Discussion Is ideation more a result of heightened awareness, or distorted awareness? Poll

[Forever Sleep]

What do you think? Does suicidal ideation come from heightened awareness or, a distortion in awareness due to things like mental illness and depression?

Personally, I think it's possible to be suicidal without being mentally ill or depressed. I think there is enough objectively bad in this world (our contribution to global warming and exploiting everything in sight, the likely necessity to work and be part of an exploitative capitalist/consumerist system) for someone to rationally decide they don't want to be a part of it. Or even illness that can't be treated- you don't have to be depressed to realise you don't like chronic pain!

On the other hand, I'm sure that mental illness and depression is a major factor in ideation.

I'm not entirely sure where I lay in this. I'm not mentally ill to a debhilitating degree but, who really knows how 'normally/optimally' their brains are functioning? Where do you stand though?

 

[wagner2029]

everything works here, I just don't like existence, nothing interests me here.

 

[cjs0712]

Depends. In my case, I'm not that severely depressed. There's one thing I like to do in this world, and as long as I can do that, I am happy as a clam. However, I know that things will end, and they will end soon for me. Finding a new meaning in life is tedious and exhausting process, and I don't have anyone to support me until I do. So, my life would soon be very empty and dull. So, reasonably, I figured suicide would be the best option for me. Until then I will enjoy my life.

 

[silent.desperation]

I think both. If you're mentally ill, your propensity to CTB is increased (often due to distorted awareness) but a heightened sense of awareness of yourself and more importantly, the world and system we live in, can certainly lead to a desire to CTB. In my humble opinion...

 

[leavingthesoultrap]

In my case it is a combination of both.
I am hyper aware of my surroundings. Seeing ugly architecture or ugliness and misery in general (like homeless people), or even gloomy weather causes me to feel depressed and disgusted. I've had it since childhood.

 

[UKscotty]

I don't understand how someone could be suicidal without being depressed. Maybe they just don't consider themselves to be depressed but they'd still meet the diagnosis just by the fact they are suicidal.

Being mentally healthy and being suicidal just feel like complete opposites to me.

 

[rozeske]

For me it's mainly a combination of several factors but sometimes I ask my self would being naive and ignorant about the ugly truth of our existence and our past truma and abuse help be happier and help lead a better life for the most part? Is leading a life with a metaphorical blindfold even considered better?....I don't know... @Forever Sleep what do you think?

 

[LostInTheWoods]

In my case is heightened awareness. Above all now, since in the past 4 years I lost myself completely, I don't have a personality anymore, I don't have hobbies, I don't even know anymore which are my problems! I invented a world in which I have social phobia, while it's simply not true?! I lost the contact with my tue self. Not that I ever knew who my true self is, but now i'm completely lost.
People recently said that I have wrong beliefs, that I could so something....Ok, and why should be encouraing this suggestion? It means that I'm even more worthless because I ruined everything

 

[26mmmm]

What do you think? Does suicidal ideation come from heightened awareness or, a distortion in awareness due to things like mental illness and depression?

Personally, I think it's possible to be suicidal without being mentally ill or depressed. I think there is enough objectively bad in this world (our contribution to global warming and exploiting everything in sight, the likely necessity to work and be part of an exploitative capitalist/consumerist system) for someone to rationally decide they don't want to be a part of it. Or even illness that can't be treated- you don't have to be depressed to realise you don't like chronic pain!

On the other hand, I'm sure that mental illness and depression is a major factor in ideation.

I'm not entirely sure where I lay in this. I'm not mentally ill to a debhilitating degree but, who really knows how 'normally/optimally' their brains are functioning? Where do you stand though?

Both, im highly aware of my situation but I also have a distorted perspective of it and of life in general which makes things much harder.

 

[MeltingBrain]

Most people want out because of their own circumstances (ie. their awareness has been distorted due to disease or treatment) .

