All right, catsix, since you don’t like contrapuntal’s question, try one of mine. I give you my word I’ll give you the relevant information up front and won’t change it or add to it. Here’s the question:
What would you have done if you were the friend my fiance called?
Relevant facts:
[ul][li]I was at his home and had been almost completely unresponsive for over 12 hours. He’d had to wash me off in the shower and I remained unresponsive, even though showering together was something we’d both fantasized about. [/li][li]I hadn’t spoken a word during that entire time.[/li][li](This is subjective.) My fiance told me later he looked into my eyes and saw no soul, no spark of personality or life there. [/li][li]I’d been on my own for the past five years and had not sought out therapy. If the issue had been raised (I don’t remember if it was or not), I’d dismissed it. I certainly doubted therapy would do me any good and I couldn’t afford it.[/li][li]I was convinced I was about to lose my home if it hadn’t already been damaged by the hurricane which triggered this event.[/li][li]This wasn’t a threat of suicide; it was an attempt. I was actively trying to will myself to die. [/li][li]I had, I think, made a move in the direction of a gun he owned.[/li][li]Neither my fiance nor I had a car, so he needed someone to get me somewhere where I could receive medical help. I don’t recall doing anything of my own volition, although I assume I must have gone to the bathroom on my own. I’m not sure I even ate.[/li][li]I was 27 years old.[/ul][/li]
There’s the situation. Everything I’ve described is as accurate as I can get it, given my mental state at the time and the passing of the years. There is one factor I’ve held back and will continue to hold back because it’s highly embarrassing and something I’m still rather ashamed of. Suffice it to say it only worsened my mental state.
And now, folks, if you’ll excuse me, two gentlemen are going to take me to a Greek Food Festival tonight! Life has improved a bit over the intervening years.
Excuse me. I didn’t mean to kill the thread! :eek:
Just a gentle reminder. The events I described in my last post happened over a decade ago several thousand miles away. I did get help, albeit incompetent help at first, and life’s pretty good right now, as was the Greek food!
I know first hand this sort of thing can be beaten. That’s why I insist on talking about it.
And well you should. Not only to show the way to those strugging with depression, but also to encourage their friends to take that extra step and help them. I look back at times in my life where death seemed the only way out and contrast that with my life now, and just shake my head. The me of then could never have believed a future like what I revel in now could possibly await me. But here it is, and here am I, enjoying it, because I got help when it mattered.
Okay…you didn’t ask, but I’ll give you my take on it. I would have intervened. For one thing, even though it may have been an attempt to will your own death, you hadn’t done anything that looked like suicide to someone outside your own brain. Looks to me like a breakdown of some sort. I know there isn’t a difference in your mind, but to an outsider, there would be a big difference. The fact that you didn’t articulate that you wanted to die would make a huge difference in a person’s response. Also, the fact that you had been happy and productive for a long time would indicate that you were responsive, or at least in some sort of remission, from your depression.
Also, to be honest with myself, I think if I was watching someone actively trying to end their life, i.e., gun to the temple, blade in hand, pills and water ready to go down, my kneejerk reaction would be to try to stop them, even if I knew they were not going to get better. However, if there was an assisted suicide thing for people with mental illness (like they have for cancer victims), and someone I knew told me they simply weren’t getting better after years of no response to medications, and simply wanted out, I feel I would have to support them in that decision, as sad as it would make me. I think the “spur of the moment” approach vs. the “well thought-out” approach would obligate me to intervene.
It’s not? That’s fucking news to me. I thought people did it all the time to cope with stress, exactly like Kalhoun said. I’m glad other people know better. Phew.
This “treat nothing as a joke” mentality some people have developed these days bothers me intensely. But the OP was there and knows how ambiguous the comment was or wasn’t, so I’ll leave that alone.
Can we put that on a plaque or something?
Pause while I get over the shock…
Darn, if only I hadn’t seen so many posts to this board by people who used similar medications and had the exact opposite experience.
Stalling? No, I’ve been pretty clear on my opinion that you asked a ridiculous question with ridiculous made-up circumstances and I’m not about to answer it.
One of them knows full well their actions will result in their death, and in fact, they’re counting on it.
I’m not about to put effort into an honest answer to that question when I know full well that the only reason you want one is so that you can call me heartless and tell me how glad you are I’m not your friend.
Wait, you just agreed with me that people joke about suicide all the time and that the ‘treat nothing as a joke’ mentality is ridiculous, and now you think I’m an absolute moron?
You make no sense.
Or maybe, I have a life and a job and other things were more important than visiting this thread and checking up on your latest insults.
Two things, and then I have to go to work, so cannot post again until tomorrow.
You are heartless, if you can NOT make a move to talk someone off a ledge or similiar.
People can agree with one premise or issues with another person, whilst still thinking that person a moron. Example: my MIL is a moron, but I agree with her that children need personal attention and time (not to go OT).
Why the black and white thinking? Why my way or the highway? How are we bad/wrong/misguided (and I can hear you saying–but I never said that!-but your responses never show that you can see/understand our POV) to give a damn about our fellow man and want to help?
You keep saying that it’s wrong to help someone who wants his destiny to be death right now and at his hands–God knows what you would say to his request for “help”. It has been shown, numerous times, that like Guin said, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. We’ve even come so far (some of us) to see that IF the sufferer has had a longterm problem with suicidal depression and meds/therapy not working, that the option should be made available to them–with some caveats, like they should be checked out by professionals etc.
But that is not good enough for you. You are “right” and that is all there is to it. Then you whine about people being nasty–never realizing that YOU are the one taking the nasty position here–you are saying that you do not value your fellow humans enough to care if they live or die.
