YaYaDr
Student
- Jun 26, 2018
- 128
This has been on my mind for awhile and I thought I might share it with everyone. Platitudes are the words people say to you when they find out you are suicidal. They are the canned phrases that pro-lifers sometimes instinctively fire off in hopes of lifting your spirits. Unfortunately, they are oftentimes meaningless, empty, and without teeth. One questions whether it is for the benefit of the suicidal or the person who says it, but I digress.
After a bit of reflection, I have come to the conclusion that these empty sayings (or bumper stickers as I like to call them) fall into at least 1 of 3 general categories. I now turn my attention to these categories and my thoughts associated with each.
I. Insults disguised as constructive criticism
Examples:
You're so selfish for wanting to kill yourself.
You're such a coward.
You're so immature.
I find it weird when people would say these things to a suicidal person. It's like here is a person who hates life and wants to kill himself, let's try to give him more reasons to do it. Seriously though, even when you remove sentiment from the equation and take these sayings at face value, one finds just how shallow they are.
Is it selfish for a person to want to kill himself? Perhaps, but then we see a problem when we apply that logic to both sides of the story. The question then becomes, who is more selfish, the person who wants to end his life to stop suffering, or the person/people whose happiness is contingent upon having that suicidal person continue to live and in the process suffer. I have yet to seen a convincing argument proving the latter to be less selfish.
Then there's the question of cowardice. Are suicidal people cowards? One might argue that killing yourself is difficult because of our natural survival instinct. To battle that instinct takes courage and dedication, not cowardice. You can even argue that many more people consider death more scary than life and so refusing to kill themselves is the true sign of cowardice, not the other way around. But I like to look at this question from a slightly different perspective. I recall the definition of insanity: to continue to do the same thing and expect different results. By that definition, continuing to live the same drab, mundane, and oftentimes painful existence and expecting it to somehow magically become better is the epitome of insanity. Suicidal people therefore are not cowards, they are pragmatists.
Finally we come to question of maturity. Are suicidal people immature? This maybe the one point on which I might agree upon with pro-lifers. That is, if you define immaturity as a sign the person is still developing. Nobody has all the answers so we are all in a constant state of flux as we learn more. Suicidal people acknowledge that we don't have all the answers, "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know how to be happy. I don't know if I can go on. Pro-lifers in their cocksure confidence in affirming the value of life merely demonstrate their ignorance. When pressed on how best to solve complicated issues they stick their fingers in their ears and shout la la la like a little child. Who's the immature one again?
II. Assertions based on blind faith
Examples:
It won't always be the same.
It'll get better.
Tomorrow is another day.
Things will change.
This category of platitudes is so frustrating because many people actually believe these sayings to be true not based upon evidence, but on blind faith alone. I would have more respect for these people had they not actually believed the statements, but (as Daniel Dennett might put it) believed in the belief of it. In other words, say these things in order to be optimistic. Optimism has benefits, scientific research suggests this and most people accept that. But don't say it as though it's the absolute truth.
The tautological saying that things will change does nothing to help the patient suffering from cancer. It does nothing to help pay off the debts of a recently laid off factory worker. It does nothing to cure alcoholism, drug addiction, or schizophrenia. Will the fact things change make someone more attractive? Will it make a romantic love interest mystically appear out of nowhere? Will it cure loneliness? Not on its own I say.
Be optimistic for the sake of being optimistic, but don't let that blind you to the actual actions that cause positive change. A person given the grim prognosis of having only a year left to live, may very well live out that final year as happy as one can be, but it is the people around who supported him that assist in this. It's the treatments that he underwent, the medication he took, the activities that filled his days, all of these things did the actual heavy lifting. The person who nonchalantly claims "it'll get better" is about as useful as all those who send their thoughts and prayers during a disaster. One recalls Ricky Gervais who lamented "and to think, all I did was send money."
III. Sayings that are not grounded in reality
Examples:
Suicide doesn't solve anything.
