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Sanctioned Suicide

Sanctioned Suicide

-
Mar 17, 2018
41
In our society, I believe there needs to be more conversation about mental health. It is obvious that our current mental health system fails everyone it touches and it shows. Those with mental illness or problems are often looked down upon, treated as outcasts, or even excluded from society entirely. Not only that, but the current "solutions" are obviously not working. Therapy is a joke in general, although it does help some. Psychiatrists only seek to medicate you so you can "feel" better. None of these things is treating the underlying problems, only the symptoms. Modern medicine is set up only to treat the symptoms, not address the underlying problems. This is what I believe is the crux of the problem: Too many medical professionals just simply don't care about the people that they treat, in my opinion. You can't talk about these problems with close friends or family, or you'll be labelled "crazy" and treated poorly for it. There is a stigma associated with talking about mental illness in general and even more of a stigma associated with talking about suicide. This community exists to let people talk about these things judgement-free and anonymously.

I want to open up a wider conversation about how we can improve the failed mental health system because the current approach isn't working.

What do you think could be done?
 
aneurysm

aneurysm

Mage
Jan 27, 2019
584
developed countries like to send humanitarian aid to people who are starving in poor countries. I think that poor countries need to send volunteers to developed countries to teach them about human connection since poorer countries tend to have the happiest, humblest, most mentally healthy, resilient individuals (despite their circumstances). I know this sounds like a joke to almost everyone but I'm serious. I think capitalism, greed and individualism are eating the West alive and they need help asap.

the west (the materialistic side of the world) needs to form a strong bond/relationship with the unmaterialistic side of the world for balance to be reestablished on both sides.
 
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Amumu

Amumu

Ctb - temporary solution for a permanent problem
Aug 29, 2020
2,626
Not that much, imo. You can have the best mental health system, there will always be suicidal and unhappy people.
Maybe some stuff can be improved, but nature and hard reality will always be here.
Maybe the development of science - and nihilism - contributed to the current situation but I don't believe it's necessarily negative.
 
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Life_and_Death

Life_and_Death

🚫Safety is a figment of the imagination🚫
Jul 1, 2020
6,360
I recently thought of depression intervention. When I googled it I only found ways to intervene but that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is where everyone sits down and reminds the depressed what they love about them and why.

I know this isn't a good option for a lot because they might not have family or friends to do this but I know for people like me it would be helpful.

Because of my disorders and BS I've had to put up with I've become blind to their love. I think everyone is setting me up for a life sized prank. That I'm just a joke to everyone. I "believe" that my husband is videoing us 'in the bedroom' and posting it on the Internet for laughs and humiliation.

This is something I struggle with. And the reminder that they do love me would be really fucking awesome.


To get help with mental illness or takes a lot on the depresseds part and the loved ones and I think this is where it falls down a lot.
 
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Dr Iron Arc

Dr Iron Arc

Into the Unknown
Feb 10, 2020
18,433
I think destigmatizing suicide talk is a good start on maybe improving therapists. There were too many times where I felt unable to tell my therapist what was wrong with me because I just wanted to kill myself and refused to see any other form of reason. I also tend to get very stubborn when I'm set on something and I just feel like the only thing that can actually help me is if someone can actually meet my logic head on and tackle it instead of just trying to disarm it like so many therapists do.

There have also been too many times where they actually gave me some decent advice but I either lied about being willing to take it because I didn't want to hurt their feelings or I simply forgot after the session was over (btw sessions only being an hour long isn't always enough).

Often times, even when a therapy session goes well I can't help but feel like it only feels good in the moment while somebody is listening to me but once that's over and I have to wait days, weeks, or months until the next appointment it doesn't help improve my situation at all.

I don't know, I have so many other reasons/excuses as to why I feel like I'm therapy/treatment-proof. Anytime someone gives me some good advice I feel like I eventually use my bs logic to get around it. If only I could actually be challenged within the confines of my own logic.

One thing that has helped more than therapy though not completely is to simply see media that portrays circumstances similar to what I've lived through. No media really does it perfectly in my case though. I guess I'm just waiting for someone to create a fictional world that somehow serves more as a complete walkthrough tailored to me and how to live my own life and shoots down every possible protest I could have...
 
