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Somethings to Say When Someone Wants to Kill Themselves

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chisa96 On December 29, 2014
Supreme Goddess





Out in Nature, Wisconsin
#91New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 03:41:44
@ReAdSaLoT Said

This is where professional intervention needs to come in. As hard as it is, you have to give them a hot line number ...

Call an ambulance, never try to handle them on your own. As I said in my post, people who need this much attention, are seriously, mentally ill.



Sorry, I can't help my argumentative side, and this actually ties back even more directly the title of the thread, and it is most definately something people should keep in the back of their minds should they actually be faced with having to convince somebody of this nature to get help.

So, respectfully, I must slightly disagree with some points here, at least in the reguard as this being blanket advice applicable to all situations.

As a psychologist, I'm sure you know how complicated it can be to address the subject of getting serious help to someone who is deeply disturbed and is also adamently against the whole idea of getting professional help. Why, to send an ambulance and sirens directly to their door has an incredibly high risk of triggering an impulsive and dangerous reaction; even should the approach be without the lights and sirens they will have to announce their presence at some point, a point that could prove to be impulsively fatal to the person. To even broach the subject of getting real help carries a high risk of backfiring and has to be handled incredibly delicately. When dealing with such people, you cannot simply hand them a phone number and expect anything to come of it, and sending sirens to their door could very easily equal them being dead before those professionals even have the chance to knock, let alone help.

When dealing with emotionally disturbed people who have a deep adversion to professional help, it's much more complicated than any of that, and to handle it so bluntly has a very high liklihood of backfiring terribly, and possibly irreversibly. You can most definitely hand them a phone number and bow out of the situation, and you may have to at some point to save your own sanity, but the odds of the phone number even being considered are low at best and really ammount to nothing more than one ditch effort for them. (I do agree that a person shouldn't feel guilty about having to step out though. There are situations that are simply out of people's hands no matter how hard they tried, though that in itself will likely do little to stop the guilt that comes with leaving someone you care about to their fate.)

Admittedly, this is not something I fully understood at the time, not until years later actually, but I had talked to this particular girl enough that even then I understood that such an approach would do nothing but harm, especially in a system that couldn't hold her to therapy for more than three useless days.
chisa96 On December 29, 2014
Supreme Goddess





Out in Nature, Wisconsin
#92New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 04:20:59
Wow. You know, that series of rambles was actually quite theraputic. I haven't even thought too deeply of these sorts of things in months, in the case of that specific girl, years. Indeed, I had already long since made peace with that specific situation. Yet there was something incredibly helpful about remembering it all again, if only to sort it all out into words like that, words that are further removed from the initial turmoil of the experience. Perhaps such personal stuff would have been better suited to a journal, but you never know-- someone out there could conceivably find it helpful, or at the least mildly interesting and worth considering.

And besides, once the subject had gotten me started, you all got to read several long rambles of mine on it, including this completely useless one that I'm going to post anyway. Now wasn't that a treat as well?
chisa96 On December 29, 2014
Supreme Goddess





Out in Nature, Wisconsin
#93New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 06:55:02
@Makeitreal Said

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter and yeah, she may rest in peace. But still, I would stick to my idea about suicide or ending someone's life. I might sound judgemental or don't care at all but that's how I feel about it. I do symphatized for your loss but you have to understand as well that every person has its own ability on how to carry and control his/her emotion when it comes to depression. Depression came to me many times now, we've lost my younger bro who was really dear to us, the father of my son chose to be with his mom than to be with me and we parted and I never asked for financial support from him and have to take full responsibility towards our kid. Those were just some example of depression I've had but I never thought of committing suicide that is maybe because I'm optimistic and always looking forward to more positive things to happen.

What my point here is, it depends on the person on how he/she would put depression from negative to positive. If that person would just dwell on purely negative, then that will never help him/her at all. I was able to control my emotion towards depression, so for sure others can though. It's maybe harsh to say but your daughter chose to give up than hoping for something better, IMO.

Well, I still hope you'll find peace in your heart though.

