Fount of Eternal Life? How about the Fount of Eternal Stupidity?

The BBQ Pit
41

Okay, just to make this a bit more accurate (if morbid):

According to the stats at the Department of Public Heath (2000), for women, overdose is actually third behind hanging and drowning. (For men it’s hanging, drowning then CO2).

Why are pills so popular for female suicides? Because there is the mistaken idea that it is simple, clean and painless. This is wrong, but many intended suicides think they will just “fall into a peaceful slumber and then die.” (Wrong, but commonly believed.) They wrongly think it is a gentle way to die. It’s not! But that’s why ODs are a popular choice for those who can’t stomach the thought of a violent demise.

Seriously: **“the hundreds of victims in countless television dramas”??? ** That’s FICTION! Produced by the La La Land of happy endings! Where cancer victims look more beautiful as they waste away. And OD vicitms are found looking as if they are asleep instead of found in a stinking puddle of vomit and pee with their eyes rolled back from convulsions? That is your cite??? :smack: Great, Cecil!

Talk about losing the fight against ignorance!

42

Part of it is also, I think, the guilt associated. When you have a gun, you don’t give a fuck who has to clean up because you’re gone. With pills, you die as though you went to sleep, and you are merely left with a limp, lifeless body. Much easier for survivors to handle, from the perspective of someone who would do this, than a gunshot or something similarly bloody.

Also, you can swallow X pills of the right kind and be pretty much guaranteed you’ll die. And it’s a fairly cheap manner of suicide. A gun will probably cost you a lot more, and there’s a good bit more planning involved. Different methods, different reasons.

The sad thing is that Eternal probably doesn’t even fully realize the offensiveness of his comments in the thread in IMHO and in this thread.

43

You know, that’s very interesting!! At least, my belief that their belief was on par. So my statements are still valid in that regard.

44

Yet another compelling reason as to why some people (I’m not even going to divide it up into sexes) decide on pills.

So, Eternal we have, as the reason to take pills:

  1. A wrong belief that pills are a painless way to go.

  2. Belief that it’s a cleaner way to die (less clean-up)

  3. It’s not even the preferred method of execution among women.
    Vs.

  4. The belief that taking pills are *magically *instantly reversable, no harm no foul.

  5. The person taking the pills doesn’t really want to die anyway, and is to stupid to figure out that pills might cause death.
    Tell me, which makes more sense?

45

Yes, your statement are still valid. It is such a popular misconception, that some suicide prevention materials will go out of their way to graphically describe what actually happens.

I really want to blame Hollywood for the misconception. In movies, someone who accidentally ODs on heroin will puke, convulse, and if the movie is aiming for gritty accuracy, they’ll get the cold, slimey sweats, and may wet their pants and die in a puddle. On the other hand, in movies when someone ODs in a suicide scene, they tend to just dose off in an oh-so-dignified manner and they still look thoroughly presentable for the next scene. A sick, sick double standard.

When you OD, you’ve poisoned yourself. Your body reacts accordingly.

Ultimately, it depends on the drugs you use. But generally, ODs aren’t pretty.

46

For the record, I didn’t mean to have “!!”, because I am certainly not excited by any of this newly acquired knowledge.:frowning:

47

Meatros, if you’re expecting an intelligent reply from Eternal, you might want to lend him a pair of opposable thumbs.

48

To tell you the truth, I don’t know why I didn’t connect the dots to this. I mean, in a sense, ODing on sleeping pills (or whatever) should have the same effect as drinking to much alcohol.

49

Maybe I just have a little too much faith in mankind for ignorance of this caliber to have escaped natural selection.

I mean COME ON , how could his kind have escaped natural selection? Are we to believe that some Saber-Toothed Tiger was eluded by his ancestors wily ways?

I think Eternal is trying to rile us up and isn’t trying to listen to reason. In a while, after he’s had his yucks, I’m sure he’ll see the error of his ways.