Spiral

Spiral

Experienced
Jan 22, 2021
269
I think that allowing us the use of some land to build lives and communities outside of society and western culture could help a lot of people. The cause of a lot of mental distress for many is being forced to study things they have no real interest in/ work pointless jobs that bring them no joy, money or purpose/ inability to find secure housing and the knowledge that no matter how long or hard they work they will never achieve the most basic human needs like shelter/ lack of interest in material things/ not fitting in with herd mentality/ no freedom of expression/ not looking or feeling the way society says we should/ having no interest in the "dream life" that we are expected to aim for "university, job, marriage, house, kids, get old, die etc.
If we were given land and we could form our own community, build our own homes and do work that has a genuine meaningful purpose like growing food for our community, working as a team to tend the land and build shelter, educating ourselves in subjects that directly benefit our lives and community like agriculture, medicine, sanitation etc and generally living a more peaceful and simple life with minimal need for modern drama like money, status, mass consumerism, strict rules and rigid routines, the need to constantly run the gauntlet 24/7 for an unattainable goal. we may actually find a sense of peace, belonging, purpose. We don't fit in the cookie cutter and repeatedly trying to squash us into it HURTS. Accept that we don't fit and let us get off the hamster wheel and choose a different path. Drugs and therapy can only do so much but usually it feels as though they are not designed to make us better, only to grease us up a bit in the vain hope that if you cover us in butter we might eventually slip through the cookie cutter and turn out like the rest of the herd. I feel like a dairy cow that has been bred and farmed to serve a purpose that is of no benefit to me at all and I'm a wright off and disappointment because I failed to produce any milk. Antidepressants are the equivalent to the nasty hormones they feed to dairy cows to increase their milk production even though they are detrimental to the cows health. Just put me out to pasture already.
Edit: just remembered to add that I feel the reason peoe suffer less with mental health in less developed countries is because they DO live in tight knit communities where everybody has a meaningful purpose no matter their level of ability. They support each other and I think it must feel good. Like when you hear stories of joe who walks 7 miles every day to get water, he knows he is carrying that water for his community who need it, because he does this the people in his community who cannot make that journey will survive like the Children and elderly ect. That sort of thing gives life meaning. The western equivalent is walking 7 miles to get water (aka going to work) arriving home to your community with that heavy bucket of water, then your employer takes the bucket from you and hands you just one cup full of water for your family, he keeps the rest and builds a water park and wastes water.
 
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Life_and_Death

Life_and_Death

🚫Safety is a figment of the imagination🚫
Jul 1, 2020
6,360
There were too many times where I felt unable to tell my therapist what was wrong with me because I just wanted to kill myself and refused to see any other form of reason
I'd like to extend on this with my own pov. I do find that in my most suicidal moments it's like there's a little bubble of awful around me and I can't see beyond it. I honestly believe that in situations like that being suicidal isn't the persons fault and treating them like criminals only enforces it.
 
RainAndSadness

RainAndSadness

Administrator
Jun 12, 2018
2,072
If you want to prevent young people from committing suicide, society needs to strongly crack down on bullying. Bullying fucked me up for good and damaged my mental health long-term. I never felt accepted and supported by anyone back in school and didn't have any friends. I was excluded and abused instead, for years. The bullying actually made me suicidal when I was 14 years old and neither my parents or my teachers took this issue seriously. In fact, society in general doesn't take this issue seriously at all. We accept and tolerate bullying as part of growing up and that's wrong. That's one issue I can think of that's bothering me a lot. It hurts whenever I read that very young people, children, commit suicide as a result of bullying and neglect. Parents often don't care about it.
Speaking of parents, I think if we taught people to raise their children properly, to give them love, compassion, care and enough attention, we could actually prevent the upbringing of mentally dysfunctional beings. I know because I was a victim of neglect myself. My own parents didn't care about me and instead gave me away to strangers for most of the day so they could both work and make enough money. I'm certain this contributed to the development of my borderline personality disorder, which is often associated with neglect and abandonment in early childhood.
As a trans individual, I also know many trans people lack access to the proper care they need. We're discriminated by society and the medical system. We need better access to transition options and we need to start accepting trans people as part of our society. That means fixing legal, medical and social discrimination. But most people don't want to do that, they think by actively discriminating against us, they somehow help us. And honestly, financial issues also contribute to my suicide ideation a lot. I can't work because of all the fuckery that happened in my childhood. It caused severe trauma and I'm suffering from various disabling mental health disorders, such as depression, social anxiety and borderline personality disorder. I'm not functional and can't work as a result of that but society is punishing me by forcing me to live in poverty. I'm completely and 100% dependent on my disability insurance and I wish they would treat me like an actual human being and give me the proper financial support I need to live a decent life with dignity. Money doesn't fix mental health issues but it surely makes it easier to distract yourself from all the pain that comes from them.