Elaine



I do find myself wondering, though. Surely you realize that your perspective is just that-- your own perspective, that you came by through all those experiences, and many more subtle interactions with the world inbetween them all as well? It is that perspective on the world that made it possible for you to carry through all your tragedies.

Yet you could take a person who's experienced exactly the same major tragedies as you've outlined, and their perspective on the world would still be entirely different because of those countless less significant interactions that took place in the day in/day out aspect of their lives and played a paramount role in shaping how they think about the world around.

It is much more than the cataclysmic experiences of our lives that shapes the way we think, and in turn the way we cope. And those lines of thinking and coping are only in part up to us, because who we are is in huge part a result of how all those minor experiences of our lives are pieced together.

So, though you may have had a strong desire to carry on and that driving optimism to reinforce it, others who have been through the exact same tragedies as yourself may have developed a different line of thinking on those experiences throughout the course of their development.

And it's, at best, incomplete to label that final decision their own fault. It is in the sense that they chose to do it, but then what they choose is largely determined by who they are, and who they are is largely determined by that intricate series of experiences that built their lives. There is, of course, room within those experiences for personal choice that alse determines who we become, but it's inextricably tangled up with those chance circumstances and interactions with the world that we have no control over.

Not that any of this should affect your opinion on the matter of course, but it's just some food for thought that I was thinking about elsewhere and seemed to fit well in response to your post.
ReAdSaLoT On September 23, 2019




,
#94New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 08:37:22
@Makeitreal Said

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter and yeah, she may rest in peace. But still, I would stick to my idea about suicide or ending someone's life. I might sound judgemental or don't care at all but that's how I feel about it. I do symphatized for your loss but you have to understand as well that every person has its own ability on how to carry and control his/her emotion when it comes to depression. Depression came to me many times now, we've lost my younger bro who was really dear to us, the father of my son chose to be with his mom than to be with me and we parted and I never asked for financial support from him and have to take full responsibility towards our kid. Those were just some example of depression I've had but I never thought of committing suicide that is maybe because I'm optimistic and always looking forward to more positive things to happen.

What my point here is, it depends on the person on how he/she would put depression from negative to positive. If that person would just dwell on purely negative, then that will never help him/her at all. I was able to control my emotion towards depression, so for sure others can though. It's maybe harsh to say but your daughter chose to give up than hoping for something better, IMO.

Well, I still hope you'll find peace in your heart though.

Elaine



My daughter was 80 lbs and given a week to live. She didn't intentionally kill herself. She took her morphine and her heart gave out. Read next time, she was getting married and had everything to live for. Her body gave up, she didn't. That wasn't harsh, it was ignorant. She fought like a lion. You need more experience before making these judgment. I live in pain 24/7/365- and the pain she went through made me look like a sissy. Nothing you can say, could fix this. No one knows it all. I've written about what we've been going through; there was no hope left. If anyone is a prayer and believer, I am. It was her time or her normal dose would not have killed her. I wrote about her, not to say I understand suicide, but to say; it's not always what someone wants. Most people just want help. We discovered that it was accidental, but the doctor said, it was going to happen any time. Do you know how hard this is to discuss? How dare you wish my heart peace? How many of your children have died? Excuse me, I'm angry and you don't have a clue. We got the autopsy report tonight, but I already knew the answer. I'd better shut up.
ReAdSaLoT On September 23, 2019




,
#95New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 09:20:52
@Makeitreal Said

Oh yeah, I might really have no idea of what you've been going thru but look who's being harsh now. I would just like to quote the word "Ignorant" as you mentioned. I dont think voicing out someone's opinion is ignorance. And if you're going to go over what you've written previously, you said you were not even sure if your daughter meant to end her life or might that her heart gave up. You should have been more specific instead. Oh well, what else should I say then. And yes I have really no clue of what you're angry about and am not curious to know either.

That's all I can say. Take it or leave it but I just have shared what my opinion about suicide is. Opinion is always an opinion and you can neither agree nor disagree.



lil_bear01 On February 18, 2011

Deleted



In my igloo, Canada
#96New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 15:16:48
@Mysteria Said

I don't appreciate people saying that anyone who attempts suicide is attention seeking. If you've never been in a deep depression and haven't felt as if there was no other way to stop the pain, you need to think before you post or speak to a person who is in agony.

