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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Jennifer (from Hell)
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Sorry for the double post, but Fuck You, SC. The post was made here because the statement I was addressing was made here. Because the anger generated in me by Jennifer's selfish act is fitting here.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The very nature of suicide is selfish.
Would you like to explain what you mean by the term, and why you think this is so? It may be that you are using the term differently to some of us.
Well, it causes more pain to the survivors than almost any other human act. Often even more than murder, or child abuse. So anyone who kills themself is almost certainly ruining the lives of others. So in that sense suicide is nortmally selfish. The suicide is putting their own choice or convenience before the happiness of others. That's what "selfish" means.
Of course they might not know that. They might be so depressed or screwed up that they don't or can't think about the consequences of their deaths. They might even think their family and friends will be better off without them. If they do think that they are almost certainly wrong. That misperception is a sign that they are too depressed or ill to see the world as it is. I've known people who killed themselves because they thought they were easing the burden they were on their families. They weren't.
Just as we try not to allow drunks to drive cars or epileptics to fly planes, anyone insane enough to believe that the world would be better off without them is almost certainly not sane enough
to be allowed to make the choice.
Which is one of the main reasons I think we should always do anything possible to prevent suicide, and assisting people to kill themselves must remain a crime that is tried in public court. Even if those who do it are let off unpunished.
Another reason is that suicide is an infectious disease. When someone kills themselves it becomes more likely that others will. Sometimes quite dramatically. When a well-known person kills themselves there is often a wave of copy-cat suicides. People sometimes kill themselves in the same way or on the anniversary of the suicide of a family member or spouse. (I have personally known at least three people who did that. That is six unneccessary deaths). So in that sense its almost a kind of reckless manslaughter.
And another reason is that we don't own our own bodies. We are our bodies. Not the same thing at all.
And another reason is that it is not our business to choose who dies and who lives. Whether by ending our own life or murdering someone else. That's God's department. Suicide, like murder, is in a sense ultra vires for humans. A choice it is not ours to make.
Not that suicide is in any real sense a choice, because it is entirely negative. There is nothing there to choose. It is an anti-choice, anti-freedom. The suicide has less choice, less freedom, than someone clapped in irons in a dungeon does. There is nothing there to choose.
So yes, it means something to say that suicide is selfish. Though it probably doesn't help someone depressed enough to kill themselves to point it out.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Thank you ken. You said this so much better than I.
Apologies to the rest for communicating so poorly.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Scarlet
Mellon Collie
# 1738
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Posted
My mother diied of suicide by taking all the drugs her psych and general practice MDs had given her. My daughter's sister-in-law died in an angry impulsive moment of despair with a shotgun. I've survived one attempt - I went out the way River Phoenix did and for the life of me I can't figure out why I had to be revived and he is gone. I have two remaining family members who live with suicidal thoughts each and every day. As do I. These are my credentials...
I'll give that suicide is selfish to those who are left behind, but I never feel that the world would be better off without me. The world does not enter my picture, excepting making arrangements for my feral cat.
Its the pain - my personal pain. Options are non-existent for me escaping the pain of living, except to exit life.
Here's a suicide note from Night Falls Fast by Kay Redfield Jamison. I quite recommend this book.
A chemist wrote this note as his goodbye and I could wear it as a T-shirt:
quote:
This is my last experiment. If there is any eternal torment worse than mine I'll have to be shown.
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They took from their surroundings what was needed... and made of it something more.
—dialogue from Primer
Posts: 4769 | Registered: Nov 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Originally posted by ken:
"suicide is an infectious disease. When someone kills themselves it becomes more likely that others will. Sometimes quite dramatically. When a well-known person kills themselves there is often a wave of copy-cat suicides".
Indeed, which makes this whole situation and discussion potentially dangerous.
I'm not saying their shouldn't be debate, just thought it might pay to add a note of caution.
Let's not forget the terrible irony from the OP. Jennifer did the very thing comet had a desire to do. Sorry to bring that up comet, I'm sure you've agonised enough already.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
The fact that someone does something that hurts others doesn't in itself make the act selfish. Selfish refers to the internal state of the person doing the act - their motivation. If a person believes what they are doing is for the best of of everyone around them, then regardless of how wrong they may be, they are not being selfish. They are seeing things in a distorted way.
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Stop worrying about the discussion being dangerous. Anyone in despair enough to consider suicide (or other dreadful actions) has already thought of it. It's not exactly an unheard of idea.
