Suicide is illegal? What are they gonna charge me with after I suck on a .38?
“Your honor, we the jury find Duke to be guilty of suicide.”
“The defendant will rise.”
“Holy shit! It’s a fuckin’ miricle!”
<<snerk>>
Sorry, couldn’t help it, but that was funny. I’ll be here in the corner if you want to slap me.
<<snerk>>
You are obviously having trouble reading, at least when it comes to my previous posting on this thread. I SAID that I regret having made it personal, as if I were asking for professional advice. I really wanted to discuss the overall ethics and pros and cons of self-liberation.
But I am sick and fucking tired of being told that a person who contemplates the possibility of ending their own life must be mentally ill and in need of a shrink! Millions of baby boomers will soon be reaching an age where self-liberation will be a rational option for a whole series of reasons, and all you can do is panic at the very thought of such a debate and ask that it be censored.
I do not have to put up with that arrogance from you or anyone.
I repeat, do you consider Romans, Greeks, Japanese and Scandinavians (who accept self-termination as a possible alternative in some situations) to be mentally ill? Do you want all of Japan to go to a fucking shrink?
Hump, ol’ buddy, we’ve sparred more than a few times on various topics here. But can I say, this is probably one of the noblest things you’ve ever done. For what little it’s worth, I commend you for it.
And a word of advice: Listen. Not so much to the trainers, as to the kids you end up dealing with. Despair happens when there appears to be no “out” – even having your ear might be that “out” they need.
Forgive this intensely personal criticism in public, but you seem, more than the average individual, to be someone who “fills in the blanks” in presuming what people’s motivations and attitudes are. Don’t do that with these kids. Hear their problems, and turn off the “Oh, it’s because”-o-matic auditory parser. You’ll be surprised what you hear – and how easy it is to be the help they need, sometimes.
And again, thank you for being there for those kids.
As I hope you know by now, that’s not the kind of thing that’s appropriate in General Questions. I wonder if the mods would have been as quick to close a thread like that if it had been in IMHO.
After the pit thread regarding the closing of the self-injury thread, I gathered from discussion that the quickest way to get a thread closed around here is to ask for medical advice or self-diagnose. Getting medical advice online can be dangerous- let a trained medical professional diagnose you, not a bunch of people you’ve never met who can’t know your situation well enough to diagnose.
First of all, I just have to say that “self-liberation” is about the creepiest fucking bit of Newspeak I’ve ever heard.
Second of all, despite your OP and thread title, I’m having a hard time seeing how you actually read samclem’s post in your closed thread as a suggestion that suicide is a forbidden topic on the boards. He made it very clear that it was your request for opinions on your own potential suicide that we do not want to participate in. You seem insulted by the idea that these feelings of yours might be best resolved by talking to a doctor, but honestly that’s far and away the best thing you can do, in my opinion. What’s the harm?
As for general debate on the “pros and cons of self-liberation”, I’d say that future threads on the topic by you are likely to also be closed. While you may now regret making your motivations public, they are now public and we are under no obligation to pretend that you’re only interested in hypothetical debate. Once you post a thread about wanting to steal your neighbor’s car, a future thread titled “help! I’m locked out of my car!” will be treated differently than someone else’s. Putting personal life or death issues in the hands of unqualified message board posters is bad for everyone involved, and not what these boards are for.
I see 52 threads in the last year with suicide in the title, only 2 have been closed. For something you think is a forbidden topic it sure comes up a lot. (I only searched thread titles, there’s probably others)
Ok, Valteron — there’s 2 issues here.
(1) The real question of your OP: Why is suicide a forbidden topic on the SDMB? Answer: It’s not. There’s like 9 pages of threads with suicide in the title. Here’s some samples:
Convince me assisted suicide is unethical
Why are you for physician-assisted suicide?
When is it acceptable to commit suicide?
Oregon assisted suicide law upheld
As you can see, if the OP is properly constructed, you can have a great debate over suicide here at the SDMB.
Your old thread was not properly constructed — it was personal. That leads us to issue 2:
(2) You seem to care about this as a personal level. You keep typing things like you are going to choose the time, calling suicide “self-liberation,” and getting mad at people suggesting you need to seek medical attention.
Enough with the censorship and freedom of speech bullshit — this is a legal liability for the Reader/SDMB. They cannot tolerate this sort of stuff because it could be the end of them. Totally understandable.
