Thread: Jennifer (from Hell) Board: Glory / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by comet (# 10353) on
:
I've tried writing something "fitting" for either AS or Purgatory. I can't. not until I get this part out.
I’m profoundly fucked up about this. it intersects with my life on a couple of levels, not just knowing Jen. I’m going back and forth between disbelief, sadness and pure anger.
the anger comes from a few places. First of all, I’ve been strongly affected by suicide in my life. it’s practically a fucking theme. my grandmother, my cousin, my uncle, my HS boyfriend, and many friends. 12 at last count. I guess 13 now. God damn it. Suicide is selfish. I see where it comes, from; I know where it comes from, I’ve been on the cusp - to the point of hospitalization once when I was much younger and more prone to think that would somehow fix everything. It doesn’t. It just screws over everyone who cares for you. who you care for. and it is a “catchy” disease - suicides go in clusters. so it kills others, too.
More anger - my uncle - long ago, 93? 94? was murdered on valentines day in a very similar event. his girlfriend’s ex husband showed up, shot my uncle, his GF, her 12 year old son (the son of the shooter) and himself. in that case, they all died. motherfucker. I have no sympathy for such an act.
further anger - and it’s deep and personal. Jen was privy to the details of my divorce and the evil things my ex husband did. something very few people on the Ship know about. But Jen did. long ago, I told her I wanted to kill him. Wanted him dead with all of my being. I wanted to do it. I planned it out.
She talked me out of it. Jen - herself - is responsible for that motherfucker still being alive. and I’m eternally thankful. She was fucking right. She had all of the right reasons. She got me out of my temporary psychosis and thinking like a real human who loves her babies more than she hates the evil slimy bastard who hurt them. Jen did this.
so HOW DARE SHE do what she denied me. How dare she try to kill the motherfucker who wronged her when she made me stick around; made me be a god damned grown up and accept what had happened and make the best of it. How dare she tell me that my vengeful fantasy would do wrong, and then chose the same herself? WHAT THE FUCK?!?
I’m so messed up about this I can’t bloody think straight.
And yet - she was still right. when she was talking to me - but wrong as fuck when she made her own decision. Why the fuck didn’t she give me the chance to give her that lecture right back? she SO DESERVED IT. I want to scream at her.
How dare you. you bitch. you fucking bitch. How could you do this? How could you take the shortcut after telling me I don’t get the shortcut? What about YOUR babies, woman? I don’t care how old they are, they didn’t need this from you. I can’t even imagine what they’re dealing with. You don’t do this to your babies. YOU TOLD ME THAT.
My mother was in her 20’s when her mother took the chickenshit route and offed herself with anti-psychotics and a case of cheapass sherry. Took nobody with her, officially. unofficially she took the hearts of her two daughters, her mother, her sister. Denied me ever knowing my grandmother. fed me the guilt of knowing my birth was the impetus of her death. 38 years later my mom is still messed up about that. You did those babies no favors, Jennifer.
I hate you and I love you and I miss you and I’m raging and crying and I can’t fucking deal with this.
YOU FUCKING BITCH I love you how dare you do this.
and me? What a fucking loser friend I am to not push harder. to not follow up on the unanswered emails. to not force her to talk to me. to not be the aggressive cow she once was and make her talk. I’m not exactly the shining star in this. God damn it. damn it damn it.
how the fuck does one properly scream in print?
[edited title to show this thread was started in Hell]
[ 04. February 2012, 06:14: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on
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Yup. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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comet ![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
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Good. A Hell thread.
I never knew Jennifer, but the news of her death and the manner of it has affected me deeply for several reasons. One of them is the times I have come close to self destruction.
I said to another shipmate a while back that I had never come across any books that dealt honestly with our disappointment with God. More than that: everything I have ever read or heard about the feeling of being betrayed by God has always stopped short of where I often fell I am with him. And if something stops short of my experience, it sure as hell stops short of the experience of plenty of other people. The fact is, some of us are disappointed by God every day of our lives. Let down by him. Betrayed by him. Ultimately abandoned by him. And don't anybody fucking tell me that isn't true.
There is one foul, sadistic thought that's of great consolation to me this morning. (Yeah, I'm a petty cruel bastard: Nice Adeodatus is Not In To Callers today.) It's the medieval idea that every Mass is a re-presentation of Calvary. Today, I like that idea. Because it means that the next time I take that bread into my hands and say those words, I can pour into it all the anger and betrayal of myself and my congregation and my friends. And I can put that sick fucker back on the Cross where he belongs.
Posted by comet (# 10353) on
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don't pray for me, Boogie. bring her back so I can shake her til her teeth rattle.
Adeodatus - damn fucking straight.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by comet:
how the fuck does one properly scream in print?
No idea, but that was a bloody good effort.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
There is one foul, sadistic thought that's of great consolation to me this morning. (Yeah, I'm a petty cruel bastard: Nice Adeodatus is Not In To Callers today.) It's the medieval idea that every Mass is a re-presentation of Calvary. Today, I like that idea. Because it means that the next time I take that bread into my hands and say those words, I can pour into it all the anger and betrayal of myself and my congregation and my friends. And I can put that sick fucker back on the Cross where he belongs.
And recrucify the innocent fully human man that was killed as a by product of pure human evil.
Didn't they teach you trinitarian theology at clergy school asshole?
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
There is one foul, sadistic thought that's of great consolation to me this morning. (Yeah, I'm a petty cruel bastard: Nice Adeodatus is Not In To Callers today.) It's the medieval idea that every Mass is a re-presentation of Calvary. Today, I like that idea. Because it means that the next time I take that bread into my hands and say those words, I can pour into it all the anger and betrayal of myself and my congregation and my friends. And I can put that sick fucker back on the Cross where he belongs.
And recrucify the innocent fully human man that was killed as a by product of pure human evil.
Yes. Your point?
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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You really are sick if you wish that on any human being.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You really are sick if you wish that on any human being.
Christ on a pointy stick, but you have no concept of reaching people in distress do you ? How the hell do you expect to offer pastoral care ?
Posted by comet (# 10353) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You really are sick if you wish that on any human being.
you'll never fucking get it, will you, you utterly brick-ignorant cow? life must be so gentle to you.
the thing is - IT DIDN'T WORK. this "god" idiot sent the one to suffer for all, so that we could find our way out of this stupid fucking quagmire and it was all a waste. We're useless. we're more fucked up than we ever were. it did NOTHING. nothing but give people a handy excuse, a little cause to hang the hat of their evil on. redemption? forgiveness? what a load of bullshit. We'll never get it. we'll never figure it out.
hang all of the innocents of all the world on every cross you can slap together with every 2x4 handy and we'll never get it fucking right. it's not about being sick, it's about facing the motherfucking facts. it was all a waste.
and meanwhile, we'll just keep pounding those nails. and feeling fucking righteous about it. drawing our little lines and designating our little in- and out-crowds and letting people suffer and die every fucking day while we bitch about bloody traffic or difficult relatives at christmas dinner because WE WERE NEVER WORTH IT.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You really are sick if you wish that on any human being.
Christ on a pointy stick, but you have no concept of reaching people in distress do you ? How the hell do you expect to offer pastoral care ?
Oh yeah. I keep forgetting Hell is all about pastoral care.
Oh and Comet?
The reason she couldn't listen to her own advice but you could?
She was weak and you were strong.
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You really are sick if you wish that on any human being.
I told you I was, didn't I?
Right here, right now, you know what I would do if I had a time machine? I would go to Calvary. And I would wait for that moment, that instant, when he realised that Sky Daddy wasn't going to come and save him. When he didn't scream "Have you forsaken me?" but "Why have you forsaken me?" When he felt, like a knife in his guts, the knowledge of what God does to his creation every second of every day: he leaves it to sink in the shit.
And that would be good. It would be good to hear God's own Son scream those words. Because for some of us those are the words we scream at God every single day of our miserable fucking lives.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You really are sick if you wish that on any human being.
Christ on a pointy stick, but you have no concept of reaching people in distress do you ? How the hell do you expect to offer pastoral care ?
Oh yeah. I keep forgetting Hell is all about pastoral care.
It's certainly not about being a dickhead for the sake of it. If you don't believe what you posted - don't troll. If you do believe it, and don't see why people would express such thoughts at a time like this, then you have a major problem.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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Oh I dunno Double think.
Angry people?
Let's take it out on Evensong.
It'll make em feel better.
Hell, I'm offering a public service. I should start charging.
And yeah.....I do believe what I'm posting.
[ 28. December 2011, 11:15: Message edited by: Evensong ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Right here, right now, you know what I would do if I had a time machine? I would go to Calvary. And I would wait for that moment, that instant, when he realised that Sky Daddy wasn't going to come and save him. When he didn't scream "Have you forsaken me?" but "Why have you forsaken me?" When he felt, like a knife in his guts, the knowledge of what God does to his creation every second of every day: he leaves it to sink in the shit.
And that would be good. It would be good to hear God's own Son scream those words. Because for some of us those are the words we scream at God every single day of our miserable fucking lives.
I like you a lot.
Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on
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Evensong's a vulture Think. Not a word in All Saints, not a word in Purgatory, but if she smells carrion in Hell, she swoops.
And always gets it wrong.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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That'll be five bucks PeteC
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
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I think this thread would benefit from not being all about you, again. So if you have nothing useful to add - why not fuck off and do something else. Hell, its Christmas, you could go visit your inlaws.
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
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Yeah. Fair point.
I will withdraw.
Even tho I had a bone to pick with Adeodatus's post about Christ on the cross and comet's notion that it was all for naught.
Disagree on both points.
But will withdraw.
[ 28. December 2011, 11:23: Message edited by: Evensong ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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[redacted due to crossposts]
[ 28. December 2011, 11:23: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Yeah. Fair point.
I will withdraw.
Thankyou, and I mean that sincerely.
Posted by Niteowl2 (# 15841) on
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Having been through the depths of depression in the past I can understand someone killing themselves. I can even understand wanting to kill evil slime that hurt you and your kids. What I can't understand is taking innocent people with you. If there is one thing to be thankful for in this utterly hideous situation it's that the child and mother didn't die. I don't know what the circumstances of the marriage were, but I do hope the ex-husband does some serious contemplating of his part in what happened. It takes a lot to push a woman this far over the edge - to the point of shooting a child along with the adults.
Comet, be easier on yourself. Even if you'd persisted and had the tough lecture with Jennifer, it probably wouldn't have changed the outcome. She knew your story and gave the lecture to you herself. And my prayers will be with everyone involved in this horror story.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
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I absolutely will not accept that we can just blame the victim like that. Reverse the genders and would we say that ?
[ETA if I understand various internet sources correctly, ex-husband was hit three times, his new partner was shot in the face, the child was shot in the hand. I don't believe she meant to hit the child.]
[ 28. December 2011, 11:39: Message edited by: Think² ]
Posted by Chesterbelloc (# 3128) on
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You know, I was with Evensong on this one, I must say: you can definitely take the sick, vicious, stick-it-to-the-(Son-of-)Man rant too far. And yes, I'm looking at you, Fr Adeodatus. But you don't want to hear that, so I make the comment and immediately withdraw too.
But I also think the OP is a grade A, five-star gem of a Hell post. I hear you, sister.
Posted by Niteowl2 (# 15841) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
I absolutely will not accept that we can just blame the victim like that. Reverse the genders and would we say that ?
Which post were you referring to. I wasn't blaming the victim - if you're referring to ex. I'm glad he isn't dead as well, though I didn't say it. I was thinking more of the child as the truly innocent party and just how far over the edge Jennifer had to be to do that. I can't imagine the pain and darkness that would provoke that. There is no excuse for the taking of another life or trying to take it, even though circumstances and the hurt/damage resulting may make one wish you could kill the bastard who caused it. There are no winners/losers or non victims in this - just a lot of very hurt people and the loss of a person who did much for others.
ETA: Just read your edit. Jennifer had to know the child could be killed when she fired multiple shots. Especially when some of those bullets were aimed at mom. She was just too deep in the black hole to think it through or possibly even care by that point. I feel for her as much as the victims, possibly in this situation where I wouldn't in others because this was a person I respected here and from what I've read others post about her who knew her IRL, including comet's excellent hell post.
[ 28. December 2011, 11:50: Message edited by: Niteowl2 ]
Posted by comet (# 10353) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
I absolutely will not accept that we can just blame the victim like that. Reverse the genders and would we say that ?
I don't think it's gender related, but otherwise I agree with you. Jen's husband is responsible for his own actions. Jen's response was not a fitting retribution at all. he has no guilt from the harm she did. that was all her.
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
You know, I was with Evensong on this one, I must say: you can definitely take the sick, vicious, stick-it-to-the-(Son-of-)Man rant too far. And yes, I'm looking at you, Fr Adeodatus. But you don't want to hear that, so I make the comment and immediately withdraw too.
Oh good. I can retaliate in peace.
Later.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
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Thankyou Double think for posting what I would have. Niteowl's blaming of the victim is horrible.
Fuck me, comet ... you're honesty and emotion is amazing. No words of comfort here, just admiration for a level of honesty I don't think I am capable of.
Adeodatus - wow. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
If God cannot handle emotion like that, what is the point of him?
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Niteowl2:
I was thinking more of the child as the truly innocent party
I feel you are implying that the adults who were shot were partly responsible for the fact they were attacked. And I do not accept that. I wouldn't accept it as a reasonable statement in any other domestic violence situation either. Responsibility for violence rests with the person who carries it out - if they have mental capacity at that time - not those harmed by it.
[ 28. December 2011, 11:54: Message edited by: Think² ]
Posted by comet (# 10353) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Niteowl2:
There is no excuse for the taking of another life or trying to take it, even though circumstances and the hurt/damage resulting may make one wish you could kill the bastard who caused it.
I'm sorry but I disagree. some people need to be stopped from hurting others. sometimes the government gets so caught up in it's own loopholes it doesn't do it.
However, sometimes the person needing to be made dead is not worth the collateral damage of other lives irreversibly damaged. So you suck it up and move on.
quote:
... and from what I've read others post about her who knew her IRL, including comet's excellent hell post.
for the record, I never met Jen in person - unless phone calls and email count.
Posted by Suze (# 5639) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Niteowl2:
I don't know what the circumstances of the marriage were, but I do hope the ex-husband does some serious contemplating of his part in what happened. It takes a lot to push a woman this far over the edge - to the point of shooting a child along with the adults.
That does sound "blame the victim" - he has no reason to contemplate his part in what happened, he's been the victim of a terrible attack.
I don't know what drives someone to such desparate measures but don't think recognising jlg's actions as awful diminishes in any way the love and care people here had for her or suggests that she is unworthy of that love. To do less minimises the impact on the other people caught up in this, at least one of whom loved her at some point, and is disrespectful of the person she was, light and dark togeher.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
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In response to Nightowl's edit above:
I think many of us do feel for jlg, because we knew her in some way or another. She was probably reckless of the child's safety, but I think it is important that she probably was not actively trying to kill that child. Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part - and trying to see a light in the darkness.
It is different that we know jlg in some sense. Probably behoves us in future to remember this when read about some other shooter - and not write them off as some one-dimensional evil being. Its so easy to do when you have no connection.
But, and I think it does have to be said, although there was that of God in jlg (as there is in everyone) she did something that was evil. In a true sense of that word. Probably because she was desperate and despairing. Maybe because she was drunk too. But that doesn't negate all the good she did in her life, or put her beyond the reach of the grace of God.
And we can not simply assume that her ex must have done something terrible to her. We don't know that.
[Crossposted again]
[ 28. December 2011, 12:05: Message edited by: Think² ]
Posted by Niteowl2 (# 15841) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
quote:
Originally posted by Niteowl2:
and from what I've read others post about her who knew her IRL, including comet's excellent hell post.
for the record, I never met Jen in person - unless phone calls and email count.
It does judging by how personal those phone calls and emails were. I've got a couple of valuable friends from years online that I've never met, but through phone and email messages we're solid friends - and gut level honest with each other, including the bad and the ugly, which counts far more than a face to face meeting without the honesty. Unfortunately, there may be times when someone is in so much pain they disappear - figuratively and at times literally.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
Probably behoves us in future to remember this when read about some other shooter - and not write them off as some one-dimensional evil being. Its so easy to do when you have no connection.
Thanks for this. This debate is weird for me because it's the other way round from what I'm used to. I know personally so many inmates who are just that for so many other people and (for whom the facts as reported by the media are often inaccurate).