I have asked quite a few depressed people I was worried about if they were considering suicide. Never have I had one up and say to me, "Oh dear. That never occurred to me. I'll have to think about that option now." ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
In every case they were thoroughly familiar with the concept, even if not actively suicidal at the moment.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
Yes, I am not really sure what rolyn is trying to get at, but what LC said.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Selfish is considering oneself before others. Being so wrapped in oneself, seeing no better way is selfish. Understandable, yes, selfless no.
Interesting use of words. Would you advise someone in this state to stop being selfish and think of others?
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
I don't think the word 'selfish' can be used in a non-judgemental way, and I don't think it's a helpful word to describe someone so locked inside the pit of their own misery that they can't see over the edge.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Sorry for the double post, but Fuck You, SC. The post was made here because the statement I was addressing was made here. Because the anger generated in me by Jennifer's selfish act is fitting here.
Hey a whole extra post just for me. That makes me feel special.
You posted it in the right place, because that was where the discussion was. That does not take away from the fact that you are talking crap. Crap smells the same wherever it is
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Not always sure what I'm getting at myself sometimes DK, and I've certainly no wish to add to comet's obvious upset.
I was picking on what ken said about suicide and it's contagiousness. I had a boyhood friend aged 16 who was found hanging in the woods in the 70s, I was 15 at the time. I felt the anniversaries particularly hard but can't say I had strong desires to copy him. It was many years before I could really talk about the incident even though the verdict wasn't suicide.
Any awareness at any level about the dangers of suicide has got to be a good thing, but when looking at the chain of teen suicides in South Wales and the link to IT communications I just think it's something we need to be wary of.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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moron
Shipmate
# 206
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Which is one of the main reasons I think we should always do anything possible to prevent suicide, and assisting people to kill themselves must remain a crime that is tried in public court. Even if those who do it are let off unpunished.
And of course one of those things is to relentlessly insist that it is a choice. If you don't, the case could be made you are aiding and abetting the decision.
quote:
Not that suicide is in any real sense a choice, because it is entirely negative.
For instance, you would be compelled to reply to this by saying it is 'utter bollocks'.
You'd then go on to say that IF humans have free will (which seems both experientially and logically to be the situation) that suicide is THE choice - the choice that shouts a permanent Fuck You to the entire universe.
And 'murder' is right there in the Ten Commandments: the 'cosmic anti-patriot' has wrongly decided they have the authority to murder a human.
(ISTM though as murdering goes it would rate lower on God's 'judgment scale' than murdering someone else.)
(Awaits cacophonic chorus of Fuck Yous.
You're welcome.)
Posts: 4236 | From: Bentonville | Registered: May 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
Must. not. stick. up. for lilBuddha and 205 cos they're the underdogs...........gnashes teeth.....said I would withdraw.....gnashes teeth again.....
Even tho ya'll are obviously into the theological/intellectual mode now.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Of course, theological/intellectual mode could take itself to purgatory. There is nothing to stop someone OPing a purg thread quoting or linking a post from a hell thread as a debate starter.
Think²
Hellhost
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Selfish is considering oneself before others. Being so wrapped in oneself, seeing no better way is selfish. Understandable, yes, selfless no.
Interesting use of words. Would you advise someone in this state to stop being selfish and think of others?
Nowhere did I state anything like this. Depression is not generally simple. Nor is getting out of it.
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
I don't think the word 'selfish' can be used in a non-judgemental way, and I don't think it's a helpful word to describe someone so locked inside the pit of their own misery that they can't see over the edge.
Frustrating this. Because I do not think excusing the action helpful either. I do not think ignoring any component of the problem helpful.
As to what actually helps any individual, I don't know. I try to be supportive, i try to point to the positive, I try to convince to seek help. I do not know for certain where this helps, I only know where it hasn't been enough.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Since my skill with words is obviously lacking, what I am attempting to say is this:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Well, it causes more pain to the survivors than almost any other human act. Often even more than murder, or child abuse. So anyone who kills themself is almost certainly ruining the lives of others. So in that sense suicide is nortmally selfish. The suicide is putting their own choice or convenience before the happiness of others. That's what "selfish" means.
Without ignoring this:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Of course they might not know that. They might be so depressed or screwed up that they don't or can't think about the consequences of their deaths. They might even think their family and friends will be better off without them. If they do think that they are almost certainly wrong. That misperception is a sign that they are too depressed or ill to see the world as it is. I've known people who killed themselves because they thought they were easing the burden they were on their families. They weren't.