I'll admit that I have attempted suicide. My pain was excruciating and I thought everyone would be better off without me. I had a moment of clarity and was lucky enough to be able to call 911. My stomach was pumped and I was hospitalized. Do you know what I got in return from my loved ones? Anger and neglect. That made it worse than it should have ever had to be. I understand that they were hurt. I remember thinking "Oh, no, I can't do this to my son!" before calling for help. It never occurred to me that my parents would care because they had made me feel like a burden to them and had asked me to stop talking to them about my depression. I was totally lost. My son had moved away and I was here alone. The whole family was out of the state. I just wanted my pain to end and then I was accused of doing that to get my parents' attention. WTF? If things had gone as planned, I would have been dead so how would I know I got their f***in' attention?!

f*** them and anyone who believes I am weak for having this illness. I've been fighting it for more than half my life and there are many people who don't make it through. I don't think said people are weak. They just feel that they have no reason to go on.

I wanted to take my life during and after the holidays due to having a mixed episode (manic-depressive) and some issues that came up that I didn't think I could deal with. My mother had told me she loved me but did not like me. My son attacked me over something that he shouldn't have. I felt that I had no reason to keep living. There was so much rage in me that I wasn't myself anymore and by that I mean that I stopped caring about people. That is not the real me and I didn't know how to get rid of the rage and gain my compassion for others ever again. (I'm sitting here crying just thinking about it.)

My parents had told me to just kill myself and get it over with a few months before. Then they wondered why I threatened to. The police were called and I was lucky I had an appointment with my doctor. I told the policemen that I was getting ready for the appt.

Why in hell didn't my mother come help me when I called her 5 days earlier to say I felt like there was no reason to go on? Why didn't she try to help me when I called her two days later? None of that s*** should have had to happen, but she was more concerned about showing her remodeled house to a friend than coming to check on me. THEN she and my dad FINALLY showed up AFTER calling the police and telling me to f***in' do it?! I know now that she didn't come because she hasn't "liked me" for a long time. Well, to hell with her. I call that woman to check on her health on a regular basis and do what I'm capable of doing for her and my dad. I don't like the way they treat me but I know that if they needed me, I'd be there. If my son called me and said he wanted to die, I'd drive over in a heartbeat.

So, NO! Not all people who attempt suicide are weak attention seekers. I have a VERY strong will and that is why I am alive today. None of us really know what's going on in another person's mind so the last thing we should do is judge or call someone crazy or tell someone to "take their meds"! If that is the way you treat people with mental illness, f*** YOU! (These comments are not directed at any particular person.)



The only reason I can see for people having this 'selfish' attitude is because THEY are selfish and can't see past their own selfishness to see the excruciating pain that the person whom has tried or is wanting to commit suicide is going through and that part of THEM which is called 'EMPATHY' is missing.

To wrap up: It is NOT the person that wants or tries to commit suicide that is 'selfish' it's the ones around them that are being selfish because they don't want to suffer any pain or be thought of as perhaps 'failures' for having not seen how much pain that person was in in the first place. It's called [ We didn't notice or cared about what you felt or feel, but if you talk about suicide then we will have a lot to talk about and pass the blame on to YOU, the person suffering with the pain].

After all if they accept that they may be a little bit at fault then they may have contributed to the end decision, so in all they call the person with the illness and pain 'selfish' to cover all bases.

Everyone has an opinion on suicide. I just hope the ones that are harsh with the opinion NEVER have to go through 'the suicide stage' to experience it first hand if only to show them how really unselfish people wanting to commit or have committed suicide really are...
lil_bear01 On February 18, 2011

Deleted



In my igloo, Canada
#97New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 15:26:28
@chisa96 Said

All that is fine and good, and I do most definitely agree that such a person has deep-running issues that require help, but when they deny it all in the face of those who can actually provide them with that help, when they refuse flatout to seek any true help you suggest for them, it doesn't change anything.

