Since nobody has been debating over what types of treatment a mentally ill person shouod get, this does not relate to what is being debated here. Nobody is debating what types of anti depressants, anti psychotics are best, or whether a person should receive help from inpatient or outpatient care, etc etc , this has nothing to do with the debate.
Czarcasm,
point well taken, Sadly though some of these kinds of people who think this way, believe mental illness is a character issue, not a medical one (hence the bad words used in describing the man who tragically died, to them he is an asshole or a jerk, rather than a very sick man . For some of them, no amount of explanations, training, etc will enlighten them, yet I feel obligated to try, because there is so much stigma and ignorance on the subject.
That’s what’s referred to in the workforce as an occupational hazard. Train conductors know damn well it’s a possibility the day they apply for a job, it’s not exactly some rare occurance and I doubt there’s a single person in that profession who isn’t keenly aware as there is actually protocol in place for that exact type of incident, not exactly a comet falling out of the sky scenario. Now that doesn’t make it any more pleasant, but a lifetime of ptsd from witnessing a suicide of someone you don’t even know? Wow, could you reach a little further? Should anyone who’s seen Bud Dwyer’s suicide be allowed to apply for disability benefits also?
Observing some messed up, very short term shit involving a complete stranger does not elicit a whole ton of sympathy from me by comparison, no. As I’ve already addressed, I’m not speaking to assuage the inconvenienced from their bad day boo boo experience, you or someone else can do that. By no means am I suggesting it’s a delightful experience, it’s anything but. Maybe you’ve never seen anything like that, but I have and it does suck. Even so, please step away from the word “victim” before it loses all it’s meaning entirely. Comparing the pain and what led up to the demise of the actual victim to the suffering of a bystander who witnessed it is incredibly shallow and lacking any semblance of context. The juxtaposition of the two is actually so absurd it could almost pass for comedy if we weren’t talking about such an awful scenario.
Broomstick,
I do not get where your getting the idea that those who have compassion for the person who committed suicide do hot feel badly for the strangers who witnessed it. Nobody here ever said “who gives a shit about those people ?” or calling them assholes, the way some here called the victim.
OK, let’s try this again.
YOU default to “he was so broken he isn’t responsible for his actions”.
I default to “until proven otherwise he is responsible for his actions”.
Suicidal and psychotic are not the same thing, nor does one imply the other.
I can see where you might assume that. However, this was a very coherently and systematically written note, rather the opposite of out of control. It was clearly written by a depressed person, but also clearly written by someone still thinking in a logical manner.
I know mental illness is a real physical problem and not a character issue, but I also don’t believe mental illness automatically renders someone completely helpless and incompetent. Someone suicidal can be quite rational outside of their desire to die, they do not have to be psychotic, hallucinating, or blinded by pain to be sincere in seeking death. I don’t think depression is carte blanche to do whatever you want and then excuse it by saying “mental illness”.
As has been repeatedly said, you can be an asshole and mentally ill at the same time. If you want to die you still have choices in how you commit suicide. Some people choose to do the deed with minimal inconvenience or danger to others, other people decide to make others suffer or take some with them. Both alternatives might be equally depressed/mentally ill but it may well be character differences that affect how they express their desire to die. Unless you can submit some solid medical research proving otherwise that is how I feel about it.
I’m not unsympathetic to the survivors, whether bystander or the depressed person. As I said, though, I default to the depressed person having some control over how they kill themselves unless it is proven otherwise.
got Nami ?
Broomstick, so in regards to your default setting you refer to, you say that when a person leaps in front of a speeding train, you assume they were ok and not severely impaired …until proven otherwise? That is like seeing a man keel over from a heart attack and your default setting says “he is ok until proven otherwise”…the outcomes of both those illnesses should scream,not say, that no lady, they were not ok. When I was little a teenage girl in our neighborhood jimped off a freeway overpass and luckily she wasnt killed. Turned out she had severe manic deoression aka bipolar. Everyome even us kids knew she had to be very sick to do this. How you assume someone who jumps in front of a train is ok is just so bizarre. Most people just know that
Read the first paragraph of post 103.