Apologies, ken.
[ 02. January 2012, 12:30: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
I don't think the word 'selfish' can be used in a non-judgemental way, and I don't think it's a helpful word to describe someone so locked inside the pit of their own misery that they can't see over the edge.
Frustrating this. Because I do not think excusing the action helpful either. I do not think ignoring any component of the problem helpful.
As to what actually helps any individual, I don't know. I try to be supportive, i try to point to the positive, I try to convince to seek help. I do not know for certain where this helps, I only know where it hasn't been enough.
You're posing a false dichotomy. You can pass judgement on someone's actions without labelling internal agony as selfishness. To understand is not necessarily to excuse - though it often helps. Neither is anybody asking you to ignore anything.
FWIW I think there is a link between selfishness and/or some forms of self-obsession and emotional ill health. That doesn't necessarily mean that people who are mentally ill can be blamed for their condition. They may have been driven in on themselves by circumstances.
I agree with what you say about how lay people can try - and sometimes fail - to help.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Originally posted by ken:
"suicide is an infectious disease. When someone kills themselves it becomes more likely that others will. Sometimes quite dramatically. When a well-known person kills themselves there is often a wave of copy-cat suicides".
Indeed, which makes this whole situation and discussion potentially dangerous.
The risk of copycat suicides is greatly increased when the person who committed suicide is described as a wonderful person and a victim of society/circumstances. This is especially true of teenage suicides.
In the 1990s there was a suicide 'epidemic' at a high school in Massachusetts. During the course of a month, five students killed themselves. After each of the first four, there were TV interviews with teachers, school administrators, and community leaders. They all said, in effect, "How did we fail them?" The suicides continued. After the fifth suicide, a student interviewed on TV said, "How could those jerks do this to us?" The suicides stopped.
Being a teenager involves agonizing over mistakes and faux pas. To some, suicide seems a way of making others ignore these mistakes, which they consider major, even life-changing. They need to understand that suicide doesn't solve anything.
What I have just said does not apply to people who are so deep in despair that they can't think clearly. They aren't paying attention to what other people are doing anyway.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Nowhere did I state anything like this.
You didn't state that exactly in those very words but I'd still be interested to know whether you agree with it or not. It's one of the things that depressed people do sometimes get told. Would you tell someone who's depressed that they should think of others and stop being selfish, yes or no? Just a simple yes or no answer, in your own words, not somebody else's, is all I'm looking for.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Nowhere did I state anything like this.
You didn't state that exactly in those very words but I'd still be interested to know whether you agree with it or not. It's one of the things that depressed people do sometimes get told. Would you tell someone who's depressed that they should think of others and stop being selfish, yes or no? Just a simple yes or no answer, in your own words, not somebody else's, is all I'm looking for.
No.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Thank you, that's all I needed to know.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Amazing Grace
High Church Protestant
# 95
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by 205:
And to all the 'fuck you' folk: I've felt for some time now an obligation to provide an entity for you to feel superior to.
You're welcome.
For the record, it was exactly the kind of piling on that followed that I was presuming you were setting up for Faux-- just because he's traditionally piled on. I really don't give a tin shit about anybody's views on gun control-- not even my own, at the moment. I just didn't like seeing someone's raw emotion treated like a checker piece. So I apologize for my part in this.
If it was meant to be a joke, I'll change the "Fuck You" (*) to "What the fuckity fuck were you thinking? Were you high?"
Under the circumstances, I really don't think it was the time to attempt that sort of joke. If SF was picked as a target because he was perceived weak (yeah, I know the reasoning) whatever the actual merits of what he was saying, I'd add "it's the mark of a bully".
IMO in either case it is the type of stupidity that deserves a good "pile on".
(*) To be explicit, the Fuck You is for using the occasion of a significant tragedy to knee-jerk ride one's own political/social hobbyhorses. I always say that in situations like this, you see what someone is *really* made of ... and I'm not impressed, to put it mildly, with folks who do this. As a data point, I am pretty centrist on the Matter of Guns - don't own one, but a lot of my friends and family do.
Yes, I know this was a couple of days ago. I've been sick and had to take a break to ponder as well.
