It is always welcome news to see more mental health resources. I also want to broaden the conversation a bit beyond a hotline. I've been thinking around suicide a bit. This past summer, a friendly...
It is always welcome news to see more mental health resources.
I also want to broaden the conversation a bit beyond a hotline. I've been thinking around suicide a bit. This past summer, a friendly acquaintance committed suicide. I've never been suicidal but have ideated about suicide in the distant past.
I'm quite fine now.
I always ponder about the effectiveness of the marketing of mental health resources. The pamphlets always say something like, "call us if you're in crisis." I never thought I was "in crisis". That seemed abstract. When I ideated about suicide, I thought that I was unsalvageable and that no one would understand or even sympathise — so why bother talking about it. I wonder if it'd be more effective to say, "call us even if you feel that you wasted 4 years of college and your potential on a field you hate, that you ruined a relationship and it's your fault, that you failed your business venture because you weren't good enough, that... (and so on)."
I think that's why religion has appeal. Even to me, an atheist. A lot of religions have salvation as a central tenet. Jesus accepts and loves you and all that jazz, yada yada. Contrast this with the secular modern world whose acceptance—through competition and meritocracy—of you is totally conditional on what you can offer.
I don't know why my acquaintance ended his life. We talked. We were becoming friends. He told me that he wanted to hang out sometime outside of our volunteering gigs. He could've asked me for help and I would've gladly given it freely to him. I wonder if he felt the same way that I once did — that he didn't feel that he couldn't be helped so there was no point in asking for it.
Well suicide is kind of odd because its not an active thing like that. It sneaks up on you and can be like you start, as a way to mellow yourself out think about suicide, then as a way to break...
Well suicide is kind of odd because its not an active thing like that. It sneaks up on you and can be like you start, as a way to mellow yourself out think about suicide, then as a way to break out of a dread cycle you start fantasizing about it and thinking about how and when, then you start preparing for it - not that you WANT to but as a sort of "just thinking about it makes me less depressed" and then you are drawn to the place.
The action is impulsive, any hindrance, no matter how small - any detail that can block you or snap you out of it in that very moment - often work. Those phones on bridges? The signs with the numbers? Or the fences that are just a teeny tiny bit higher - they cut down suicide attempts by massive amounts.
This is also why guns are so damn dangerous when you're depressed or suicidal as they provide an easy to use snap decision driven device to commit suicide. A quick point and click with no point of "thinking about it", nothing that gives you that extra second to really mull it over again that stops your from doing it.
Most suicides are very much snap decisions that have been planned, if that makes sense. You prepare yourself towards it but not really considering doing it for real, but doing it is a moments impulse.
Also if you are in any way at that point where you are thinking about the where's, the when's and the hows you would commit suicide - call someone today. If its a parent, a close friend, a doctor, doesn't matter.
(here if you are suicidal you get a mental health professional and psychologist assigned within a few days if you call them and tell them that - and they will if you need to make sure you get in contact with one within a minute if needed)
Its usually only when you sit there on the phone and they ask you "Have you thought a lot about suicide? Have you planned for it?" that you realize just how close to it you are.
I don't know the Canadian statistics, but here in France suicide kills as many people as car accident. Needless to say, a suicide is almost never reported in local news and I do suspect that...
I don't know the Canadian statistics, but here in France suicide kills as many people as car accident. Needless to say, a suicide is almost never reported in local news and I do suspect that efforts allocated to prevention and recovery are equaly unbalanced.
Anyhow, I'm alive and loving it thanks to great mental health care resources. Made a phone call, saw a nurse within 30 min, a psychiatrist a few days later, at street level, in my neighbourhood (free of charge, of course).
(Funny what a small chemical imbalance can do to your head.)
This is one of those overlooked things when it comes to depression and suicide - its not the person making a clear headed choice its a chemical imbalance as devastating and impactful on...
(Funny what a small chemical imbalance can do to your head.)
This is one of those overlooked things when it comes to depression and suicide - its not the person making a clear headed choice its a chemical imbalance as devastating and impactful on decision-making as say a broken leg is to walking.