These are just some of the issues I believe we can tackle with enough determination and activism because they affected me and my own mental health a lot. The issue is, nobody is listening to suicidal people. This forum here already tells all the stories of mentally struggling people, there are hundreds of threads talking about these issues but instead of taking us seriously, addressing the concerns voiced in this platform, they call us sickos, incels, predators and murderers. Instead of helping us, they attack and smear us. They pretend we're a cult and they think by banning us, they could actually fix suicide. No, you're simply moving issues under the rug. And that's why we're suicidal in the first place. You're never gonna make this world a better place by banning SS.
 
KuriGohan&Kamehameha

KuriGohan&Kamehameha

想死不能 - 想活不能
Nov 23, 2020
1,461
As others have mentioned, therapy falls short in a lot of cases. I'd wager most aren't cured by it, but because people are afraid to question psychiatrists and psychologists, and placebo effects are reinforced consistently by our culture, it makes it look as if more people are benefitting from it than not.


We hear things like, "Therapy and meds together works in __ amount of cases" yet those measures never acknowledge those who either slipped between the cracks or went on to relapse later in life, or if these people were under pressure to say yes in fear of stigma/sectioning. In my experience, therapy and psychiatry are incredibly unscientific, and it's a whole lot of throwing random things at you and hoping they stick.


People should be allowed to question and criticise this, because critiquing this is the first step towards changing it. Many medications are prescribed inappropriately or unnecessarily. The most appalling example of this that I can think of is suicidal people getting injected with haldol when they are sectioned against their will.

Sectioning of suicidal people against their will in mental institutions needs to go. It is a human rights violation, and far more have been harmed than helped in these pseudo prisons. People should not be afraid to tell someone their suicidal feelings in fear of having their dignity and free will stripped away. Responding with empathy and kindness rather than shackles is what makes us feel understood.

Individuals do not need to be shamed and treated like insane criminals for wanting to peacefully end their own lives. Nor do they need to be gaslit and say its their fault when bunk psychiatric treatments don't work. The reality is that the mental health industry does not understand the complexities of the brain, because even real Neuroscientists don't yet. I study this at university and I can safely say that Neuro is still in its infancy, we do not have enough knowledge to pinpoint what causes actual mental disorders (not situations where someone's circumstances are clearly the trigger for their suicidality)

On the subject of that, mental health services are failing to provide community care, it's all about blaming the individual and their supposed diseased brain. Instead of staring blankly at a therapist for an hour and getting booted out the door when the time you payed for is up, why don't mental health services put lonely people together who need genuine human connections and not artifical bullshit platitudes?


There are many older people out there living alone who would love to have a friend and have someone who they could bond with. Many of us don't have families, and we would love to have someone step in and be the mother, father, brother, sister, etc we never had. Social media is making us even more isolated and no one seems to care about bring people together. There is no service providing this. Group therapy in my experience was also fake and artifical, you weren't even allowed to speak to anyone outside of the group!


Disabled people should also be treated like human beings and not massive burdens on society. People treat us like garbage, ensure we stay lonely and poor forever, then wonder why we don't want to live. Even just permission to access assisted suicide/euthanasia would be a massive weight off my shoulders, and I believe every consenting adult should have this option. Maybe it would stop the platitudes about life being a gift if enough of us demonstrated that yes, our lives are bad enough that we want out, and no, your inspiration porn feel-good stories aren't reality for a lot of people. Will the world at large ever confront this elephant in the room, though?


We need real science and research into treatments that aren't done by psychologists who know nothing about the physical and chemical structure of the brain, much less greater human physiology, we need services to aid people with awful socioeconomic conditions, and we need to have honest conversations about death and mortality that the majority of people are unwilling to partake in. Only then, can things change.

