Discussion If mental health professionals want to (legitimately) help people, then...

[TAW122]

Mental health 'professionals' accepting suicide as a valid option will likely never happen. Just pop everyone full of pills like they're a product, zombify them to be a productive member of society and send them on their way is their attitude. I've been on multiple anti-depressants over the years and I'm tired of it. I quit them for awhile and now they're trying to give me more again. There's a lot of things about the way 'society' works that needs to change but again it ain't gonna happen. It's a never ending cycle of rubbish imo.

Exactly, and assuming that nothing will change (or at least change enough during our lifetimes), then it is an even stronger reason for me as well as many others out there to ctb.

suicide should be a last resort because it's permanent, sanctioned suicide a person should have to talk to someone in case there is another option not considered but the person wanting to go would have the right to choose in the case of a mentally ill person they should have to go through 6 months of treatment first that being said when a person decides to they should have a place to go to legally do it with easy painless and lethal means in dignity

That sounds like a plausible idea, and I think even in the countries that allow euthanasia, particularly Belgium, Netherlands, and Switzerland, I'm sure there are checks and screenings to make sure that each patient is really ready to die. Also, it is good to exhaust all options until there is no other way out, then give the patient the option to die on his/her own terms. I wished that the US would do what those three countries do, but I don't see them doing that anytime soon (at least not within the next few decades given how the culture and political climate of the US is in now).

They have to start listening to what we're actually saying and not just assume it's all madness. They also shouldn't think they know what's best for you after five minutes just because they have qualifications

Fully agree, it seems like a good lot of them just treat others like another number and then move on to the next patient.

I've said it elsewhere, but I'd like the option to make a deal: I'd go to therapy for 6-12 months, and even accept antidepressants. By the end of this period, if I still wanted to die, they'd have to provide drugs for a painless death. But the government and medical-industrial complex will never go for it - they think you just need more pills/therapy.

Yes, and the reasoning is circular as they create an unfalsifiable premise that is (near impossible) to be proven incorrect, it's almost like a catch-22. Don't forget that religion also has influence in the government as well as the medical-industrial complex (which is disgusting given that we live in a modern society where those ancient values aren't as applicable nowadays as back then -- but that's another story..).

 

[TAW122]

I'm still responding to others' posts and I've decided to make another post so it wouldn't get too long.

I would like to add that I am struggling with the fact that I can´t tell my would-be psychiatrist and doctor that I am suicidal because I own guns and I and a lot of other people aren´t stupid and I know as soon as I mention to a psychiatrist that I am suicidal they will take my guns away so I can´t really get the help I need. I would really like to put all the cards on the table when I have to get tested for a diagnosis but when I have talked with the doctor to get a referral to a shrink I had to immediately say no when they asked if I was depressed or suicidal because what they are basically asking is "do you want to have your guns taken away" this may seem completely stupid to other people but firearms are my number 1 hobby and the only hobby I have left I don´t even enjoy video games anymore so if they take my guns away that would literally kill me I would ctb if they ever did that.

I obviously also want to have the guns as a option to ctb because it´s easier so I know people would use that as ammo (no pun intended) for why suicidal people shouldn´t have access to guns but I have been suicidal for over 10 years but obviously don´t show anyone because it´s easy to fool people by slapping on a happy face and doing well in school etc. But being depressed or suicidal shouldn´t be a reason to take away peoples guns, I can understand that they don´t want "mentally ill" people with say Schizophrenia to own a gun or any other mental illness that could make a person a danger to others but depression and suicidal thoughts shouldn´t really be treated the same especially in my case since firearms are the only thing I am passionate about and actually keeps me going so they would essentially take away my last source of happiness thus be responsible for my suicide after they would take my guns away.

Sorry long post I can never keep it short but I would actually like to hear if anyone including OP would you think of this.

