Then stop bitching that people put words in your mouth, or that we don’t really know you.
I was just pointing out a fact. You don’t know me. Maybe that oughta make you consider whether or not your judgment is valid. It probably won’t, but what the hell, you’ve asked me to re-evaluate my life.
I don’t think I’m out of line in saying you might want to consider re-evaluating your attitude towards me, especially since you know I’m not the one to just leave a person on a city bus.
catsix, you and I would probably never be friends if only because of my views on feminism. You’ve seen things which have absolutely shaped your view of suicide and you’re going to stick through them. Fair enough. From what I recall, when I was your age, I also had a pretty low view of psychiatry and didn’t think it did much good. Frankly, when my friends checked me into that mental hospital, I didn’t think I’d be checking out again. Hell, having been kicked out a week later, misdiagnosed, stuck on medications without followup therapy except for a referral to a support group which met twice a month on the far side of Oahu from me, I can certainly see where you’re coming from. I was lucky I had friends who were more sensible than I was and that I was too stubborn to give up. I was also lucky that the second time I was hospitalized, after nearly throwing myself off a bridge, I was insured by the other major health insurance provide on Oahu.
Here’s the thing. I was wrong about what can and cannot be done for depression. I learned that the hardest way possible, and I’m trying to help others find an easier way to learn it. You don’t want to learn that. As I said, fair enough. I know people who are convinced a friend of mine cannot be a good person because he’s a Wiccan. That’s their view and they’re entitled to it. It just means I won’t be inviting them to join us for dinner or hiking any time in the foreseeable future.
Yes, your view looks callous to me. Does that really surprise you? Yes, you may indeed be a wonderful person in real life. Hell, the late, lamented His4Ever told me any number of times how nice she was in real life. It wasn’t a side of herself she chose to show here. You’ve got any number of reasons to think little of me and so be it. I’ll treat you with respect and courtesy as best I can, but I’m willing to be just as stubborn about sticking to my views as you are about yours. Are you a good person? Who knows? That’s not my call. What is my call is countering what you tell me your friends have experienced with what I’ve experienced. Different people; different lives; different views. It’d be a boring world if it were otherwise.
CJ
Well, our judgement is valid, because it’s based on the side of yourself that you’ve presented here. That, we do know.
What is your age, catsix ? I find myself wondering this because of the clique remark–it would explain alot of the rigidity and judgement that I see in your posts.
Rest assured, there is no “clique” here.
From the feminism thread, to the rape thread to this one–you have shown yourself(at least to me) as someone who is rigid in her thinking and intolerant of shades of gray in the world. Unfortunately, the world is mostly grays, not black and white.
My intent here was/is not to denigrate your character or gang up on you with a clique. I am laughing at the clique idea–there are maybe 4 posters here who even acknowledge my existence and I know none in RL.
I hope that the posts here have given you food for thought about how you express yourself on this bb. I see no “kinder, gentler” catsix in this thread or the others I mentioned above.
To me, you come across as someone who does not tolerate other opinions and is fairly contemptous of the female sex as a whole and people who admit to weaknesses . I could be completely wrong–so show me that.
And just this last bit: Reality check time–NOONE has accused you of causing someone else’s suicide and you know it. This thread is painful enough without the hyperbole and drama.
:rolleyes:
Oh bullshit. Exaggerate much? I said you might think about how you phrase things here, since you always seem to be so misunderstood. I never said you should “re-evaluate your life”. If everyone keeps believing you said something you didn’t, then the problem is at YOUR end. Not our’s. It’s your job to communicate better, not our’s to reinterpret what you said.
No, I don’t “know” you, but again, that doesn’t mean jackshit. I don’t know a lot of you people, except from what I see here. Everyone used to talk about how nice Jersey Diamond and Joe Cool were in real life. But so what? HERE they chose to act like nasty heartless pricks.
So I’m not judging how you act in real life. I’m judging how you act HERE, and I don’t think THAT’S out of line.
My age is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Then you’ve missed a rather large majority of my posts.
Why?
What they said was that my friends have a nasty habit of killing themselves. That leads me to believe that somebody thinks being my friend is deadly.