Edit: Also the power play between doctors and the hurting and ill is despicable. People should be given more choices, respect, and not treated like they know nothing. This dichotomy that some austeric authority figure knows how you're feeling better than you do needs to stop, it only invalidates people's struggles and makes us further feel trapped, especially when psychiatrists do it.
 
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Angst Filled Fuck Up

Angst Filled Fuck Up

Visionary
Sep 9, 2018
2,611
Society's completely broken. We need a total reboot of how just about everything works. If the world was a car, it would look like this:

500px-Joshua_Tree_-_Love_car.jpg


Minus the love part, obviously.

Now, I use the car analogy because I'm into them as a whole. And if I perceive a vehicle to be broken beyond repair, I junk it.

What we need is a world that operates from a humanist perspective. One that cares about the needs and feelings of its people in general. That must be the guiding principle. We must stop being (wage) slaves. We must stop suffering in silence with a system that doesn't give a rat's ass about how we're really doing, and extorts us by way of its (often merely symbolic) help. The treatment that's out there now is hopelessly inadequate. Not to mention generic, impersonal, cliché and woefully underfunded.

I recently had to pay over $400 for a half hour visit with a neurologist. I haven't even been able to follow up with my mental health referral, because, get this, my doctor forgot to actually put it through. Upon calling, I was told they had no info about it and there was a huge waiting list anyway. Totally unacceptable.

We need our freedoms restored (and built upon) and our mental and physical health made into absolute top priorities. I'm utterly exhausted and sick of struggling alone. I'm tired of being made to feel like a parasite or a bum in a world that doesn't understand or listen to me.

It's probably too late for us. I don't see the world changing any time soon. But I hope future generations will enjoy a different world. We need a new Earth so very badly.
 
H

HadEnough1974

I try to be funny...
Jan 14, 2020
688
In our society, I believe there needs to be more conversation about mental health. It is obvious that our current mental health system fails everyone it touches and it shows. Those with mental illness or problems are often looked down upon, treated as outcasts, or even excluded from society entirely. Not only that, but the current "solutions" are obviously not working. Therapy is a joke in general, although it does help some. Psychiatrists only seek to medicate you so you can "feel" better. None of these things is treating the underlying problems, only the symptoms. Modern medicine is set up only to treat the symptoms, not address the underlying problems. This is what I believe is the crux of the problem: Too many medical professionals just simply don't care about the people that they treat, in my opinion. You can't talk about these problems with close friends or family, or you'll be labelled "crazy" and treated poorly for it. There is a stigma associated with talking about mental illness in general and even more of a stigma associated with talking about suicide. This community exists to let people talk about these things judgement-free and anonymously.

I want to open up a wider conversation about how we can improve the failed mental health system because the current approach isn't working.

What do you think could be done?

Question: Is the mental health system failing everyone or is it only failing those who are "treatment resistant", in other words, the most challenging cases?

Question: Most of us who are here would agree that the system has failed them, myself included. However, are we a small percent who have the most severe cases?

Is the mental health system working for let's say 90 percent and we are the 10 percent that they can't help?

Your thoughts?
 
Ardesevent

Ardesevent

It’s the end of the line, cowboy
Feb 2, 2020
358
Spreading different stories to other platforms would be a good start. Even if most likely nothing would happen, the stories might make more people want a better system.
Mental health facilities fail a ton of people. There are minsdiagnosises which lead to people getting perscribed pills that make their life worse, there's psych wards which are still around despite them being proven to make people more suicidal by government studies, and there's wackjob therapists who do absolutely nothing to help their patients or tell them not kill themselves because it might weaken their salary a bit. There's a ton of stuff for people to want to change if they are informed about it.
 
S

Symbiote

Global Mod
Oct 12, 2020
3,102
My problem with the mental health system is the accessibility of proper care and treatment protocols. Options like Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Special K Infusions, and SSRI+ are out of reach for most folk unless they've been through the gauntlet of medications first. Even if they've gone through the gauntlet, the above treatments are expensive unless you have great insurance with the state or work with the federal/state level. There's a catch, most insurance plans do not cover those above and you end up paying the full price for each session which is $700 for TMS x 20 sessions = $14000 out of pocket. Insurance also screws over people that are mentally ill by prescribing them lesser known drugs or generics which lack the potency sometimes to relieve symptoms.

