Looking after ourselves
Hi @flash-ferret !
I, too, am suicidal and I don't believe it is any sort of mental disorder or any comparable term. I believe it is a straightforward case of rationality: of fully and fairly appraising life, its most realistic future outlooks, and the wisdom of prolonging it. In other words: choosing suicide (in most cases, I suspect) is simply a case of asking one's self: "Is life worth it?", and coming to the conclusion that the answer is: "No", after fair, balanced & complete deliberation of the issue.
It's very rarely crazy (as it is typically made out to be). In fact, I would most often characterize it as a demonstration of sanity and wisdom.
It's the people who choose to prolong their lives that I can't make any sense of. And lord knows I've tried.
I think it's very interesting to note that a lot of major entities are now publically stating that suicidalness does not, in and of itself, indicate a mental illness (even a temporary mental illness!); that many people are completely sane and rational at the moments when they attempt suicide. Some noteworthy people/organizations are even pushing for the government to divide up it's mental health and suicide policies, as those people reckon that they ought to be treated as two separate (though ocassionally overlapping) issues.
There's an inquiry into mental health & suicide going on right now and one of the witnesses (I forget who) was clearly going to great pains to drum it in to the government that suicide often has absolutely nothing to do with mental illness, and that the government needs to embrace measures well beyond matters of "mental health" if it wants to make significant impacts on reducing suicides. I thought that was quite impressive.
@flash-ferret wrote:Content/trigger warning...but they aren't a knee-jerk reaction such as the sterotypical adolescent first ever boyfriend/girlfriend breakup: "I'll never love anyone as much as I loved them I may as well die!!"
I feel I must respectfully dispute your implications here, as I've always considdered such decisions to be quite fair and rational. It's not what the mainstream approves of, of course, but that doesn't make such actions "wrong", or even unwise.
IMHO, examples like this highlight how our society is so broken, in terms of the role that suicide plays within it. It's more then a little hypocrittical, too.
The anti-suicide forces in our society train us so well to instantly dismiss the suicide of the jilted teenager as "an impulsive, foolish act". But isn't that snap judgement in itself a "kneejerk reaction", on our part?
How much time do we spend truly considdering the issue; exploring the full implications of a long life endured with these new values? How long do we spend openly, fairly & completely debating whether the life we yearn to constrain that teenager to is indeed a better fate for him then his death? How long do we spend honestly examining our own lives, to see if we were well served by abstaining from suicide when we faced similar crossroads?
I suspect that, for the vast majority of people, the answer is: "no time at all". We instantly judge the teenager to be impulsive & thoughtless - and yet we are the ones who instantaneously, and without any thought, condemn the act as "wrong". Because that's how our society has trained us to react. The thinking has been done for us.
It's blatant hypocrasy, if you ask me.
And then they cook up labels like "disorder" and "mental illness" to make us afraid to think about these issues - about the course and suffering of our own lives. Because we are afraid to have these labels slapped upon us if we deviate from the norm in our thoughts or actions.
It reminds me of that metaphore about circus elephants.
Supposedly, when a circus elephant is born, it is chained down to the ground so tightly that it can't move at all. And they keep it like that until they can tell that it's spirit is completely broken. Once they've done that, the tiny little humans can lead this immense, incredibly powerful beast around with the flimsiest piece of string. Because it no longer has the will to resist even the weakest of commands.
I think about that metaphore a lot, and it's parrallels with our modern doctrine on suicide. Because the majority of society is like those elephants.
We get so worn down by empty, BS promises that surviving will be worth our while - and then by firm demands that we "accept" life; that we "keep going"; that we "cope" - and finally by threats that we'll be tarred with labels like "mentally ill", "selfish", "impulsive", & "tragic" if we choose to pack it in...
we lose our capacity to defy the ringmaster. We lose the capacity to even aspire for freedom from life, because we've been beaten down so effectively, we don't even have a sense of self any more when it comes to the question of death. The system has broken us. All we can do is follow where we are lead: to this ideological stance where "suicide is wrong". Not because there's any evidance whatsoever sustaining that belief, but because that's what we're told to believe.
@flash-ferret wrote:Content/trigger warningIn much the way that depression, OCD, PTSD etc are categorised and diagnosed in the DSM, is it possible that there is such a thing as, I don't know "Suicidal Ideation Disorder"? A lot of people think about ending their existence a lot. Some to the point of acting on those thoughts, others who find ideation to be their default response and the place they retreat to when confronted with stressors or triggers.
Personally, I don't put a lot of creedance in the unsupported claims of the mental health system. But if your interested in their DSM, you might be interested in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgilBaRbulc.
I believe it mostly relates to an older version of the DSM. But it offers a little insight in to how those manuals are developed, and I must say - it doesn't do a lot for the credibility of those books. The speaker is one of the doctors who helped develop a DSM and I found her claims truly eye-opening.
Frankly, based upon what she reveals alone (to say nothing of my own personal experiances & research) - I would be very hesitant to judge a mindset as "wrong" or "ill", simply because a DSM labels it as a "disorder" of any kind.
P.S.: How did you manage to wrap your entire post in a "Trigger warning" box? I think that's really clever. I could probably do with knowing how to do that, myself.
Edit: this was answered by @TideisTurning . Thanks!
Hi @chibam.
It's clear you've thought a lot about this and I'm sensing it may have also brought up some big feelings for you. I'd just like to take a moment to acknowledge and honour how sensitive a topic this can be for many people and that it may raise big feelings for others also. Please know that any thoughts, opinions or feelings that may come up are completely ok and 100% valid, and on that, a gentle reminder to please respect everyone's views when engaging with this discussion.
I'd like to encourage everyone to take good care also and please reach out for extra support if needed, for instance if what you're experiencing starts to feel too distressing. There's Lifeline (13 11 14), Suicide Callback Service (1300 659 467) and BeyondBlue (1300 22 4636) just to name a few options out there and available.
Also, to answer your other question about content warnings @chibam, when you are writing a post, just above where you write, alongside the bold and italic effects should be the symbol pictured below (a dark triangle with a white exclamation point in the centre). If you click that, it'll give you the content/trigger warning dropdown you can write within.
I hope that helps and all the very best,
TideisTurning 🌹
Thanks, @TideisTurning
I never really knew what that little triangle was for before. Now I know.
I appreciate that this is sensitive subject matter for a lot of people and I apologize if I've stepped on any toes or come across as disrespectful in any way with my commentary. That is never my intention. I notice that I got an email that said my post had been removed - though in the interim this has clearly been overruled. Regardless, it's apparrent that my commentary had displeased or offended somebody - or at least skirted the boundaries of what they considdered tollerable - so I'm sorry for that.
I never speak to offend and I dearly wish I could talk openly and honestly about all the issues that are important to me without running the risk of it offending or upsetting anybody.
As you seem to have deduced, @TideisTurning , I did get a bit fired up writing that post, as this subject matter often does to me. Call it the product of 30-odd years of confusion; not so much about the subject of suicide itself, but about everybody else's attitude towards it. If you'd been stuck in a culture for 30 years, that compelled you to abide by a code that completely confuses you, wouldn't you get a little angry about the whole farce?
I know plenty of people who get wound up when they spend 90 minutes trying to follow nonsensical directions from Microsoft or Epson about how to solve some technical bug, and get nowhere for their trouble. So try spending 30 years wandering around in utter confusion about why the rest of the world pesists in claiming that suicide is a bad choice. You'd probably do your nana, as I often do.
I'm trying to explain my behavior; not excuse it.
Once again, I am deeply sorry if I've offended or upset anybody.