And while I eventually did the same as you with your ex, by then it was too late to not understand that perspective of suicide.



My psycho-ex used to use the 'suicide' line after every single beating which was over 10 times a day.

I finally snapped to my shame and grabbed a butcher knife and told him to 'do it' and quit talking about it.

I was under a mind f*** with his games and ended up being really 'numb'.

As for the people that find the victims of suicide, I can relate to their being angry. It's got to be very, very hard to find someone you love 'dead' by their hand.

All this talking will never change anything, but at least everyone is letting their feelings on the topic out and if anyone thinking about doing it is reading this in passing can get a perspective from every angle.

And by people, I mean the ones that want to commit suicide and all the other people that have dealt with the finding of a loved one that has committed suicide or just dealing with anyone having these thoughts.

Great topic with every type of view on it can be very helpful to even one person and to me it's great. For all we know someone has NOT committed suicide because of what they've read here today and someone that thinks it's selfish is re-thinking their views on the pain of such a person..
GSnap On March 02, 2019




Over the Rainbow,
#98New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 15:53:12
@Makeitreal Said

Oh yeah, I might really have no idea of what you've been going thru but look who's being harsh now. I would just like to quote the word "Ignorant" as you mentioned. I dont think voicing out someone's opinion is ignorance. And if you're going to go over what you've written previously, you said you were not even sure if your daughter meant to end her life or might that her heart gave up. You should have been more specific instead. Oh well, what else should I say then. And yes I have really no clue of what you're angry about and am not curious to know either.

That's all I can say. Take it or leave it but I just have shared what my opinion about suicide is. Opinion is always an opinion and you can neither agree nor disagree.



Wow.
chisa96 On December 29, 2014
Supreme Goddess





Out in Nature, Wisconsin
#99New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 15:54:32
@lil_bear01 Said

For all we know someone has NOT committed suicide because of what they've read here today



That would be pretty cool, wouldn't it?
lil_bear01 On February 18, 2011

Deleted



In my igloo, Canada
#100New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 16:30:30
@chisa96 Said

Sorry, I can't help my argumentative side, and this actually ties back even more directly the title of the thread, and it is most definately something people should keep in the back of their minds should they actually be faced with having to convince somebody of this nature to get help.

So, respectfully, I must slightly disagree with some points here, at least in the reguard as this being blanket advice applicable to all situations.

As a psychologist, I'm sure you know how complicated it can be to address the subject of getting serious help to someone who is deeply disturbed and is also adamently against the whole idea of getting professional help. Why, to send an ambulance and sirens directly to their door has an incredibly high risk of triggering an impulsive and dangerous reaction; even should the approach be without the lights and sirens they will have to announce their presence at some point, a point that could prove to be impulsively fatal to the person. To even broach the subject of getting real help carries a high risk of backfiring and has to be handled incredibly delicately. When dealing with such people, you cannot simply hand them a phone number and expect anything to come of it, and sending sirens to their door could very easily equal them being dead before those professionals even have the chance to knock, let alone help.

When dealing with emotionally disturbed people who have a deep adversion to professional help, it's much more complicated than any of that, and to handle it so bluntly has a very high liklihood of backfiring terribly, and possibly irreversibly. You can most definitely hand them a phone number and bow out of the situation, and you may have to at some point to save your own sanity, but the odds of the phone number even being considered are low at best and really ammount to nothing more than one ditch effort for them. (I do agree that a person shouldn't feel guilty about having to step out though. There are situations that are simply out of people's hands no matter how hard they tried, though that in itself will likely do little to stop the guilt that comes with leaving someone you care about to their fate.)

Admittedly, this is not something I fully understood at the time, not until years later actually, but I had talked to this particular girl enough that even then I understood that such an approach would do nothing but harm, especially in a system that couldn't hold her to therapy for more than three useless days.



Totally agree with this comment.

Even IF they got into the 'system' what if anything does the 'system' do for them?

