Teh Crazeh."
In other words, trying to argue with me at such times about how irrational I am amounts to adding fuel to the fire. It just makes me more upset.
I've lived with this a long time, so I'm often able to just tell them "I'm not right and can't be trusted to be alone right now."
As my health improves, such incidents have become fewer, farther between and shorter in duration. It happened a lot while homeless. It's been much less common since getting back into housing.
[+] [-] bayesian_horse|6 years ago|reply
In depressive episodes your mind believes strongly in how hopeless your situation is. When people challenge that conviction, you'll only come up with more reasons, no matter how hare-brained or even psychotic at times. It's just the way it works...
[+] [-] DanBC|6 years ago|reply
This is a lot more complicated than you're making it out.
plenty of people kill themselves in front of their family. Others kill themselves when their family are in the home. Others kill themselves in public. Others kill themselves in hospital wards when they're on 15 minute observations. These are not a tiny fraction of the total number of people who kill themselves.
EDIT: I'm glad you've found something that works _for you_, but it's really important to recognise that your experience is not usual, and that many people would find it invalidating.
EDIT: Page 33. https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=38469
> Living alone -- Women: 45% Men 50%
This shows that living alone is a risk factor, but it also shows that most people who die by suicide do not live alone.
Page 55 suggests that it's external support that helps, not support by the family:
> 149. In 834 (43%) the patient lived alone. They were less likely to receive additional social support from outside the home (e.g. from a relative, friend or neighbour) as part of their care plan compared to those who did not live alone (138, 44% excluding unknowns vs. 270, 71%
[+] [-] neonate|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malms|6 years ago|reply
which is ? seriously wondering
[+] [-] cm2012|6 years ago|reply
If your happy but very drunk friend wanted to tapdance on the edge of a tall building, would you restrain them if necessary? Or if someone high on shrooms was trying to drink bleach?
A suicidal mind is often one caught in the temporary throes of delusion and irrationality, even if it comes from internal wiring going haywire instead of external substances.
Preventing someone from killing themselves is in their best interest most of the time for that reason. Suicidal impulses are most often fleeting relative to normal lifespan.
[+] [-] bayesian_horse|6 years ago|reply
Guns make it a lot easier to attempt suicide and achieve it. In the US, guns are often more readily available than medical treatment. If you have a gun laying around, and you have a short bout of suicidal ideation, that can be an unfortunate combination.
On top of that, people believe it will be less painful than other methods, increasing the appeal.
Virtually any other method of suicide takes more effort and time. The more time an attempt takes, the less probable the patients are to go through with it, and the more likely the attempt is discovered in time.
[+] [-] _delirium|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://jech.bmj.com/content/62/6/545
[+] [-] chrischen|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] belorn|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] datpuz|6 years ago|reply
It seems like there is something about there being no turning back that totally transforms one's perspective. Why, after weeks, months, or years of planning suicide, are peoples' perspectives able to totally flip in an instant, precisely when it's too late?
[+] [-] holbue|6 years ago|reply
The very pessimistic philosopher Emil Cioran (author of e.g. De l'inconvénient d'être né, "The Trouble With Being Born") who beside his suicidal thoughts died at age 84 once said in an interview, that suicidal thoughts are paradoxically the reason, why he stayed alive: The knowledge of the choice to end existence if the suffering is too much makes it possible to endure its insufferableness.
Maybe it is this choice, to live or not, that makes a lot things bearable? And it's much harder if this choice is gone for whatever reason, in one direction or another?
[+] [-] ryeights|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|6 years ago|reply
https://www.kent.gov.uk/social-care-and-health/health/releas...
In England suicide prevention is a Public Health duty, and public health is normally located within local authorities (a form of local government). So there are a variety of suicide prevention approaches across the country, but they should all be informed by the national suicide prevention strategy.
Kent and Medway felt one problem was with "male help seeking behaviour". They did a lot of work to understand what this actually means, then they released material that appealed to men. They avoid use of mental health language (eg, "depressed"), and they use the words that men use themselves "knackered", "stressed", "regret" etc.) https://www.kent.gov.uk/__data/assets/image/0005/95009/relea...
[+] [-] bluntfang|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexashka|6 years ago|reply
Have you ever wanted to ask a girl out for weeks, months or years, only to realize you are completely incompatible once you get her? Life is like that, especially when you're younger :)
[+] [-] siphon22|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bayesian_horse|6 years ago|reply
But it may take going to the edge to realize that you want to live and want to die at the same time. An irrational suicidal urge does not remove your survival instinct or will to live, it can only hide it, at best.
I believe that this conflict is at the center of many "strange" or counter intuitive behaviors around suicide.
[+] [-] jandrese|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] yasp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcr0|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blahblahthrow|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untog|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudosteph|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rargulati|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlang23|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amfsn|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|6 years ago|reply
The river is tidal and not always that deep. Luckily she didn't jump at low tide when she could have broken her legs or ended up crippled for life. As it happened she ended up in the mental health ward. I imagine they will put her on drugs such as lithium and she will lose her mind. Or they might find they have no reason to keep her in and she might discharge herself to try again.
However, if she had crippled herself then she would not be able to attempt the same thing - jumping off the bridge. But her body would be a living reminder constantly with her of a failed suicide attempt. There would be some impostor syndrome going on with that, people going the extra mile for her due to her being disabled, not through birth or accident but through a failed suicide attempt.
Due to the nuances of a suicide attempt I am not sure that the statistics in this article have much real meaning. Also, what comprises an attempt? A walk into the woods where no rope gets hung from any branch is still an aborted attempt if the intention on the first step was hanging. But actually jumping off the bridge is past that point of no return. There is grey area in this, the teenager taking too many pills can be put down as a 'cry for help' even if there is a point of no return being crossed.
