Er, because the people jumping out of the WTC weren’t involving innocent bystanders in order to gratify a narcissistic craving for one last bit of attention?
The people who jump in front of trains are not going to die anyway. They have a chance to take advantage of the available advances in psychiatric medicine to improve the quality of their lives. If they do not want to do this (or it doesn’t work) and they are unable to handle their depression themselves, then I don’t *want *them to die, but they can have the courtesy to do it in a way that doesn’t harm other people.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
Thank you Bill Door, eloquently put. It always amazes me that every time a suicide thread comes up, there is someone who has to be reminded that people aren’t in their right mind who kill themselves. That means that inconveniencing / traumatizing others probably isn’t their number one priority.
And as a person whose been frequently suicidal, you do try to think of these things up front and not jump off a tall building onto anyone’s head / hold traffic up for hours / make EMTs clean your brain matter off the wall or have your loved ones deal with the stigma of it all.
However, when I’ve actually attempted it, those things are a distant second to a fucking pain in my head, heart and life that’s derailed my life for almost 13 years and I can NO LONGER STAND!! That’s about as far as I can think. So for those that realize it’s not about attention whoring or being selfish or any of the other pejorative things it’s labeled, again I say thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Because if it’s like everyone says (you know the old saw; “It’s a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”), then trying to understand what it’s truly like would undoubtedly go a long way to help preventing it.
/pet peeve soapbox
I’ll agree with you when decent and affordable mental healthcare is as easily obtained as a hot meal as frequently as necessary. Try paying for therapy out-of-pocket when you can barely afford a roof over your head.
Yea, I’ve been late once or twice due to this. It’s honestly not a big deal (the being late, that is. Not the suicide), I just call my company and they ask when I’ll be in, it’s never been bad (though I was delayed almost an hour and a half one time when a dumbass thought he could beat the train and tried driving across the tracks. Train busted his car to bits. and no, I wasn’t on the train when it happened thank the gods).
Jumping in front of a train is the most common way to commit suicide in Japan, just like jumping off the Golden Gate is the most common way (I think) back in San Francisco, where I used to live
Which might explain them bitching about suicides making them late. :rolleyes: back atcha and raise you a :dubious:
Google “Mental Defect”. Clearly, you don’t get it. And if you read it and can still type the above with a straight face & without a Whoosh, go read it again. Slowly and for comprehension. We’ll wait.
I promise we won’t bitch about you making us late.
Just wanted to add to what’s already been said that some people (myself included) try every treatment and kind of help they can get their hands on and yet remain what the industry calls “treatment resistent.” It will be a wonderful day when one can atually get whatever it is that’s needed to truly solve our mental health problems. Until then, one would think a bit of compassion might be in order if it’s not too much to ask. Especially in such dire cirmcumstances.
Contrary to your belief, I am not completely uninformed about psychological disorders. Suicides are depressed and unable to get any enjoyment out of life. While this is certainly a bad thing to be, they are not vegetables without any mental ability at all or the ability to reason. If they cannot cope with their disorder though the means available to them and decide that they would rather end their lives than continue to suffer, then they still have the ability to see that certain ways of doing that will also harm other people.
Besides, as I said before, going home and crying all day about the inhumanity of it all will not bring them back to life. I don’t understand what you want the OP to do about it instead.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
Odd, I recall reading that in the case of train-jumpers here (obviously gathered by asking the ones who weren’t killed), many hadn’t set out to kill themselves when they left the house that morning. They were just ordinary commuters standing in yet another huge crowd of people waiting for yet another packed train to begin yet another day at the office, when they saw the train approaching and decided that was the more appealing option.
They should pick a goddamned method that doesn’t give train engineers PTSD because they ran over someone. I’ve seen interviews with local engineers, some of whom quit because they couldn’t handle the stress any longer and who still have nightmares, who recount with numbed horror the times they’ve hit people who are attempting suicide, walking on the tracks with headphones on and apparently oblivious, or who are trying to beat the train and fail.
And yes, I have been in such pain that I’ve thought about how efficient the train might be. I also eliminated the possibility because of what harm I would do to the person driving the train, not to mention what an utter bitch I would be to delay hundreds or thousands of people because of my choice.