Posted by Flausa (# 3466) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Right here, right now, you know what I would do if I had a time machine? I would go to Calvary. And I would wait for that moment, that instant, when he realised that Sky Daddy wasn't going to come and save him. When he didn't scream "Have you forsaken me?" but "Why have you forsaken me?" When he felt, like a knife in his guts, the knowledge of what God does to his creation every second of every day: he leaves it to sink in the shit.
And that would be good. It would be good to hear God's own Son scream those words. Because for some of us those are the words we scream at God every single day of our miserable fucking lives.
I've been struggling to make sense of it all in light of Advent and Christmas. To recognize that in spite of the incarnation, shit still exists. The darkness is still with us. To hear that God made flesh hung in the shit and screamed and railed against it ... and died ... and rose again ... and still the shit exists. We grapple against the shit and still it exists. And Jen took a way out of the shit that created more shit. It makes absolutely no fucking sense.
Posted by Niteowl2 (# 15841) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
quote:
Originally posted by Niteowl2: I was thinking more of the child as the truly innocent party
I feel you are implying that the adults who were shot were partly responsible for the fact they were attacked. And I do not accept that. I wouldn't accept it as a reasonable statement in any other domestic violence situation either. Responsibility for violence rests with the person who carries it out - if they have mental capacity at that time - not those harmed by it. [/qb]
As I said, no one deserves being shot or killed. I don't know the state of the marriage, was possibly influence by the OP concerning "bastards needing killing for hurting the kids". I can relate to that. That and the shooter being who she was in her years here on SoF - on and off the ship. And I was angry hearing about the child who was absolutely innocent by any stretch of the imagination. On that count I'll cut my losses and quit commenting on the ex. As I also said, they're all victims in this. As well as everyone related to Jennifer and who knew her. Ain't no victims/non victims, regardless how awful jlg's actions were.
[ 28. December 2011, 12:24: Message edited by: Niteowl2 ]
Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
quote:
Originally posted by Niteowl2:
I was thinking more of the child as the truly innocent party
I feel you are implying that the adults who were shot were partly responsible for the fact they were attacked. And I do not accept that. I wouldn't accept it as a reasonable statement in any other domestic violence situation either. Responsibility for violence rests with the person who carries it out - if they have mental capacity at that time - not those harmed by it.
But then it's possible that someone can torment someone (verbally, or using physical abuse, or both) to the extent of wearing down the person's mental health until it snaps, and in that case I'd say they have some responsibility for that.
I have no idea what happened in this particular case, but I do think that in general, responsibility is more complicated than what you are saying. For instance, if I were to bully someone to the extent that they became more and more mentally fragile and snapped and killed someone, then I think in God's eyes I would be partly responsible. Even if the person killed was me.
And in a situation where we don't know, I think it's natural to wonder what part the other people played, and be aware of a wider context that we don't know about. But I agree we can't assume anything.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
:
....tiptoeing in with theological stuff likely of very little consequence right now.....
I don't think of humanity as redeemed anymore. I see it more as a process, a spark in stubble that started a while ago, but the entire field is not on fire yet. For some reason that little divine spark in some people seems to disappear, get quashed, burns out or something. I don't know why.
I can only say I'm sorry and I'll pray. I know thats cold comfort, but I think it's all I can do.
............tiptoeing straight out again.
Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
how the fuck does one properly scream in print?
It depends on who you are screaming at.
If you are screaming at jlg what's the point? Of course you want to. But you can't it's too late.
If you want to scream at God, go ahead. I have got to the point of attempting suicide, but I couldn't do it, I was too weak to go through with it. So I screamed at God till I was red in the face. Then screamed till I was too exhausted to stand. Then screamed some more until I could cry no more. Then you whimper at God.
Does God answer? Yes.
Not with silence, but by sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting back "Na na na na na na I'm not listening."
Yes God does forsake us when we need him most.
I posted on the all saints thread two words, "Oh Fuck." I posted it in AS because that's where prayers belong. But of all the threads this is the one that has made me cry.
So here I am, admitting to my vulnerability in Hell. Big target sign on my own back. Come on you bastards, give it your best shot.
Posted by comet (# 10353) on
:
wrote all the above while closing up the bar at work (well, not the OP. wrote it earlier and made myself sit on it for 10 hours) and then drove home.
damn near ate shit TWICE as two separate bullwinkles decided to tapdance their way into the road, too. bastards.
anyway, one thought kept going through my head as I drove, and I think it's important: never believe for an instant that you have not had an impact. We all have. every damned one of us have impacted others, both here and in our other lives. We're not one of us alone in this world.
When things are shitty, we need to remember that.
[ 28. December 2011, 12:36: Message edited by: comet ]
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
:
this place needs a like button
Posted by Scarlet (# 1738) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
the thing is - IT DIDN'T WORK. this "god" idiot sent the one to suffer for all, so that we could find our way out of this stupid fucking quagmire and it was all a waste. We're useless. we're more fucked up than we ever were. it did NOTHING. nothing but give people a handy excuse, a little cause to hang the hat of their evil on. redemption? forgiveness? what a load of bullshit. We'll never get it. we'll never figure it out.
hang all of the innocents of all the world on every cross you can slap together with every 2x4 handy and we'll never get it fucking right. it's not about being sick, it's about facing the motherfucking facts. it was all a waste.
and meanwhile, we'll just keep pounding those nails. and feeling fucking righteous about it. drawing our little lines and designating our little in- and out-crowds and letting people suffer and die every fucking day while we bitch about bloody traffic or difficult relatives at christmas dinner because WE WERE NEVER WORTH IT.
This.
God supposedly created my fucked up self in his image and I'm trapped here to suffer. I suffer every day and it will only increase. Yet I'm forbidden to die, even though I was not asked to be given life. A life of flawed DNA and nothing but cruelty.
Yet I must wait on god to "take me home" after I linger in torment til he's satisfied. And if Jesus' death on the cross did nothing to heal and fix any of us, how can I believe there is a heaven awaiting me, if I let god kill me in his time? I already attempted suicide once and was almost out of here - but no, god had to decide I hadn't endured enough and yank me back.
Posted by Sine Nomine (# 66) on
:
Re: the OP. It is always far easier to give good advice to other people than to take appropriate action oneself. You really ought to keep your house cleaner. I however can't seem to process one envelope on that huge pile of mail on the dining room table. That is such a truism I can't even get upset about it.
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.
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on
:
So, I’m sitting in a hotel in Chicago eating my “all you can eat buffet” breakfast chatting to this guy who is on the same conference as me. He’s a quiet guy and I had not really had a chance to talk to him. Plus he’s a charismatic and everyone knows you should stay away from them mad bastards.
But he’s cool, funny self deprecating, honest and there is something about him, our talk starts to go deep. I end up quizzing him about this thing that happens to me now and then (my thinking is that as a charismatic he’s used to God talking to him whereas I am decidedly not). The thing is in my darkest moments I swear I can hear God asking “Have you have had enough yet?”
God seems to be saying “I will stop, just say you have had enough.” My charismatic friend looks at me perplexed and I sit there thinking; huh see you can’t help me either. Then this most odd smile crosses his face and he said “What He says to me at those times is “So you are leaving me too.”
AtB, Pyx_e
Posted by Silver Faux (# 8783) on
:
I don't really care if my saying this pisses off everyone who reads it.
I can believe those here who admit to having dealt with thoughts of suicide; you are not alone in that.
I can believe that some of you have longed to kill that person by whom you have felt trapped, bullied, betrayed, perhaps even destroyed yet left to still walk around.
You are not alone in that either.
BUT - having watched a 14-year-old friend die in front of me, after being shot in the stomach with a twelve-gauge shotgun in the hands of his deranged stepbrother, I will scream this:
If you have ever had any of those feelings, and you have any fucking guns in your home, stop what you are doing right now. This very second.
Pick up the telephone and call the police.
Ask them to come to your home, pick up your guns, take them away, and destroy them.
Don't wait to think it through. Just fucking well do it. Right now.
Sucide wounds more than the one who takes their own life.
Yeah, I think we get that.
Suicide by gun gives too many opportunities to take others along.
Get the fucking guns out of your home and out of your reach, and never own another gun in your lifetime, if you have even an inkling that you might use it to kill yourself or another person.
Do it right fucking now.
If you aren't certain whether or not it is you I am speaking to now - yes it fucking well is.
Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on
:
Speaking of collateral damage -- how ironic is it that today is Holy Innocents Day, when the Church cries what might be perceived by some as crocodile tears -- "The babies! The babies!"-- over what the Gospel narrative implies is an example of God's collateral damage in service to his own chosen story line.
Posted by sabine (# 3861) on
:
This is not easy stuff to deal with, and I don't think it helps to assess the measure of another Shipmates's reaction (to the event, the person or to God).
Grief is a complicated process and includes--among other things--a fair amount of anger with inner or outer screams.
Many of our so-called civilized societies no longer have an all-out public acceptance for the pain/anger/despair associated with death. So we are left to convention (rarely up to the task) and dark, private moments.
My brother committed suicide by alcohol in October. At times I wanted to be able to tear my hair, rip my clothing, and hiss all my pent up emotion.
Instead, a dear relative and I got into an horrible argument and are still not speaking.
Even though sometimes I think posting in Hell becomes a little game in itself, I'm really glad we have this board right now.
For many of us the Ship is so much more than a humorous website with a discussion board. It has a level of community that I think is rare--which makes Jennifer's actions and suicide extremely overwhelming.
sabine
[ 28. December 2011, 14:05: Message edited by: sabine ]
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
Evensong's a vulture Think. Not a word in All Saints, not a word in Purgatory, but if she smells carrion in Hell, she swoops.
[nothing to do with the OP and certainly not a defense of Evensnog's remark]
PeteC considers himself the Ship judge of Goodness and bases it on things like number of posts in All Saints vs posts in Hell. WTF?
Never once considering that posts in All Saints tend to center around people who are able to go to Meets, and people who feel liked and accepted enough here, to ask for support and prayer.
I can't speak for anyone else, but most of my ventures into the rarified arena of All Saints were usually slapped down immediately. For example, after all the thousands of posts on the AS United States threads, I ventured to ask a question there one time and was immediately told to go away by, who else?, then host PeteC of course, who, for years, kept All Saints an exclusive preserve of people and threads he, and he alone, deemed worthy.
I think it's much better now but I still don't have the All Saints habit and it's nothing to do with being a vulture. Mostly it's because I start at the top (Styx) and skim my way down. I'm usually caught up reading a thread in Purg or posting in Heaven or Hell long before I make it that far.
Number of posts in All Saints, indeed. I'll bet PeteC always volunteered to "take names" when the teacher was out of the room.
Posted by Kyzyl (# 374) on
:
I rarely post in general, and even more rarely in Hell, but what Adeodatus said...fuck yes.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
Eh. Sorry I picked this moment to air my long standing grievances against PeteC. I'm just now realising that "jennifer" is jlg and that this thread is turning into an important discussion about a subject close to me. (What Silver Faux said about guns time ten!)
Why in the world can't we have at least ten minutes to delete?
Posted by Sine Nomine (# 66) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by sabine:
This is not easy stuff to deal with, and I don't think it helps to assess the measure of another Shipmates's reaction (to the event, the person or to God).
For what it's worth I personally have done better once I learned (fairly recently unfortunately – but better late than never) that I am not always the star of the dramas going on around me. Sometimes I'm a bit player or even just an audience member. And when I can realize that and say "This isn't primarily about me" I generally manage to react more appropriately and moderately. Of course if it is 'primarily about me' then all bets are off.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
Evensong's a vulture Think. Not a word in All Saints, not a word in Purgatory, but if she smells carrion in Hell, she swoops.
[nothing to do with the OP and certainly not a defense of Evensnog's remark]
PeteC considers himself the Ship judge of Goodness and bases it on things like number of posts in All Saints vs posts in Hell. WTF?
Never once considering that posts in All Saints tend to center around people who are able to go to Meets, and people who feel liked and accepted enough here, to ask for support and prayer.
I can't speak for anyone else, but most of my ventures into the rarified arena of All Saints were usually slapped down immediately. For example, after all the thousands of posts on the AS United States threads, I ventured to ask a question there one time and was immediately told to go away by, who else?, then host PeteC of course, who, for years, kept All Saints an exclusive preserve of people and threads he, and he alone, deemed worthy.
I think it's much better now but I still don't have the All Saints habit and it's nothing to do with being a vulture. Mostly it's because I start at the top (Styx) and skim my way down. I'm usually caught up reading a thread in Purg or posting in Heaven or Hell long before I make it that far.
Number of posts in All Saints, indeed. I'll bet PeteC always volunteered to "take names" when the teacher was out of the room.
Might I suggest you call him to hell with a separate thread - if that's what you wish to do on this basis - I'd like to keep this thread to purpose if possible. I am sure you understand why.
Thanks,
Think²
Hellhost
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on
:
quote:
Why in the world can't we have at least ten minutes to delete?
A thought worthy of this thread in particular. Once it's done, it's done.
P
Posted by Jenn. (# 5239) on
:
Everyone keeps saying they have mixed feelings. I'm not sure I do. I'm angry. Angry that this shit happens. Angry that she did it. Angry for the child who saw all that and was caught up in the middle. Angry at alcoholics. Angry at people who think it's ok to have guns and alcohol in the same building. Angry.
But most of all, I'm angry at myself. Because I care about this. Because I'm upset at someone I never met, nor exchanged a memorable post with. Because I am involved in a community that I can't see and there is too much I don't know about each and every one of you to be able to trust anything posted here. Shit.
Posted by RooK (# 1852) on
:
I didn't start a thread in Hell because I instinctively knew there would be one. And because I knew some stupid fuckface would make it be - however briefly - about theology, and I'd feel protective enough to maul a bunch of posters.
So, this is better. Well said, comet. Well contributed Pyx_e and Silver Faux.
All Saints was good for saying how much I miss jlg, and how much I was affected by her. Purgatory let me face how much sense it doesn't make, despite having a semblance of grim logic plot-wise that let's me keep some sort of grip on the despair.
But here... here I can admit to a repugnant imp of smirking satisfaction deep within the cracks of me. It whispers confident understanding, "they broke a Hellion's heart, and that's what can happen." A stupid and ugly thought, but it's there. The imp nods along with the cumulative statement of Jennifer Gaines' last acts: an earth-rattling "FUCK. YOU."
Message received, Jen. Even though I suspect that it was only a maladaptive shred of you saying it.
Posted by Grits (# 4169) on
:
I hadn't been with Jennifer in a long time -- haven't really "been" with anyone here in a while, and I am sorry for that.
But I did know her at one time. She's spent the night in my home. We've spent several consecutive days together with others in tow. I never really felt anything the least bit abberant from her, although I am a bit naive and generally only see the best in others.
She probably would have described herself as "an old hippie", and I imagine she was a true pacifist. She just seemed like the type who would have blown off an erring partner, decided he wasn't worth wasting any energy on. I keep wondering if he did something that was just so heinous to her (and it would have to be more than an affair, I would think), or if she just allowed her state of mind to carry her into a state of rage, be it unjustified or not.
I think the description sounds like just a crazed moment of random shooting by someone who had probably never fired a gun before. But I'm not a speculator, and there really is no point in it. The point is that, even if we "know" someone, we rarely know their hearts, their minds.
Satan is strong because he knows our weaknesses, and our weaknesses are much easier to manipulate than our strengths. For whatever reasons, I guess Jen had just run out of strengths.
Posted by Organ Builder (# 12478) on
:
First, the easy part--thanks for opening this thread, Comet, and thanks for doing it in the manner you did. Thanks to SF, who has written some of the most heartfelt posts I've ever read (not just this one...) as well as some of the most annoying. Thanks to Pyx_e, for relating an incident in a manner that said just enough and not too much. I won't be that successful, I'm sure...
This was the second suicide I have faced this month--both people who at the best of times could only be classified as casual acquaintances. The problem is that each suicide brings up every suicide that has touched me in the past--the son of a choir member; Eddie, who had the most glorious tenor voice I have ever heard; David, who seemed to have everything in place (the most like Richard Cory, except that he didn't use a bullet).
I don't think so much about the selfishness anymore--perhaps because I'm older, I've buried my parents, and I've seen horrible deaths that were completely natural. In cases like David (the other from this month) or Jennifer, it is the sense of waste that comes over me--as well as the great wash of sadness that they could not feel how many people's lives they touched for the good.
I suspect we will never know the full details, but I know that the chemistry of the brain is an extremely delicate thing. My partner is diabetic, and there have been a number of low sugar episodes. He is literally "not there". The worst incident removed his power of speech (we had the EMTs in in the middle of the night). When the glucose drip started, I could tell the precise instant he "came back". Knowing the better aspects of her life, I would like to hope her manner of death was somehow caused by something similar.