Survival is also a grey area, not just in terms of physical quality of life but mental. The mental health wards of a hospital will put people on pills that take out the high and low notes of someone's mind, turning them into a functional zombie. Survival needs to be qualified as not needing the harsh medication that goes with being processed by the authorities.
[+] [-] agumonkey|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hestipod|6 years ago|reply
I posted over a year ago in a desperate attempt to find a job that I could do despite all my issues. I'd been fighting for that for years. Because there is no social system where I am, not one that helps people. Culture here is about bootstraps and anyone who doesn't pull them or have them is a mooch loser who "deserves" what they get. I couldn't get myself anywhere better because of my issues. So I had to try and make due in the same grind but with far less ability and energy. One kind soul, the only one in all this time, offered such a job and I tried to get there, things got worse for me from a few sides and I slid back and couldn't go. I am still TRYING and hoping, but hope isn't enough. You have to be able to act, and the ground has to stay under you and not collapse.
We all know how difficult work and earning can be even when we are young and healthy and love what we do, imagine doing it when in constant pain, with no family who loves you, with no access to high quality medical care. Imagine seeing everyone around you grind and be exhausted and not having the opportunity and endurance they do. Not being able to go home and enjoy something after work because it takes all your mettle just to survive a day.
I have taken to using HN to vent my feelings on this topic when it comes up, and probably sound like a one trick pony. I am not even sure I care anymore. I used to worry what impression I would leave. That I might upset someone or ruin an ally with my depressive state. It all seems like it is irrelevant now as I won't make it anyway. Years ago when I still had some shreds of bootstraps I couldn't get any help from people or systems. I am incredibly resentful because I believe I could have built something then to get through this life and do some good. Now I feel most of the time like I won't make it regardless. I feel only social support/financial security/medical access would even possibly give me a chance..and society and family have decided I am not "worth" that. My value has been recorded and notated. You cannot really beat a system like that. Once you lose you means to grind and become a drain on profits you become a thing to be disposed of rather than a person. Nobody WANTS to be in these shoes. Nobody CHOOSES it.
Until next time...or not...
[+] [-] alexis_fr|6 years ago|reply
One thing that feels well-spent time for me is, fighting for men’s rights. Can only be done by suicidal people, because people will smash you for opposing feminism. But men need guys who can do it, so I do it, and I lose friend after friend, family, workplaces, NGOs (I used to help refugees) (well, I’ve done the whole charity experience, been everywhere, I’ve always donated a lot) and I’m kicked from social network after social network. Male feminists would dream of seeing me die in a mass grave, anonymously like a USSR political opponent. And that’s exactly how it will end up.
But it is really hard to take myself from the bootstraps and write another blog article, film another video or explain another thing about it. On the positive side, thousands of men have stunning words when they discover my work, like « I was sure, thanks for gathering the statistics » or « I’ve been looking for a channel like yours, who understands men, for 2 years » or « I’ve been watching your videos straight on for the last 72 hours ».
It’s cheerful, but what I wanted was, a (sane) wife, probably a sane world who cares as much for men as for women, a bit of love, and building something. And being millionaire doesn’t change anything to that. Suicide by defending men’s rights against the lies that feminists say.
[+] [-] sudosteph|6 years ago|reply
I do. When I'm acknowledging my worst depressive tendencies, I feel so much resentment for the way we're told that living revolves around constant productivity and being valuable to others. I think when I want an "out", I really just want to be out of that.
I've had these feelings my whole life though. When I was 14, I was 100% sure I would never make it to 18. I ended up getting hospitalized and changing schools midway through highschool. The therapy and drugs didn't really help the root cause, but the experience made me feel like I had permission to fail in a way. I felt I then knew what it was like to be completely useless and written off by everyone as without value, but it was sort of empowering in a weird way. I felt like I was in the bonus-round of a video game. Not chasing death but not really afraid of it either. Later on, I realized I was less angry with the world when I just accepted myself as a hopeless outlier with no intention of properly assimilating and that people's expectations of me were going to end up aligning accordingly anyhow.
But I think some people need ways to "drop-out", at least for a period. Back in the past, I think monasteries let people with that need escape. I don't know how we're expected to do it today. I wish I did.
[+] [-] ryacko|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wetpaws|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnIdiotOnTheNet|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomlockwood|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ummonk|6 years ago|reply
(I don't own any guns but this screams nanny state to me)
[+] [-] alexashka|6 years ago|reply
America was founded on genocide and cultured Europeans thought it was a good idea to kill entire populations who weren't Übermensch less than 100 years ago.
Remember who you're living among :)
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] starpilot|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] isatty|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zemotion|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inlined|6 years ago|reply
As someone who struggle(s|d) with ideation, I realized that I too was on that path. If I kept idealizing suicide then I’d eventually succumb. Some recommendations:
1. Find a therapist with whom you can build a relationship.
2. Be open to medication. Even if side effects can hurt your quality of life, you’re clearly already suffering from QoL problems.
3. Keep an emotional journal. In it, also track common culprits like sleep, food, alcohol, etc. this can help you identify and avoid triggers.
4. Strongly consider active exercises to change your outlook. Force yourself to have a social life and hobbies. Cognitive behavioral therapy also has a number of (sometimes touchy-feels, yet effective) exercises. You can learn more from the book “Feeling Good”
[+] [-] tsss|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mrtweetyhack|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Bostonian|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] armada651|6 years ago|reply
You would put them through yet more pain just to see if they were really suffering enough?
[+] [-] jandrese|6 years ago|reply
You'll never get it if your reasoning is "my life sucks and nobody likes me".