No apologies, I also tend to post really long posts (sometimes unintentionally, but when trying to get my point across). In regards to the reasoning that you have, I share the same reasoning as well. I simply cannot talk about what I really think or my intentions, NOR give signs of potentially hurting/killing myself as that would jeopardize my freedom, liberty, reputation, and of course, my own means of reliably going out on my own terms.

I also agree with you that the people who try to use gun suicides as a way to restrict the 2nd amendment is quite disgusting.

I agree with you completely except for point 3, I disagree about treatment. First of all, your thoughts, memories, emotions, etc. are all chemical and electrical events occurring in your brain. Although it is not your brain, you are the brain. So any mental illness is a physical problem, usually chemical as most involve dysfunction of neurotransmitters.

Second, while meds can do a lot of harm they can also help if you are lucky enough to find one that works for you. I haven't found anything that works for me yet but I am going to continue to try. And therapy has never helped me at all but it can help some people.

I think treatment is often poorly executed, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to seek treatment. Suicide should definitely be up to the individual. But no matter how much pain someone is in, if that pain could be relieved somehow and that person could live a normal happy life then suicide would have been a mistake.

I think I have a moral obligation to try every treatment available to me before I ctb.

That would be your prerogative and you may choose to do so. Personally, I don't have the means and ability to try everything (it is simply impossible due to time and financial constraints) along with the increased risk of losing my freedom for saying the wrong thing and/or giving off some red flag(s) that would tip someone off and send authorities to lock me up (even though no crime was committed). I respect you for wanting to fulfill your moral obligation though.

I mean it's obvious Suicide makes people uncomfortable, everyone here knows that.
Being depressed/sad Sucks, I mean nothing absolutely nothing throughout my entire life has or will ever make me happy & I accept that I'm old enough to know my brain will not change so I have to be Sneaky and jump through hoops looking for a way to commit suicide because of society's uncomfortableness with it, I have lost people to suicide and it hurts but it was there choice, I'm not mad at them.

Well said, and it looks like during our lifetimes, we do have to sneak around ways and jump through hoops to get our methods just to exit. It is sad that most of society thinks the way they do currently and that even trying to push for a change is too risky (risk of being misheard, labelled a lunatic, locked up (without due process and doing nothing illegal) against our will and losing our civil rights).

@SamK I've read through your entire story and while I'm based in the US, it is sad to see that other western countries are similar in ways. Thanks for explaining how the mental health system works in the UK, and the only redeeming factor about it is that they don't (correct me if I'm wrong) send you a massive medical bill for forcing you treatment against your will (which is the case in the US). I'm sorry that the medical team has fucked you up even worse by forcibly injecting all those nasty drugs and creating problems that didn't exist prior to admission to the hospital. It truly is a fucked up system.

The other thing is that therapists/counselors are mean, cold, stoic, and argumentative. It seems like a lot of them don't even try to understand or empathize with the plight of their patients. Therapy is supposed to deter you from suicide and depression, but for me it just exacerbated those things.

The therapists that I saw were judgmental of me, kept interrupting me while I was talking, called me overly sensitive, stared at me awkwardly with long periods of silence, and one even smirked/laughed while I was talking to her.

Therapists are full of shit and just made me want to ctb even more.

I agree and personally, during my college years, I've been to therapy and I regret going as the best scenario was that I wasted my time and energy that I could have invested in other activities and hobbies by going to them. While the therapy and counseling was free (for students and people at the university), the service was still shit. I got nothing but wasted time and energy by going to them. I could have gotten much more by doing the stuff that I enjoy, pursue hobbies, and go explore the world rather than hear cliche platitudes, bullshit stuff, and what's worse is them never answering your questions but just asking questions back to you like "how do you feel?", "do you think they are the problem?", "why do you think that is the case?" etc. God damn if I had to pay to be fed lies, cliches, platitudes, and even shit that I could have found on the Internet would have been multitudes more helpful than some banal shit that they parrot off a script. This is also why I would not waste my time, energy, nor money to these scum.