Fortunately, it is not my place to judge her. Remembering that is actually a relief for me.
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
:
Thank you comet, and everyone who has posted so eloquently. My thoughts on this subject are confused, angry, raw and broken. Thank you for saying what I cannot.
Posted by BessHiggs (# 15176) on
:
Wow, just wow.
I have written and erased before posting quite a few times on this thread, trying to get my head around what exactly I feel about this.
As others have posted, I didn't really know jlg, other than looking forward to her posts. And for some reason beavers stick in my mind. She used to post about the beavers in the pond behind her house. Just typing this makes me teary eyes.
My mother tried multiple times to commit suicide. I personally found her twice, as a teen. Once I toted her naked blood covered body down two flights of stairs while she screamed at me that it was my fault and I should let her die. Once, I found her with razor blade in hand, black X marks on her body where the veins were closest to the surface and easiest to reach. That time I hit her until she dropped the blade, and while screaming obscenities at her, I basically hog-tied her, dragged her to my car and dumped her at the emergency room. The last time, I wasn't there when she was found, once again naked and bloody in the bathroom, but somehow, I still got blamed by my entire family for the incident. She survived, but my mommy didn't and I will never again trust her fully. I fucking hate suicides.
At the same time, I have black shadows that lurk in my soul that occasionally tell me that driving into a bridge abuttment or sticking a hose into my vehicles exhaust pipe would be the best thing for me and the world in general. Oddly enough, I am utterly convinced that I will live to be 89 years old and so believe that if I ever acted on these dark thoughts I would just fuck up and end up helpless and miserable until I reached that age. Completely, irrationally, bug-fuck crazy, but it keeps me keeping on. I do, however, "get" the dangerous allure of the idea of just not having to do this shit anymore, regardless of the pain and anger such a selfish act would leave behind.
I also have dark red monsters lurking within me, twisting and turning and festering with irrational anger, rage and hatred. I have vivid and oddly satisfying (although simultaneously horrifying) dreams of killing people. Not random people; its only ever my mother (ironic ain't it), my piece of shit wife-beating first husband, and my bio-father. Once, when I was in my teens I let loose that awful rage. There was a foot long gash in my bedroom door from the impact of the shovel I swung at my bio-father's head. I could claim mitigation - he was beating the ever-loving hell out of me at the time- but that doesn't take away my horror at myself. I know that monster is there. in some ways, I may even feed that monster; but since then, the chains have held, dear God, the chains have held.
All of this to say that perhaps we are all conflicted, fucked-up, damaged, angry, lost, searching, desperate souls, gliding through life hidden by the thin veneer of civilization and manners and religion, constantly battling what ever monsters and shadows fester deep inside. I hate like hell that Jennifer's demons finally slipped their chains. I hate like hell that I am crying for someone who did these terrible things - physically to herself and to others and in some small way meta-way to us. Mostly, though, I think I hate that I will never read more posts about the beaver pond.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
comet - I suspect that the difference between 35 and having to start over and 60 and having to start over means a much bigger pit of despair to climb out of. I've done the starting over twice and neither was easy, but 12 years on from the last time, the thought of having to do it again really chills me to the bone, and I've got a while to get to 60.
If I'd ended up in a wreck of a house which was so ruinous I'd ended up with pneumonia, which damn well hurts, and without any of my support networks because I'd moved away from all the voluntary work I'd been doing, I'm not sure I would have been safe near guns and anyone I could blame either.
Posted by 205 (# 206) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Silver Faux:
BUT - having watched a 14-year-old friend die in front of me, after being shot in the stomach with a twelve-gauge shotgun in the hands of his deranged stepbrother, I will scream this:
If you have ever had any of those feelings, and you have any fucking guns in your home, stop what you are doing right now. This very second.
Pick up the telephone and call the police.
Ask them to come to your home, pick up your guns, take them away, and destroy them.
Don't wait to think it through. Just fucking well do it. Right now.
Because you are a helpless human who cannot control yourself.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
And make sure they take the butter knives too.
Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on
:
Fuck you, too, 205.
Posted by Niteowl2 (# 15841) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 205:
quote:
Originally posted by Silver Faux:
BUT - having watched a 14-year-old friend die in front of me, after being shot in the stomach with a twelve-gauge shotgun in the hands of his deranged stepbrother, I will scream this:
If you have ever had any of those feelings, and you have any fucking guns in your home, stop what you are doing right now. This very second.
Pick up the telephone and call the police.
Ask them to come to your home, pick up your guns, take them away, and destroy them.
Don't wait to think it through. Just fucking well do it. Right now.
Because you are a helpless human who cannot control yourself.
And make sure they take the butter knives too.
I have spent this holiday season reading stories of people blowing away family members. Bad enough today there's one we know. This all comes with a report from the FBI today that there were a record number of guns sold during the Christmas shopping season. Some of the stories I've read aren't just about nut jobs or criminals, there have been stellar members of their community lose it for whatever reason - usually family disbanding. We don't need the guns - especially in the hands of an increasingly stressed and rage filled society.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Apocalypso:
Fuck you, too, 205.
I had a whole speech prepared, but that says it best.
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 205:
quote:
Originally posted by Silver Faux:
BUT - having watched a 14-year-old friend die in front of me, after being shot in the stomach with a twelve-gauge shotgun in the hands of his deranged stepbrother, I will scream this:
If you have ever had any of those feelings, and you have any fucking guns in your home, stop what you are doing right now. This very second.
Pick up the telephone and call the police.
Ask them to come to your home, pick up your guns, take them away, and destroy them.
Don't wait to think it through. Just fucking well do it. Right now.
Because you are a helpless human who cannot control yourself.
And make sure they take the butter knives too.
Wow. You really are a drooling moron. I kind of suspected that, but this takes the cake.
Posted by Sine Nomine (# 66) on
:
I guess I'm missing something here too because I thought SF's post was sort of stupid since he seemed to be saying "If you are deranged (his word) call the police right now and give them your gun." which didn't seem very likely somehow. What am I missing that you all seem to be getting?
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
:
His actual words are:
quote:
If you have ever had any of those feelings...
The problem is that all too often people get into a state where they can't control themselves and having a weapon puts everyone at risk.
My mother was a depressive and suicidal. It never meant that she was always in the throes of deep depression; she had her ups and downs. In her more lucid moments she was quite capable of making rational decisions. But when those low points came, she wasn't rational. Fortunately she never harmed anyone.
I read SF point to be a very smart one. Mental illness is like any chronic disease. There are good days and bad days. Use the good days to plan for the bad ones.
Posted by Sine Nomine (# 66) on
:
That makes sense.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by BessHiggs:
Wow, just wow...
Thank you for that.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Grits:
She probably would have described herself as "an old hippie", and I imagine she was a true pacifist. She just seemed like the type who would have blown off an erring partner, decided he wasn't worth wasting any energy on.
I think we're often most vulnerable to those weaknesses we think we don't have. Part of the tragi-comedy of human existence. Often profoundly unfunny, as now.
And Sine is spot on about it being easier to tell others how to behave. Sometimes we don't need to take the plank out of our own eyes to see clearly enough to see the speck of dust in a friend. You just have to hope someone's around to help you with your plank. It's one of the most difficult things to get right about a community - striking a balance between challenging others and interfering / controlling / oppressing. Perhaps there is no 'right balance'.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
(Crosspost)
My thing was, if you, or I, or someone like Ruth (say) had been inclined to express such a thought, we probably would have got a very different response.
I'm sure Faux is just as fucked up by all this as the rest of us. Why single him out for an emotionally charged comment? Scroll up, there's a lot of them!
[ 28. December 2011, 20:11: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on
:
It's not often I agree wholeheartedly with Silver Faux, but this is one of them.
205, fuck you.
For good measure, Silver Faux may remember John Robarts, former Premier of Ontario. He became depressed after a series of strokes and shot himself with a shotgun given to him by the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party as a retirement gift.
Silver Faux is displaying admirable common sense. 205 is an idiot.
Posted by Darllenwr (# 14520) on
:
205, I guess you are a blithering idiot.
I know that there is a perspective that says that, as we are entitled to carry guns, we should do so.
Idiocy.
Lethal weapons seem to hold a fascination for certain types. Part of that fascination seems to be the need to try the weapon to see if it genuinely is lethal. Life is a hell of a lot easier for everybody if nobody is in a position to put their curiosity to the test.
If jlg hadn't been in a postion to get hold of a gun, there is a fair chance that none of us would be expressing opinions on this thread now. Taking one thing with another, that seems like a "good thing" to me. I support Silver Faux's comments - and dismiss yours as stupidity.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
If there are any more fuckwits who want to come and shit on this thread, can I suggest that you take your excrement and insert it down your fucking throat.
For some people, this is painful. Probably those with hearts still beating in their bodies.
Posted by Molopata The Rebel (# 9933) on
:
What SF said.
My wife's cousin committed suicide with a military weapon, A close student friend tried to. In boot camp I saw co-recruits pretty much go into ecstasy the first time they got to fire their first salvo with an assault weapon.
Guns change people, alcohol changes people. Mix the two, add depression, and you open the gates of hell.
Guns create new possibilities, and alcohol gives these possibilities apparent scope. Yet many of us live in societies which will not wean themselves from glorifying alcohol and sanctioning gun ownership. Before pointing a finger at Jennifer, we should at least ponder this.
Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
don't pray for me, Boogie. bring her back so I can shake her til her teeth rattle.
Adeodatus - damn fucking straight.
We can't bring her back. We can pray for you. And I don't give a fuck about how much you don't our prayers you've got them. I don't usually mention that I am praying for you people out there but I am. I suck at the public pray thing and think it speaks of self righteousness. So there you've made a sanctimonious shit out of me.
In the last ten years I have had students with diagnosed with diseases that will kill them. I have had students who have died during the school year. I have had a former youth that I was a minister to commit suicide his senior year. I have felt the anger and taken it out on people(some on this thread). I do not regret lashing out. I regret not saying thank you to those who were in there way being supportive of me. By the way Kelly thank you for some past kindness that I ignored and shouldn't have.
Posted by Tubifex Maximus (# 4874) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Flausa:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Right here, right now, you know what I would do if I had a time machine? I would go to Calvary. And I would wait for that moment, that instant, when he realised that Sky Daddy wasn't going to come and save him. When he didn't scream "Have you forsaken me?" but "Why have you forsaken me?" When he felt, like a knife in his guts, the knowledge of what God does to his creation every second of every day: he leaves it to sink in the shit.
And that would be good. It would be good to hear God's own Son scream those words. Because for some of us those are the words we scream at God every single day of our miserable fucking lives.
I've been struggling to make sense of it all in light of Advent and Christmas. To recognize that in spite of the incarnation, shit still exists. The darkness is still with us. To hear that God made flesh hung in the shit and screamed and railed against it ... and died ... and rose again ... and still the shit exists. We grapple against the shit and still it exists. And Jen took a way out of the shit that created more shit. It makes absolutely no fucking sense.
This is all very good. I guess I've come to the conclusion that the road to the cross doesn't do something for us so we don't have to; the road to the cross shows us how to do it. Jesus dying shows us how to deal with the anguish of living.
Sometimes we make that work, for ourselves and others,
Sometimes we screw ourselves us,
Sometimes we screw others up,
Sometimes we do both.
Dunno, somehow this helps me to cope.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
?
Obviously it didn't strain our relationship, because I don't know what you mean. If anything I said helped you, I am glad. You're a good guy.
(that was to rugasaw)
[ 28. December 2011, 22:05: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Niteowl2:
... This all comes with a report from the FBI today that there were a record number of guns sold during the Christmas shopping season. ....
The economy is tanking and people are losing their jobs and homes. Yeah, sure, having a gun will really make all that easier to cope with. ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
OliviaG
Posted by Og: Thread Killer (# 3200) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by 205:
quote:
Originally posted by Silver Faux:
BUT - having watched a 14-year-old friend die in front of me, after being shot in the stomach with a twelve-gauge shotgun in the hands of his deranged stepbrother, I will scream this:
If you have ever had any of those feelings, and you have any fucking guns in your home, stop what you are doing right now. This very second.
Pick up the telephone and call the police.
Ask them to come to your home, pick up your guns, take them away, and destroy them.
Don't wait to think it through. Just fucking well do it. Right now.
Because you are a helpless human who cannot control yourself.
And make sure they take the butter knives too.
Your god given right to have your fucking guns leads to people with fucked minds killing others.
Enjoy your target practice. And when some dumb fuck kills somebody because they had access, pray it ain't somebody you know.
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rugasaw:
...We can't bring her back. We can pray for you. And I don't give a fuck about how much you don't our prayers you've got them. ...
Thank you, rugasaw.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Flausa:
I've been struggling to make sense of it all in light of Advent and Christmas. To recognize that in spite of the incarnation, shit still exists. The darkness is still with us. To hear that God made flesh hung in the shit and screamed and railed against it ... and died ... and rose again ... and still the shit exists. We grapple against the shit and still it exists. And Jen took a way out of the shit that created more shit. It makes absolutely no fucking sense.
You're right. It makes no sense.
Still---although the darkness is still with us, so is the light. Right after the Virginia Tech shootings, signs were put up all over our church saying, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." We couldn't miss the fact that the darkness was there; it was good to be reminded that the light was also.
Up until that time I had thought that slogans were rather silly. I came to realize that when you can't think clearly, a slogan is a great thing to have, as long as it points you in the right direction. There was light in the darkness. The sympathetic support that everyone gave each other. There is a Baptist church right across the street from the campus. Students would wander in there and conduct prayer services. The pastor was glad to make the building available, and like all the clergy in town he made himself available. Everyone knew that there was a huge informal support system available, as well as the official system which the university set up.
I think we've got the same kind of support system going now. The darkness is very obvious, but the light does shine.
Moo
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
Ross, can I just take a moment to say how much I really, really like your sig today?
Posted by Amazing Grace (# 95) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Apocalypso:
Fuck you, too, 205.
I had a whole speech prepared, but that says it best.
That works for me.
Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on
:
I think we all want so badly to make sense of this whole thing.
There is no sense to it. You cannot make sense of shooting a gun at three people and then shooting a gun at your own head.
What was jen thinking? Who in Heavens name knows? We sure as hell don't.
jen was human, like the rest of us. She had her wonderful moments and, I assume, wanted to think of herself as a good person. And yet, she did something gawd awful and then ended her life.
Will we profit by imagining what her motives were, or ascribing an intent to not intentionally harm a child?
Think about it. No, is the answer.
It is just bad. Really bad, and nothing anyone says can make it better.
David did a lot of good things and then his humanity made him cross several lines that should never be crossed.
jen did a lot of good things and then her humanity made her cross a line that should never be crossed.
Do you see a pattern here?
We are all, at the very heart of things, fuck ups. Give us a chance and we will undo all the good we have managed to do in life.
Why in God's name do you think we need Grace?
I wish I had a penny for every time I have under performed my own expectations about myself.
So. jen did great and wonderful things and made other people strong. Then she did something awful. Welcome to the Human Race.
Rant. Please rant. Do not try to work it out internally. What happened is just too big for that.
Then pray that you, and God, will find the strength together to make you better than you are. I know I have to.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ToujoursDan:
I read SF point to be a very smart one. Mental illness is like any chronic disease. There are good days and bad days. Use the good days to plan for the bad ones.
Oh, and 205? Go fuck yourself with a rusty farm implement, asshole.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
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{{{{{{{Comet}}}}}}}, good rant.
Many good posts, especially from Adeodatus and Silver Faux.
Posted by RooK (# 1852) on
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quote:
Originally posted by 205:
Because you are a helpless human who cannot control yourself.
So you, and everyone who might have access to your weapons, have a life so safe and untroubled that there's no possibility of any of you suffering a cognition-impairing event?
Smell the sulphur, boy, and realize that this is the wrong thread for your argument. Not just because you're wrong, but because you're too stupid to survive the mauling you'll get here and now. Save it for another time and place, when we have a possibility of giving a fuck about that particular philosophical masturbation.
Posted by Wesley J (# 6075) on
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quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
[...] you're too stupid to survive the mauling you'll get here and now. [...]
Is he gonna get shot? Who's got a camera?
Posted by comet (# 10353) on
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Mauling = way slower and more fun than shooting.
Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
David did a lot of good things and then his humanity made him cross several lines that should never be crossed.
jen did a lot of good things and then her humanity made her cross a line that should never be crossed.
Thank you for that.