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WTFWED? "Remember to always be yourself, unless you suck" - the Gator
Memory Eternal! Sheep 3, Phil the Wise Guy, and Jesus' Evil Twin in the SoF Nativity Play
Posts: 6593 | From: Sittin' by the dock of the [SF] bay | Registered: Jul 2003
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Lynn MagdalenCollege
Shipmate
# 10651
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
I agree that pain and death are essential parts of joy and life as we know them. That doesn't make them good things to be welcomed, and it definitely doesn't excuse a human or a god who fails to protect the ones they love from pain and death.
I'm never quite sure what to do with the idea that God ought to handle painful and bad situations (solve them, fix them, make them go away) the same way we would. I don't think we understand what it means to be created in the image of God and instead we project backward and try to create God in our image, only bigger and better.
God is not a bigger, better human.
And in the end I believe that our tears will be wiped away and we will have some measure of comprehension about why God allows what God allows. I've struggled to believe that free will is a good thing and I struggle to do so only because clearly God values it - but the pain we cause, through our bad stupid selfish exercise of our freedom is staggering. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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Erin & Friend; Been there, done that; Ruth musical
Posts: 6263 | From: California | Registered: Nov 2005
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
FWIW:
I'm not at all sure how much free will, if any, we have.
That's why, even though I'm judgmental, I am clear that God (if She exists) is the only one who can truly judge--'cause She's the only one who knows all the factors that go into making our lives and our actions.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Socratic-enigma
Shipmate
# 12074
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Posted
quote:
In Memory of Jennifer Gaines
Jennifer Gaines was a loving, caring person of service to her community, church, friends, and people she did not even know. She dearly loved her daughter and son and was very, very proud of them.
Not one of us is perfect and we all have struggles and difficulties in our lives, and often it feels like it is more than we can bear.
The Jennifer I knew must have been so shocked by her actions of hurting others, that she saw no way out but to then take her own life..actions, reactions and a split second decision that certainly caused much pain.
No one is to blame for the place Jennifer's emotions took her. Life just comes undone sometimes. Terribly undone.
I wish that she could have reached out to all of us that she supported and helped throughout the years. I am sure that there were some that she turned to, but unfortunately, sometimes, we need an "army" to get us through. I pray for the full recovery of all who were hurt. I pray for Jennifer's soul to rest in peace. I pray for her children and family to heal and for all of us to remember and celebrate the good times with Jennifer.
Forgive her, and God's Blessings as we all grieve this terrible tragedy and sad loss.
from the ‘Carriage Town News’ 22nd.September
quote:
Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
But another truism is that we almost never really know others. Not really. And I have been too often too surprised by people over the last half century or so to be much surprised at all anymore.
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"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them."
David Hume
Posts: 817 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Nov 2006
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Loquacious beachcomber
Shipmate
# 8783
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Posted
Amazing Grace, out of 275 postings on this thread, and many others on the threads in Purgatory and All Saints, I have not read even one that I would consider malevolent or even mean-spirited.
That, even though there are thousands of people signed on as Shipmates, and who knows how many actually reading these boards.
Overwhelmingly, people have tried in their own imperfect ways to understand, to comfort, or to stand beside one another in a sense of community.
Do I agree with everything written? No.
But I have a far greater appreciation for those who share this online journey than I would have had if I had, knowing that they would include postings which were painful and at times even clumsy, simply declined to read the three threads.
In the midst of tragedy comes an increased respect and appreciation for our human capacity to respond to one another.
I think.
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TODAY'S SPECIAL - AND SO ARE YOU (Sign on beachfront fish & chips shop)
Posts: 5954 | From: Southeast of Wawa, between the beach and the hiking trail.. | Registered: Nov 2004
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
I admit to not reading it all, but I want to post my thanks to Comet, who caught something of my response in the OP.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
This year it will be four years since my friend jumped to her death in front of her husband and two children.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Stop worrying about the discussion being dangerous. Anyone in despair enough to consider suicide (or other dreadful actions) has already thought of it. It's not exactly an unheard of idea.
I have asked quite a few depressed people I was worried about if they were considering suicide. Never have I had one up and say to me, "Oh dear. That never occurred to me. I'll have to think about that option now."
In every case they were thoroughly familiar with the concept, even if not actively suicidal at the moment.
The key question in fact, from my time as a suicide hotline person was not "have you thought of killing yourself?" (to which the answer is nearly always yes), but "Do you have a plan?", because that indicates further mental steps.