You're only hurting yourself.
Just be happy.
Sometimes I wonder if I live in the same world as a pro-lifer. Suicide doesn't solve anything? Hello? I'm going to be fucking dead! Why the hell should I still care if I had cancer, debt, or depression when I was alive? Frequently upon inspection, I find the basis behind this platitude to be religious. Oh, just because you die doesn't mean your eternal soul won't suffer, they might say. To that I can only respond, the level of your conviction has nothing to do with whether or not it is true.
I wonder what they mean when they tell me I am only hurting myself. By "hurt" do they mean physical harm? Yeah, that's kind of the point though, I want to kill myself. The argument though is probably more nuanced. I hurt myself emotionally and that is the "real" reason why I want to hurt myself physically. But where the pro-lifer falters is in his inability to go one step further. I want to hurt myself physically because of the emotional pain caused by "x". Now "x" can be anything: illness, financial difficulties, a lost loved one, whatever. The point is nobody chooses to have these problems and these problems are oftentimes the root cause to our mental distress. So that brings us back full circle to the question, how the heck do I hurt myself when I never asked for these problems in the first place?
There are times when I genuinely believe being a pro-lifer is like being part of a cult due to some of the psuedoscientific nonsense that pervades their thinking. Be happy, they say. Happiness is a state of mind, you either will yourself to be happy or not. I find this amusing since this is not so much advocating that you can solve your problems, but that you can make them go away with the power of thought alone. When you research books like the Secret or study what some have coined as the "law of attraction", you can see where I am coming from here. It is this prevailing idea that we can be brainwashed into creating our own realities that forms the foundation of platitudes like this. It's why shucksters like David "Avocado" Wolff or Peter Popoff can make a living. In the words of PT Barnum, there's a sucker born every minute. Geez, I just want to kill myself, am I suppose to be the crazy one here?
Anyways, those are my thoughts on some of the more common platitudes I've heard. If you've read this far, I thank you for taking the time and allowing me to enjoy one more indulgence before I CTB. This thread belongs to the community now. What sort of platitudes are you tired of hearing? How do they make you feel? How do you respond? Leave your comments below and go in peace my friends.
After a bit of reflection, I have come to the conclusion that these empty sayings (or bumper stickers as I like to call them) fall into at least 1 of 3 general categories. I now turn my attention to these categories and my thoughts associated with each.
I. Insults disguised as constructive criticism
Examples:
You're so selfish for wanting to kill yourself.
You're such a coward.
You're so immature.
I find it weird when people would say these things to a suicidal person. It's like here is a person who hates life and wants to kill himself, let's try to give him more reasons to do it. Seriously though, even when you remove sentiment from the equation and take these sayings at face value, one finds just how shallow they are.
Is it selfish for a person to want to kill himself? Perhaps, but then we see a problem when we apply that logic to both sides of the story. The question then becomes, who is more selfish, the person who wants to end his life to stop suffering, or the person/people whose happiness is contingent upon having that suicidal person continue to live and in the process suffer. I have yet to seen a convincing argument proving the latter to be less selfish.
Then there's the question of cowardice. Are suicidal people cowards? One might argue that killing yourself is difficult because of our natural survival instinct. To battle that instinct takes courage and dedication, not cowardice. You can even argue that many more people consider death more scary than life and so refusing to kill themselves is the true sign of cowardice, not the other way around. But I like to look at this question from a slightly different perspective. I recall the definition of insanity: to continue to do the same thing and expect different results. By that definition, continuing to live the same drab, mundane, and oftentimes painful existence and expecting it to somehow magically become better is the epitome of insanity. Suicidal people therefore are not cowards, they are pragmatists.