In the end, believe it or not most of the time it plays with their minds even more and most find out that it's all politics and not REAL HELP after proving to them that nobody REALLY cares, even the field that professes to focus totally on helping these people and that could be the straw that finally breaks them completely.

Like Chisa said, BACKFIRE!!!!!! is a very real result for these people..
lil_bear01 On February 18, 2011

Deleted



In my igloo, Canada
#101New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 16:51:20
My hopefully final comment on suicide and I have tried many times is [ If you're thinking about committing suicide for the 'peace' factor, what makes you think that once you've committed suicide you'll have 'peace'?]

That's what kept me from doing it every single time and I knew that once I did do it there was no turning back peace or not!

Think on that one. Will you really have 'peace' and if you think so, how do you know it?

No one has ever come back from committing suicide and told me that they were finally at 'peace'. So think things through because there's no undoing suicide!
chisa96 On December 29, 2014
Supreme Goddess





Out in Nature, Wisconsin
#102New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 17:04:56
@lil_bear01 Said

Totally agree with this comment.

Even IF they got into the 'system' what if anything does the 'system' do for them?

In the end, believe it or not most of the time it plays with their minds even more and most find out that it's all politics and not REAL HELP after proving to them that nobody REALLY cares, even the field that professes to focus totally on helping these people and that could be the straw that finally breaks them completely.

Like Chisa said, BACKFIRE!!!!!! is a very real result for these people..


I don't mean to suggest that you shouldn't try to get people help; the system is undoubtedly flawed, but until we can improve it it's the best we have, and there are some good people working within it that will do their damnedest to help. It's a finger cross, but it's better than nothing at all.

All I meant was that it needs to be approached delicately; the system doesn't have the time or resources to help those who were forced into it and don't want to be there see that they need this help. That's up to the loved ones, and it can be tricky as hell.
lil_bear01 On February 18, 2011

Deleted



In my igloo, Canada
#103New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 17:08:57
@chisa96 Said

I don't mean to suggest that you shouldn't try to get people help; the system is undoubted flawed, but until we can improve it it's the best we have, and there are some good people working within it that will do their damnedest to help. It's a finger cross, but it's better than nothing at all.

All I meant was that it needs to be approached delicately; the system doesn't have the time or resources to help those who were forced into it and don't want to be there see that they need this help. That's up to the loved ones, and it can be tricky as hell.



Very valid points.

I've seen the pros and cons of the system and in conclusion all I have to say is that there are many well intentioned people with very limited resources open to them and that's what hurts the person in need the most.
chisa96 On December 29, 2014
Supreme Goddess





Out in Nature, Wisconsin
#104New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 17:21:07
@lil_bear01 Said

Very valid points.

I've seen the pros and cons of the system and in conclusion all I have to say is that there are many well intentioned people with very limited resources open to them and that's what hurts the person in need the most.



And it sucks.
ReAdSaLoT On September 23, 2019




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#105New Post! Jan 24, 2011 @ 20:15:11
@chisa96 Said

And it sucks.

This is why I hate discussing these things on a site like this. There are many professional people with valid points and those with life experience who probably know better. I'd never have sirens coming to a home, but there are ways of transporting people without making them lose it completely. My husband now works for a State Hospital, and it can be scary. He does transportation sometimes. He's the therapist and he has a driver and a third person to help. My choice of words should not have been ambulance. They use regular cars which cannot be unlocked by the patient. This subject is just too complex. Every situation must be handled in a particular way. Drugs and alcohol involved, make it worse.
Panic stricken parents seldom let the professionals do their job and too often they can't get qualified people. Not anybody can hang a shingle backed by a license, but too many can do it for awhile and move on. Pa. has very strict regulations, so this being an international site, all laws and qualifications are different. I've fired more than one doctor and not just psychiatrists. If they don't seem to give a damn, they don't have my business. Medicine is a business now; Marcus Welby is long gone. I felt that I was more effective working with teens in a classroom, than I ever was in private practice. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. What should be said is, "Never try to handle the situation alone." My favorite professor in grad school said something I'll never forget, "Whatever works, causes no harm, and shows to be helpful, DO." I'm tired now.
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