There you go exaggerating. Not everybody believes that. Just a certain few posters who seem to always be the same certain few posters. Truthfully, I’m not too worried about being liked by everyone.
Not when you whine about cliques and people ganging up on you–sounds high school to me. I doubt you are in HS, but are probably in your mid-twenties. The claim that others just don’t understand is a last gasp argument, usually used by the young towards those older.
Yo-I haven’t been here that long. Those are the ONLY threads in which I have had sustained contact or exposure to your world view. From where I sit, it ain’t pretty or kind.
You complain that we don’t “know” you, but refuse to allow to see the “real” catsix. Talk about a Catch-22…you will continue to be judged harshly, if only harshness is seen in your posts. For all anyone knows, you could make Mr. Rogers of blessed memory look cruel–doesn’t come across in your posts.
So, if you don’t wish to change your posting style, or allow me some insight into your declamations–don’t complain about the dim view I take of you here–I’m only allowed to see the rigid, harsh side of you.
There’s a leap in logic–and a fully loaded one too–I don’t buy the attempt at sympathy for poor misunderstood catsix. Doesn’t scan.
How on earth do you discern what everyone else thinks about you here? Omniscient are we? In no way am I saying that everyone believes that you are heartless–where do you see that? Given the variety present on this bb, probably some think you are just fine-there may even be a fan club out there for ya, who knows? That doesn’t make them right or me wrong. It’s an opinion–variable and changing. We could take a poll and see-but that strikes me as silly. I wouldn’t mind changing my opinion you–if I had some data on which to base the change.
I am relieved to see that you are not concerned about being liked by everyone.
Well, that was not a “they”, it was me, and, while poorly worded, was not an accusation that your friendship is deadly. We hashed that out back in posts 64-67.
Hey catsix, would you prevent a drunk friend from harming himself if you could, even though he didn’t want you to?
Umm yeah and while we are on the subject. On another list I am on (with much fewer people but still worldwide) One person was posting about how depressed she was, enough so that another person believed her to be suicidal and called the authorities where she lived. The first person was picked up by the police, put on a temporary psych hold ansd was really pissed once she found out who did it. the namecalling flaming posts were stupendous and caused a serious division in the group. If someone is in need of help, you have to help thembut the thought that someone might call the police because of a series of depressed posts is kind of scary too.
First of all, I just have to state that I think catsix is mostly in the wrong here. Even though I do think that someone should have the right to end their life for severe terminal mental illness just as someone should be allowed to end it for severe terminal physical illness, it shouldn’t be done without numerous evaluations to determine if their mental illness is truly intractable and incurable, and a long (2 years would be the minimum) waiting period. There is a big difference between a system like that and just letting someone off themselves because they’re temporarily situationally depressed. Letting them do that isn’t giving them a choice, it’s removing the capacity to make all other choices, and that isn’t something that should be arrived at lightly. The parallel between a self-destructive drunk and a self-destructive temporary depressive is absolutely accurate, and I’m not surprised catsix hasn’t responded to it yet, since her answer would probably underscore her hypocrisy.
However, I don’t think I could bring myself to commit someone, because I’d be so afraid it would fuck up their future and I couldn’t live with myself if that happened. What if my friend wanted to be a senator one day? Or a police officer? Depending on the type and severity of their illness, those might be career paths that are closed to them, either because of regulations or social stigma. Ideally, I would try to find a backdoor clinic where I could obtain treatment for my friend, or obtain meds from an online pharmacy. While I applaud those people who have no shame about their diagnoses, we are still a long way from total acceptance, and if my assistance is going to mean that my friend is going to spend the rest of their life behind a McDonald’s counter (granted, a simple depression diagnosis probably wouldn’t do this–but a psychotic label might) then I am not going to do anything that might lead to that outcome. I would try to find them help, and I would certainly physically stop them from killing themselves, but I wouldn’t go to the establishment. Yes, we should fight against the stigma toward mental illness, but we also have to be aware that stigma exists and in some places it is major. And also remember that it’s easy to fight back against stigma if you have one of the more socially acceptable mental illnesses, like social anxiety or minor depression. Your outing might be only slightly embarassing; for someone with a more stigmatized condition like schizophrenia, it could be devastating.
catsix, you’ve implied that you would take an action that would have resulted in me dying. Moreover, it wouldn’t have been a quick, clean death, but an agonizing painful one. Even if the method one uses to commit suicide is relatively quick and painless, I know the process it takes to get to that point is far from it. As I said earlier, it’s agony. Under the circumstances, I think I’ve been quite polite to you.