After a while of medicine, our body becomes resistant to those drugs, and it's just a cycling of drugs that changes your moods, your attitudes, your thought process, and even your libido. No wonder people start giving up, people start isolating and withdrawing from society because the system has failed, the drugs have failed, and then the stigma. In the USA, if you get Baker Act'd (involuntary hospitalization ordered by Judge or MD), it's much harder to get a job afterwards. Baker Act is equivalent to a Type 3 Misdemeanor and can prevent you from getting coveted employment like federal, law enforcement, military, public sector, etc. All the good insurance plans are under the public sector areas.

I've always felt like drugs were a band-aid over the symptoms hence why I stopped using them. They never tell you to stop because "it's bad". Well yeah, when you cover a festering wound with a bandaid and then take it off, it's going to burst all over. No one in life wants to be buried in debt, or be wage slave. No one wants to live in poverty or be desperate for love. Human connection and relativity plays a factor I think. While in the mental hospital, I observed that the ones that did not get medication were able to bounce back a bit, though they were bit crazy, but they weren't burdened down by side effects. The ones on medication were zombies, listless, unattentive, and shuffling from one room to the next. Therapists these days won't see you until you're medicated. They like to be in control and tell you things rather than you telling them stuff. So easy for them to treat medicated individuals, but refuse to treat borderlines and the unmedicated.

As you can see with this unordered post that mental health system is so fucked up and infantile that it'll be a long time before it is improved. How many people, doctors, and researchers have started the conversation of mental health? Thousands, and NOTHING has been accomplished. Just more oppression, more medication, and prevention of suicide, without addressing the underlying cause.

Sincerely,
A mentally deranged poster.
 
GenesAndEnvironment

GenesAndEnvironment

Autistic loser
Jan 26, 2021
5,743
I actually think that doctors straight up giving Nembutal or loaded shotguns to suicidal patients would fix the mental health crisis. Many will feel empowered by carrying a bottle of N or a sawed-off and will keep living for a while. Others will gracefully exit. Both are positive results in my book.
 
brainpain2

brainpain2

Student
Sep 16, 2019
126
I believe that most mental "illnesses" are caused by learned patterns of thought that develop over the years, usually starting from childhood. The subconscious hangs onto those as a coping strategy. But the time the brain is fully or mostly formed (early 20s) these patterns of thought are almost completely impossible to reverse.

I have so-called "bipolar disorder" (albeit a "mild case" I'm told. I do not experience full mania".) My "depressions " are 100% due to life circumstances which cannot be cured. I now suffer from a chronic pain disorder. I have been on every medication imaginable for both disorders and still have a terrible quality of life. Therapy is expensive and all they do is push "mindfulness" on you. I have been through the mindfulness gauntlet a million times and hate it. One size does NOT fit all. I mourn the days when I did not have chronic pain and could mostly live life like any other person. Who wouldn't be "depressed" like that? Why should I be happy that "at least it's not cancer"?

Contemplating ending ones life is NOT always an indicator of "mental illness". It can be a rational decision when ones quality of life is no longer desirable. This is why medical assistance in dying is now legal for terminally ill folks in my country with a Supreme Court battle to extend it to those who are not terminal but are in suffering with no cure. Are all these folks "mentally ill" too? And what if it is "mental illness" with no cure like schizophrenia, BPD Aand bipolar disorders? Is mental suffering more trivial than physical suffering?

for someone people, like myself, knowing that death is an option and will come regardless in time, gives me peace. I have not checked out yet. I guess that means a part of me still wants to keep plugging way. Once I had my method it was like a huge burden was off my shoulders. I could "live" again.

Suicidal thoughts and behaviours do not always equal suicide nor do they equal "depression".

This is a safe place to talk about it without being thrown in the psych ward, which does more harm than good due to the humiliation and being treated like a criminal and getting no treatment whole there anyways.
 
KuriGohan&Kamehameha

KuriGohan&Kamehameha

想死不能 - 想活不能
Nov 23, 2020
1,461
My problem with the mental health system is the accessibility of proper care and treatment protocols. Options like Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Special K Infusions, and SSRI+ are out of reach for most folk unless they've been through the gauntlet of medications first. Even if they've gone through the gauntlet, the above treatments are expensive unless you have great insurance with the state or work with the federal/state level. There's a catch, most insurance plans do not cover those above and you end up paying the full price for each session which is $700 for TMS x 20 sessions = $14000 out of pocket. Insurance also screws over people that are mentally ill by prescribing them lesser known drugs or generics which lack the potency sometimes to relieve symptoms.