I think that if you can keep all of this stuff to yourself (and, as an aside, maybe talk to a professional about your desire to eventually kill yourself) you can have the debate that you want to have on the SDMB. You just can’t find it in a thread entitled “how do I spot suicidal depression in myself?”
Freedom of speech? Since when is the Straight Dope run by the US Government? Freedom allows the Chicago Reader the freedom to set it’s own rules on it’s own message board. If you don’t like them, then go someplace that will allow you to discuss the subject. If the Reader feels it may be held liable for permitting certain topics to be discussed on it’s forums then it damn well should have the freedom to shut down those discussions and encourage them to go elsewhere. “A little courage and commitment to freedom of speech” is easy to say when you’re not the one putting your head on the chopping block. If you’re so keen to stand up for the right to discuss people’s right to die, then go ahead and set up your own message board for the purpose.
Like it or not, the Reader has the freedom to ban discussion of any topic they like (or dislike) on their own forums, and we users have the freedom to find somewhere else to go if we don’t like it. We also have the freedom to complain about it, and in that respect your thread is perfectly valid, but my opinion - that it is unreasonable of you to expect the Reader to shoulder the burden of possible litigation because you feel the topic merits the risk - is also valid. The Reader is a business. They didn’t go into business to go bankrupt because they were sued by grieving angry parents whose kid solicited advice on how to die on this site and then acted on it, and they shouldn’t be expected to want to put themselves in that position.
I’m sorry, but in my humble opinion (as a long term depressed, and suicide attemt survivor) simply using that phraise for the act of sucide would be enough for me to tell the person using it. Go seek medical help.
Any serious consideration of suicide indicates someone is in need of psychological help. It means they need to be certain they are not under the influence of depression or other ailments so that they can know their contemplated actions are fully justified. Your not being asked to see a doctor becuase you are sick, your being asked to see a doctor to make sure you aren’t sickso that you can be sure any thoughts of ‘self-destruction’ are rational and reasonable for your own situation.
So I should hold off on my “help, I’m locked out of my car with the motor running in a locked garage” thread?
Maybe it’s because there’s too many people here who might think suicide is the best option for them.
And you, Blanche, have the right to decide that it is NOT the right option for them? You must certainly be all-knowing.
I don’t think it’s so much that anyone on the boards would be deciding it ISN’T right for them, only that this isn’t the place they should be making that decision.
It would have been funnier if I could spell. Now THAT would be a “miracle” :smack:
You are quite right, Giraffe. My big mistake was being honest and open about my motivation. Lesson learned. Honesty is a liability here.
So please note that I have NOT already found several sites elsewhere on the internet that give very useful explanations on how to do it. It is also UNTRUE that I have already bought a carbon monoxide meter and constructed a plastic sheeting tent to erect on my back proch.
Nosiree Bob!
But I will be happy to go to the several existing threads that another poster mentioned.
Say what? I know about the Japanese seppuku/harakiri deal (but I have no clue how much of a role it plays in modern Japanese society), but the notion that suicide is considered perfectly acceptable, respected and rational in Scandinavia (not that Scandinavia is a monolithic entity, nor a single society) is totally false.
Are you five years old? How do you read my post and come away with only “it’s not fair! I was just being honest!”
We don’t want you discussing whether or not it’s a good idea for you to commit suicide on this site. Yes, maybe you could have gotten away with discussing it obliquely had you been dishonest from the get-go, but so what? Just because you can get away with something doesn’t make it right. How about instead of stamping your feet and calling us mean, you honor our wishes and resolve this issue elsewhere, preferably with family, friends and/or your doctor?
:mad: I( have just been to the above-mentioned thread about when it is admissible to commit suicide and I have just read a whole series of postings that would be much more likely to be seen as encouragements to suicide than anything I said in my posting last April. Frankly, when you read lines like this:
"It is acceptable to commit suicide when one is prepared to die.
Not trying to be glib, but it anything can be deemed a personal decision, this would be it, wouldn’t you think?"
If anyone is going to sue the READER because someone practised self-liberation after reading something on this site, I would think one or two of those postings would be a liklier candidate than my simple posting.
I guess my unpardonable sin was to be honest and personal, so I am just going to tell you all to shove it, and I will refrain from this topic on SDMB. But pardon me if I get a bit cyncical when I see the “fighting ignorance” logo :rolleyes:
There are plenty of other sites where I can discuss this without dealing with this hypocritcal crap. Consider this my last posting on this subject…