But Ferret Herder, you (obviously – thankfully) chose not to kill yourself. Do you believe you’d be able to think that clearly if you were ready to take the final step? In my own case, every fail-safe measure I’ve ever been able to dredge up whenever things have been that bad and I’ve about given up, has held true, except one time.
In that instance I had a noose around my neck and was about to step off a chair when my husband’s alarm went off. I had no idea it was already even close to that time and it made me snap back into myself and realize I couldn’t have him finding me hanging there like that. But it also made me realize that sometimes I apparently could get too far gone without even knowing it had happened.
While I understand that suicidal people are in incredible, intolerable pain, please understand anger is both a common and normal reaction to suicide. I mean, I’m still pissed as hell at my sister who offed herself 20 years ago (as well as still deeply saddened). She, too, was “treatment resistant” and yet managed to struggle through 17 years of clinical depression before she killed herself. I’m thankful she did it in a manner unlikely to cause physical harm to others, but the truth is suicide always causes mental pain to those who are left to deal with the aftermath, be it commuters on a train (which I have experienced several times) or the police who have to zip into a body bag the otherwise perfectly healthy corpse of a 34 year old woman (that is, my sister). Perhaps what is most galling is that it is an unnecessary death. In short, it is possible to feel both compassion AND anger towards someone who kills him or herself.
You are absolutely correct Broomstick, in that it makes sense for the survivors to feel anger (on top of other things) towards those that kill themselves. My beef usually lies with those who’ve never been there in any sense (no loved ones have committed suicide or they’ve never been suicidal themselves) and are haughtily dismissive, throwing off epithets of narcissistic and such like it’s no big deal. And no matter how many times they get an intimate glimpse of why the suicidal do what they do, they never care enough to change their opinions, instead just always going for the easy insult for whatever (hell, I can’t even imagine why they do that so I won’t speculate) reason.
Unfortunately though, the sad reality is what if these people do hold on and still never get any relief? There’s been no signs that this shit will stop for me, so if I hang in there for another 20 years, then what? I can’t imagine how difficult it has to be for you after your sister’s death, even all this time later and I’m so sorry that she was never able to find the help she needed. But I can’t fault her for not being able to fight any longer. If I end up still in the exact same spot in another decade, I hope at least those closest to me will understand I fucking tried as hard as I could to be it and when I couldn’t stand what it held left me any longer, they’ll forgive me for not being strong enough to wait for a natural death that could possibly end up as nothing more than the same.
Regardless, again you have my sympathies.
My father is a retired freight train engineer, and has one suicide on his record. With all due respect to people who find themselves in the kind of pain that must (I imagine) precede an attempt at suicide, the guy that stepped in front of my dad’s trained ended his pain in a way that transferred it to two other wholly innocent people.
The conductor on my dad’s train had to get down off the engine once my dad stopped the train to verify that they’d hit a person. If it had been a deer or dog, they could have simply gone on, but once it’s known it’s a person, that changes things. There are lawyers and questions, cups to piss in, and yes, the family pretty much always sues because the railroad always settles. My dad had had some close calls over the years, and had hit a few cars without injuring anyone, but it’s said that every engineer on the line gets a fatality on their record at some point if they stay on the job long enough. To be the agent of someone’s death, however unwillingly, doesn’t leave you, no matter how well you rationalize it.
Well, it depends. Some people go into it clear-eyed. You couldn’t let your husband find yourself hanging, sure. I know someone who plotted it so he’d find her like that, and had spent months setting up an affair on her part as well, which she revealed to him, apparently to cause her husband the most pain possible. And no, he wasn’t abusive, knew of her history of depression, and was very supportive and loving as far as anyone else knew. Some people suck, whether they’re depressed or not.
So yes, some people who think about suicide are overcome with thoughts of what others would think and can’t carry it out. Some feel they have no other choice or are driven by a compulsion that at that moment, they cannot control. And some make it All About Them. It’s like people who suffer from painful illnesses, either terminal or chronic - some become noble, some become assholes, and if someone creates a lot of drama in the method they pick to off themselves, whether it be tossing oneself in front of a train and freaking some poor bystanders and train workers the fuck out, or doing something more fucked up, I’m gonna slide the rating more towards “asshole.”
