The Goodbye topic is available by a Google search because someone appears to have archived it and other 'controversial' postings around the forum
Mods, if this infringes any rules, please feel free to remove. I think it's beneficial for newer members enquiring about this to be able to form their own opinions based on the evidence and the policy on the deletion of Goodbye topics has been lifted since last May, so I assume it's fine to repost this.
Just took 60mg of primperan now I just gotta wait 40 minutes to take the SN. Am also going to take Tagamet pretty soon
archive.st
Thank you for sharing this.
I read through the archived thread and, assuming it's accurate, then no,
@Anonymoussn and @ everyone else following this thread, the mother's assertion is correct that "No-one gave her an option to live or for help" and "Not one person said that there is another way."
I looked at Shawn's other threads. The one in which she talked about work being her primary reason to die, one person did ask her if she'd pursued a college degree. There are still three posts unaccounted for, but based on the five posts still on the forum, and the three in the archived goodbye thread, it is only slightly inaccurate that no one made suggestions to the member to seek alternatives to ctb; one person suggested collge, but not in the goodbye thread.
Assuming the archive is accurate, the member's mother read the goodbye thread and posted screenshots of it on Facebook. Also assuming the archive is accurate, a family member created an account,
@Curious1983, and posted on that goodbye thread:
I'm a family member of this girl and yes it was successful but I can tell you how it feels it feels horrible for everybody who is Left Behind it feels absolutely Unthinkable for her mother and her brothers and sister and her dad and her stepdad and her aunts and uncles and cousins it is heartbreaking is devastating it is the worst pain you could ever ever imagine. For all of those out there feeling like this is the only way think about all the people you are leaving behind the people who would do anything and everything to make it better for you. so instead of encouraging these people to feel like this is the only way out how about let's encourage them to get help and to know that there are other ways. And the worst part of it it she had to find this post and that people were encouraging her daughter to take her life instead of helping her. Completely undoing everything her family had been doing.
I note the last sentence: "Completely undoing everything her family had been doing." As I mentioned in a recent comment on a related thread, this is about one thinking they have the ability to control another. They were ultimately not able to control anything about Shawn, whether finding or providing solutions to her problems, or convincing her to comply with their desires to keep making the efforts they wanted and to keep living. She made a different choice about her own well-being.
I also note that
@Curious1983 made a plea for those considering suicide to consider the feelings of those who would be impacted. I recognize that family members were indeed impacted and tried to help, and I don't fault them at all. Sometimes in life our efforts fail, but that does not negate them, nor take away the value of good and honorable intentions. I note that there is accusation and blame in the quote, in that SS members undid the efforts of the family. This highlights influence with intention to control another's actions or outcomes, and clinging to those intentions as well as the views which inspired them and the actions that followed. It pitches a non-existing battle that SS members infiltrated the family's efforts and sabotaged them, when in fact, Shawn chose to no longer participate in those efforts, chose to join this site to get information and support for ending her life, and chose to end her life. There is no blame in this, either, but in order to discharge discomfort and regain a sense of rightness and control, blame is repeatedly cast our way. My post that I linked in a paragraph above further explains this in the context of loss due to another's suicide if anyone is interested in pursuing.
Finally, I note that, if the archive is accurate, this was the response of the site owner to
@Curious1983:
I'm very sorry for your loss.
I want to make one thing very clear here: Noone was encouraging her to take her life here. This isn't a pro-suicide forum, it's a pro-choice one, meaning either way we will support your decision.
That statement was accurate when applied to the comments on the goodbye thread. And that is one reason why legitimate members join: to have their autonomy and their self-determined choices supported. Whether one chooses to suicide or to live, either choice is for the most part supported here, and those who don't support either decision usually speak from their personal perspectives and agendas, not from the pro-choice foundation of this site.
It's natural for people to try to influence others to do as they would want them to do or would themselves do, but when one recognizes they do not have control over another, they can accept, or they can battle. It seems that Shawn's family chooses to battle, but it will not undo the fact that Shawn and every person who comes to SS is not under their control. If they succeed in their battle against the site, it will not change that they cannot control others' decisions and actions. The true battle is for acceptance or denial about others' autonomy and self-determination, whether Shawn's, other site members', or the site owners'. It is an internal battle every person encounters, and acceptance is the most difficult and yet most rational and healing stance to take, because denial does not change what one wants to be changed.
One may be able to influence for a while, but they do not have the capacity to control it, and non-acceptance of this causes confusion, strong negative emotions, and actions based on greed, illusion, and/or hatred in order to control and to oppress. Every person wants freedom and resents being controlled, but it is hard for the one who wants to control to see that, because they are focused on the greed for control, the delusion of being in control, and hatred for not being able to control.
Of course there are other perspectives, mine is not all-encompassing, but it serves me well in helping me to recognize when issues of control are at play, and to rein myself in when I find I am moving from intentions of support to intentions of influence for external control. I am often uncomfortable with others' autonomous actions, but part of acceptance is dealing with that discomfort, which is within my power to work with and to affect. I am not perfect and never will be, but damn I try hard to be aware and keep myself in check so that I don't do to others what I hated having done to me. After a lifetime of fighting for self-control, I've learned a few things, and I value the lessons of accepting discomfort, maintaining awareness of efforts to negate and to control me, and striving to be aware when I myself am being unaccepting and controlling.