Or at least I hope so…I might have to genetically clone a Saber-Tooth Tiger to get rid of this skidmark in the gene pool…:smiley:

50

Either that or he just doesn’t give a fuck about anyone’s reaction to his opinions. Which, if we’re talking about a favorite baseball team, I don’t much care about (re: apathy). But this is literally a matter of life and death, and this pustule is going on like he’s just said “oh, well I think your sports team sucks because their hitters choke and their pitchers throw meatballs”, when in fact he’s said “your daughter sucks because she couldn’t off herself properly, and come to think of it, women rarely can and when they do try, it’s always with pills.”

51

Look at it this way: You’ve just dumped hundreds of miligrams of poison into your bloodstream and your body is casting about in pure survival mode for ways to get rid of it. What to do, what to do…

First off, purge that which you haven’t absorbed. You puke your guts out as your GI tract convulses in an attempt to limit the amout of toxin you absorb into the blood. It’s easier to empty the gut than it is to clean the blood.

Second, clean the blood. You have a wonderful, amazingly resiliant organ known as the liver. The liver can lose ninety percent of itself and still perform its function and regrow. It is not, however, a miracle worker. Eventually, after a valiant struggle, the last few liver cells die off and the poison that remains is free to act upon the body.

As the toxin attacks the CNS (central nervous system, namely the brain and the spinal cord), different things can happen depending on what drug it is. Some drugs cause convulsions, some drugs cause hallucinations, and some drugs simply start to shut things off. The brain has a defense mechanism of sorts, the blood-brain barrier, to prevent most of what’s in the blood from corrupting the cerebrospinal fluid the CNS is bathed in. But the drugs we’re interested in here can breach that barrier, and from there on it’s not a matter of if they’ll do damage, but how much.

As the CNS dies, all of the activities carried out by the brain and spinal cord cease. Your bowels and bladder loosen, causing you to piss yourself and shit your pants. Your heart and lungs all stop, ending respiration and killing your cells, which both suffocate and starve without a fresh blood supply. You turn blue, as unoxigenated blood looks blue through the skin (look at the veins on the back of your hand for an example of this), and you get cold (well, room-temperature, but cold to the touch) because the metabolism that has caused the heat has ceased.

Eventually, you decompose. Which is just disgusting.

52

Hm. Almost forgot: After the heart stops, blood pools at the lowest point(s) in the body. That gives the corpse massive bruises as the blood bursts the fragile capillaries and soaks the tissue surrounding them.

53

Boy, Derleth, you must be great fun at parties.

54

Where’s the barfy-smiley when you need it??

55

I was partially intending to go a bit for the gore, so as to give Meatros an idea of what ODing is really like and how essentially pitiful our bodies are against the heavy pharmaceticals we now have. If I’d really wanted to go for the gross-out, I’d have mentioned that it’s fairly common among OD victims to choke on their own vomit because it’s coming out hard and heavy and because the drugs are imparing their CNS to the point where breathing is becoming difficult. I daresay asphyxiation on vomit is the immediate cause of death in most deaths attributed to ODs.

(Well, I mainly left that part out because I forgot. These aren’t the kinds of things I think about regularly.)

More importantly, however, I wanted to demonstrate against Eternal’s claim that pills are somehow easier to stomach (pun intended… ) than a shotgun blast or a razor. You might think so after the first few minutes, but once the body goes into action … WHAM! Self-preservation kicks in, and even if it fails you go on a hellish ride.

56

Hey, death isn’t a pretty thing. Knowing about what happens when they try to off themselves might be the thing that keeps someone from trying it.

Eternal, I am still mightily pissed off at you for your original comment and your more recent “arguments” only serve to further fuel my ire. However, all of my points have been well-stated by others in this thread and I doubt repitition will drive the ignorance out of your pointy little skull. Instead, I will merely make it clear that you are a pitiful example of a human being and I wish you ill.