Even if it were readily available, it wouldn’t change anything in a number of cases. A friend of mine who was seriously depressed wouldn’t have followed a therapy. He didn’t think he needed any kind of therapy. He was just deeply convinced that he was objectively totally worthless and that everything would be better for everybody if he would just disappear. No argument would convince otherwise. Pointing at his daughter, for instance would just result in him saying that she would be better off without a piece of shit like him as a father.
I appreciate your reply Ferret Herder. I do think I understand where you’re coming from and have myself gone to extreme lengths to not burden anyone if I ever could overcome the desire to kill myself. Hell, all the way up to the point of having a box of Depends on hand. But I suppose I’d never really considered anyone that must be that fucked up to also have another side to them.
Like you mentioned with that level of scheming involved, it’s something I’ll now have to keep in mind and not just always assume the person was completely off their rocker in despair only. I guess I just couldn’t imagine someone not caring to that degree or wishing to make it “all about them.” The times I’ve been that way, I would’ve sold my soul for no one (as ridiculous as it is to hope for that) to be of as little impact to those around me, which meant the doing it in a drama-less fashion was my best choice.
Until that one occasion.
Now I’ll adjust my thinking to cover this scenario as well and try harder to understand that there might be people who aren’t just doing it to end their pain. Thank you for the insight.
Wow, that’s sad and I’ve been there. I know what you’re saying, but I’m convinced that access to healthcare, particularly in the mental health field, has a great deal of room for improvement. I’ve suffered from extreme depression, I’ve felt like everyone would be better off if I was out of the picture more than once. I’ve been told that anti-depressant medication is going to be a fact of life for me for the rest of my life.
I’m not looking for sympathy here, but though I have health insurance through my employer (having been previously uninsured for more than a year), I still pay $120/mo for my necessary prescription. That’s for a generic med. Therapy is a luxury I can’t possibly afford to pay out-of-pocket and don’t have access to otherwise.
Just saying that I can empathize with people who are slipping through the cracks and not getting very necessary healthcare.
In what way are the passengers aboard a train that has just hit a suicidal jumper NOT survivors? They, too, are affected by suicide and, since they did not know the person and had no affection for them prior to death anger and horror will tend to be foremost in their minds.
Because they are angry, of course, and while they can’t harm someone who is dead directly they can take out their anger on that person’s memory.
I don’t know. That IS the hell that is depression, isn’t it?
I can. I very much do fault her for choosing to take her own life. She spent months planning her demise. She dragged the next door neighbor into it by breaking into her garage and using the neighbor’s car to kill herself. She did not have to die, she chose to die. She was never abused, never mistreated, and her family, including myself, would have done anything humanely possible to help her. No, I have not forgiven her, nor do I expect I ever will. If anyone contemplates suicide do it with the knowledge that it is entirely possible you will never be forgiven for your actions.
As I said, I have not, nor do I ever expect to forgive my sister for the very real pain she caused everyone in her family, and every one who was her friend, her co-worker, or anyone else who ever knew or cared for her. I’m not aware of anyone who has forgiven her, although we do understand that she was in unrelieved pain. If you kill yourself, do it with the knowledge you will NOT be forgiven, for that almost never happens.
Frankly, I had a LOT more sympathy for the train-jumpers BEFORE my sister killed herself. I actually felt sad that they had died. Now I only feel blazing rage that not only do they have to cause a lifetime of pain and anger in their family and friends they have to drag other people, strangers and innocents, into the mess as well. It’s worse than simply swallowing a couple handfuls of pills and washing them down with whiskey. Suicides that crawl off into a corner and die are bad enough - those that have to involve strangers whether it’s by jumping in front of a train or diving off a tall building or what have you get much more anger and contempt from me.
How so? Present your credentials, please.
Trust me, suiciders frequently think about how their death will harm others. Sometimes, it’s attempted for exactly that – to make you feel a taste, just a taste, of the extreme pain they’ve experienced every day of their short lives. Just a taste.