In the worst pits of my own depression a few years ago, I wanted to be dead, surely, and I had thought of different ways of achieving that state, but I couldn't think of a convincing way to make it appear accidental but didn't risk hurting bystanders (i.e. a traffic accident) and that would also assure that nobody I loved would know I hadn't died accidentally (overdose, stepping in front of train, etc.) That's it. Other people: why I'm here today and pretty much all better now.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
[QUOTE]
That's it. Other people: why I'm here today and pretty much all better now.
And very glad to hear it ![[Smile]](smile.gif) It sounds like you owe you survival to a form of God-given rationality which was unable to come up with a plan that fitted the criteria of -- 'I want to end my life but I don't want to hurt other people, either physically or emotionally in the process'.
Totally the opposite of the person who's rationality comes up with the plan which very easily fits the criteria of -- 'I want to end my life and I want fuck up as many other people as I can in the process'.
The devil always takes the route with the least amount of resistance.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Totally the opposite of the person who's rationality comes up with the plan which very easily fits the criteria of -- 'I want to end my life and I want fuck up as many other people as I can in the process'.
I have listened to many suicidal people, and I have never encountered one who was interested in fucking up other people. They were so deep in their own pain that they didn't have a clue how other people would react.
I did once encounter a teenaged girl who kept making 'suicide attempts' which did not actually involve an intention of suicide. She said it was the only way she could get people to pay attention. She obviously loved the attention. I suspect she was mentally ill. If not, she was evil.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
Despite the similarity of naming, Attempted suicide and Suicide often have very different motivations. Both very serious, but often from different types of problem and issue.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I did once encounter a teenaged girl who kept making 'suicide attempts' which did not actually involve an intention of suicide. She said it was the only way she could get people to pay attention. She obviously loved the attention. I suspect she was mentally ill. If not, she was evil.
Or had a personality disorder, or was fucked up and immature and not very bright. Or just hooked on the drama and attention. Or some combination of all those.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Presumably this means people who out with guns and end the lives of unarmed family members, and/or random members of the public, before taking their own life aren't in the habit of seeking help before hand.
I don't buy the idea that these ideas are dreamt up in a split second of madness.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
At the Samaritans we made a distinction between suicide attempts, which are genuine, unsuccessful efforts to commit suicide, and suicide gestures, where the person has no intention of dying.
The danger of suicide gestures is that people do sometimes end up dead. It's also extremely hard on the people who care about them.
Moo
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Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Suze
Ship's Barmaid
# 5639
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I did once encounter a teenaged girl who kept making 'suicide attempts' which did not actually involve an intention of suicide. She said it was the only way she could get people to pay attention. She obviously loved the attention. I suspect she was mentally ill. If not, she was evil.
Moo
Or had something in her life that she desperately needed someone to pay attention to but couldn't outright ask for the help she needed. Usually when a young person is showing "attention seeking" behaviour it's because there's something that needs to be paid attention to that people simply aren't noticing.
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' You stay here and I'll go look for God, that won't be hard cos I know where he's not, and I will bring him back with me , then he'll listen , then he'll see' Richard Shindell
Posts: 2603 | From: where the angels sleep | Registered: Mar 2004
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
It sounds like you owe you survival to a form of God-given rationality which was unable to come up with a plan that fitted the criteria of -- 'I want to end my life but I don't want to hurt other people, either physically or emotionally in the process'.
Totally the opposite of the person who's rationality comes up with the plan which very easily fits the criteria of -- 'I want to end my life and I want fuck up as many other people as I can in the process'.
The devil always takes the route with the least amount of resistance.
Oh, it's not that I'm unwilling to credit God. I just think to the extent God exists, apart from the occasional bursting into our dimension to make a specific point/take a specific action (Abraham, Jesus, etc.), God works through us.
So when someone dies in despair as Jennifer did, I might be angry at her personal choices, but also I ask myself, "what could I have done? How did I fail her as to fellowship or support?" No [wo]man is an island, after all.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I think that most people attempting/commiting suicide don't want to die, per se--they just want an end to terrible pain or to another situation they just can't face, anymore.