After a while of medicine, our body becomes resistant to those drugs, and it's just a cycling of drugs that changes your moods, your attitudes, your thought process, and even your libido. No wonder people start giving up, people start isolating and withdrawing from society because the system has failed, the drugs have failed, and then the stigma. In the USA, if you get Baker Act'd (involuntary hospitalization ordered by Judge or MD), it's much harder to get a job afterwards. Baker Act is equivalent to a Type 3 Misdemeanor and can prevent you from getting coveted employment like federal, law enforcement, military, public sector, etc. All the good insurance plans are under the public sector areas.

I've always felt like drugs were a band-aid over the symptoms hence why I stopped using them. They never tell you to stop because "it's bad". Well yeah, when you cover a festering wound with a bandaid and then take it off, it's going to burst all over. No one in life wants to be buried in debt, or be wage slave. No one wants to live in poverty or be desperate for love. Human connection and relativity plays a factor I think. While in the mental hospital, I observed that the ones that did not get medication were able to bounce back a bit, though they were bit crazy, but they weren't burdened down by side effects. The ones on medication were zombies, listless, unattentive, and shuffling from one room to the next. Therapists these days won't see you until you're medicated. They like to be in control and tell you things rather than you telling them stuff. So easy for them to treat medicated individuals, but refuse to treat borderlines and the unmedicated.

As you can see with this unordered post that mental health system is so fucked up and infantile that it'll be a long time before it is improved. How many people, doctors, and researchers have started the conversation of mental health? Thousands, and NOTHING has been accomplished. Just more oppression, more medication, and prevention of suicide, without addressing the underlying cause.

Sincerely,
A mentally deranged poster.
You are so spot on. I just want to add that even in countries with universal healthcare, we are experiencing this too. You cannot get Ketamine without going private and paying thousands. You can't get medications that aren't SSRIs and SNRIs without going private. Hell, you can't even off label prescriptions for anything most of the time here unless you have tons of money to once again, go private.


This phenomena is absolutely disgusting and keeps people trapped in a cycle of trying medications that don't help them, being forced to try an analogue with the same mechanism of action that once again, doesn't help-rinse and repeat. I'd rather they admit they don't know how to help than keep deceiving people who are clearly suffering.
 
A

AutoTap

Elementalist
Nov 11, 2020
886
I've been in therapy and trying different meds and dosages for a couple years now. My severe anxiety, persistent depressive disorder, and autism spectrum disorder hasn't improved. If anything the constant let downs and extra stress that therapy often brings has made me more suicidal.
 
tlsnih

tlsnih

Member
Jan 15, 2021
40
I'm going to respond to this post properly later but, before I forget, @Marquis can I please suggest the addition of a 'Mental Health' forum alongside the 'Suicide Discussion', 'Recovery' and 'Offtopic' ones currently in place?

EDIT: or perhaps it could be 'Mental Illness and Health' – just a place to discuss various mental illnesses, treatments, personal experiences with them etc. without it being contextualised as being related to either suicide/recovery
 
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Yoffi

Yoffi

I can't dance, I want to dance
Aug 8, 2019
77
You can't talk about these problems with close friends or family, or you'll be labelled "crazy" and treated poorly for it. There is a stigma associated with talking about mental illness in general and even more of a stigma associated with talking about suicide.
I don't really agree with that, it very much depends on the person.
I once had a talk about mine and her mental problems with my friend after she noticed my old self-harm scars, and while it wasn't very supportive she was very understanding, but after all, it was because she was somewhat in the same boat.
so I suppose you just need to talk about those things with people who are going through or have gone through some problems like those of their own.

too bad I'm not really in contact with her anymore.
 
saltshaker

saltshaker

salt shaker, rule breaker
Jan 29, 2021
402
1) End involuntary hospitalisation, nobody with any sense is going to want to play "say it without saying it" with MHPs. I believe it's the single largest factor that causes the mental healthcare system to fail.

2) Universal income, the wealth gap is too extreme, there's no sense trying to serve your community anymore since everyone around you is broke. The whole economy is just an artificial construct and it should be made to serve people.

3) This platform needs to keep growing, we need more attention, it's the only good place online to discuss these matters. With more users and spotlight we can start changing things as a community.
 