Oh and there is the one time where I mentioned how my life sucked and how I was a victim of bullying and guess what? The fucking therapist treated me like I was the criminal, interrogating me and saying it's my fault even if I wished my tormentors would suffer. Fuck that shit, and before others say well not all therapists are like that, well true, but most of them don't care, some of them like to victim blame, and very rarely are there therapists who actually empathize. Luckily, I didn't say the wrong thing to get her to tip off the authorities and had to be super damn careful not to say something that will get me locked up.

To be fair though, yes there are people who have benefited from therapy and counseling, and that's great, more power to them. However, for me and most of us here, it has done nothing but waste time, money, and increase our risk of losing our freedom, rights, dignity.

 

[TheGoodGuy]

I simply cannot talk about what I really think or my intentions, NOR give signs of potentially hurting/killing myself as that would jeopardize my freedom, liberty, reputation, and of course, my own means of reliably going out on my own terms.

This is insanely accurate. We have to trade our "freedom" for help if we want it.

I also agree with you that the people who try to use gun suicides as a way to restrict the 2nd amendment is quite disgusting.

I agree although I live in Denmark where we don´t have the 2nd ammendment so owning guns is a privilege in Denmark not a right :(

 

[Arak]

Generalizations about the 'professionals', acknowledging that there is a difference between psychologists and psychiatrists but not that much.

- They want to practice their job the way they learned their trade/craft. They know best, after all you're coming to them for help. Do you not ?

- The illness model dominates. As if reality is subjective (perception), rather than subjective.

- All too often they studied their field (psychology, psychiatry) because something was wrong with them(selves) and they wanted to fix that.

- Psychiatrist' main job is to make people addicted. They will get worse, and unless they figure it out suicide will seem like a logical choice at some point.

- Psychologists want to do CBT. Learn some tricks to change your way of thinking and behavior. Behavioralism at the core.

- Why do you need therapy when your life is a mess or hell ? How did people deal with these issues 100 years ago ?

Call me cynical and jaded.

 

[Trashcan]

Totally agree. We see suicide as an individual problem. If you're a child, you're "too young" to have problems. As an adolescent (12-17), it's teenage angst, and you're "too young" to have problems. But the second you turn 18, you're "too old" for this and need to get over it. Apparently it's your fault that you're in this position in the first place. And if you voluntarily ask for help, you're turned down and called an attention whore. Apparently it's absolutely impossible to be struggling and contemplating suicide without being dead. It's all black and white - you're either not suicidal or you're dead.

This happens so much:

Person A (PA): I'm suicidal.
Person B (PB): Attention seeker! If you really wanted to die, you'd just go ahead and do it!
PA: *kills themselves*
PB: Why didn't they reach out for help?

A lot of mental health professionals also have this mentality.

And mental hospitals do not help at all. We were treated like criminals. The staff were condescending pricks. We were over-medicated and blamed for our problems. We were fed pro-life, meaningless platitudes. We're told we're over-sensitive, cowards, or that we just need to think positive. We were given threats to try to shape our behavior. It didn't help. There are a few good mental health professionals, but you're probably more likely to win the lottery than to find a good mental health professional.

And I couldn't agree with you more that things won't get better until people start recognizing the right to die. I like the idea of having a trial of 6-12 months of therapy and medications, and if the person still wants to die at the end of it, they are given N and the appropriate antiemetic. It will also be illegal for anyone to interfere with their death. Sometimes these people can live happy, healthy lives. But give them a peaceful method if they cannot. And let them be surrounded by family and friends. Let the family and friends say goodbye to them.

Sometimes it is an individual problem. But many times, it's a society and familial problem. Until we fix society, until we start taking every age group seriously, until we improve our mental health care, and until we start recognizing the right to die for ALL reasons (and not just terminal illnesses), there won't be a change. But knowing humanity, that likely won't happen.

I do not expect other people to help with my troubles. I do not think it's fair for me to treat my friends like therapists and expect them to cure me. But I think it's reasonable to expect mental health professionals to do their job. There really needs to be more done to make sure mental health professionals are actually decent at their jobs. And I think it's reasonable that we start trying to shift society.