Posted by Patdys (# 9397) on
:
For the last two days I have had 'footprints in the sand' running through my head.
My precious child. During those periods of trials and tribulations, when you see only one set or footprints, it was then I was off hiding the fucking butter knives.
I will miss you jlg. Thankyou Tortuf, Comet et al.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Patdys:
My precious child. During those periods of trials and tribulations, when you see only one set or footprints, it was then I was off hiding the fucking butter knives.
I love that Patdys. In this house we do have butter knives but I've found that one discreetly placed paring knife takes care of all my carving needs and blunt nosed paper scissors have replaced the big heavy pair I once had. Belts are a particular problem and should be chosen wisely. Take a walk through with an eye for quick destruction and you might find all sorts of things you can easily do without, bathrobes with long ties, old pain pills, cleaning stuff under the sink that isn't environmentally friendly anyway.
Because, "quick," is the operative word. Sure anyone can find some money and the car keys, drive downtown, find a store that's open, decide on which hunting knife or rope to buy (decisions are really hard at this point,) or wait three days for a gun permit, but those actions take organized thinking and time -- time to sober up, encounter a friend, fall down the steps and cry it out, or just get exhausted and sleep.
Posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege (# 10651) on
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quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
So you, and everyone who might have access to your weapons, have a life so safe and untroubled that there's no possibility of any of you suffering a cognition-impairing event?
My first father-in-law survived a gun accident as a child. His father had a shotgun in a garden shed, if I understood right, and playing with a neighborhood friend, friend found shotgun. Future F-I-L, having been taught it's *not* a toy, tried to take it away, put it back. And weapon went off. Killed neighbor kid. Derailed FFIL's life and made him a black-sheep forever.
It's harder to have a tragic butter-knife accident. And, in a world where kids learn to "shoot" adversaries in games, etc., making it that bit harder to translate into real-life just makes sense.
I don't know if the weapon Jen used was her own or his or ?? But wouldn't it have been great if no such weapon was at hand when she melted down?
In the meantime, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm shocked - and we're out of sync with the world, which knew back in mid-September.
Go ahead and direct the blowtorch of rage at the cross-- he can take it.
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
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A day passes, and red anger becomes grey moroseness. Don't get me wrong. If I was at Calvary, I'd still be asking the soldiers to let me have a go with the hammer. But over on the Purgatory thread, Moth wrote: quote:
there are no monsters
and that's true. Not only was Jennifer not a monster herself, there also weren't any living in her mind or her soul or whatever. There were only wounds and scars and hurt. Those are the things that make us do fearful things.
But if there aren't any monsters, then there aren't any monster-slaying heroes either. Human life isn't about jousting with dragons: it's about tilting at windmills. Both triumph and true tragedy are vanishingly rare, and just as rare is a life that attains anything other than plodding banality. Death, however it comes, is the most banal aspect of all.
People have said they believe God will be compassionate with Jennifer. Where was his compassion in the moments before her death? They've said he will be gracious. Where was his grace when she needed it? Today I would rather believe that God views us with utter detachment and indifference. The alternative - that there is a monster in the world, and its name is God, is too frightening.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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I am never sure about hiding the sharp knives. If you are determined, you will find something. And sometimes, you can do more damage with the wrong tools.
I think dealing with the people is probably an easier route. And not letting people suffer in silence.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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quote:
...and just as rare is a life that attains anything other than plodding banality....
In a universe this vast - and likely desolate - every life is rare and every person a little miracle
Posted by Silver Faux (# 8783) on
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I really tried hard not to do this, but if it will get one gun out of one house, I will give you a glimpse of the demons and black dogs I have seen face-to-face.
My friend died on the kitchen floor of his home, at 14 years old. Today, he would, could, have been 60 years old.
It was December 17, 1965, just about 3 pm; he had just watched a tv show that eneded at 3.
There was a Christmas tree in the backgound, and I managed to corral his younger sisters and get them out of the room as another friend turned him over, and he quickly died in his arms.
The teenager who had held the gun got into his father's pickup truck and drove around the country roads for two days until he ran out of gas and money to buy gas; as far as we know, he ate nothing during that time. The kid had been in my class in school, but was pretty much unteachable.
Today, maybe meds would have been successfully subscribed.
I was a pallbearer; my friend was in a cheap coffin covered with grey felt.
He spent the winter in a mausoleum, then his father dug a grave, and he lays in a spot unmarked and unvisited.
There were guns in every farmhouse along our rural road, including several in our home.
I just wish there had been no guns in the farmhouse across the road.
My friend would be 60 years old now, with grandchildren, if the gun had not been there that day.
For 46 years, I have had flashbacks; I can see the moment life left my friend's body, remember the colour of shirt he wore, see the huge pool of blood when they turned him over to try to revive him.
That night, a woman from the local United Chruch Women visited the home, and asked if there was anything anyone could do.
They had her wipe up the 2 quarts or so of blood, still there in a huge pool on the kitchen floor. With a Christmas tree in the background.
So now I will ask you again, more politely this time; if you have ever had thoughts of suicide or violence, and there is a gun or guns in your home, please, please, do something about it.
Right now. While you are in a frame of mind that allows you to.
Posted by Silver Faux (# 8783) on
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Sorry for the typo; this correction is probably not important to anyone but me, but the date my friend died was December 27th, 1965; I wrote December 17th in error.
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on
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Someone very dear to me was admitted to a psychiatric ward specifically to keep her away from the sharp knives. She found a box of matches, shut herself into a toilet cubicle and set fire to herself. So I agree with Schroedingers Cat that people who are determined will find something.
However, she survived; four months in the burns unit, skin grafts, permanent disfigurement BUT since then she has married a wonderful man and has had children. Tomorrow night we are having dinner together. She is the kindest, most loving person you could hope to meet.
A gun wouldn't have given her that second chance.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
A gun wouldn't have given her that second chance.
I don't like this whole discussion. I knew a man who shot himself in the head and survived. He damaged his optic nerve so severely that he was legally blind, and he destroyed his olfactory nerve. He had no sense of smell whatever. Otherwise, he was completely normal. If someone is desperately unhappy, everything with which they might injure themselves must be kept away from them--guns, sharp instruments, matches, ropes, poisons, etc. A friend who worked in a psychiatric hospital told me of a patient who killed himself by tying the sheet of his bed to the bedframe and throwing himself off the end of the bed.
Preventing suicide is not simple.
Moo
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Preventing suicide is not simple.
Moo
I took the thrust of the discussion to be as much about preventing murder.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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I have restrained myself from posting on either of the threads.
Not because I don't care. I have said my prayers for Jennifer and entrusted her to God's mercy and protection and (in spite of Pete C) I dont have to post here to do that.
Like Moo I dislike this thread. To me it says a whole lot more about those who post than it does about Jennifer. And I am alternately dismayed, and confused and sometimes angry with what I read.
I am not one for effing even if this is Hell.
But I cannot understand the picture oif God which has emerged. An inquest woulld likely conclude that Jennifer acted as she did while the balance of her mind was disturbed. There are reasons and mitigations and explanations for that - but God had nowt to do with it.
Adeotus complains where is God's mercy, compassion and grace? Does he/she not understand that compassion, mercy and grace are not forced upon us willy nilly? They are gift. And gifts have to be accepted. No good blaming God for the non-acceptance of what He offers. And maybe Jennifer was in no fit state of mind to accept anything.
I shall no doubt be mauled for sounding cold and hard-hearted. So be it. But if the world is as it is described in this thread then it is a terrible place to inhabit. And its inhabitants no less.
And its God is non-worshipable.
I dont believe that for one minute. And the one post that really offered Christian hope was a posting of Psalm 130.
With the Lord there is mercy and with Him is plentiful redemption.
Posted by Organ Builder (# 12478) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
I shall no doubt be mauled for sounding cold and hard-hearted. So be it. But if the world is as it is described in this thread then it is a terrible place to inhabit. And its inhabitants no less.
And its God is non-worshipable.
No doubt someone will be by to maul you shortly--but I'm not going to.
I would just point out that you have described the world as many people experience it, no matter how hard they try to find and worship God. The Church has never really had a good answer for those who suffer most terribly from depression--in part, I think, because those offering the attempted answers have no idea of what that suffering is like.
The worst I will say is that I think you have missed the complexity of this thread.
Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on
:
And the complexity of the humans posting on it, and their feelings about events like these.
I don't believe in God, at least most of the time. I harbor no quarrels with those who do; what the hell do I know, after all?
Damn all: that's what I know.
As it happens, it turns out that jlg lived perhaps an hour's drive from where I sit right now. What effort did I make to get to know her? None. No, I sat, and sit, cowering behind my little computer screen, blandly/blindly accepting the public face offered by the private jlg on these boards, secure and safe from any of the messy inconveniences and mystifying uncertainties and demands involved in reaching out, getting to know someone, dealing with the very complexities we're all struggling to cope with here. Would it have made any difference if I had? Almost certainly not.
But I don't know that either, do I?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
To me it says a whole lot more about those who post than it does about Jennifer.
Every post everyone makes says something about themselves.
If one looks at the premise of a loving god as layed out by Christianity, rage and anger at him from such events is natural. Right or wrong is another issue, I am not judging anyone on this thread. Save perhaps one.
The pain on this thread tears me to bits. If I believed in your god, I'd be angry with him too. As it is, I am angry most with myself.
Posted by Thyme (# 12360) on
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Adeodatus, thank you for your posts on this thread. Through them I have finally managed to come to an understanding of the atonement that makes sense to me. For that I am truly grateful.
I have posted more about jlg and alcoholism on the purgatory thread, in part as a response to those who think she was weak and lacking in self control.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
God had nowt to do with it.
Yes. That's the fucking problem. There is so much pain, anger, hurt, despair and emptiness in the world, and God just sits there and says "nowt to do with me".
Fucking bastard.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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So what do you expect God to do?
Intervene to forcibly prevent people doing stupid things?
Over-ride our choices and freedom of action?
Instead of bitching tell us exactly what you expect God to do. And that will tell us what kind of a God you believe in ( or dont believe as the case may be)
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Over-ride our choices and freedom of action?
Yes. Free Will isn't worth the price we have to pay.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There is so much pain, anger, hurt, despair and emptiness in the world, and God just sits there and says "nowt to do with me".
Not sure that sending His only Son to be executed in one of the cruelest methods devised by man is saying "nowt to do with me"
Although I agree it does feel like this on many occasions, and this sounds very much like such an occasion.
*Shit shouldn't happen*. Yet it does.
[ETA code, T² Hellhost]
[ 29. December 2011, 17:10: Message edited by: Think² ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Not sure that sending His only Son to be executed in one of the cruelest methods devised by man is saying "nowt to do with me"
That was over two thousand years ago, and it didn't work anyway.
Besides, would He accept the same argument from any of us? Is "I gave a few quid to charity a couple of decades ago, so I really don't have to do anything else for the poor ever again" a valid argument?
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
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There is a central problem in theology with the idea that an all loving, all powerful & all knowing God created a system in which he had to torture his own son to death to achieve something he was capable of doing anyway. To no demonstrable effect in the world today.
Likewise he could have created a system in which we had free will without evil entering into the world - just because limited beings as we are can't imagine it doesn't mean it could not have been done by an omnipotent super-being.
I yet to come across a satifactory explanation for this. But oddly, it hasn't turned me atheist - I don't know why.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
:
So Marvin reckons that free will isnt worth the price we have to pay.
So maybe he can advocate the alternative.
A race of automatons programmed to do only what is good.
In which case ditch all talk about right and good and bad and evil and courage and self-sacrifice. None of it would apply.
What Rook's amanuensis needs is a decent theology of the Incarnation and the Cross and the theodicy that goes with it.
Or else a Martian programme for life on earth.
Posted by wilson (# 37) on
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Maybe this is just what life is. Maybe it wouldn't be so complicated if we didn't try to explain it all/blame it all on some Higher Power.
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
I have restrained myself from posting on either of the threads.
Too bad your restraint didn't extend to this one.
quote:
Like Moo I dislike this thread.
Neither of you is compelled to read it. So just go the fuck away and do something else.
quote:
To me it says a whole lot more about those who post than it does about Jennifer.
No shit. So what?
quote:
And I am alternately dismayed, and confused and sometimes angry with what I read.
Then go read some pablum you can stomach.
quote:
I am not one for effing even if this is Hell.
No one cares.
quote:
But I cannot understand the picture oif God which has emerged.
Then maybe you should just shut the fuck up and think about it a long time, then come back with some questions instead of some blowhard preaching, asshole.
quote:
God had nowt to do with it.
The problem with your theology is that it simultaneously claims that God had nothing to do with Jen's horrible actions AND that God is almighty, omnipresent, omniscient and loving. Now God may very well be all those things, but if God is, then God is implicated in every fucking thing that happens.
Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on
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It's not as simple as what you're saying, shamwari.
In reality, if a parent sees their child about to do something which will have a terrible impact on that child's life - kill the child, disable the child, kill several children, etc. - the parent will do whatever it takes to stop the child. Screw free will - there are times when the parent takes control, for the greater good.
I am not saying that this automatically means God is cruel or doesn't care - but it does mean that there are things that don't make sense to us, and the neat little answer 'But hey, he gives us free will in his great love, so that explains everything' really doesn't explain everything at all.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
:
La la land is most definitely located on another planet.
And its inhabitants make assumptions about the theology of others which are caricatures at best.
[ 29. December 2011, 17:34: Message edited by: shamwari ]
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Niteowl2:
... We don't need the guns - especially in the hands of an increasingly stressed and rage filled society.
That's one reason why I have the guns.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by wilson:
Maybe this is just what life is. Maybe it wouldn't be so complicated if we didn't try to explain it all/blame it all on some Higher Power.
Bullshit. There are plenty of godless people busy fucking lives up. It is apparently part and parcel of being human.
Posted by wilson (# 37) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
quote:
Originally posted by wilson:
Maybe this is just what life is. Maybe it wouldn't be so complicated if we didn't try to explain it all/blame it all on some Higher Power.
Bullshit. There are plenty of godless people busy fucking lives up. It is apparently part and parcel of being human.
I didn't say it would be better. I just think that saying there's this all-powerful all-good Person looking out for us all makes it harder to explain this shit.
The rest of us still got to live with it - which ain't easy - but at least we don't have to square that particular circle.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
There is a central problem in theology with the idea that an all loving, all powerful & all knowing God created a system in which he had to torture his own son to death to achieve something he was capable of doing anyway. To no demonstrable effect in the world today.
Likewise he could have created a system in which we had free will without evil entering into the world - just because limited beings as we are can't imagine it doesn't mean it could not have been done by an omnipotent super-being.
I don't think G*d is all-powerful in the sense we usually mean it. I don't believe S/He has choice. There was no choice to create a world without evil; there was no choice to create Man without free will - that is why G*d identifies with the powerless in this world - they also have no choice. But then I don't believe God created a system in which Jesus "had" to be tortured to death.
But loved Patdys's comment on G*d hiding the fucking butter knives.
Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on
:
Hear, hear: If there's a God, and humans are created in Its image, then we're all running around like shoebox full of gerbils, hiding the fucking butter knives and congratulating ourselves on a job well done.
And what Ruth said.
QLib, what does all-powerful mean, then?
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
La la land is most definitely located on another planet.
It's clearly nowhere near the abyss of misunderstanding where you reside. Thank God.
quote:
And its inhabitants make assumptions about the theology of others which are caricatures at best.
Assumptions based on your asinine posts. So you had it coming.
Look, God's an ass, has been for a long time. You want to preach happy horseshit, fine, but don't expect people here to just take it.
[ 29. December 2011, 18:09: Message edited by: RuthW ]
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
:
Marvin assures us that God is a F****** bastard.
Ruth assures us that "God is an ass and has been for a long time"
And I say that those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.
You are welcome in the asylum.
Meanwhile I have a job to do in the real world. I propose to get on with it.
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
What's the alternative, shamwari? If there is a god, and if he is not the monster he appears to be, tell us what he is like. Tell us how your idea of god is consistent with this world full of pain and suffering. From where I am sitting, it is evident that your god either doesn't care, doesn't know, cannot act, or doesn't exist.
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on
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Or else He's sweating, crying, suffering and dying right along with us.
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on
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The world is not full of pain and suffering.
AtB Pyx_e.
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
Jennifer's was.
Posted by Organ Builder (# 12478) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Jennifer's was.
There are a lot of people on board who knew Jennifer better than I did, Scot, and you are probably one of them.
I hesitate to believe, however, that she would want her whole world defined by the aspects that overwhelmed her in the end.
Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on
:
Shamwari (and Evensong if you are still reading this thread)
A wise man once said that there is a time and a place for everything. When people are expressing deep pain and anguish, it is neither the time nor the place for theological discussion on the nature of God.
Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on
:
If there's a god, that god does not understand us.
If there's a god, that god learned nothing, or at least nothing of any value, from incarnating among us, or from suffering and dying at our ignorant behest.
Unless of course, it learned vengeance: perhaps that's it. God, from living and suffering among us and being murdered by us, conceived the desire for vengeance: to torture us in payback for our equivalent failure to recognize, understand, or appreciate god.
Let's call it a standoff.
[ 29. December 2011, 19:37: Message edited by: Apocalypso ]
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
I hesitate to believe, however, that she would want her whole world defined by the aspects that overwhelmed her in the end.
When one is in that place, the pain and suffering become the whole of the world. If god is there too, sweating, etc. as Janine suggests, then he's either no use or part of the problem.
Shamwari PMed me a book recommendation rather than answering here. Equally useful under fire as his god.
[ 29. December 2011, 19:41: Message edited by: Scot ]
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
When people are expressing deep pain and anguish, it is neither the time nor the place for theological discussion on the nature of God.
Deep pain and anguish is the birthplace of many people's theology. If they don't want it to be the subject of discussion, they shouldn't post here.
Posted by Grits (# 4169) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Jennifer's was.
Was it? At what point did it become so? It wasn't always, to be sure -- so what happened? And how? God didn't put that first drink in her hand, nor did He give her the gun.
There's no doubt people's views of God are quite different, especially when the "blame game" is played. Why is everyone so much like Job's wife? "Curse God and die." I am so intrigued by life, both the good and the bad, that I can't imagine ever becoming so disillusioned or hopeless or helpless. I have no plans on surrendering to Satan OR to God for that matter. It is strictly a partnership, and I can (and do, unfortunately) chose either/or. But being an optimist/realist, I most often choose God to team with, because of hope.
Job's the man, IMHO. So matter-of-fact, so resigned, and yet -- it works. How CAN we be so willing to accept God's goodness, and yet be so bitter when the bad comes, as well? God never promises an easy life; merely a little extra moxie to deal with it.
I guess it just makes me feel a little more powerful and pretty fearless. Life is a challenge to be faced every day. I still say Dumbledore had it right: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." When something happens like this with Jen, it's a shame when that last choice becomes who we are. Let's not let that happen here.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
There is a central problem in theology with the idea that an all loving, all powerful & all knowing God created a system in which he had to torture his own son to death to achieve something he was capable of doing anyway. To no demonstrable effect in the world today.
I yet to come across a satisfactory explanation for this. But oddly, it hasn't turned me atheist - I don't know why.
quote:
That's me too.
We are curious beings and when something awful happens we seem compelled to try and make sense of it using all available resources.
I often ponder the possibility that Christian practice does more harm than good. But I guess it's no more feasible to ban it than it is for me to drop it.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
Shamwari (and Evensong if you are still reading this thread)
A wise man once said that there is a time and a place for everything. When people are expressing deep pain and anguish, it is neither the time nor the place for theological discussion on the nature of God.
Yes, I agree - I don't thnk it's appropriate to engage further on this here.
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Jennifer's was.
Demonstrably not.
Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
:
I will heed the recommendation and refrain from any further discussion on the nature of God in relation to this kind of issue.
But I am bound to say that to separate what we believe about God without reference to RL is to compartmentalise things in what I think is a totally unchristian way. Either God is related (and therefore relevant) to all that happens or He is totally irrelevant.
enuff said.
[ 29. December 2011, 20:09: Message edited by: shamwari ]
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Janine:
Or else He's sweating, crying, suffering and dying right along with us.
I think that is my understanding of Jurgen Moltmanns interpretation of the cross, and it is the only one that helps me at all.
Jennifers death is shit. But it is part of the world we live in ( which is very full of pain, suffering, and fuck-knows what else ). The God I believe in is alongside me - us - in this, so not unconcerned, but to make it different would be to remake the world.
I don't expect this to satisfy most people. But I still retain a belief in God, despite the fact that a beautiful person like Jennifer could not cope with this world. I don;t claim it makes sense to anyone else.
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Grits:
Life is a challenge to be faced every day. I still say Dumbledore had it right: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." When something happens like this with Jen, it's a shame when that last choice becomes who we are. Let's not let that happen here.
I completely agree with this. It is our choices. Jen made some really bad ones at the end, and it cost her. I'm disappointed in her and now this will always be her final statement.
That sucks, but it's real. That's life. I can deal with it.
What I won't sit still for is a bunch of twaddle about how some loving, omnipotent being was standing right beside Jen, suffering along with her, but chose not to intervene in any way. That's not love. That's not power. That's either a lie or a monster.
Jen didn't believe in such a thing, either.
Posted by Organ Builder (# 12478) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Grits:
When something happens like this with Jen, it's a shame when that last choice becomes who we are. Let's not let that happen here.
This was the point I was trying to make. I'm not surprised Grits has said it better.
Jen had a lot of years when her problems did NOT overwhelm her--for whatever reasons. She had one day when they did.
I'm actually not particularly interested in either blaming or defending God--sometimes I can believe in God, sometimes I can't. Living my own life is complex enough without trying to figure out someone else's. I do think Jennifer's death shows that most anyone can "snap". If that happens to be me someday, I would hope that my friends (at least) could try to see my life in its totality.
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Jennifer's was.
Demonstrably not.
I am speaking, not of all space and time, but of her personal reality at that place and that time.
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on
:
And I apologise for the blunt nature of my last two posts. With a degree of Irony; I have just spent a cold hour outside the house of a very ill man while the police and locksmith forced entry because his family had not heard from him since christmas day. He was passed out on the floor, again. In his world of pain he is surrounded by people who are hurting but also still trying, still hopeful, still willing to risk love.
I think about the nurse who will care tonight for the little girl who was shot. I wonder if she prayed before she came to work and another shift of broken people, I wonder if she found strength somewhere? God knows I need some, and Gods knows often I find it. Sometimes in this forsaken spot.
My badly made point was that in this world where there is much pain, there is much hope. The world is full of pain .............. and hope.
Pyx_e
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
I do not disagree with you, Pyx_e.
Posted by Silver Faux (# 8783) on
:
I have been present at a church with memorial plagues to the war dead, one for each of two brothers.
One died in action at 18 years of age, the other, at 20.
They were the sons of the minister and his wife.
How did God allow millions of very young people to march off and kill each other?
If you watched your teenaged son or daughter take up arms and go to fight a foreign war, would it help or hinder your faith?
Is it a sign of faith, faithfulness, or insanity that these plages hang in a church?
Where was God when millions of beautiful people, whom we would probably consider to be children if we met them on the street, blew one another to smithereens in hopes of surviving for one more day?
Do you find comfort or abhorrence in your faith during wartime?
[ 29. December 2011, 20:36: Message edited by: Silver Faux ]
Posted by 205 (# 206) on
:
FWIW, my approach to SF has been permanently skewed by his (presumably latent somewhere) 'How to be a successful troll' (title paraphrase from memory) thread; I thought if anyone here could take a jab, it was him.
If I thought wrong, my bad.
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
Smell the sulphur, boy, and realize that this is the wrong thread for your argument. Not just because you're wrong, but because you're too stupid to survive the mauling you'll get here and now. Save it for another time and place, when we have a possibility of giving a fuck about that particular philosophical masturbation.
When I have a bit more time soon I'll revisit my point in a Purg thread.
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.
Posted by Silver Faux (# 8783) on
:
My apology for mis-spelling plaques as plagues, but...
Posted by wilson (# 37) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Grits:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Jennifer's was.
Was it? At what point did it become so? It wasn't always, to be sure -- so what happened? And how? God didn't put that first drink in her hand, nor did He give her the gun.
And he didn't take either from her hand either, and if he's omnipotent then the question of Why not? is very relevant.
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
I do not disagree with you, Pyx_e.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
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.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by wilson:
I didn't say it would be better.
And I didn't say you did.
quote:
Originally posted by wilson: I just think that saying there's this all-powerful all-good Person looking out for us all makes it harder to explain this shit.
The rest of us still got to live with it - which ain't easy - but at least we don't have to square that particular circle.
As for explanation, if there is no God then you are correct, it does make it easier to explain. The answer is buried in the mind - somewhere between misfiring neurons and chemical imbalances. As a non believer you have perhaps located the source of the problem.
For the believers amongst suffering remains a burning problem. However, I do think that beside this mystery rests the promise of hope.
As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child I do not see the face of God, but the face of His enemy. It is not a faith that would necessarily satisfy Ivan Karamazov, but neither is it one that his arguments can defeat: for it has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. We can rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that He will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, He will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes—and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and He that sits upon the throne will say, “Behold, I make all things new.”
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
What's the alternative, shamwari? If there is a god, and if he is not the monster he appears to be, tell us what he is like. Tell us how your idea of god is consistent with this world full of pain and suffering. From where I am sitting, it is evident that your god either doesn't care, doesn't know, cannot act, or doesn't exist.
The other alternative is that he is doing something about it. You might not buy it but this option is, at least to my mind, the primary message of the NT.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
To me it says a whole lot more about those who post than it does about Jennifer.
I doubt very much that Comet or any of the other people who have posted here are doing so to learn or disseminate information about Jennifer. In other words, no shit.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Over-ride our choices and freedom of action?
Yes. Free Will isn't worth the price we have to pay.
I can respect this position very much. I think God must think otherwise, but I don't know what She's got in mind that makes it so. I guess that's faith. Mine waxes and wanes like the moon, but is never so lovely.
quote:
Originally posted by Think²:
Likewise he could have created a system in which we had free will without evil entering into the world - just because limited beings as we are can't imagine it doesn't mean it could not have been done by an omnipotent super-being.
I can't see how we can say he could have done that, if we can't imagine how. Freewill is meaningless if there aren't at least 2 things to choose between.
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
Meanwhile I have a job to do in the real world. I propose to get on with it.
Oh, good! First thing you've said that I like. Bye.
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
A wise man once said that there is a time and a place for everything. When people are expressing deep pain and anguish, it is neither the time nor the place for theological discussion on the nature of God.
To be fair, shamwari didn't start that. What it isn't the time for, is self-righteous, my-theodicy-is-better-than-your-theodicy scolding.
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
I will heed the recommendation and refrain from any further discussion on the nature of God in relation to this kind of issue.
Dang, you came back. What you need to stop doing is preening your superior vision of God, and scolding us for not sharing it.
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.
Nice try.
Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on
:
Apropos of nothing at all, and in the absence of a god to be mad at, I find I'm mad at Jennifer.
Was there really nobody she could call? Was there really nobody she could go to? Was there really no step she could take that would have stuck a spoke into the wheel of this disaster?
Trust me, I know this is not reasonable. I am not reasonable. I am pissed off.
Years ago, in the first week of my first internship, I was stuck on the night desk at a mental health clinic, answering phones.
A client called, demanded Therapist X. I called, per routine, Dr. XYZ. Dr. X said, that's all right, she does that.
Client called again. "I need Dr. X." Again I relayed the call. Again Dr. X said not to worry, "She's like that."
This went on for a couple of hours. Did the client ever say anything about an emergency, a crisis, a change in status? No. Did Dr. X ever call her back? No. Why would he? There was no reason to suppose anything unusual was afoot.
Client had a gun. Client blew her lower jaw off with it. She survived. But she's "not like that" any more.
If Client had only said a word, groaned, sobbed, something . . . but she didn't. All she ever did was ask for Dr. X.
WHY?????????
Posted by Molopata The Rebel (# 9933) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
When one is in that place, the pain and suffering become the whole of the world. If god is there too, sweating, etc. as Janine suggests, then he's either no use or part of the problem
But I wonder, without pain, can there be joy? Without wrong, would there be right? Without death, would we ever have lived? In other words, could God take these things from us and yet sustain our existence, our being, which ultimately emerges from how we make choices in an untidy universe far greater than we could ever understand?
Perhaps He has grounded our experience of existence by creating the entities we call evil. Perhaps this is He vehicle to give us what it means to be human, free and made in His image. Maybe He could have given us a more potent existence by providing greater, more terrible pitfalls, but instead chose to give us a state of being which, on the whole, is bearable. Maybe this is the expression of His Love.
But of course, I don't know. This is only speculative. As Grits and Pyx_e have wisely pointed out, there remains only hope. Hope that God is truly loving AND omnipotent.
Posted by Jahlove (# 10290) on
:
a little unfair, maybe, Apocalypso - I have worked on a mental health phone line and mostly, the callers have just needed someone to talk to - however, if they don't say they are In Crisis how can you tell? Also, as I'm sure you know, services of all sorts are overstretched (esp. MH, which is Cinderella's least glamorous country cousin).
[ 29. December 2011, 23:27: Message edited by: Jahlove ]
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Molopata The Rebel:
But I wonder, without pain, can there be joy? Without wrong, would there be right? Without death, would we ever have lived? In other words, could God take these things from us and yet sustain our existence, our being, which ultimately emerges from how we make choices in an untidy universe far greater than we could ever understand?
Then you think that there will be pain and suffering in the after life - whatever your view of it is?
Posted by Molopata The Rebel (# 9933) on
:
Frankly, I don't know. Scripture would suggest not. However, I do wonder how many of the positive aspects of our existence I mentioned are going to be kept up. Maybe the afterlife will be a lot less freer. IMO, this topic alone would merit a Purg-thread.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Apocalypso:
Apropos of nothing at all, and in the absence of a god to be mad at, I find I'm mad at Jennifer.
Was there really nobody she could call? <snip>
A client called, demanded Therapist X. <snip>
Client called again. <snip>
This went on for a couple of hours.
<snip>
Did Dr. X ever call her back? No.
And you're mad at Jennifer for not calling her doctor?
Maybe she did but didn't know she was supposed to sob and groan to be taken seriously.
Last year I fell and broke big chunks out of both my tibia and my femur, displaced my knee and tore all the ligaments. I didn't cry or groan at any point. I was in the ER for hours and no one paid much attention to me until they saw the X-rays and then they came running with pain meds.
Many people of my and Jennifer's generation were taught never to cry and now we can barely do it at all. Medical staff shouldn't expect us to fake tears before giving us care.
Do the men have to cry and groan before Dr. X calls them back?
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Molopata The Rebel:
Frankly, I don't know.
That's a fair enough answer, I guess. Still, I wonder if many people who presuppose that pain is somehow required for pleasure (that's loosely phrased, btw) haven't thought about what this might mean for the new heavens and the new earth.
Off topic though!
Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on
:
Twilight, I don't know that Jennifer even had a doctor to call. I do know that, in the state where I live and work, and where Jennifer lived, that if you call 911 and say "I'm feeling homicidal / suicidal and I have a gun," police will show up at your door.
Will they show up in time? I don't know.
I have been in the position of having to make such calls on clients' behalf. I have not lost any clients yet.
Posted by Rossweisse (# 2349) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
...My badly made point was that in this world where there is much pain, there is much hope. The world is full of pain .............. and hope.
Amen.
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
What's the alternative, shamwari? If there is a god, and if he is not the monster he appears to be, tell us what he is like. Tell us how your idea of god is consistent with this world full of pain and suffering. From where I am sitting, it is evident that your god either doesn't care, doesn't know, cannot act, or doesn't exist.
The other alternative is that he is doing something about it. You might not buy it but this option is, at least to my mind, the primary message of the NT.
Evidence?
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Molopata The Rebel:
But I wonder, without pain, can there be joy? Without wrong, would there be right? Without death, would we ever have lived? In other words, could God take these things from us and yet sustain our existence, our being, which ultimately emerges from how we make choices in an untidy universe far greater than we could ever understand?
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.
Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on
:
A god who looks in on every action we take and makes it "better" is really great if you believe God does that.
I do not.
God did not look in on jen and say "Shoot that little fucker. He done you wrong."
God might have said, "Did you see what you have just done? Are you happy with that?"
Do you actually believe in a God who sits around and is OK with bad shit happening? Really?
Do you believe in a God who understands that bad stuff sometimes happens and wants the best for all involved after the outcome?
I do.
Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
...it definitely doesn't excuse a human or a god who fails to protect the ones they love from pain and death.
Above all else what we are guaranteed upon birth is pain and death. All of us will suffer and die. No one will be spared. What makes this different than every other time a person suffers and dies? Jennifer let us down. We got a glimpse of the beast at its worse, in the place of one which we thought above it.
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
Yes, the human beast. Tell me again about god and how he makes this fucked up tragedy somehow better?