 

[Ash’Girl]

Both. And it can occur simultaneously.
I think people who are prone to major depressive episodes, are often deeper thinkers and feelers (maybe I have self bias here).

But if you think more, you question more, and alongside whatever your personal issues are, you then see more that is problematic with the world in general. The blinkers are off.

Depression may cause distortion in self perception (I'm not good enough, the world hates me, everyone would be better off without me etc), but for me at least it also causes me to acknowledge all the absolute pointlessness of everything from a rational, logistical stand point.

Work, eat, sleep, repeat: slaves to the system.
Then - all the horror in the world, war, murder, torture, abuse, poverty, starvation, etc. So much suffering - right now, someone, somewhere is being brutally raped. Likely several people. Right now, there are countless humans, including children, being trafficked. Right now, there are countless people starving without access to even clean water.

My experiences opened me up to the horror humans could inflict on each other. That caused my depression/suicidal ideation/ptsd etc. Often the negative rhetoric in my head isn't me, they're not my thoughts, but it's echoes of what was ingrained in me, but on the flip side, my experiences did make me start to think more deeply about all the bad in the world in general. Cynicism started at a very young age. Least, other people call it cynicism - I just call it realistic.

 

[Ulrich]

Of course, depression can promote irrational tendencies in ones behavior, but I do still think that suicidal can be highly rational. My own belief is that there is a natural asymmetry between pleasure and pain with zero payoff given our lifespans. Life is a game of probability.
Ideation that is rational requires that one is able to maintain a cogent view of their own motives based on certain logical assumptions. If I break up with a partner and consider suicide as an alternative, it will be unsurprising that most shall consider me irrational. People will simply argue that you will find someone else, or that the pain will subside. If you deny the possibility of pleasure, however, then the claim bottoms out, and you are instead either to adopt new values (will-to-life) or reject life itself.

I think that in order to have any meaningful discourse, you need to provoke a symmetry in terms of truth-values between two rational speakers. Essentially, if you assume the other person to be irrational in the first place, what you assume for the case will naturally take precedence. If I was a pro-lifer and wanted to undermine my opponent, I would first begin my assuming the other to be irrational, hence requiring deference to views that they consider rational.
There are ennumerable things that the pro-lifer may assume to be the case, such as the value of life, the consequences of death, whether or not certain acts are permissible in their eyes. They may not be personal beliefs per se, but values coordinated from a set of propositions locally embedded in language -- which form models (which themselves require epistemological assumptions) -- and that my opponent must submit to this claim in deference. Then again, if I were a pro-mortalist and wanted to undermine my opponent, I would assume the converse, which entail similar conditions.

I don't think either side are more intelligent than the other. I don't think either have found any meaningful truths related to the world. I doubt that there is any objective truth related to the value of life. Of course, I'm only a skeptic. I dunno.

 

[FuneralCry]

Certainly as a result of being aware, my wish to die is a result of how truly undesirable existence is. I have no interest in being burdened with something so dreadful and cruel as human existence and I'd always see it as better to not exist as nobody can be harmed by the absence of anything yet in existence there is unlimited potential for torment, pain and agony.

I don't get why people act like not wanting to suffer is some kind of illness when it's all that makes sense to me, I'd never be able to understand why anyone would want to exist in this evil, disgusting world just to be tormented by old age and die anyway, existing is just meaningless suffering. I see suicide as suffering and torture prevention, wanting to escape from suffering certainly isn't an illness, existence itself is the problem rather than the wish to be permanently relieved from it.