 

[2CropcircleUNeedHelp]

Here's what psych meds did to me too.
Haloperidol - left me with permanent tardive dyskinesia. I look like i'm having partial seizures all day and i can't stop the movements. Head turning, shrugging, clenching my jaw.

Cymbalta- drove me insane literally. I was a huge danger to myself on that and was in hospital every week from self harming, so what'd they do, increased the dosage and added more pills.

Olanzapine- Years ago I was put on that and piled on about 4 stones in 1-1.5 years. I was also knocked out all day. Life was sleep, eat, sleep, eat.
Risperidone ^ same thing. Aripiprazole ^ same thing, sleeping all day. No life. Lost my job, my friends, lost it all.
Most antidepressants didn't touch anything at all, nor did the mood stabilizers. Then they forced injections on me and I ended up with a catheter, now totally humiliated, and sleeping all the time, and putting on weight no matter how well I ate. God I just hate them.
The hospital admissions did nothing for me. The only thing which helped in terms o being sectioned were the other patients understanding me, n that is it.

I'm sorry.
I hate them. Hell awaits. Karma is real.

 

[MAIO]

They need to rethink their approach as well as their fundamental concepts. Also, society itself must change as well for real solutions. I know that what I am going to suggest would not be likely to happen, but I thought maybe someone might have similar ideas or maybe even something I haven't thought of before.

Anyways, without further ado, this comes from a thread that I have found on reddit here, where the poster (a therapist) asks for feedback from suicidal people. There are many good posts, but I wanted to add some general points though.

What they could do that will (actually) help suicidal people.
1. Instead of threatening involuntary commitment, treating those with suicidal tendencies or ideation like they are a criminal or holding them against their will, understand that suicide is an option and that NOT all suicides are impulsive, irrational, and/or a result of mental illness.
2. Do away with involuntary commitment (the government and authorities must change the current law) and while suicide is tragic, it is ok to empathize and dissuade from impulsive, poorly thought out actions, but NEVER forcibly lock someone up or treat them. That is not the way to get people to open up.
3. Do NOT keep pushing the (I may save another thread discussing about the circular logic/reasoning and the flawed argument about seeking therapy as well as suicide) chemical imbalance bullshit (yes there are some cases - but I believe it is over-exaggerated, over-represented to the point where it becomes like a reflexive response without merit), seek therapy as therapy is always the answer, etc.
4. Helping the effort and pushing for de-stigmatization of suicide as a taboo (will also require the efforts of society as well) action but a personal, rational choice in most cases. Also, society should focus more on fixing the root causes for suicide. (This article is just one example of ACTUAL societal change to reduce the amount of suicides.)
5. Recognize that in a free society, if one has the right to life, then one should have the right to death as well, and that it would be hypocritical to preach free will while forbidding others to take their own lives (which is the ultimate act of freedom).
6. Just because there are people who get better, does not mean everyone will get better; also what is not as bad to one may be worse for another - no two people are the same.

I posted in there giving my two cents, which pretty much sums up what I've said in this thread..

What are your thoughts on this?

Until someone can prove life is worth it or not worth it-no one has any business imposing their value that life is worth it on anyone. The fact is we don't know if life's is worth is it for anyone. People need to stop pretending that we know, and worse yet imposing this value in everyone. How wide spread opinion espically in the west came to embrace life to the point of a cult- life is always worth it reguarless if what the individual thinks is very interesting and monotheism surely played a huge role. The trend is now slowly shifting the opposite way to where it was originally-life belongs to the individual etc.

 

[MAIO]

Mental health 'professionals' accepting suicide as a valid option will likely never happen. Just pop everyone full of pills like they're a product, zombify them to be a productive member of society and send them on their way is their attitude. I've been on multiple anti-depressants over the years and I'm tired of it. I quit them for awhile and now they're trying to give me more again. There's a lot of things about the way 'society' works that needs to change but again it ain't gonna happen. It's a never ending cycle of rubbish imo.