Posted by rugasaw (# 7315) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Yes, the human beast. Tell me again about god and how he makes this fucked up tragedy somehow better?
I don't believe I have told you about God yet. I don't believe I have told you He makes this fucked up tragedy better. Simply put I am not sure God makes this tragedy any better at all. I have a relationship with God. It helps me. If it does fuck all for you I am sorry.
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
No, you didn't. It was an open invitation to anyone willing to bring their weak assertions about a limp deity as if they meant something real.
Posted by Apocalypso (# 15405) on
:
There's always the ol' standby fallback: God's ways are mysterious, and it's all to serve some Larger Purpose of God's that we just can't understand.
Too fucking right I can't understand.
Let me just say how grateful I am that nobody on this thread has tried to feed us that tripe.
Posted by Pants (# 999) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Apocalypso:
I do know that, in the state where I live and work, and where Jennifer lived, that if you call 911 and say "I'm feeling homicidal / suicidal and I have a gun," police will show up at your home.
But I've never understood that bit either. If / when I've ever felt like that, the place I'm at is one where I don't want to talk to anyone or tell anyone, I just want to get on with it. It's not a rational place, so why on earth would anyone turn around and say 'oh hang on, I need to ring the police so they can stop me'.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
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.
A partial god, saving those he loved from harm would be a monster. A G*d who loves us all and protected us from harm would be ridiculous - would you ever be able to even have a drink, or eat red meat or white sugar, or go out in winter unless wearing a nice warm coat?
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Shamwari--
Please read the archived "Calling God To Hell" thread. It wrestles with the same questions, from various sides. And if you focus on that for a while, and don't post on *this* thread, you may well be saved scorch marks, maulings, and impolite introductions to vintage rustic implements.
It will also save us some of the pain you're unwittingly causing.
Thx.
Posted by comet (# 10353) on
:
When my daughter was a foreign exchange student in Thailand, she hit the six-month culture shock crisis point like a mack truck hits a stone cliff. suddenly my email, IM, phone messages, etc were full of, "Mom! I just want to come home! please!"
she begged. she cried. she sobbed. she gave me every reason in the book why she HAD to leave NOW. She was miserable. absolutely, utterly, torturously, miserable.
I said no. I said it over and over and over again for probably six weeks. daily. hourly at times. I felt like a monster. My baby was in a foreign country with no family around to help her. No one who understood her or her people or her lifestyle. On top of that, they decided to have a coup. I made sure she was safe, and then I kept saying no. I ached. it was awful. She sobbed and my heart got all squishy.
And I still said no.
I said no because I knew if I brought her home, for the rest of her life she'd have a shitty attitude about this whole other country. I said no because I knew she'd climb out of this blue spot and enjoy it again. I said no because I knew she had adventures to come and she needed to go through the low point to really taste the high points. I wanted my baby back but I knew she wasn't done cooking yet. I couldn't have her until she was done.
She didn't understand this. She didn't see it at all. She couldn't comprehend why on earth she had to stay over there when she could be safe at home. where she knew things. where it all fit in her comfortable little safe zone and she was cozy-warm. I couldn't explain to her that life is about stepping outside of your comfort zone and being scared, because that's where life is. that's where people are made.
I couldn't explain in a way that she would understand. so I kept saying no. and she hated me. sometimes, a lot. I was a cruel, witch of a mother who must have never loved her anyway, and obviously just wanted her gone.
I was tested as a mom, there. because it was about her. It wasn't even a moment about me. It was about forcing that baby bird out of the nest and standing by while she fell to the ground, praying those wings would work. Because what kind of mother would I be if I kept her safe and warm and unchallenged forever?
That shit ain't for sissies.
At the times I'm inclined to believe in god, I believe it's like this. God knows something I don't know. I need to suck it up and see it through. not for some existential "suffering makes me closer to heaven" bullshit, but for the here and now. when you have to wade through shit, it changes you. it builds you up. I, for one, am glad of who I am. and I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't had to go through some pretty rough stuff. But I didn't know that then. I had to have faith that this would work out. somehow.
I'm not even going to begin to attempt to explain why such horrible things happen. I don't have a bloody clue. But sometimes, when my brain feels open to the idea of a god, I take some comfort in thinking that that entity knows more than I do, and is letting things play out for a reason.
Sometimes good parenting is standing back.
Posted by Molopata The Rebel (# 9933) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Apocalypso:
There's always the ol' standby fallback: God's ways are mysterious, and it's all to serve some Larger Purpose of God's that we just can't understand.
Too fucking right I can't understand.
Let me just say how grateful I am that nobody on this thread has tried to feed us that tripe.
Well now that you have done so yourself, maybe you could present your alternative cosmology, or explain how God/god should really be going about things?
I mean, in the face of eternity, this life and all it entails is really a bit of trifle, innit?
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
No, it's not "a bit of trifle". ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
Here, we love, and hate, and cry, and worry, and fall down, and learn, and help each other. Every one of us matters HERE. Every one of us has life HERE. Every one of us is precious HERE.
If God thinks this life is a bit of trifle, then why bother incarnating? Healing people? Comforting people? Telling them off? Laughing and partying with them?
If what happens to us in this life doesn't matter, then IMHO we don't matter. We're just God's battered action figures--bent, chipped, left to melt in the back window of the car. Not loved into being Real, as the Velveteen Rabbit was. Not collectable. Not even good enough to repair.
If God thinks this life is a bit of trifle, then God doesn't take *us* seriously enough to realize and care about just how awful and painful and frustrating and maddening and destructive this life can be. Or God enjoys it...
![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
Give me a God who loves, and cares, and feels, and dives down into the muck and beauty of our world to help us transform it and ourselves. Even if the involvement is of the parent-of-a-toddler type: "C'mon, sweetie, you can do it, oops, YES! Oops. Oh, frack, you broke the lamp. Ok, c'mon, get back up...you can do it".
Give me a God who loves us enough to make sure we all get Home.
Lesser, stupider, meaner deities need not apply.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
A race of automatons programmed to do only what is good.
In which case ditch all talk about right and good and bad and evil and courage and self-sacrifice. None of it would apply.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pants:
quote:
Originally posted by Apocalypso:
I do know that, in the state where I live and work, and where Jennifer lived, that if you call 911 and say "I'm feeling homicidal / suicidal and I have a gun," police will show up at your home.
But I've never understood that bit either. If / when I've ever felt like that, the place I'm at is one where I don't want to talk to anyone or tell anyone, I just want to get on with it. It's not a rational place, so why on earth would anyone turn around and say 'oh hang on, I need to ring the police so they can stop me'.
The key point would be to notice your mood is sliding before it gets past the point where you will not ask for help.
And some people in this state do ring up and ask for help. The related problem, is that some people ring up every day, saying they are in great distress - and whatever you do seems to make no difference. It is then extremely difficult to know when it is an emergency and when it is not. MH staff are unfortunately not telepathic.
Similarly, Twilight, some people will turn up in A&E because they can't be arsed to go to their GP, or they have banged their finger. If you don't tell staff what is wrong then it is very difficult for them to help you.
If you say, well I have some pain, but its OK I can wait - and you show no external signs of extreme pain (no change in colour, no change in breathing pattern, and yes no tears) they will probably prioritise those people who appear more ill/injured ahead of you.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
God might have said, "Did you see what you have just done? Are you happy with that?"
I did not know Jennifer, so wouldn't want to make presumptions about her actions, but reading between the lines I would say that it was no accident that of the 4 people shot it was only herself who died.
Being here in the UK we don't see so many gun incidents fortunately. But the major ones that have occurred seem demonstrate a desire to kill not just to wound.
To my mind when these killers are in the midst of their actions it is the devil who is saying 'isn't this is fun'. Yet I believe in the moment they turn the weapon on themselves God's Voice does indeed say "Are you happy with what you have done?"
If the Christian doctrine is to make any sense whatsoever then surely some will be judged more mercifully than others.
[ETA Coding, formatting etc, Think² Hellhost]
[ 30. December 2011, 11:35: Message edited by: Think² ]
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
Well, I did tell them my leg was broken from the very first.
More to the point for Pants; I guess it's back to planning for the bad days on your good days by having a regular doctor you can call and hoping he'll call you back when needed. Also knowing what words to say when the time comes. Honestly, before reading this thread, I would never have thought to say, "He's in crisis," or "He's had a change of status."
I'm not criticizing the medical people on the ship, I've read your posts enough to know how caring you all are, but the story about Dr. X not calling back after repeated calls was absolutely horrible to me.
I've had to call the police for someone who was suicidal and it was the hardest call I've ever made. As it turns out they were experienced with the mentally ill and very careful and kind but sometimes these calls do end in death for either the ill one or the policeman, particularly if no one is around to assure nervous young officers that he/she is not armed.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
:
I take your point about calling back Twilight, but some people do genuinely call eight times a day. It can make people worse if you respond each time. Because some forms of anxiety are actually made worse by reassurance seeking, likewise with dependent personality disorder.
It is a judgment call that has to be made individually and wholistically - ideally in collaboration with the service user. And one doesn't always get it right.
And sometimes when you do its not enough. I took a call from a service-user contemplating an overdose, reassured him, got him to agree to put the drugs aways, arranged the doctor to call him. He was seen and assessed by a crisis team. His regular worker went out to see him the next day. Nevertheless, about a week later he was found dead. We are still waiting to find out if he took his own life, but it is likely.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
:
I think I get wanting to take one's own life - I have felt like that occasionally, and I get wanting to lash out at others. But I don't get acting on that, especially if the people aren't actually in front of you at the time.
Because, when I feel really crap all I want to do is curl up under stone and snarl at anyone who comes close. The whole going out and finding people would seem too much.
[ 30. December 2011, 11:51: Message edited by: Think² ]
Posted by Meg the Red (# 11838) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
I couldn't explain to her that life is about stepping outside of your comfort zone and being scared, because that's where life is. that's where people are made. . . Sometimes good parenting is standing back.
On a complete tangent, comet, may I just say how lucky your daughter is to have you as a mom? I love my mother dearly, but I believe my life would have been very different if she hadn't so often and with the best intent rushed in to try and spare me pain.
As you were.
[ 30. December 2011, 12:29: Message edited by: Meg the Red ]
Posted by Silver Faux (# 8783) on
:
I honestly don't know whether this belongs here in the Hell forum, or in Purgatory, or in All Saints.
Probably, I should just STFU and let those who knew Jennifer far better than I grieve in their own way.
It bothers the hell out of me that someone who showed herself as pragmatic yet caring, clever yet witty, has gone forever in a burst of tragedy.
It bothers me that I can't truly empathize with jlg; I can't honestly say "I know what that must have felt like; there but for the grace of God go you and I."
I honestly have no clue what that level of rage and despair must have felt like.
I can empathize with the three people who were shot; in spades, I can empathize with them.
Nobody here needs to hear my thoughts on that right now, though.
Because I can't truly empathize with what Jennifer was feeling, I find myself analyzing the event.
And there, I am able to delude myself into finding a measure of comfort.
First, I would like to believe that it was Jennifer, herself, who called the police and paramedics.
The newspaper reports online (which I feel some guilt at even having read) describe a neighbour as saying she heard a single shot, then a cluster of shots, then another single shot as sirens arrived on scene.
If the telephone call for help came from within the house, Jennifer was the one remaining unwounded and holding the gun; she is the one who most logically would have been able to make the telephone call for help for her victims.
If anyone knows that to be untrue, please - don't tell me.
I urgently want to believe she made that choice.
Whether or not she did.
The other thing that jumps out at me is her retirement.
For some people, life without routine loses meaning.
Some of my parishoners who have retired replace work routine with leisure routine.
They leave for Florida the day after Boxing Day, begin to walk on the beach at exactly 8 am each day, have coffee at 10 or 10:30 to match their coffee time at work, eat lunch at the same time each day, take an afternoon nap; all part of a routine they have created for themselves.
Maybe no routine, mixed with alcholism, depression, and feelings of rage and betrayal were just too much.
Mainly, though, I am just selfish enough to hope I can never truly empathize with or understand Jennifer's actions.
Ever fibre of my being screams, "That contains just too much darkness; don't you dare even try to visit that spot."
Reading the three jlg threads help; even though they are messy and loud and even obnoxious at times.
I hope posting here is helpful to the wounded shippies aboard the Ship.
It is easier to empathize with you, even if I did not know your good friend nearly as well as many of you did.
This sucks massively, and I hope you scream your lungs out if you need to.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jahlove:
I have worked on a mental health phone line and mostly, the callers have just needed someone to talk to - however, if they don't say they are In Crisis how can you tell?
When I was trained to answer the phones for the Samaritans we were taught to ask the caller if he was suicidal. We didn't ask at the very beginning of the call; we waited a minute or two. The answer was frequently surprising.
The ones who surprised me most were middle-aged women who sounded low-key but fairly calm. I would ask if they were planning to kill themselves, and they calmly said "Yes". I asked a few more questions to assess the immediacy of the danger and realized that this was a white-knuckle situation. I encouraged them to spill their guts, and after they had talked as much as they wanted about whatever was bothering them, they decided not to commit suicide right then. I asked them to promise to call us before they did anything to themselves.
I am surprised that callers to a crisis line are expected to say they are in crisis. We always asked questions so we could size up the situation. People who are in physical or mental distress are frequently incapable of making things clear to others.
Moo
Posted by Og: Thread Killer (# 3200) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Shamwari--
....
It will also save us some of the pain you're unwittingly causing.
Thx.
This is Hell...pain happens all ways around. The desire to make the pain only go one way is pointless and unhealthy.
And, for Pete's sake, this is still a Christ oriented website. To not have some guy coming in a Hell thread defending the happy God image when others are saying God is an ass would be impossible.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
:
It is exactly the sort of thing we ask, but people do not always disclose. Certainly, in the case of statuary services, because they know that we may then actively try to prevent them.
Along with can I speak to so and so, no I'm afraid so and so isn't here - is there anything I can do to help ? No I have to speak to so and so. Which complicates things if so and so is on two weeks leave or whatever.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
One thing that made people more willing to talk to the Samaritans was that we had no way of knowing who was calling, and therefore no way of intervening. (This was in the days before caller ID, but I suspect the Samaritans would never use that anyway.)
The caller was completely in control of the situation. For people who hate to lose control, that was very important.
Moo
Posted by Tubifex Maximus (# 4874) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
I'm not even going to begin to attempt to explain why such horrible things happen. I don't have a bloody clue. But sometimes, when my brain feels open to the idea of a god, I take some comfort in thinking that that entity knows more than I do, and is letting things play out for a reason.
Sometimes good parenting is standing back.
And at all events, whether or not it gives an insight into the mind of God, living like this; I am sure that by facing the piles of shit head on and acting with courage, is better than explaining them away, fantasising them away or running away. Bringing your children up to live with courage like this will stand them in good stead.
This is not to say that this is a sure road to life, love, and happiness, just maybe the Will of God is not that we should suffer, or that we should be happy but that we should face both equally with courage. PIck up the cross, and all that stuff.
Must confess I don't always, even often, live like this.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
Thanks for not S-ing TFU Silver Faux.
I think the fact that three forums have been opened, (from All Saints to Hell), on this very disturbing news is helpful at this time.
Being new to the Ship I feel somewhat of a rubber-necker. But WTF this is Hell after-all.
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
:
There are days when there seems to be so much pain in the world - in my own life, in the lives of friends and strangers - that I am amazed we don't all top oursleves.
When I was a child I had a recording of Treasure Island. It included the highly melodramatic pharse, just before a big battle, "And them that die will be the happy ones". That phrase often rings in my mind, but I would rather go Erin's route than jlg's as it is easier for those left behind.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Evidence?
Evidence of what?
That there is an understanding that the NT speaks of God working toward the new heavens and the new earth? Or that there is a claim that God is actively involved in creation, specifically our lives?
For the former see just about anything from Tom Wright. I'd recommend Simply Christian for start. For the latter, I dunno, really. Evidence will likely be in the form of personal accounts, and if you are of the mind to presuppose that miracles don't happen then you already have your answer. If you want a source that deals with the accounts of claimed miracles in some depth - both ancient and contemporary - then try the appropriately titled
Miracles by Craig Keneer. Both the above people have spoken publicly about their work and it isn't hard to find free audio sources.
Perhaps this deserves a purg thread of it's own?
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
No, you didn't. It was an open invitation to anyone willing to bring their weak assertions about a limp deity as if they meant something real.