You do not explain yourself, you adopt a sneering tone in your posts (which is so pervasive in all the threads where I have encountered you, that it must be the way you talk, too) as you look down your cyber nose at all of the cognitively impaired(ie the rest of the human race) who just <sigh> don’t Get It. Yet another topic where we the unlearned and unenlightened need to be shown the way by catsix . :rolleyes:
Give it up, catsix --you haven’t convinced me of either the validity of your approach to truly suffering people or that you even hold these tenents to be true. It all sounds like posturing to me–a naughty wunderkid playing with her profs.
You are the one who is deliberately making shit up. When I said this:
“Attempts to dissuade him fail”
You said this: “I think I might try to diffuse the situation by telling him there’s more beer in the cooler if we just take the elevator down he can have some.”
Are you suggesting that it is a ridiculous premise that a person **cannot be talked ** out of a particular behavior?
When I said this: “you are capable of restraining him”
You said this: “I doubt I could actually physically stop him”
This is just asinine. It’s given that you can stop him. It is the crux of the issue. If intervention is impossible then what are we arguing about here? Why have you been pissing and moaning through four pages of this thread about people interfering with individual rights** if that interference is impossible?**
I suspect you are not about to answer it because you would in fact intervene to prevent your friend from harming himself, and you realize that this puts the lie to your original position.
I’ve got a ton of work to do this morning, so I’ll leave it at this. I’ve read catsix’s answer and noted it. It’s not the first time I’ve encountered that attitude in this part of the country, and it’s about what I expected. At least today is an appropriate day to read it. On the other hand, that and a few other things have led to one positive – at my request, the CEO is bringing in doughnuts. After all, positive change is one of the best ways I know to deal with negatives.
I don’t think it matters how I answer. Several people have made up their minds that I’m heartless, mostly people who have never met me or had an actual conversation with me. The only thing that seems to matter is that I would not force my friend into treatment they didn’t want. That alone is supposed to make me heartless?
You’ve made a judgment about my entire nature because of one opinion and you think you’re all high and mighty and right and that I’m just a piece of shit, huh? People in this thread have implied that I caused two of my friends to commit suicide. Acted as if I am not even human, and I think some of you might actually believe that.
Remember two things though. One, I haven’t treated you in the same nasty, disrespectful, insulting manner you’ve treated me. Two, you’ve never met me and are making these judgments of me as being unable to feel anything because of one opinion.
You want to continue to bash me? Go ahead. I will not respond in kind to you.
I don’t think people’s opinions of you are being formed by this thread, just reinforced.
I have a great deal of sympathy for what you’re saying. I don’t know that I could support an involuntary commital for someone. I’ve never been in the position. In the abstract, it sounds unacceptable. In reality, I can see times when it might make sense.
Someone joking about suicide around a stranger is acting irresponsibly. I don’t believe suicide is particularly irresponsible. But putting someone else into a situation where they have to make a judgment call about a life-or-death matter is cruel.
To use an extreme example, if I called 911 and screamed that I was being attacked by the Michelin man, it might be obvious to me and to most people that I was joking or making it up. But there would be doubt. Maybe I’m actually insane. Maybe I’m being attacked by someone who is dressed like the Michelin man. The operator wouldn’t be able to tell.
On the other hand, if I were on a stage in a theater, it would be pretty obvious.
In the OP, it isn’t obvious. No matter which way the OP reacts, there is the potential for heartache. That’s an ugly place to be.
Well, jsgoddess, if their opinions of me as being heartless and incapable of feeling anything are only being ‘reinforced’, then I’ve got to conclude that they don’t know a damn thing about me.
Course I look at the people who are saying it, and they’re people who’ve never met me (with the exception of one, and I’ll never go out of my way for that person again) who seem to think they’re so clever to have figured me out. If someone who actually knew me said I was heartless and unfeeling and that I made people commit suicide, I’d probably have to think about it and it’d probably bother me.
But the people in this thread? Why the fuck should I take them seriously and let them hurt me?
Then maybe you need to sit down and take a long hard look at how you present yourself here, because what we see here is what we know of you. I don’t care who you are in real life-how you act here is how you will be judged here.
Well, they know, or think they know, what you’ve posted in other threads. You aren’t a touchy-feely poster. You appear to see things only in black and white, and tend to have derogatory things to say about those who see shades of grey.
Comments about your causing friends to commit suicide are unacceptable to me. But you came into this thread with guns blazing against the OP, again black and white, and you attitude seemed (again seemed) to be one of “other people’s pain is not my problem.”
Like I said, I agree with some of what you’re saying, though I think the OP did the best he could.
My point is that the self-absorbed judgments of a few people who think they know everything based on selectively read posts aren’t about to affect me in the least. Your judgments? Not worth changing my life over.
Where you’re mistaken is in thinking that I’m going to get all bent out of shape about how I have to try harder to impress a few people who don’t really matter anyway. Not going to happen. I’d rather kiss a dead moose’s ass than kiss up to your and your clique.
Getting back to the joking about suicide thing…if the OP is aware that he can’t read people, maybe he needs to defer to someone who can. I joke about suicide in person and in print all the time. I have a high-pressure job and sometimes I say that I’m ready to throw the rope over the rafters…take the pipe…fax me some cyanide, I’m gonna end it all…throw myself in front of a bus…etc. I find it difficult to believe any reasonable person would take any of those things seriously.
Another option would be to discuss it with the person. If it’s a cry for help, chances are the person is willing to open up if it looks like someone is listening. If it’s a joke, I would think that would become clear as well.
Life has improved a bit over the intervening years.