Your fears and misperceptions would directly increase the suffering another human being goes through when that suffering can be alleviated. From what you’ve posted here, I gather you believe that any treatment for depression involves antidepressants and a high risk of involuntary committment, despite being told that that’s not the case. None of the three competent therapists I saw used drugs exclusively; the first two used them temporarily to keep me together. The real work was done in therapy. What I’ve been told is that, while anti-depressants will work on the immediate symptoms of depression, therapy is a far more effective way of treating the underlying causes. That matches my experience and, to me, any psychiatrist who relies on drugs alone to treat depression is irresponsible. I’ll also note that the two most effective therapists I’ve had were just that – psychotherapists who weren’t allowed to prescribe prescription drugs. The one I saw in Hawaii was a member of a free clinic who had a psychiatrist on staff; the only times I saw him was when he wrote out the prescriptions. The one here preferred not to use drugs in any form in her practive. I understand that the people you know in real life have apparently only had negative experiences with treatment for depression. I also know that’s different from my experience.
I don’t see you as cruel or heartless. I do see you as someone who rigidly and firmly believes something and is not willing to listen to evidence which contradicts that. You’re right. I could be wrong. Given what I said in the first paragraph in this post, I could also think a lot worse of you.
Do you think I like the prospect of being on drugs for life or involuntarily committed? For me, that’s something which has a greater likelihood of happening than it does for you. That’s why I’ve made a point of learning about it. I also make a point of telling people about my experiences because those fears kept me from seeking help until I was at a very great risk of dying. On the other hand, if a silent, non-responsive, virtual robot-on-hind-legs is free to walk away from a mental hospital any time she chooses (like I was capable of making a choice! :rolleyes: ), how hard can it realistically be to keep someone who is capable of making his or her own choices against his will? You want another example? I’ve got one. Two summers ago, a friend of mine became severely manic as part of the aftereffects of a stroke. I spoke to her while thing were at their height, and she was very much out of touch with reality and downright frightening. I spoke with her a few hours after she checked herself out of the mental hospital she’d gone to for treatment for that very ailment. Her doctor had strongly advised that she not check herself out, but she was able to do so, even though her husband wasn’t there to pick her up because he’d told her that, if she did check herself out against doctor’s orders, he would not take her home. Again, I spoke to her a few hours after she’d checked herself out. She was making very little sense and not in touch with reality as we know it, but she was able to check herself out. While I understand that you may firmly believe that treatment for mental illness necessarily involves involuntary committal, in my experience, that is simply not the case.
Look, if you want to play the “Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. I’m going off to the corner to eat worms!” game, fine. Go right ahead. I’m assuming it does something for you and that you wouldn’t do it if it didn’t. I’ve seen people play that game, usually in group therapy. I’ve played it a time or two myself for that matter. The thing is, it wasn’t all that much fun. In fact, it was kind of boring. It also wasn’t true, as I realized once I pulled my head out of it’s prior location and had a look around. You’ve got firm beliefs which people on this board disagree with. Fair enough; so do I. Whether you like it or not, and which you do doesn’t bother me at all, when you said in this thread that you wouldn’t do anything if someone told you they were suicidal and that people who are suicidal should be left to die, to me, SDMB Siege, human being and someone who’s done just that, you in effect told me you’d leave me to die a prolonged, agonizing, preventable death. Call me eccentric or downright wierd, but that’s not exactly going to make me think highly of a person. It’s nothing personal; there’s a guy back at my old church who greatly reduced the odds of me becoming friends with him when he told me, knowing my history, “You realize, of course, all suicides go to hell.” I’m sure he was genuinely concerned about my soul. I’m also sure he was wrong and I didn’t want to hang out with him.