It's rather pointless making an open invitation when you beg the question. You already have your answer - there is no God. Now it's up to you to make sense of suffering as best you can.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
, but reading between the lines I would say that it was no accident that of the 4 people shot it was only herself who died.
One was shot 3 times, another in the face. Yes, it was an accident they survived.
I do not point this out to be cruel. We do ourselves and each other no favour painting a prettier picture than reality suggests.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
As posted in Purgatory, I don't think favours are done by jumping to conclusions about exactly how things ended up the way they did, either.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Even the conclusions of official inquests can be inference.
Regardless, what Jennifer did was monstrous as well as tragic. Enraging as well as heart-breaking. Not clean and simple as we might like. Important to remember this.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
I have to say that yes, I get where jlg may have been coming from. I have been suicidal in the depths of despair. And in my youth I had such a violent, black, deadly temper at the same time as the despair that I could imagine myself doing something similar--right down to the child. (Realizing that scared the shit out of me and I've clamped down on it so much that most people around me believe I have NO temper at all. Ha.)
It's human. I think it could happen to anyone. I know it could happen to me. God have mercy.
Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on
:
Silver Faux is right about guns. If you are subject to the sort of depression or rage that means you can imagine doing what Jennifer did, get the guns out of the house while you can.
You may well have the right to have a gun. You may also have the right to drive a car. But you don't have the right to drive a car if you're too impaired to do it safely. In fact, you have a responsibility, a duty, NOT to drive the car if you're impaired. And the same goes for guns. If you aren't safe with them, you shouldn't have them.
When I was a teenager, my daddy had a reaction to a medication he was taking that put him deep into a black hole. He realized that, if he wasn't there already, he was going to get to the point where he wasn't safe around guns. He told Mom to get all the guns, and put them away somewhere, and not to tell him where they were. She did.
Once Mom and Dad (and I suppose Dad's doctor) agreed that there was no further risk, the guns went back where they'd always been.
If he'd killed himself, or mom, or anyone else while he was in the medication-induced depression, it would have destroyed me. I might have lived, but the person I am now wouldn't have survived. He did the right thing.
And Jennifer ... she didn't. I don't know how to think about what she did. It's like Eliab said on the Purg thread -- I want to go back to the world where people who get a gun and go to their ex's place and shoot up a bunch of people are evil monsters. I don't want the world where ordinary people, people that I like, people whose company I enjoy, might do something like that. I don't want the world where I might be one of the neighbors saying, "I can't imagine the person I knew doing such a thing. She was always kind and cheerful. I never saw anything like this coming."
If Jennifer could do this, then what about my next-door neighbor who mows the lawn for the guy across the street who has cancer, and has given all the neighborhood kids permission to go into his back yard any time a ball or a frisbee goes over his fence? What about the neighbor we chat with when she's out walking her dog or working in her garden? Or the neighbors who always sit out on their porch steps to smoke their cigarettes?
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Molopata The Rebel:
I mean, in the face of eternity, this life and all it entails is really a bit of trifle, innit?
The religious have a lot of gall to claim that it's the atheists who don't value life. You go right ahead and piss away your trifle of a life. Just try not to hurt anyone else in the process, okay?
This life is no trifle. Jen knew that, and I'm angry at her for acting as if it was just that - a thing to be thrown away.
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Evidence?
Evidence of what?
That there is an understanding that the NT speaks of God working toward the new heavens and the new earth? Or that there is a claim that God is actively involved in creation, specifically our lives?
Evidence that any such thing happens in reality. I know there are understandings and claims, but so what? People claim all sorts of silly shit.
I don't care if you don't want to engage with me, but you don't get to dismiss me by telling me that I have my answer, or by offering a reading list in lieu of an argument.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
I can't sleep. I have been thinking about this thread.
I don't understand, I don't empathise. I don't really even want to. I am confused, which I think is about all I can manage.
For the last three and a half years I have been slowly tortured by my ex-wife. Without going into details, if I think about this dispassionately, she probably deserves to die for what she has done. So I get that.
There are even times when I am so angry with her that it is not just an objective judgement. I kind of wish in a sort of childish way that I was involved in organised crime or something similar, so I could coerce her into not being such a vindictive bitch.
Plus, I do understand the desire to kill yourself. I have been there.
But to actually plan this out and go through with it? As I understand it, you kind of go into a depression tunnel, where what you are doing seems totally rational as the only way it can possibly be. If you were well, it would seem what it is - crazy and evil. But you can't see that from inside. I guess I can understand that on an objective level.
I just manifestly cannot understand how someone can actually go through with that. I can't. As bad as the last few years have been, I have never and I would never plan to kill or hurt my ex, or anyone else. I just do not get it.
And this time, I can't just shake my head and mutter 'Fuckin arsehole. Deserve to burn for that one.' Because I don't believe that about jlg.
So I am still bewildered, and really churned up about this one. comet, once again thankyou for this thread and your honesty on it.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I have to say that yes, I get where jlg may have been coming from. I have been suicidal in the depths of despair. And in my youth I had such a violent, black, deadly temper at the same time as the despair that I could imagine myself doing something similar--right down to the child. (Realizing that scared the shit out of me and I've clamped down on it so much that most people around me believe I have NO temper at all. Ha.)
It's human. I think it could happen to anyone. I know it could happen to me. God have mercy.
I relate to that rather too strongly. I have thumped people in anger, and it is a bad place to be.
There but for the grace of God go I. That grace is fucking brilliant.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
"We do ourselves and each other no favour painting a prettier picture than reality suggests".
Point taken .
Given the copy-cat nature of grievance/random gun incidents it not easy to know how to handle them. Maybe Norway's approach to the actions of Anders Brevick is best, namely to STFU about the whole thing as quickly as possible.
Bigging up the nature of atrocities doesn't seem to prevent them happening in the future . As was the case with Derek Bird when he made strange comments about Dunblane before achieving similar notoriety for himself in Cumbria.
Posted by Silver Faux (# 8783) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
quote:
Originally posted by Molopata The Rebel:
I mean, in the face of eternity, this life and all it entails is really a bit of trifle, innit?
The religious have a lot of gall to claim that it's the atheists who don't value life. You go right ahead and piss away your trifle of a life. Just try not to hurt anyone else in the process, okay?
This life is no trifle. Jen knew that, and I'm angry at her for acting as if it was just that - a thing to be thrown away.
Angry, with very good reason.
Yet, I suspect, not angry enough to drive to New England and piss on her grave.
And there, in your anger at a good friend now gone by her own hand, and your willingness to respect, honour and value the friendship once shared, you meet the rest of the Ship.
And probably, a good number of those who read what you have written will nod their heads and declare, "Damn straight."
I am listening; today, I have no right to preach here.
This is the Hell forum, you are in exactly the right place, and I will listen.
You, after all, knew Jennifer far better than I ever did.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Evidence that any such thing happens in reality. I know there are understandings and claims, but so what? People claim all sorts of silly shit.
I don't care if you don't want to engage with me, but you don't get to dismiss me by telling me that I have my answer, or by offering a reading list in lieu of an argument.
You asked a vague question. I gave you two resources as by way of answer. If those resources don't suit then I'm not sure what else you want.
You are obviously salivating with the anticipation of a bit of back and forth. But I'm not getting into an argument with you for the sake of it.
Believe whatever the hell you want, Scot.
[ETA Code, again, T², Hellhost]
[ 30. December 2011, 18:44: Message edited by: Think² ]
Posted by Silver Faux (# 8783) on
:
One of the things Scot clearly believes, Squibs, is that it is worth the effort to get to know a Shipmate such as Jennifer as a human being with feelings and intellect, rather than as an array of pixels.
I, for one, could do with developing the humility to learn from his example.
I think one name for what he demonstrates would probably be 'common decency.'
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on
:
Well that's great, Silver Faux. More power to him. But that doesn't, at least as far as I can see, have anything to do with our brief conversation about miracles.
But perhaps I've missed something?
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
You are obviously salivating with the anticipation of a bit of back and forth. But I'm not getting into an argument with you for the sake of it.
Her I was, thinking that "back and forth" was what people did on discussion boards. My vague question was in reaponse to your vague assertion. Either explain your position or don't, but don't sent me to look somewhere else to find what you believe.
quote:
Believe whatever the hell you want
That was never in question.
Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
Her I was, thinking that "back and forth" was what people did on discussion boards.
Depend what back and forth means. In my book I take it to mean an argument.
quote:
Originally posted by Scot:
My vague question was in reaponse to your vague assertion. Either explain your position or don't, but don't sent me to look somewhere else to find what you believe.
You laid out the possible options about what Christians can believe with respect to God when we are faced with suffering/ evil. I pointed out that there was at least one other possibility open to the Christian. Namely, that God is actively involved in creation now. I also suggested that this was the primary message of the NT when one considers what it says about what God is busying himself with. I didn't discus my personal opinion on any of this - though you could probably guess what it is.
Simply put - there exists at least one other option then what you presented. I gave it. That is all. Get it?
If you want to discuss the existence of miracles - something I never intended to do in my post - then perhaps purgatory is the place for it, not here.
[ 30. December 2011, 19:52: Message edited by: Squibs ]
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
Silver Faux, thank you for all you've said here. I appreciate your candor and your concerns.
As well as everybody else who has expressed their feelings.
I myself really don't have much of a reaction because I just didn't know Jennifer well, and thus didn't know if she was "one of the sort" to do that. Maybe, given what happened, we have to say, "Well, I guess she was one of that sort." I dunno.
I really do appreciate this thread, though.
Posted by tessaB (# 8533) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I just didn't know Jennifer well, and thus didn't know if she was "one of the sort" to do that. Maybe, given what happened, we have to say, "Well, I guess she was one of that sort." I dunno.
I really do appreciate this thread, though.
I did not know her well either (just appreciated a lot of her posts). I think what has surprised me is how we never seem to know who is 'one of that sort'.
Equally how circumstances can perhaps conspire to make many people (including people on here that I admire greatly) very, very close to being 'one of that sort'.
We seem to live a hairsbreadth away from being either saints or monsters. God help us all.
Posted by Deputy Verger (# 15876) on
:
I have never killed myself, obviously. Or anyone else, fortunately. I like to think I couldn't, or wouldn't, but facts are, the right combination of heartbreak, frustration, anger and alcohol can really change a person. I know I could, given a gun. SF is right - don't keep one handy.
RIP Jennifer. And LIVE in peace, Comet. It is not your fault. She had all the theory - she showed you that. There came a point where it meant nothing. Usually, fortunately, such moments pass. Sadly, sometimes they don't.
for jlg
for Comet
I expect candles are frowned upon in Hell. So sue me.
Posted by Molopata The Rebel (# 9933) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
No, it's not "a bit of trifle".
Here, we love, and hate, and cry, and worry, and fall down, and learn, and help each other. Every one of us matters HERE. Every one of us has life HERE. Every one of us is precious HERE.
If God thinks this life is a bit of trifle, then why bother incarnating? Healing people? Comforting people? Telling them off? Laughing and partying with them?
[...]
No. Wait. I did not say life did not matter. My statement was in response to Apocalypso's ridiculing of the "big picture God". Most of us will remember failed pursuits of childhood and youth, such as that chocolate bar, the ride on the merry-go-round, the fat-salary job after graduation or the "dream house" later or, and how petty and futile some of them appear later in life. Yet this does not mean they did not matter. What we experienced, what we learnt in the process, and who stood with us at that time are vital and formative to whom we currently are.
Similarly, I would expect life itself to undergo a certain re-evaluation in the light of eternity. Some of the problems we faced here might suddenly appear, yes, trivial, but that does not mean they did not matter to us or to God.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
:
I doubt it would be worth it, Deputy Verger, but the monumental stupidity of your first sentence is noted.
[ 30. December 2011, 21:36: Message edited by: Think² ]
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Molopata The Rebel:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
No, it's not "a bit of trifle".
Here, we love, and hate, and cry, and worry, and fall down, and learn, and help each other. Every one of us matters HERE. Every one of us has life HERE. Every one of us is precious HERE.
If God thinks this life is a bit of trifle, then why bother incarnating? Healing people? Comforting people? Telling them off? Laughing and partying with them?
[...]
No. Wait. I did not say life did not matter. My statement was in response to Apocalypso's ridiculing of the "big picture God". Most of us will remember failed pursuits of childhood and youth, such as that chocolate bar, the ride on the merry-go-round, the fat-salary job after graduation or the "dream house" later or, and how petty and futile some of them appear later in life. Yet this does not mean they did not matter. What we experienced, what we learnt in the process, and who stood with us at that time are vital and formative to whom we currently are.
Similarly, I would expect life itself to undergo a certain re-evaluation in the light of eternity. Some of the problems we faced here might suddenly appear, yes, trivial, but that does not mean they did not matter to us or to God.
This theological discussion is probably more suited to the jlg despair and death thread in purgatory.
Think²
Hellhost
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
It's like Eliab said on the Purg thread -- I want to go back to the world where people who get a gun and go to their ex's place and shoot up a bunch of people are evil monsters.
Please read my post in Purg.
Moo
Posted by ToujoursDan (# 10578) on
:
What the Mouse said...
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on
:
I don't have comet's personal involvement, but... suicide is often (if not always) a hostile act--as if someone who has come to feel utterly unlovable sets out to prove it by doing something so unforgivable that they will earn from everyone else the loathing they feel for themselves (like the husband, in a case I have direct knowledge of, who said to his wife "I'm going to totally fuck up your life" seconds before blowing his brains out). The rage felt by those left behind is normal and justified. Doesn't mean you can't feel other stuff too (that's what makes it so hard--compassion and rage don't cohabit easily). If suicides could break out of their tunnel vision and really see the effects on others, they might think again--but if they could do that, they probably wouldn't be in that blind tunnel to start with.
Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
But to actually plan this out and go through with it? As I understand it, you kind of go into a depression tunnel, where what you are doing seems totally rational as the only way it can possibly be. If you were well, it would seem what it is - crazy and evil. But you can't see that from inside. I guess I can understand that on an objective level.
The closest I've approached to reaching that point the tunnel was a kind of vortex. I knew at that point that the world would be better off without me. I knew that my children would be better off without me. I knew that my ex-wife would be better off without me. I knew that my new girlfriend (kuruman) would be better off without me. Unlike Jen I just couldn't work out what to do about it - I couldn't even gas myself in my car because it had just been totalled in a fire. And suddenly I was on the beach in a storm howling and howling and howling. It was about fifteen years ago now. I don't want to go back there.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
I have never and I would never plan to kill or hurt my ex, or anyone else. I just do not get it.
Not the kill or hurt bit. I smashed brick walls with a fist occasionally in the years that followed as I lost fight after fight over the custody of my children. But I never wanted to hurt anyone else. I even rescue worms from puddles.
Interestingly, though we'll never know, I suspect Jen didn't want to kill, either. I've used guns from time to time, and when you want them to be fatal, if the target is a decent size, they usually are. But we'll never know, I guess, where Jen was in that vortex. In a way I'm sorry I've even speculated, but Jen's actions have made space for us to do that and we will.
When I was at theological college a colleague wired himself to a timer, set to go off on the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. He wanted his young widow to remember his death (26 years ago tonight). She does, I suspect - I lost touch with her years ago. But last time I spoke to her she remembered not not with the wistful longing and regret, the 'embindment' that I suspect he wanted. She just thought he was a total prat, said 'fuck him', and moved on with life.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Just want to say to anyone feeling depressed, thinking about harming yourself or others, or Just.Can't.Take.The.Battle.One.More.Second:
Please get help.
--Call a crisis line. (Call your local Information number, or check the front of a phone book.)
--See a therapist. (I know money can be a barrier. Been there. Many therapists have sliding-scale fees, and can adjust to what you can afford. Also call an info/referral line--United Way, etc.--and tell them you need free or low-cost counseling.)
--Go to or call an emergency room, and tell them what's going on.
--Tell someone you're in trouble. If they don't get it or don't listen, tell someone else. Keep doing this.
I know personally how difficult this is. You may not be able to get out of bed; you may be drunk or high; you may not have anyone who'll listen to you; you may not have *anyone*, period; you may be afraid of being embarassed and of how people will look at you; you may think there's no possible way things can get better.
You may have done all the above suggestions, and then some, and things didn't get better--or even got worse.
Please listen: Try to get help one more time. Give yourself that chance. You matter. No matter who you are, what's happened to you, or what you've done. You matter.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Timothy--
In my experience (both personally and with other people), often the person isn't trying to hurt anyone. They're facing something awful, and just can't do it anymore. Physical pain, emotional pain, chemical imbalances, fallout from something they've done, life collapsing around them...all sorts of things. They may have done everything they can to get help and/or to make things better, but it hasn't worked.
