Please, if suicide has crossed your mind, please, please, please find help. I had a fraternity brother commit suicide and you have no idea how much you'll be missed.
so, we create hell on earth for other people and when these people decide to leave the hell, we caringly, with all the good emotions in in the voice, say "please don't do it". You must be kidding.
How about just looking around and honestly answering simple question - whose hell today i'm part of ? One don't need to be an active or the most painful part, being just a part, a silent brick in the wall, is enough. And may be, if one has enough brains and courage, to refuse to be the part of the hell, just for one person, just for one day.
And, yes, two decades ago during student years, 3 persons i personally knew very well made the decision, and i respect it. They made the biggest decision in their life, and i'd not disrespect it with "what if"s or "they should have reach for the help" or with any other trash like this...
Get out of here with that. Maybe there are circumstances, in times of horrible war or famine or terminal illness, where suicide is the necessary step to end suffering. Maybe that's hell; I wouldn't know. I hope not to.
But I know depression. Depression feels like hell, but it's not. It's a treatable disease. Killing yourself to escape depression is like killing yourself to escape pneumonia instead of going to the hospital.
You should not respect that decision. You should help that person to get better.
what depression has to do with it? this is exactly kind of disrespect i was talking about. To immediately declare the person to be psychologically ill just because of our deepest fear of what may happen if we accept that ending your own life may be a rational well-thought off decision. It is easy to blame the person's imaginary illness instead of accepting responsibility that human society normally creates conditions when such a decision can be a rational well-thought off one.
People like you, who think that mental illness which is every bit as real as a broken arm is "imaginary" just because you can't see anything wrong, are one of the very worst parts of human society. You are part of the reason, probably the main reason, life is so hard for the mentally ill.
I really shouldn't have to explain this to you, as a great deal has been written on the subject in the past several decades. I beg of you, as a sometime depression sufferer, please go read up on this. Your ignorance hurts humanity.
If you are not ignorant, but simply unwilling to educate yourself, then please take your insane ideology back to the Dark Ages where it belongs.
>People like you, who think that mental illness which is every bit as real as a broken arm is "imaginary"
sorry, man, you've just produced non sequtuir as i never said that mental illnesses are "imaginary".
I said that the statement - "if suicide then necessarily mental illness" - is false in my view. Such statement being false doesn't necessarily means that mental illnesses are imaginary nor that some suicides are result of real mental illnesses.
You have started this discussion on the argument that "we create hell on earth for other people" which is about as unfounded as Cushman jumping to the conclusion that it was depression that caused this suicide, before the facts are in.
As it stands, you both have about the same amount of rationality in your argument while Cushman certainly has the numbers on his side - Mental Illness certainly is the leading cause of suicide:
"Clinical studies have shown that underlying mental disorders are present in 87% to 98% of suicides"
So I think Cushman is right - there is no use for your argument in this discussion and all that stands is a misunderstanding about your choice of words on "imaginary" (which I understood the same way that Cushman did - you clearly didn't choose your words wisely there and were bound to be misunderstood).
That statistic presents a somewhat circular logic, with drug abuse (mainly alcohol) and mood disorders (depression: uni-/bi-polar) making up the bulk of the 'mental disorders' figure (FTA). Since feelings of worthlessness and suicidal thoughts are used to diagnose depressive disorders in the first place and since drug abuse is acknowledged to often be a form of self-medication for undiagnosed depression, blaming 'mental disorders' clearly begs the question in a large number of cases.
The literature shows that environmental factors play a major role in causing and aggravating these illnesses and behaviours. I believe this is the point that VladRussian was making and it's not so easily dismissed with 'numbers'. Likewise, the very large proportion of suicides which come after a clinical diagnosis (and presumably some kind of treatment) doesn't inspire much faith in the 'just go and get yourself sorted out' line of advice.
I find it disturbing that in a discussion on this topic, someone advocating being kinder to people in general, and perhaps certain people in particular, would be subjected to the kind of insults that Cushman has used.
I would say that both sides of the argument that VladRussian started have a point but equally lack civility: viggity simply linked to a suicide prevention site and VladRussian lashed out how somebody dare to ask for suicidal people to seek help when it's society at fault. Cushman took offense and implied that depression is the culprit here. Cue further misunderstanding about the wording of "imaginary".
I think both sides are projecting their own view a little too hard on this.
Environmental factors surely are a factor in this and I was 'quoting numbers' because VladRussian was a little to quick to dismiss mental illness. Again - since we all don't know the details in this particular case, this is an abstract discussion about suicide. In an abstract discussion, you either make a case and discuss it, or you discuss one that another person has made. VladRussian simply picked a fight and Cushman bought into it.
Also, re: circular logic. I don't think it is circular - Suicidal thoughts may be a symptom of depression, but that's not the same as saying they are a cause of depression. I know you don't say that either, but that's what would make it circular. (Also: saying it's 'somewhat circular' is a cop-out - it either is, or isn't circular.) I further don't think mental disorders really are "blamed" for suicide, they are simply accepted as a very common pathway in medical studies.
To say that a suicide was caused by depression and that we knew the person was depressed because they claimed to be suicidal is circular. I qualified the term because there are other components to that statistic which it would be wrong to discount. (I don't believe anyone in this subthread has done that.)
No, that is simply not logical and nobody is arguing it. Again - a claim to have suicidal thoughts is a factor in diagnosing depression. Acting on those thoughts leads to actual suicide. That does not imply that suicidal thoughts were the reason why somebody became depressed.