Yes, people joke about suicide. Hell, I’ve been known to mutter something about shooting myself and/or others and it hasn’t meant I’m suicidal or homicidal. I also know that, while for me, there’s a very large difference between the way I look when I’m joking around and when depression is starting to eat my soul alive, in public that difference will be much smaller and it’s safer to cover up real pain with a joke. When I was growing up, my peers taught me that showing weakness only leads to more attacks, although I haven’t found that to be the case with most adults. I’d much rather check and find I was worried about nothing – for that matter, I’d rather check and be accused of being a humorless prig – than do nothing and have to face myself after the worst happened. Then again, that’s who I wound up being because of what I’ve experienced. You, obviously, are a different person who’s experienced different things. That’s your privilege. If you want a pity party, though, you’ve come to the wrong person. I play the piano, not the violin.
CJ
Which makes me wonder why she’s even here, given that goes against everything this board stands for. No matter what evidence we give, SHE’S right, WE’re wrong because she knows someone, or had a different experience. And no, her experience isn’t unique, it’s What Should Be.
Obviously there’s a big difference between me saying, “What? A marathon of Everybody Loves Raymond? Please, just shoot me now,” and actually talking about seriously killing myself. Just like there’s a difference between rational feminism and Andrea Dworkin and Valerie Solaris (who, btw, was literally batshit insane, so almost NO ONE took her seriously, not even Dworkin and her ilk).
That should be Valerie Solanas, not Solaris. Sorry.
By the way, continuity eror, you personally, as a layman, couldn’t have someone involuntarily committed. It takes a medical professional to do that. Even then, according to what my therapist told me, it’s not easy. Being hospitalized for mental illness also doesn’t necessarily have to screw up one’s life. Then again, if I’d believed that in my early twenties, I might not have wound up in a mental hospital, thinking I’d irrevocably screwed up my life. :smack:
Kalhoun, you give me more credit than I deserve. I gather that in the months before that first hospitalization, my friends saw me heading straight to destruction, but couldn’t get me to do a thing about it. It was kind of like a trainwreck in slow motion. You see, I kept refusing to get help. I was in such bad shape that I was on the verge of getting fired and indeed, as soon as I got out of the hospital, my employer did fire me. Why she couldn’t have done so while I was in the hospital and had help available (when I called from the hospital, she said of course my job was waiting for me), is one of life’s mysteries. :rolleyes:
CJ
I have been involved in ONE involuntary commital in my job as a nurse and I’ve been working for almost 20 years. It is not as comon or as simple as is thought.
Hell, just finding places for the actively psychotic and suicidally depressed is a Herculean task.
It is neither easy or pleasant, but like so much else in health care, it is something that needs to be done.
I agree that taking your life should be a final option for some (and they would be rare) who have not found relief in the current approaches to mental illness available. I also agree that there should be a waiting period and also a team of professionals to review each case. This is not how the law (or practice) stands at present, so the point is moot.
I don’t agree with those who say that they would hesitate because of possible future repercussions. This person is suffering and needs help, now. If not helped, s/he may never see their way to Senatorship or whatever. The kind of difficulties that these folks find themselves in are not the kind that will go away by themselves–they are likely to fall deeper and deeper into the abyss.
Point of clarity: I do not think catsix is heartless. I think she comes across as heartless. If I said otherwise, I apologize for the poor wording. (then again, perception is reality for the receiver…but that’s another thread).
continuity eror, political and law enforcement careers aside, being put on an emergency hold (being committed) does not condemn you to a life behind a McDonald’s counter. Nor is there any reason to use a backdoor clinic (do backdoor clinics for therapy even exist???) or get meds from Canada. It’s not like you have to disclose an involuntary committment on a job application. If you don’t want traceable records of any services you use, pay for them out of pocket.
Frankly, I’m offended by the idea that you say there shouldn’t be a stigma, and yet you yourself contribute to it with your belief that mental illness needs to be dealt with in the shadows.
It doesn’t.
Yes, I was involuntarily committed on a 24 hour hold. But it wasn’t my therapist or even the cops who put me there. Even when I was face to face with the police, they could not just put me in the cruiser based on my therapist’s assessment/belief. They had to have a reason. And I gave them that reason. At any time I could’ve said, “I’m outta here,” and walked right out of the office and driven away. In the end, I *agreed * to go to the hospital. Granted, I wasn’t catatonic or on the ledge of a 10-story building. But then, if I was, then clearly I would’ve needed to go to the hospital!!