It's pain relief. It's like having a profound headache that no medicine can touch.
Unfortunately, it's permanent.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, just that it isn't necessarily selfish nor vindictive.
Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
The closest I've approached to reaching that point the tunnel was a kind of vortex.... But we'll never know, I guess, where Jen was in that vortex. In a way I'm sorry I've even speculated, but Jen's actions have made space for us to do that and we will.
Speculation is probably natural -- God knows I've been doing plenty of it -- and ultimately pointless. But I think "vortex" is as useful a way to frame this horrible thing as any. In two of the newspaper articles I managed to dredge up, the police chief recalled being called to that address for a previous suicide attempt. So perhaps the horror of Jennifer's ending didn't come just in one event but in a sort of continuing state that she couldn't get out of. It is tearing me up inside to think of her in there.
Anyway, I'm glad you made it off that beach, Zappa. For one thing, your post about theodicy on the Purg thread is helping me patch back together something that has been pretty well shredded these last few days.
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
:
Just one in my life I have been properly depressed and suicidal, largely due to a set of absolutely extraordinarily circumstances that I was under at the time. Compared to many, my depression was still quite mild, and I could usually snap myself out of wanting to kill myself by thinking about the effect it would have on my mother.
But what’s always scared me the most about it is this: just how much sense it made at the time. Ending it all seemed like the perfectly logical solution to the problem. That’s the thing about your brain being on the fritz, stuff makes perfect sense to you that never would if you were in your right mind. It scares me.
I can't imagine it making sense to want to shoot someone, but then when my own reason wasn't answering the phone my mind totally went to a place that frightens me now.
Posted by Duo Seraphim (# 256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
And this time, I can't just shake my head and mutter 'Fuckin arsehole. Deserve to burn for that one.' Because I don't believe that about jlg.
So I am still bewildered, and really churned up about this one. comet, once again thankyou for this thread and your honesty on it.
Comet asked me on FB if I had heard about jlg and that I should check out All Saints. I did so with foreboding.
It was worse than I suspected - all suicides leave me wondering "why?" and "how could you?" and "why didn't you...?" and all sort of other hopeless attempts to assuage the real guilt: What could I have said or done to prevent it?
Now having read through this thread, it feels worse again.
Dark Knight has put his finger on how I feel about it: angry, confused, shocked. I can't believe it. I don't want to believe it. I can't project myself into that dark place where jlg went in the end.
I do believe that no life should be judged by the worst thing done in that life. Life is not a trifle. It is a terrible thing to cast it away. It's a terrible thing to shoot other people in your rage and despair. It's a terrible thing to feel such rage and despair that life is not worth living and must be ended. It's a terrible thing to act on that rage and despair to hurt others, even as your life spirals into annihilation.
No easy answers. No kindly things to say. Only confusion and a warning.
This was a broken life. We all lead broken lives. We need hope for something better - even it is for no more hope than get help and lock the guns away.
So I'll add my thanks to yours, DK.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I don't have comet's personal involvement, but... suicide is often (if not always) a hostile act--as if someone who has come to feel utterly unlovable sets out to prove it by doing something so unforgivable that they will earn from everyone else the loathing they feel for themselves...
None of the suicidal people I listened to on the Samaritans hot line appeared to feel any hostility. They were hurting and couldn't take it any more. I don't think they had the energy to feel hostile.
Moo
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
:
Zappa has described the experience I have had, but I likened it to blinkers, not a vortex. What I could see of the world made sense as a place that would really be better off without me. In a way, I would be helping others by ending it all. Even though I've tried to help those left after a suicide, and know that they suffer very terribly, I honestly thought those around me would be better if I just "slipped away". Which is why depression makes sense to me as an illness - but one that gives you emotional blindness, rather than physical.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
None of the suicidal people I listened to on the Samaritans hot line appeared to feel any hostility. They were hurting and couldn't take it any more. I don't think they had the energy to feel hostile.
Right there is my problem understanding all this. I've been to the point of feeling like such an abject failure that I thought even family members would be better off without me and I've also experienced the sort of blinding rage where blood pressure rises to the point that I've literally "seen red," and sensible thought is impossible -- but the two things together? No way. It seems chemically impossible to me with the adrenaline from the anger wiping out the despair.
{Don't read this if you don't like conjecture.}
I can understand outrage. Oh, yes. I have no trouble at all imagining my booze kindled head on fire with angry thoughts of the one person I'd planned to grow old with, sitting cozily in the house I'd planned to make my retirement project, with some obliviously happy other person sitting next to him watching TV. Particularly when you're 60 years old and past believing any comforting thoughts about "other fish in the sea," or fascinating new careers. I can picture going over and making their evening unpleasant with a huge display of hurt and temper. But beyond that, I can't go. Did they laugh at her? Did they refuse to listen? People need to feel heard before they can begin to forgive, maybe that was being denied her in some way.
Posted by Spiffy (# 5267) on
:
I think people may have it backwards. I'm wondering, having felt the rage myself a time or twenty thousand, if the anger took over and took up a gun. And then when faced with the overwhelming horror of the violence done flung over into depression.
Or maybe I should stop trying to get into other people's heads. It's terrifying enough inside my own skull and I have to get professional assistance in attempting to navigate its dark, jagged edges.
Posted by Pants (# 999) on
:
But isn't that just it. There is no answer. Each person has different experiences. Each person responds differently. No-one will ever know. And that's what makes it hard to accept.
Posted by Laura (# 10) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I don't have comet's personal involvement, but... suicide is often (if not always) a hostile act--as if someone who has come to feel utterly unlovable sets out to prove it by doing something so unforgivable that they will earn from everyone else the loathing they feel for themselves...
None of the suicidal people I listened to on the Samaritans hot line appeared to feel any hostility. They were hurting and couldn't take it any more. I don't think they had the energy to feel hostile.
Moo
This tracks my experience of Samaritans. The pain is unendurable and only suicide will silence it. In some cases, my main concern was that the person didn't take anyome with them.
Posted by Geneviève (# 9098) on
:
I don't think there's a "one size fits all" reason for suicide. CW seems to hold that it is a hostile act, and I'm sure that to those left behind, that is how suicide easily appears. Anger may be part of it for some people, and for others, it is just that the pit, the despair, and the pain are too much.
We don't know what was goin on in Jennifer's situation. Could have been that rage, drinking, and an accessible gun led to actions she couldn't face, and she then shot herself in shame and guilt.
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I don't have comet's personal involvement, but... suicide is often (if not always) a hostile act--as if someone who has come to feel utterly unlovable sets out to prove it by doing something so unforgivable that they will earn from everyone else the loathing they feel for themselves...
None of the suicidal people I listened to on the Samaritans hot line appeared to feel any hostility. They were hurting and couldn't take it any more. I don't think they had the energy to feel hostile.
Moo
This tracks my experience of Samaritans. The pain is unendurable and only suicide will silence it. In some cases, my main concern was that the person didn't take anyome with them.
There might be a selection bias there.
Posted by Geneviève (# 9098) on
:
Perhaps there is a selection bias, but that still shows there are different reasons besides an intentionally hostile act.
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Timothy--
In my experience (both personally and with other people), often the person isn't trying to hurt anyone. They're facing something awful, and just can't do it anymore. Physical pain, emotional pain, chemical imbalances, fallout from something they've done, life collapsing around them...all sorts of things. They may have done everything they can to get help and/or to make things better, but it hasn't worked.
It's pain relief. It's like having a profound headache that no medicine can touch.
Unfortunately, it's permanent.
I'm not saying it's a good thing, just that it isn't necessarily selfish nor vindictive.
I've sat with many suicidal clients (haven't lost one yet), and I wouldn't use the words "selfish" or "vindictive." But angry, definitely (though there's often a good deal of confusion about where to direct the anger). And what I have heard, over and over again, is "everyone would be better off if I were gone." I think this reflects a kind of self-absorption that depression engenders (something I do know from intimate experience). All I can say to them is that I have also sat with many survivors of suicide, and have never heard a single one say "It's really for the best" (which I have often heard from those whose loved ones died of cancer, Alzheimers, etc.)
Hell's not the place to go into the nuances, but this isn't about judgment. It is about the right of those hurt by suicide to be angry about it.
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
The world is not full of pain and suffering.
AtB Pyx_e.
'Course not. There are a million beautiful things about this fallen world. But you've got to admit, there are times when it displays only a tarnished, ruined glory.
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on
:
My many thanks to Silver Faux for his comments; they have been excellent and well-appreciated.
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Janine:
quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
The world is not full of pain and suffering.
AtB Pyx_e.
'Course not. There are a million beautiful things about this fallen world. But you've got to admit, there are times when it displays only a tarnished, ruined glory.
And be it my life's work and desire to love and praise my God in those things too. For He is in them as much as the beautiful or He is no God at all.
Sometimes (to quote the man) love is a "cold and broken alleluia" but it is still an alleluia.
AtB, Pyx_e
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
...I have also sat with many survivors of suicide, and have never heard a single one say "It's really for the best" (which I have often heard from those whose loved ones died of cancer, Alzheimers, etc.)
Hell's not the place to go into the nuances, but this isn't about judgment. It is about the right of those hurt by suicide to be angry about it.
I think anger is a normal feeling when anyone dies, unless the anger has already been expressed while the person was alive. If someone you love has cancer or Alzheimser's you rage against the illness while the person is still alive. By the time the person dies, the response is frequently relief.
When people do something reckless and die as a result, the survivors know that if the person had behaved differently, he would still be alive. The anger which is normally felt about illness or death seems justified. When people commit suicide, the anger seems even more justified. They chose to do this! How could they? I think this is a specialized and intensified reaction to the death of someone you love.
Moo
Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
All I can say to them is that I have also sat with many survivors of suicide, and have never heard a single one say "It's really for the best" (which I have often heard from those whose loved ones died of cancer, Alzheimers, etc.)
I actually HAVE heard this ... tragically, from the family of an eighteen-year-old boy whose short life had been such a hell of mental illness and repeated suicide attempts that there really was, along with the sorrow and anger, a strong sense of "at least he's at peace now" from the family. I think this grew out of the fact that they had made so many efforts to help him (and he had made some good and brave efforts to help himself) over the years, all to no avail ultimately, that they had finally come to believe he never would find any peace in this life. A terrible place to find yourself at that age. I do think that in some (by no means all) situations where a mentally ill person resorts to suicide, it can come to seem as much a relief as when a person who's been in pain with cancer for years finally dies.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
and I wouldn't use the words "selfish"
The very nature of suicide is selfish.* This is part of what generates the anger.
Please note this is not a condemnation or judgement, merely a statement.
*yes, there are exceptions.
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
:
Except that, as many of us have said, it is quite likely that the person committing suicide honestly feels that everyone would be better off without them. Is "selfish" the right word to describe an action taken for such reasons?
Posted by Geneviève (# 9098) on
:
Lil Buddha, if there are exceptions, then you can't state that "the very nature of suicide is selfish."
Nor do I think that the feelings of the person committing suicide and the survivors have to be in syncie, the suicide may feel the world will be better off without him/her and those left behind may be angry.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
and I wouldn't use the words "selfish"
The very nature of suicide is selfish.* This is part of what generates the anger.
Please note this is not a condemnation or judgement, merely a statement.
*yes, there are exceptions.
There are exceptions when it is, but most of the time it is not. Suicide may be very selfless - someone genuinely believes that the world would be better off/safer without them - or it may be just deperation - the person cannot cope with life any more. Very rarely is it selfish when someone is driven to it. Sometimes it is selfish if someone just wants to avoid responsibility, but this is not depression related suicide, and is rare.
Posted by Suze (# 5639) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
And be it my life's work and desire to love and praise my God in those things too. For He is in them as much as the beautiful or He is no God at all.
Sometimes (to quote the man) love is a "cold and broken alleluia" but it is still an alleluia.
AtB, Pyx_e
I find this really helpful, thanks.
Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
All I can say to them is that I have also sat with many survivors of suicide, and have never heard a single one say "It's really for the best" (which I have often heard from those whose loved ones died of cancer, Alzheimers, etc.)
I actually HAVE heard this...
I have heard this too. From people who are mentally il themselves, about friends of theirs, also mentally ill, who ended their lives. They say it, even though they miss their friends and are devastated by their deaths, because they personally know what it's like to be in constant mental suffering, with terrifying thoughts that they can't control, and to know that this can't always be fixed - even with caring friends and with medication. And sometimes medication can have side effects where a person no longer feels alive or themselves - such as in the movie 'A Beautiful Mind', where the guy stops taking his medication because when he's on it he doesn't feel alive and doesn't feel love for his wife and children.
Suicide is rarely selfish - as others have said, generally when people are at that stage where they want to die, they believe the world and their loved ones would be better off without them. They feel worthless. Even though their loved ones may tell them otherwise, if they are mentally ill, their mind often sees things in a distorted way. Realistically, people who genuinely feel that they have worth and are having a positive impact on the world, and that people would be devastated if they died, are a lot less likely to want to end their life.
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
:
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.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
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.
Or, of course, it might be that lilBudda is a COMPLETE ASSHOLE. TBH, posting that sort of crap in hell makes me lean towards the COMPLETE ASSHOLE option.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
First, I am not making a value judgement when I say selfish. ISTM, some of you may be. This might be the disconnect.
Selfish is considering oneself before others. Being so wrapped in oneself, seeing no better way is selfish. Understandable, yes, selfless no.
The concept of the "noble" suicide is, I think, generally a conceit by the survivors. We have the need to make it better.
On a pedantic note; a statement is not false if there are exceptions, a statement is false if there are more exceptions than affirmations. This is not the case for my statement in my experience.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
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.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
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.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Thank you ken. You said this so much better than I.
Apologies to the rest for communicating so poorly.
Posted by Scarlet (# 1738) on
:
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.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
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.
Posted by Fineline (# 12143) on
:
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.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
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.
Posted by Dark Knight (# 9415) on
:
Yes, I am not really sure what rolyn is trying to get at, but what LC said.
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
:
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?
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
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.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
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
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
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.
Posted by 205 (# 206) on
:
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.)
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on
:
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.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
:
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
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
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.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
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 ]
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
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.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
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
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
:
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.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
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.
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
:
Thank you, that's all I needed to know.
Posted by Amazing Grace (# 95) on
:
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.
Posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege (# 10651) on
:
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.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
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.
Posted by Socratic-enigma (# 12074) on
:
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.
Posted by Silver Faux (# 8783) on
:
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.
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on
:
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
Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on
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This year it will be four years since my friend jumped to her death in front of her husband and two children.
Posted by Laura (# 10) on
:
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.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
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.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
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
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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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.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
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.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
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.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
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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
Posted by Suze (# 5639) on
:
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.
Posted by Laura (# 10) on
:
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.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
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.
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.
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
:
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.
Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on
:
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".
__________
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 ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
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.
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
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.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
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
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
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
Posted by chive (# 208) on
:
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
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
:
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.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chive:
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
Indeed. Suicide gestures may be manipulative but surely that is a sign of desperation.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
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.
.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
:
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.
Posted by Suze (# 5639) on
:
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.
Every one of us are manipulative to some degree or others - we all behave in ways so as to have our needs met.
Suicidal behaviours, whether they lead to death or not, are aimed at getting needs met. Sometimes that need is for someone else to pay closer attention to the indivdual's pain or to change behaviours which cause or exacerbate pain. Sadly there are still people who will cite manipulation and attention seeking as negative attributes and dismiss the person as being selfish however, they are often the ones most in need of careful support.
I'm surprised that the Samaritans would struggle to work with someone who was engaging in "suicial behaviour", surely there would be value in being with that person in their ambivelence and supporting them to explore safer risk taking. It's not always necessary to have someone explicity "choose life" to keep them safe and help them find calmer waters.
Posted by Think² (# 1984) on
:
Hosting
I think that this thread has largely moved on from airing the feelings the manner of jlg's death evoked in shipmates. The discussion has become more abstract and could well be continued in purgatory - either on the existing related thread or with new OPs relating to any of a number of strands that have arisen in discussion on this thread:
- The dynamics of suicidal thought, behaviour & action
- The extent to which it is acceptable to rage at God
- Gun control
- To what extent Jesus' death "worked" / the problem of suffering
- The nature of God as interventionist / indifferent
Those of you incensed by the nature of others' posts on this thread, are of course free to call whomever you wish to hell (even Pete C!).
I am now closing this thread.
Hosting
Think²
Hellhost
[ 05. January 2012, 19:18: Message edited by: Think² ]
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