Finally we come to question of maturity. Are suicidal people immature? This maybe the one point on which I might agree upon with pro-lifers. That is, if you define immaturity as a sign the person is still developing. Nobody has all the answers so we are all in a constant state of flux as we learn more. Suicidal people acknowledge that we don't have all the answers, "I don't know" is a perfectly valid answer. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know how to be happy. I don't know if I can go on. Pro-lifers in their cocksure confidence in affirming the value of life merely demonstrate their ignorance. When pressed on how best to solve complicated issues they stick their fingers in their ears and shout la la la like a little child. Who's the immature one again?
II. Assertions based on blind faith
Examples:
It won't always be the same.
It'll get better.
Tomorrow is another day.
Things will change.
This category of platitudes is so frustrating because many people actually believe these sayings to be true not based upon evidence, but on blind faith alone. I would have more respect for these people had they not actually believed the statements, but (as Daniel Dennett might put it) believed in the belief of it. In other words, say these things in order to be optimistic. Optimism has benefits, scientific research suggests this and most people accept that. But don't say it as though it's the absolute truth.
The tautological saying that things will change does nothing to help the patient suffering from cancer. It does nothing to help pay off the debts of a recently laid off factory worker. It does nothing to cure alcoholism, drug addiction, or schizophrenia. Will the fact things change make someone more attractive? Will it make a romantic love interest mystically appear out of nowhere? Will it cure loneliness? Not on its own I say.
Be optimistic for the sake of being optimistic, but don't let that blind you to the actual actions that cause positive change. A person given the grim prognosis of having only a year left to live, may very well live out that final year as happy as one can be, but it is the people around who supported him that assist in this. It's the treatments that he underwent, the medication he took, the activities that filled his days, all of these things did the actual heavy lifting. The person who nonchalantly claims "it'll get better" is about as useful as all those who send their thoughts and prayers during a disaster. One recalls Ricky Gervais who lamented "and to think, all I did was send money."
III. Sayings that are not grounded in reality
Examples:
Suicide doesn't solve anything.
You're only hurting yourself.
Just be happy.
Sometimes I wonder if I live in the same world as a pro-lifer. Suicide doesn't solve anything? Hello? I'm going to be fucking dead! Why the hell should I still care if I had cancer, debt, or depression when I was alive? Frequently upon inspection, I find the basis behind this platitude to be religious. Oh, just because you die doesn't mean your eternal soul won't suffer, they might say. To that I can only respond, the level of your conviction has nothing to do with whether or not it is true.
I wonder what they mean when they tell me I am only hurting myself. By "hurt" do they mean physical harm? Yeah, that's kind of the point though, I want to kill myself. The argument though is probably more nuanced. I hurt myself emotionally and that is the "real" reason why I want to hurt myself physically. But where the pro-lifer falters is in his inability to go one step further. I want to hurt myself physically because of the emotional pain caused by "x". Now "x" can be anything: illness, financial difficulties, a lost loved one, whatever. The point is nobody chooses to have these problems and these problems are oftentimes the root cause to our mental distress. So that brings us back full circle to the question, how the heck do I hurt myself when I never asked for these problems in the first place?
There are times when I genuinely believe being a pro-lifer is like being part of a cult due to some of the psuedoscientific nonsense that pervades their thinking. Be happy, they say. Happiness is a state of mind, you either will yourself to be happy or not. I find this amusing since this is not so much advocating that you can solve your problems, but that you can make them go away with the power of thought alone. When you research books like the Secret or study what some have coined as the "law of attraction", you can see where I am coming from here. It is this prevailing idea that we can be brainwashed into creating our own realities that forms the foundation of platitudes like this. It's why shucksters like David "Avocado" Wolff or Peter Popoff can make a living. In the words of PT Barnum, there's a sucker born every minute. Geez, I just want to kill myself, am I suppose to be the crazy one here?
Anyways, those are my thoughts on some of the more common platitudes I've heard. If you've read this far, I thank you for taking the time and allowing me to enjoy one more indulgence before I CTB. This thread belongs to the community now. What sort of platitudes are you tired of hearing? How do they make you feel? How do you respond? Leave your comments below and go in peace my friends.
