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Managing thoughts of suicide & self-harm

People Still Don't Sincerely Care About The Plight Of The Suicidal (TW: Suicide)

chibamSenior Contributor28 Apr 2024, 7:36 pm AEST

People Still Don't Sincerely Care About The Plight Of The Suicidal (TW: Suicide)

Content/trigger warning

The segment was all about how her family had to go through all the death rigmarol, like ID-ing the body, and I'm not trying to deny the hardship that they go through in the wake of a suicide. But after all this time, people still don't really care about the suicidal person's suffering.

The "problem" that everybody's complaining about is that the suicidal person is dead.

The "lessons to be learned" that they were hinting at were all about creating more restrictive practices that are all geared towards making it more difficult for a suicidal person to end their life; not about doing a better job of making that person's life worth prolonging.

Nobody genuinely cares about how unspeakably agonizing a suicidal person's life is. The only thing anyone cares about is how to constrain them so securely that they can't possibly die, no matter how much they might want to. So long as the patient is alive, everything else is acceptable.

Nobody is really on our side, no matter how much they might insist otherwise. This is what it is to be truly alone.

I can't say much more because this forum is very skittish regarding the morality of suicide and suicide prevention. I've probably said too much as it is.

But if anyone of any influence does happen to see this - try, just for a little while, to considder that maybe, just maybe, the anguish of suicidal people might matter just a little more then your obsession with keeping them alive.

So I just watched this brief news/currant affairs segment about a mental health patient who recently committed suicide. And after all these years, the emphasis is still on the suicide, and not on the patient's suffering.The segment was all about how her family had to go through all the death rigmarol, like ID-ing the body, and I'm not trying to deny the hardship that they go through in the wake of a suicide. But after all this time, people still don't really care about the suicidal person's suffering.The "problem" that everybody's complaining about is that the suicidal person is dead.The "lessons to be learned" that they were hinting at were all about creating more restrictive practices that are all geared towards making it more difficult for a suicidal person to end their life; not about doing a better job of making that person's life worth prolonging.Nobody genuinely cares about how unspeakably agonizing a suicidal person's life is. The only thing anyone cares about is how to constrain them so securely that they can't possibly die, no matter how much they might want to. So long as the patient is alive, everything else is acceptable.Nobody is really on our side, no matter how much they might insist otherwise. This is what it is to be truly alone.I can't say much more because this forum is very skittish regarding the morality of suicide and suicide prevention. I've probably said too much as it is.But if anyone of any influence does happen to see this - try, just for a little while, to considder that maybe, just maybe, the anguish of suicidal people might matter just a little more then your obsession with keeping them alive.

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In response to: People Still Don't Sincerely Care About The Plight Of The Suicidal (TW: Suicide)

chibamSenior Contributor29 Apr 2024, 8:29 pm AEST

Re: People Still Don't Sincerely Care About The Plight Of The Suicidal (TW: Suicide)

@The-red-centaurI'm so sorry to hear about your recent dealings with the health system over this. The specifics of my experiance have been differant; but the essential problem is still the same. As you suggest, it's a "suicide prevention" industry, not a "helping suicidal people" industry; and that all-important differance causes so much grief and anguish for us suicidal people.

We need help.

We beg for help.

But nobody in any position to help wants to help; they just want to contain. So that their bosses don't yell at them and the health ministry doesn't launch any inquiries that may threaten their livelihoods.

@The-red-centaur wrote:
It doesn't feel worth the effort to do what you're supposed to do. Living is hard. Doing the strategies constantly doesn't feel worth it anymore. I'm so tired.

I can relate to this statement all too well.

In response to: People Still Don't Sincerely Care About The Plight Of The Suicidal (TW: Suicide)

chibamSenior Contributor29 Apr 2024, 8:36 pm AEST

Re: People Still Don't Sincerely Care About The Plight Of The Suicidal (TW: Suicide)

@Malstupid I, too, would love, love, LOVE to have a real, authentic, open and frank conversation about suicide and suicidalness. But it is very, very hard to find places where that is aloud; and usually the people you find there are just other suicidal people who are already on the same page as you. So you can't do anything more then preach to the choir, and perhaps console yourself with the knowledge that you aren't the one and only person on earth who holds the views about suicide that you hold.

We need people to hear us, but I don't know how we can ever hope for that to happen when there's nowhere we're aloud to talk freely.

I've found it is possible to communicate near enough as frankly as I wish to to government inquiries; but the trouble there is I don't think anybody really pays attention.

In response to: Re: People Still Don't Sincerely Care About The Plight Of The Suicidal (TW: Suicide)

chibamSenior Contributor08 May 2024, 4:14 am AEST

Re: People Still Don't Sincerely Care About The Plight Of The Suicidal (TW: Suicide)

I doubt anybody's still paying attention to this thread, but on the off chance there is, this article (https://www.msn.com/en-au/health/other/good-mental-health-doesn-t-mean-absence-of-negative-emotion/ar-BB1iy97b) ties in really well with what I've been talking about.

Basically, this therapist goes on about how they don't really give a rat's ass about how happy or miserable you are - misery's fine; misery's a part of mental health. No, all they care about is how well you "cope"; how well you "function"!

If your a good little soldier, who does their job perfectly and efficiently day after day, then there is no problem! Even if you are silently praying to god minute after minute that today will be the day he grants you the sweet relief of death, that's fine, because your clearly "coping" and your not inconvieniencing anybody else with your sub-par "functioning".

That's what these people are all about. Despite the lies that are peddled to us, they aren't there to help us; they are there to mitigate the inconvienience we may potentially pose to the rest of the world. They are there to pull on our puppet strings so that we function the way that the outside world wants us to function! Outside appearances are all that matter; the fact that we are acting as we are expected to is all that matters. Our own internal anguish? Well, so long as it stays internal, they couldn't give a rat's ass about it. Functionality is the definition of mental health.

It makes my blood boil, because this woman is what my therapists were like. I've lived through the practice of this policy. They never gave a rat's ass about my suffering, or needs. All they wanted to do was bully me into convincingly play-acting the behavior that the world expected of me; to get me to act like a good, little, functional soldier, who only ever does what he's supposed to do. The fact that I'm begging the heavens for immediate death the whole time that I'm functioning so admirably...

nobody cares.

I think there's some old sci-fi movie or book or something where there's this line from a sentient robot: "I have no mouth, and I must scream." That's what life is like for me; and judging by some of the responses I've read above, I'm guessing that's what life is for quite a few others, too.

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