Occupational hazard? Does that apply to the 11 people that were killed in Glendale?
The poster who referred to occupatonal hazard was referring to train conductors who witness a suicide,which was what the topic of this thread was about, if you read the Topic of the OP
Calling PTSD that the conductor gets from seeing a guy get puréed against the windshield of his locomotive an occupational hazard is pretty damn callous, cold and very unsympathetic to the the conductor.
Throwing in the crack about the 11 dead people was to see just how far their callous, cold and unsympathetic their feeling went.
Fascinating discussion.
I’m with Rick on this.
And Telemark.
And Broomstick, Eyebrows 0f Doom, MsWhatsit and SmellMyWort.
If a family member took their life by waving at the conductor and kissing the speeding locomotive, I’d be crushed at the loss of a loved one, sympathetic to the victim driving the train who saw the whole thing, and maddened and embarrassed by my kin’s Total Asshole Move.
Train suiciders can be both extremely sick people and assholes at the same time. Suiciders are almost all sick, but not all are assholes. Some definitely are both. If they threw themself in front of a train, that does not mean they were incapable of making a rational decision. Some were likely incapable, but not all.
Embarrassment at a relative being seriously ill, you say? Some of your relatives might very well be red faced embarrassed at your backwards ideas.
And,
If someone is an asshole, it is because of issues related to their CHARACTER, not the outcome of their illness.
John Doe, is an asshole because he is arrogant and coldhearted, for example.
John Doe is not an asshole because of the outcome of his illness.
Jane doe can be an ass for being a racist.
Jane doe is not an ass because of the outcome of her illness.
OK then. James Holmes is not an asshole. Adam Lanza was not an asshole. Their behaviors were just the outcome of their illness, which they had no control over.
No, I said, “maddened and embarrassed by my kin’s Total Asshole Move.”
Big difference.
echo7tango,
It is the same thing, although i can see why you wouldnt want to consider the possibility some people who know you might be dammed embarrassed by it
If you want to simplify the world and consider it the same thing, if that makes it easier for you to comprehend, go ahead, but that’s being quite obtuse.
You know, for other on-the-job dangers we don’t just shrug our shoulders and say “Meh, occupational hazard, sucks to be you, you know?” We try to reduce the risk and we have things like worker’s compensation insurance to care for those who fall victim (yes, I used the v-word) to occupational hazards. You are no less maimed or damaged because your injury occurred on the job and was a known risk of it.
A train conductor suffering PTSD from having something splatter against the front of their train is no less damaged than someone who loses a limb to machinery or a cop shot in the line of duty.
Yes, we all agree about that.
The difference is that you attribute all negative traits of a mentally ill person to the mental illness. We acknowledge that assholery can exist separately from mental illness, and alongside it. A person can be an asshole before falling mentally ill, and may well remain and asshole if that illness goes into remission. They can also be an asshole DURING their illness, as their assholery doesn’t go away just because they’re sick.
Right. John Doe is not an asshole for killing himself. He’s an asshole due to the manner in which he chooses kills himself.
You forgot Jeffrey Dahmer. It wasn’t his fault he performed amateur lobotomies on people he abducted, raped them, and ate them (not always in that order, apparently), it was his illness that made him a cannibal rapist serial killer so we should be nice to him, it not being his fault.
Isn’t it ironic that we’re arguing the validity of mental illness with someone who’s such an, umm, expert?
This is the crux of the issue and it’s not clear what you hope to achieve by vilifying those who disagree with you on the level of moral responsibility of those with mental illness. I understand your position but disagree that someone who commits suicide automatically is assumed to be in the thrall of their illness to the point that they have no control over their actions. It’s not a judgement about mental illness itself.
If you stop trying to condemn those who disagree with you this discussion might be more productive.
How is it possible to be so absolutely sure that free will has utterly vanished in all of these cases?
(I mean, unless this is the argument that there’s no such thing as free will for anyone, in which case the people disagreeing with you can’t help that either).