57

I think just the opposite is true. Other posters’ reactions are all he cares about. I think his flippant responses are very telling.

58

Excuse me, folks, I’m about to get graphic. Please skip this post if need be.

Eternal, I’m both female and at risk for suicide. For that reason, I do not keep a gun in my house, and I’m very careful about what I do allow in it. I do, however, have a legitimate excuse for keeping pills in my home. When a person is suicidal, he or she will cast about for any available means to do the job. When I was in high school, I tried slitting my wrists, but the knife was too dull. A decade later, knowing that dull knives don’t work, on one particularly black night, I caught myself looking for any available means to kill myself, but I was living in a ground floor apartment with no sharp knives, and nothing stronger than aspirin. Thank God a trace of sanity asserted itself and I was able to call a suicide hotline.

I have been suicidal within the past few weeks. (Sorry, friends.) One night, I deliberately did not attempt suicide because I had a call into a friend and I did not want to be interupted in the attempt. He did not get the message I’d left for him until the following morning, so I made it through that night.

This is not the first time I’ve heard someone say that someone who doesn’t succeed in a suicide attempt didn’t mean it or that it’s a sign of weakness. That statement is complete and utter bullshit! It may interest you to read, Eternal, that the only person to say such a thing to my face did so while I was in the hospital for depression. The person who said this was either an alcholic or a drug addict who accomplished a remarkable feat – he managed to insult every person in the ward within 24 hours of his arrival. Considering these were people who didn’t think they could be further insulted, this is truly an accomplishment. I faced him down then, despite the shape I was in, and I will be happy to do so now, especially since I’m 10 years older and a lot stronger.

I have read shocking amounts of ignorance and cruelty on this Board, but this is one of the more egregious examples I’ve had the misfortune of watching. You believe that attempting suicide is a sign of weakness. Considering some of the stuff I’ve put up with in my life, I believe surviving this long is a sign of strength. Also, as someone who did cry for help in different circumstances and who didn’t get any, I am grateful when anyone who’s suicidal gets the help he or she needs.

Eternal, I wish you could know what happens in a person’s brain when he or she is at the point of suicide. Having had a lot of experience with it myself, I would compare it to hell in that one is surrounded by pain, fear, and a separation from all that is good. It is a black hole of the soul, when one can only see oneself as a burden, and when one’s own burdens become too great to bear, pulling one down to the point where the only solution is death. At such times, I’ve felt like my soul is being ripped from my body. I don’t recommend you try it. It’s too horrible a fate to wish on anyone.

I’ll add the standard disclaimers that I am being treated for clinical depression, and I do have resources, so there’s no need to contact my ISP. Also, quite frankly, ignorance such as Eternal has displayed is a powerful incentive to keep living, if only to prove someone who would say such things wrong!

CJ

59

You know, Eternal, last night, I stayed up reading posts to my OP. When I went to bed, there were about 10 responses, all of them supportive/helpful, and caring. I said to my hubby, what a wonderful bunch of folks these Dopers are! Not a negative response in the bunch! He replied that no one would be so moronic as to post a negative response to an OP like that! God, he hates to be proven wrong!

60

White Lightning, my dear comrade, do not confuse my whimsy with common trollery. If I aspired to be a troll, I believe I could have done better. This is why I do not wish this matter to go on any further, it is beginning to weigh on my mind.

To that end, I would like to briefly apologize for my lack of tact in making statements referring to the family of the attempted suicide victim, and especially for doing so in a thread that should have been devoted to the serious matter at hand. I’ll also wish the family good luck in dealing with problem.

On the topic of using pills to kill oneself, forgive me for being subtle in stating my opinion of it in my responses in this thread. I fully realize that pills are NOT an easy way to go, my point was that that is how it is percieved.

I probably said something else that you can nitpick, but I plan on letting this thread rest now.

BTW, I forgive all of you for hating me, your fellow man. I am aware that SDMBers are as liberal with their rage as they are their politics.