In eveey country where dr assisted suicide is legal, it's increasingly seen as valid, the trend is expanding pro life suicide laws to cover more situations, less restriction And according to every legit survey public is increasing in support of pro choice-expanding pro choice laws

 

[angie]

In eveey country where dr assisted suicide is legal, it's increasingly seen as valid, the trend is expanding pro life suicide laws to cover more situations, less restriction And according to every legit survey public is increasing in support of pro choice-expanding pro choice laws

i just wish i could find a harold shipman

 

[Suicideisnirvana]

The chemical imbalance is especially ridiculous. It's the same thing as calling love or feelings of ecstasy and accomplishment and joy "chemical reaction", technically true but it doesn't explain anything. A child who had traumatic experiences will have a chemical imbalance, someone who is lonely will have a chemical imbalance etc, it's the most ridiculous of all arguments.

 

[VincentValentine]

In eveey country where dr assisted suicide is legal, it's increasingly seen as valid, the trend is expanding pro life suicide laws to cover more situations, less restriction And according to every legit survey public is increasing in support of pro choice-expanding pro choice laws

If that's the case, then it sounds like we are part of a "movement" in a way.

 

[NoOneKnows]

In eveey country where dr assisted suicide is legal, it's increasingly seen as valid, the trend is expanding pro life suicide laws to cover more situations, less restriction And according to every legit survey public is increasing in support of pro choice-expanding pro choice laws

I dont see this trend happening at all, at least where I am from....quite the opposite, depot (slow release) injections are developed to force medication to non-compliant patients, confiments are done against will based on ridiculous reasons, serious diagnosis without proper evaluation (or none at all) are made that destroys one life forever,as there will eb always people that dont udnerstand the system, and will trust the "professionals" no matter what. meanwhile big pharma business expanding(esp thanks to psychotropic med), nobody can touch them .If one or two doctors complain or even produce sufficient evidence about the negative serious lifelong side effects, they carriers are usually getting destroyed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_settlements

https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/lawsuit/zyprexa.html
https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/02/zyprexa-astonishing-betrayal/

 

[MAIO]

I dont see this trend happening at all, at least where I am from....quite the opposite, depot (slow release) injections are developed to force medication to non-compliant patients, confiments are done against will based on ridiculous reasons, serious diagnosis without proper evaluation (or none at all) are made that destroys one life forever,as there will eb always people that dont udnerstand the system, and will trust the "professionals" no matter what. meanwhile big pharma business expanding(esp thanks to psychotropic med), nobody can touch them .If one or two doctors complain or even produce sufficient evidence about the negative serious lifelong side effects, they carriers are usually getting destroyed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_settlements

https://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/lawsuit/zyprexa.html
https://www.madinamerica.com/2015/02/zyprexa-astonishing-betrayal/

Where are you from? I was referring to pro choice legislation/surveys in countries where Dr. Assisted suicide is legal like Belgium and Sweden. Big pharma keeps expanding and getting more ridiculous is not nessicarly relavent to pro choice legislation.

 

[NoOneKnows]

Where are you from? I was referring to pro choice legislation/surveys in countries where Dr. Assisted suicide is legal like Belgium and Sweden. Big pharma keeps expanding and getting more ridiculous is not nessicarly relavent to pro choice legislation.

I m in central Europe. Big Pharma wont keep expanding, if the pro-choice is spreading over the world, they can only gather wealth by keeping people alive and miserable. They have nothing to gain from me or you being dead, on the contrary it would only prove that the psych meds are ineffective in many cases.

 

[MAIO]

I m in central Europe. Big Pharma wont keep expanding, if the pro-choice is spreading over the world, they can only gather wealth by keeping people alive and miserable. They have nothing to gain from me or you being dead, on the contrary it would only prove that the psych meds are ineffective in many cases.

The rate of mental illness does not outstrip the hordes of more people committing suicide espically through the system-espically since even if you do die by suicide through the system you still have to jump through hopes