BornofDust

BornofDust

Student
Dec 11, 2020
132
I think you need to things, one, get our education system to create a curriculum to teach people from an early age about mental health, physicals and emotional abuse and everything in between in order for them to become more sympathetic to those with mental health issue's down the line as well as be more understanding towards people who suffer from all sorts of abuse. So that people are more aware and more sympathetic and aware n the long-term.

Second is that the media and pop culture should show mental health issue's in a more nuanced light instead of simply either serial killers or depressed freaks through films, television and documentaries. In order to make people more sympathetic. Same with the subject of suicide, from a more nuanced perspective instead of either good or bad.

Oh and also a Universal Health Care involving both Mental and Physical Heath would be nice.
 
Squiddy

Squiddy

Here Lies My Hopes And Dreams
Sep 4, 2019
5,903
If you want to prevent young people from committing suicide, society needs to strongly crack down on bullying. Bullying fucked me up for good and damaged my mental health long-term. I never felt accepted and supported by anyone back in school and didn't have any friends. I was excluded and abused instead, for years. The bullying actually made me suicidal when I was 14 years old and neither my parents or my teachers took this issue seriously. In fact, society in general doesn't take this issue seriously at all. We accept and tolerate bullying as part of growing up and that's wrong. That's one issue I can think of that's bothering me a lot. It hurts whenever I read that very young people, children, commit suicide as a result of bullying and neglect. Parents often don't care about it.
Speaking of parents, I think if we taught people to raise their children properly, to give them love, compassion, care and enough attention, we could actually prevent the upbringing of mentally dysfunctional beings. I know because I was a victim of neglect myself. My own parents didn't care about me and instead gave me away to strangers for most of the day so they could both work and make enough money. I'm certain this contributed to the development of my borderline personality disorder, which is often associated with neglect and abandonment in early childhood.
As a trans individual, I also know many trans people lack access to the proper care they need. We're discriminated by society and the medical system. We need better access to transition options and we need to start accepting trans people as part of our society. That means fixing legal, medical and social discrimination. But most people don't want to do that, they think by actively discriminating against us, they somehow help us. And honestly, financial issues also contribute to my suicide ideation a lot. I can't work because of all the fuckery that happened in my childhood. It caused severe trauma and I'm suffering from various disabling mental health disorders, such as depression, social anxiety and borderline personality disorder. I'm not functional and can't work as a result of that but society is punishing me by forcing me to live in poverty. I'm completely and 100% dependent on my disability insurance and I wish they would treat me like an actual human being and give me the proper financial support I need to live a decent life with dignity. Money doesn't fix mental health issues but it surely makes it easier to distract yourself from all the pain that comes from them.

These are just some of the issues I believe we can tackle with enough determination and activism because they affected me and my own mental health a lot. The issue is, nobody is listening to suicidal people. This forum here already tells all the stories of mentally struggling people, there are hundreds of threads talking about these issues but instead of taking us seriously, addressing the concerns voiced in this platform, they call us sickos, incels, predators and murderers. Instead of helping us, they attack and smear us. They pretend we're a cult and they think by banning us, they could actually fix suicide. No, you're simply moving issues under the rug. And that's why we're suicidal in the first place. You're never gonna make this world a better place by banning SS.
Bullying also fucked with my mind heavily in middle school and gave me PTSD, BPD and activated other mental health problems. My first old high school was good in that the principal threatened detention for first time bullying where your parents had to join you too and the 2nd time, you were expelled so barely anybody bullied in that school.
 
kitch

kitch

Student
Jan 4, 2021
134
In our society, I believe there needs to be more conversation about mental health. It is obvious that our current mental health system fails everyone it touches and it shows. Those with mental illness or problems are often looked down upon, treated as outcasts, or even excluded from society entirely. Not only that, but the current "solutions" are obviously not working. Therapy is a joke in general, although it does help some. Psychiatrists only seek to medicate you so you can "feel" better. None of these things is treating the underlying problems, only the symptoms. Modern medicine is set up only to treat the symptoms, not address the underlying problems. This is what I believe is the crux of the problem: Too many medical professionals just simply don't care about the people that they treat, in my opinion. You can't talk about these problems with close friends or family, or you'll be labelled "crazy" and treated poorly for it. There is a stigma associated with talking about mental illness in general and even more of a stigma associated with talking about suicide. This community exists to let people talk about these things judgement-free and anonymously.