Here is what would be a perfectly circular argument:
Somebody commits suicide. Society looks for a reason of that suicide. They figure out that the person was depressed. But why was he depressed? Turns out, he was suicidal.
But that's not what is being argued:
Somebody is depressed. So much depressed, that the person has suicidal thoughts. The person commits suicide. Society correctly assesses that his depression was the main cause in committing suicide. This is apparent, because it was in depression that suicidal thoughts appeared.
> human society normally creates conditions when such a decision can be a rational well-thought off one.
So you are dismissing the idea that Ilya was depressed. Yet, claim that there was terrible suffering and hell going on. Ok, I don't know what was happening in this life, but I will just guess that it is highly unlikely that famine, torture, physical, sexual or moral abuse was taking place, at least the kind were most people would agree that suicide was an obvious rational choice.
There is nothing shameful, imaginary, or about depression. Just like there is nothing shameful or imaginary about getting the flu.
I'd say it pretty clearly does. If it were a rational decision with no mental illness involved, the person could realize they can just pull a real world "why_". Just disappear, go somewhere else, be someone else and start over where no one knows you. You're going to lose everyone and everything you know anyway, why do you need to actually kill yourself as well (and doing so isn't risk free)?
If the person is rational then problems can only be one of two kinds: situational (e.g. my life sucks because I owe more money than I stand to earn in 3 lifetimes) and health-related. The rational stance to the first kind would be to do as I suggest above. Obviously, in the second case escaping won't change anything so suicide could be a rational choice.
If you can give details about those 3 and their reasons, perhaps you have a slight chance of convincing others that people have valid reasons for suicide other than depression. But EVERY case I've ever heard/seen (and maybe my sample is too small to be reflective of reality) points to depression as the leading and possibly only cause. There may have been root causes of that depression that were hell on earth, but the "but for" test still says depression was the direct cause of suicide in every case I've ever seen/read about/etc.
While I don't know any personally, I know people who know others who had living hell (eg. rape by father, impregnated, abortion). Those people got support, were able to fight back, and regained their lives. What made them different from others was the depression factor, and it's easy to conclude that the support others gave to help them stand up again prevented depression from taking hold.
You're making a very difficult-to-believe claim (for me for sure, and probably for others, given your downvotes) that depression had no factors in those 3 suicides, and an additional difficult-to-believe claim that it's not reasonable to conclude that depression is a leading factor in suicide in general.
Some details would be appreciated if you're going to make such difficult-to-believe claims.
edit: And if you would make the clarification again that you never claimed that depression wasn't a leading cause, just that it's not necessarily a factor, I don't see how that's a profitable statement. People have to make decisions and judgments all the time with incomplete information. Until the picture is 100% known here, it is logical to conclude what the numbers say: depression was a factor, if not the leading factor.
I say that "depression" along with "mental illness" are cop-out concepts used to shift the burden off society and onto the individual, by placing blame on some nebulous, bullshit entity.
I believe that the "root causes" of depression are what actually deserve any attention, and they are a combination of genes, society, environment and psychology that has been ingrained by these factors. Depression is like smoke from a fire, and we're currently treating it by installing fans to blow the smoke away.
This has been supported by research psychology about what makes a fulfilling life: a sense of autonomy, mastery, and relatedness. I guarantee you that someone missing even one of these will be "depressed." What do we say then? We don't think about how the environment he's living in is not encouraging these things, and we don't think about specific actions he can take to improve these factors.
No, we just say "Depression!" and tell him to go the therapist. Most people in modern society have eaten this psychiatry bullshit whole and as a consequence are more fit to tend houseplants than to maintain even the shallowest of friends.
So NO, what made the people who went through living hell different wasn't the fucking fake concept that is "depression", it was the SUPPORT.
I say we don't ever talk about depression. The very existence of the word "depression" pushes real societal and individual shortcomings and responsibility off the table.
We talk about what's going right and what's going wrong in the person's life, and if we don't have good advice on how to fix the things that are wrong, at least stop trying to grandstand and signal your social status with some useless platitudes and endlessly repeated refrains about the benefits of therapy and medication.
I think that's unfair. I agree with what you're saying, but not your conclusion. Depression is probably only a symptom of deeper issues, but people who truly care don't use the word as a cop-out to not help someone. If anything, it's a very useful indicator that someone needs help, and for this reason, we shouldn't throw away the word. Rather, we should demonstrate more willingness to care and dive deep into the messy bits, which I think a lot of people unfortunately don't wish to do because they're too busy with their own things.
of course it is a coping strategy. The adaptive nature of our brain means that we're always in the "coping strategy" to the previous experiences. Not analysing and not being affected by previous exprience wouldn't be a sign of a healthy brain.
I completely agree with your general sentiment. I think everyone who is downvoting you has installed in themselves a despicable world-view: that professional psychiatric support along with medication is a necessary part of having a fulfilling life, for those of us who were unlucky enough to go through hell on earth. It's not getting real results in the real world, or having fulfilling relationships, no, these people are sub-human because of their mental illness, they have to sign up to see a _therapist_. As for all of you disagreers: No, don't support these people, or question how your actions day-to-day might affect the well-being of others! Fully buy into the notion of man as sociopathically selfish and live it to the hilt, as you were well trained to do by school (and startup culture).
Help is out there and it is free.
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/