Since most of us will never suffer from that level of depression etc, its hard to fathom how cruelly it can strike and how terrifyingly effective it can be tweaking our behaviour towards ways that goes counter to what we actually need or want.
Awesome comment and <3 to you and your areas mental health care resources
It is always welcome news to see more mental health resources.
I also want to broaden the conversation a bit beyond a hotline. I've been thinking around suicide a bit. This past summer, a friendly acquaintance committed suicide. I've never been suicidal but have ideated about suicide in the distant past.
I'm quite fine now.
I always ponder about the effectiveness of the marketing of mental health resources. The pamphlets always say something like, "call us if you're in crisis." I never thought I was "in crisis". That seemed abstract. When I ideated about suicide, I thought that I was unsalvageable and that no one would understand or even sympathise — so why bother talking about it. I wonder if it'd be more effective to say, "call us even if you feel that you wasted 4 years of college and your potential on a field you hate, that you ruined a relationship and it's your fault, that you failed your business venture because you weren't good enough, that... (and so on)."
I think that's why religion has appeal. Even to me, an atheist. A lot of religions have salvation as a central tenet. Jesus accepts and loves you and all that jazz, yada yada. Contrast this with the secular modern world whose acceptance—through competition and meritocracy—of you is totally conditional on what you can offer.
I don't know why my acquaintance ended his life. We talked. We were becoming friends. He told me that he wanted to hang out sometime outside of our volunteering gigs. He could've asked me for help and I would've gladly given it freely to him. I wonder if he felt the same way that I once did — that he didn't feel that he couldn't be helped so there was no point in asking for it.
Well suicide is kind of odd because its not an active thing like that. It sneaks up on you and can be like you start, as a way to mellow yourself out think about suicide, then as a way to break out of a dread cycle you start fantasizing about it and thinking about how and when, then you start preparing for it - not that you WANT to but as a sort of "just thinking about it makes me less depressed" and then you are drawn to the place.
The action is impulsive, any hindrance, no matter how small - any detail that can block you or snap you out of it in that very moment - often work. Those phones on bridges? The signs with the numbers? Or the fences that are just a teeny tiny bit higher - they cut down suicide attempts by massive amounts.
This is also why guns are so damn dangerous when you're depressed or suicidal as they provide an easy to use snap decision driven device to commit suicide. A quick point and click with no point of "thinking about it", nothing that gives you that extra second to really mull it over again that stops your from doing it.
Most suicides are very much snap decisions that have been planned, if that makes sense. You prepare yourself towards it but not really considering doing it for real, but doing it is a moments impulse.
Also if you are in any way at that point where you are thinking about the where's, the when's and the hows you would commit suicide - call someone today. If its a parent, a close friend, a doctor, doesn't matter.
(here if you are suicidal you get a mental health professional and psychologist assigned within a few days if you call them and tell them that - and they will if you need to make sure you get in contact with one within a minute if needed)
Its usually only when you sit there on the phone and they ask you "Have you thought a lot about suicide? Have you planned for it?" that you realize just how close to it you are.
I don't know the Canadian statistics, but here in France suicide kills as many people as car accident. Needless to say, a suicide is almost never reported in local news and I do suspect that efforts allocated to prevention and recovery are equaly unbalanced.
Anyhow, I'm alive and loving it thanks to great mental health care resources. Made a phone call, saw a nurse within 30 min, a psychiatrist a few days later, at street level, in my neighbourhood (free of charge, of course).
(Funny what a small chemical imbalance can do to your head.)
This is one of those overlooked things when it comes to depression and suicide - its not the person making a clear headed choice its a chemical imbalance as devastating and impactful on decision-making as say a broken leg is to walking.
Since most of us will never suffer from that level of depression etc, its hard to fathom how cruelly it can strike and how terrifyingly effective it can be tweaking our behaviour towards ways that goes counter to what we actually need or want.
Awesome comment and <3 to you and your areas mental health care resources