Unfortunately, it's permanent. ![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
There's a good novel, though, called "A Fine & Private Place", by Peter S. Beagle. (More than one by that name, so make sure it's that author.) Quirky and often funny, IIRC. Mostly takes place in a cemetery. One inhabitant is a man who killed himself in such a way as to purposely make it look like his wife murdered him. Let's say that death wasn't the end of sorting out that situation.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Suze:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I did once encounter a teenaged girl who kept making 'suicide attempts' which did not actually involve an intention of suicide. She said it was the only way she could get people to pay attention. She obviously loved the attention. I suspect she was mentally ill. If not, she was evil.
Or had something in her life that she desperately needed someone to pay attention to but couldn't outright ask for the help she needed. Usually when a young person is showing "attention seeking" behaviour it's because there's something that needs to be paid attention to that people simply aren't noticing.
Yes, I firmly believe that's true about attention-seeking behaviour in general - but then that's a survival mechanism. I'm not sure that always applies to suicide attempts as attention-seeking behaviour - it depends, I suppose.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
From a now closed thread:
Aelred of Rievaulx posted:
quote:
quote:
I have listened to many suicidal people, and I have never encountered one who was interested in fucking up other people. They were so deep in their own pain that they didn't have a clue how other people would react.
I think this is the point about suicide. One shipmate said that they thought it fucked up the lives of those left behind. I don't agree entirely - what it almost always does do is make for a much more complicated and difficult bereavement. Suicide doesn't have to ruin lives - but it can and often does.
Moo's comment says to me that suicide is an almost entirely self-regarding act. And so many of the suicides that I have heard about or been involved with have involved alcohol or drugs - people deciding to do things in the middle of the night when they are off their faces. Problems that, under the influence of often depressing self-medication, seem insoluble, pushes them to take drastic action. It is also an act of ultimate self-isolation.
I read here of the people who tell me that they live in total and constant pain (I am assuming from the context that this is a mental/spiritual pain). That must make life very difficult. But most suicides are not by those people. They are long-term (like forever) responses to short-term problems. Waiting until the next morning and then talking to someone would have made all the difference to so many of the suicides I know about. It wouldn't have solved all the problems at once - but, like the campaign for bullied gay teens it would have started to impart the message to them that "things get better".
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To which Herrick responded:
My partner told me in November that she wanted me to move out. I now have a nearby flat, but I am one of the unhappiest people in the world. I know my two oldest children( 22 and 25) would have some understanding of the feelings that led to my suicide( if I did it).
One reason that I haven"t done it is that I have 12 year old and I don't want to complicate her life anymore than it is.
[ 05. January 2012, 08:10: Message edited by: PeteC ]
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Even more so than I was before
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Presumably this means people who out with guns and end the lives of unarmed family members, and/or random members of the public, before taking their own life aren't in the habit of seeking help before hand.
I don't buy the idea that these ideas are dreamt up in a split second of madness.
I do. Because I know the level of rage that can lead to doing things one regrets almost immediately. And if a gun just happens to be right there, well...
Yes, I can all too easily accept the idea that these things can be the result of a split second of madness. God help us all.
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
I don't know that it's all that possible to differentiate between "suicide attempts" and "suicide gestures" because there's a grey area between the two. There are some people who make endless "attempts" which are obviously not serious (like the girl at my school who used to do things like drink Calpol in the toilets and slit her wrists in the middle of school trips). But there are also a lot of people who seem to take the risk of dying where it could go either way: they don't take an overdose and then immediately phone someone. They may or may not be found in time. There's an attraction, I think, to "putting it in the hands of fate."
A friend of mine suffered from extremely severe depression and was sectioned many times. She made an unbelievable number of suicide attemps, most of which were serious (and only stopped because her support structure meant that the police would go and find her if nobody had heard from her for a few hours). She also did a lot of risky behaviour like wandering around on railway lines and on cliff tops. In that situation, she was torn between life and death but at the mercy of intrusive and distressing thoughts: a bit like the compulsions of OCD I think. I have known these kinds of intrusive thoughts myself when I've been depressed (though I've never been as severely affected) and can understand how you could give in to the compulsion to "just take the damn pills" without knowing if you want to die or not. Indeed, I've been there and done that. Depression fucks with your thinking in ways that are difficult to grasp, I think, if you haven't been there. It screws up every element of your perception of yourself and the world and how logic works. Depressed people simply do not think in the same way as mentally healthy people. In moments of clarity you can want to live and get better; then the fog descends again and the self-destructive thoughts return. Part of the wonder of anti-depressants is that they can sometimes hold the crazy thinking at bay for long enough to do something about the other shit you find yourself mired in.
