Death by Online Community?

[kyburg]

via the lovely being_homeless - A nicely done article on handling the suicide if you're the one who is first on the scene...

News that you can use.

(I do disagree with the statement that suicide is not "a permanent solution to a temporary problem." Chronic or terminal illness is not a temporary problem - but getting impatient, bored or unwilling to cope is.)

Comments

[musicalchaos.livejournal.com]

I would also contend that various mental problems are by no means temporary problems either... and depending on a person's tolerance for the pains and weights of those illnesses... I personally have contemplated and attempted suicide in the past... It's not something I take lightly, and I understand a fair bit about the various problems, and can understand why some people would choose suicide, rather than try to deal with the illness for the rest of their natural lives. Something that many people need to get straight is that medicines are not a panacea. Mental illnesses, and the drugs to treat them are all very poorly understood IMO, and trying to find something that works to balance you out mentally, much less without completely screwing you over in another manner... Is nigh on impossible. Trust me on this one... I know from very painful personal experience.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Not quite what I was expecting -- from the wording on the link, I thought I was going to read about being the first to walk in after the suicide has occurred. That's still a shock and a difficult situation, but a very different one from being the on-the-spot person trying to prevent the suicide.

I have been saying for some time now that "suicidal" is not the correct word for someone who has made a rational decision, in the face of terminal or debilitating illness, to take control of their own death, and that we need a different term to describe this situation. I've gotten into some very circular arguments about this issue with people whose logic runs: People who want to "die with dignity" are mentally ill and need to be saved from themselves. How can we be so sure they're mentally ill? Because they're suicidal!

I do agree, generally, with the author's take on the other kind of suicide. There may be such things as "impulse suicides", but my impression is that most people spend a lot of time thinking about it before they do it, and that it is indeed a desperate response to a continuing series of difficulties. If you can only see two possible futures, things being the way they are now or you being dead, and the way things are now has become absolutely intolerable, well... The fallacy is that, barring an incurable illness or other permanent condition, the perception of having only two choices is probably inaccurate.

And for a bit of dark humor: on the way back from a trip out to Amarillo, there was a billboard in a little Texas town out in the middle of nowhere: "There are some messes that no one should have to clean up." It was for a company which specializes in handling the aftermath of "suicide, accidental or unattended death". I was a little surprised to see it out there -- one would think there would be more call for such a business in a large city, but I've never seen an ad like that anywhere else.