I want to open up a wider conversation about how we can improve the failed mental health system because the current approach isn't working.

What do you think could be done?
This would be a great Sticky post ... ?

Ongoing inputs ... it's not going away soon as a problem.
 
Meretlein

Meretlein

Moderator
Feb 15, 2019
1,200
1) End involuntary hospitalisation, nobody with any sense is going to want to play "say it without saying it" with MHPs. I believe it's the single largest factor that causes the mental healthcare system to fail.

It is almost comedic to watch mental health professionals try to rationalize retaining the ability to forcibly detain a patient on the suspicion that they will ctb while also keeping the trust of their patients.
 
M

Muirthemne

Member
Mar 1, 2020
52
We need preventative mental health care same as there's preventative physical health care. By the time I actually got into therapy, it was too late to make any difference. My life was already ruined beyond repair. Maybe that was inevitable, but maybe if I'd had the proper support from the start things could have ended differently.

Therapy should be just something everyone does. Techniques for positive mental health need to be taught in schools. Learning how to process difficult emotions and build healthy relationships is vastly more useful for the average person than trigonometry or whatever.

If everyone has at least some knowledge of mental health and therapeutic techniques, then there's much less of a stigma on those who need them more than others, and it's a lot easier for people to relate and communicate effectively. The best relationships I've had have been with other mentally ill people -- not because of the mental illness, but simply because we had the language to communicate and understand each other. I don't have that with normies because they don't have the training.

Even so, you'll never be able to save everyone, so I think assisted suicide should be freely available for everyone regardless of reason. Impose a six month waiting period (with exceptions for those dying of painful physical diseases) so people don't do it impulsively, but everyone has the right to check out if life isn't working for them.
 
saltshaker

saltshaker

salt shaker, rule breaker
Jan 29, 2021
402
It is almost comedic to watch mental health professionals try to rationalize retaining the ability to forcibly detain a patient on the suspicion that they will ctb while also keeping the trust of their patients.

I agree completely, as a community we should rally against the institutions that keep this practice in place. Let's pick one nation and start campaigning IMO. I recently located the chief psychiatrist in my country and am going to try and make a compelling case to them that this system does more harm then good.
 
DocNo

DocNo

whatever
Oct 30, 2020
1,738
for me there are two sides.

first of all that institutions which are meant to work in public interest are more and more handled like companies. it's all about efficiency. i think it's even good to see with covid. that countries where the public health system had massive cuts in funding got hit pretty hard and the numbers of deaths were higher.
it's a big problem for our societies in general cause you can't handle a country like a company. for me this is just crap but unluckily now the way to go.
but it think this is only the tip of the iceberg.

i guess it's also a lot about how society is able to handle it. if you for example see artists which are struggle with that it seems that it's better accepted. an example for me is lars von trier. he has to fight with depression and also phobias. but it still lets him achieve a lot. and i think this is also possible cause maybe his environment is more open to this things and also enables him to be more open about it.

i like this thought that people are not handicapped and it's more the social environment that handicaps them.

one experience i had was from my childhood. i started to have severe migraine headache starting from age ten. when i was at my grandparents and had one of this severe attacks my grandfather only said "migraine" have only women and i just should stop whining.
it's maybe not the best example but it shows to me that it is also always about the people who surround others who have to suffer.

so maybe the question what we can do is not only how we can improve the mental health system but also to try to raise awareness that people who struggle are still able to achieve a lot and their achievement is maybe sometimes even bigger cause they/we have always to walk up a mountain at the same time while trying to function.

and yes. as @Marquis mentioned: it's all about symptom treatment without getting to the core. but it's a structural problem. it's for sure easier to make medical professionals responsible for it but i think it's a perfect example of structural deficits. cause being a doctor today is no fun seen from an economic perspective. i did read some time ago an article about a general practitioner. compared to my hourly rates this income is a joke. and i am just a semi talented graphic artist.

edit: and maybe also make it more possible for people who are struggling to work as medical professionals. cause it's one thing to read about stuff and another to experience it. cause for real understanding it is maybe sometimes necessary to have experienced it. at least this is my impression when i reflect on the progress i made in the last months thanks to some people in this forum.
 
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