I also hate to say this, but with psychiatric services being overstretched it can be a lot easier to get help if you've done something like take an overdose, than if you are merely very tempted to take an overdose. It shouldn't be that way. Someone who has the balls to get themselves to a hospital and say "help me, I want to die" should not be given lesser treatment than someone who basically says the same thing in actions rather than words, but it does happen.
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon
But there are also a lot of people who seem to take the risk of dying where it could go either way: they don't take an overdose and then immediately phone someone. They may or may not be found in time. There's an attraction, I think, to "putting it in the hands of fate."
I've listened to people like that to. That's what we used to call 'suicidal behavior'. It was very difficult to carry on a conversation with those people because there was no common ground. If someone phoned and said they planned to kill themselves, there was a basis for discussion. The caller and the Samaritan both agreed that it made a difference whether the caller lived or died. There was disagreement about what the caller should do, but there was an agreement that the topic called for a decision. The people who engaged in suicidal behavior didn't think that a decision was called for. Most of these people die eventually as a result of their extreme reckless behavior.
Some of these people I listened to used to drive down narrow, winding country roads at ninety miles an hour. I am now acutely aware of the fact that some of the drivers I encounter on the roads may not care whether they live or die, and they haven't considered the possibility that others might value their lives.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Another thing I should have made clear. Suicide gestures are made solely to have an effect on other people. They are manipulative.
Suicides, attempted suicides, and suicidal behavior are not manipulative. The people who do them are not thinking of the effect on other people.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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chive
Ship's nude
# 208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Another thing I should have made clear. Suicide gestures are made solely to have an effect on other people. They are manipulative.
Moo
Judgemental bitch
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'Edward was the kind of man who thought there was no such thing as a lesbian, just a woman who hadn't done one-to-one Bible study with him.' Catherine Fox, Love to the Lost
Posts: 3542 | From: the cupboard under the stairs | Registered: May 2001
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Liopleurodon
Mighty sea creature
# 4836
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Posted
I think in reality the kind of half-hearted suicide attempt that is usually marked out as a "gesture" is unlikely to be 100% an attempt to manipulate. That may be an element but it's not as clearcut as that. It's probably going to be done by someone whose thinking has become disordered/impaired as a result of depression. There is often a very powerful and compulsive urge to self-harm which may look like "manipulation" - particularly if the person regularly ends up in hospital having gone too far with it. It may seem like the only kind of cry for help that will be understood and recognised. There may be uncertainty and confusion about whether the person wants to die. They may feel unable to ask for help in a conventional sense. There's a lot of stuff that can go on here.
The threat of suicide absolutely can be used in a manipulative and reprehensible way. But actually going as far as indulging in self-harm to the point of risking death is not something that people generally do unless there are some serious problems there. I suppose I'm thinking that terms like "selfish" and "manipulative", whether or not they're accurate in some abstract sense, aren't helpful. They're accusations which depressed and suicidal people are terrified of. The temptation to do these things is part of the disordered thinking that depression involves - it doesn't make you a bad person.
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Our God is an awesome God. Much better than that ridiculous God that Desert Bluffs has. - Welcome to Night Vale
Posts: 1921 | From: Lurking under the ship | Registered: Aug 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Simply because something is desperate does not mean it cannot also be manipulative. This is not necessarily a black and white issue.
Problem lies when we put things into an abstract statement.
Action = a, person = b, result = x
A bit of what seems to be happening here is some are hearing
Action = a, person = a, result. = a. I do not think this has been the intention.
Let me put it into the concrete.
What Jen did was horrible. But I refuse to think she was a horrible person. I think it very sad she felt driven to this, I cry for her daily.
.
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Yes, I can all too easily accept the idea that these things can be the result of a split second of madness. God help us all.
I'm just going by what I heard on the UK news re the Dunblane shooting of infants in 96. Some time before the incident the perpetrator Thomas Hamilton was asking a friend, (a retired policeman), 'how long does it takes the police to respond to an armed incident'.
I believe this revealed he had intentions to use his guns in the almost unforgivable in which he did.
Then in the summer of 2010 we learnt that Derek Bird had made a strange comment to someone that he would 'put Cumbria in the news the same as Dunblane'. In hindsight this was a clear statement of intent.
It may suit our sensibilities to think these atrocities occur a moment of madness, but there is evidence that says otherwise. OK , people who carry out this kind of action may be suicides, but they are also merciless killers before they become so.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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