I got a free ride in a cab on the county back to my car. If I didn’t want anyone to know about it, no one would have ever known.
What it comes down to is that, as I mentioned before as have others, it’s not like someone says they’re going to take you off to the funny farm and off you go. Nevertheless, when someone, anyone, expresses any kind of suicidal ideation, no one should be afraid to just come right out and ask them if they’re thinking of suicide. There are many things that can be done before an emergency hold is neccessary. And even if it comes to that, there are many, many examples I can cite, IRL and people on this board, who had that experience and are leading better and normal and successful lives afterwards.
Jeeeeesus! Being put on an emergency hold is. not. the. end. of. your. life. as. you. know. it!!!
Yes, I know that it doesn’t necessarily have to screw up someone’s life, but… I know people in real life who can never get a “real” job (salaried with benefits) because they have a psychiatric diagnosis. My aunt, for instance, who has an education degree yet has never been hired as a teacher, even though she applied at several schools once her kids were old enough. True, I can’t be sure none of the local schools hired her because of her illness (schizoaffective disorder), but I can’t help but think that was a factor in her not being hired.
That’s why I’m a proponent of underground/DIY treatment for all but the most severe and outwardly violent cases. Folks need help, and the system will provide it, but in many cases it’s gonna slap a big red C on your record that will follow you around for the rest of your life. That doesn’t always happen, in fact the majority of employers probably wouldn’t care if there was a hospitalization on your record, but the chance that some future employer might have a problem with it is still too great. And with the new national ID cards, information will be readily obtained by anyone who wants it. Until there are better anti-discrimination laws in place I would not feel comfortable seeking treatment from anyone in the system, and I would gently steer other people away from it as well (though not towards nothing… there are ways to get help and have it not show up on your record).
And no, I couldn’t involuntarily commit someone on my own, but if I were to inform my friend’s therapist of their condition, and he ratted to the system, I’d still be liable if my friend lost the ability to get a good job and lost public standing. It might be a remote possibility, but it is still there. And I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.
niblet_head: What I meant by backdoor therapy is people (with or without psychology degrees, just getting together and discussing their issues without a professional looking over their shouler. An informal bull-session type of therapy. There are several such “mental health clubs” in cities across America.
And I’m not trying to deepen stigma by telling people not to disclose their diagnoses or seek alternative/DIY treatment. I’m trying to get people in through the front door so they can prove their skills, prove that mentally ill people can be good workers. I’d liken it to a gay person trying to get hired by a notoriously homophobic CEO. If the boss asks him about his wife, should he start talking about his partner and be all “don’t stigmatize me, I love who I am!” Maybe that’s the most truthful route, but he’d never get hired. If he stays closeted during the interview, and then gets hired, and then goes on to have a great career and then the boss finds out, he has the upper hand. If the boss tries to fire him, he has a ready defense: he’s been doing good work for the past few years. Saying that this hypothetical gay person should be allowed to prove himself at a homophobic corporation (and by extension, doing everything he can to get the job, including prevaricating about his sexuality) doesn’t mean that we still shouldn’t work towards enlightening people’s thoughts about sexuality. On the contrary, this stealth invasion will help speed up acceptance of gays in the workplace, because they’ll already be there, working from the inside, making changes to company policy that will help others of their ilk. And so it is with mental illness. Lie and cover up a little now, and there will be greater acceptance later.
I think some of you haven’t ever lived in the kind of small town I grew up in, a place where people’s “private” medical records are everyone’s business. Maybe large corps have to dig into someone’s medical files to determine whether or not they have a mental illness, but in a small town, that shit gets around. And when your entire family has a reputation for being crazy, you can forget about getting a good job in the town where you were born.
Actually, what you propose sounds pretty damned dangerous, seeking treatment from untrained individuals who are also suffering from the same thing.
They wouldn’t all be suffering from the same thing. And not all the people in the group would be mentally ill. And I don’t see how getting together and talking is dangerous–it might not help, but could it really hurt?