 

[TAW122]

I believe it is a realization of how futile life really is and I don't see it necessarily as a distorted awareness or perception, contrary to what many MHPs and other pro-lifer, anti-choicer claims. It is also a sense of heightened awareness of the reality that surrounds oneself and realizing how shitty reality and life is, then wanting to opt out. Most of society doesn't recognize CTB as the product of a rational decision and even blatantly attribute the act or even ideation itself to be a symptom of a mental illness (depression, irrationality, unsound mind, etc.) which is patently false. Of course, this doesn't mean that CTB is irrational, it's just that pro-lifers and MHPs love life so much and value it so much that they would even go against logic and assert their own (subjective) rules and values to life itself. I think with terminal illnesses are valid reasons to CTB, hence why the people in power (the State, the medical community, and pro-lifers in general) make that exception for people who choose CTB (they even avoid using the term 'suicide' just to interchange words, but I digress) as a valid decision. To be honest, I don't think it should be just limited to those who are terminally ill (or chronically ill and/or have irremediable conditions), but for all people who wish to exit this hellhole called life.

 

[sserafim]

I think that it's a result of heightened awareness. Once you realize the truth about and reality of the world, I doubt you'll want to continue living in it. We all exist solely as slaves to the system, and once we become adults, we're expected to slave away for the next 50 years of our lives just to afford to survive. We have to work for a living to pay for the cost of existing on a planet that we didn't even choose to be on. Work is literally modern day slavery.

Normal people are blinded by the delusion and illusion of happiness and they continue on merrily being slaves for the rest their lives. They seem to be okay with it and never try to rebel or protest against the system. They willingly enter it, a state of modern day slavery. The normies seem to be the ones with distorted awareness in my opinion. They also have lessened awareness. They go through their lives on autopilot and never even ask themselves the meaning of life or why they do what they do. The normies are the weird ones to me. They seem to have no critical thinking skills or capacity for logical and rational thought and reasoning.

Also, "it is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Society is sick and twisted, and normies are not okay if they're well-adjusted to a such an evil and predatory system. The normies are the sick ones, not us. This is evident by how many normies (and even suicidal people as well) escape through substances, because subconsciously they know that life under capitalism is meaningless and unfulfilling. Most people either drink or smoke as their vice. They chase pleasures to satisfy the empty void inside, and to distract themselves from the mundaneness, boringness and meaninglessness of life.

 

[damyon]

I think this is the question that I will never find an answer to.

I like that argument that @sserafim raised in favor of heightened awareness. The normies are content with their lives even if their situations seem terrible from a more cognizant outsider's perspective.

However, whenever I experience suicidal thoughts (without being depressed), I can feel the burning fire inside me that makes me wonder if I am not aware enough to understand where and why they emerge and if I can make them disappear (for example, by fixing a particular issue). (don't know if that even makes sense )
Literally stuck in an endless loop...

 

[luneylonegirl]

I think it depends how you see the world is. I personally have bipolar (idk what type my psychiatric didn't let me know lol), when in manic i feels like i'm in the top of the world. But that's all.
I constantly feel the urge to suicide since JHS (15/16y.o).
But you can have the ideation without having any mental illness too. Especially when you an atheist/have nihilism ideology in your head.
It's complicated and every people see it differently, based of all their life aspect.

 

[sserafim]

I think it depends how you see the world is. I personally have bipolar (idk what type my psychiatric didn't let me know lol), when in manic i feels like i'm in the top of the world. But that's all.
I constantly feel the urge to suicide since JHS (15/16y.o).
But you can have the ideation without having any mental illness too. Especially when you an atheist/have nihilism ideology in your head.
It's complicated and every people see it differently, based of all their life aspect.

Do you think that being an atheist or nihilist gives you heightened awareness? Nihilism is the truth but it's a cold and hard one…

 

[Forever Sleep]

For me it's mainly a combination of several factors but sometimes I ask my self would being naive and ignorant about the ugly truth of our existence and our past truma and abuse help be happier and help lead a better life for the most part? Is leading a life with a metaphorical blindfold even considered better?....I don't know... @Forever Sleep what do you think?

I think you definitely have a point there. Sometimes I think I'd be happier just living life rather than thinking about it all the time. Ultimately- what good does it do? Most things we can't change. A lot of the big questions, we don't have the answers to. But- it's hard to turn all that ruminating off.

I wonder if it isn't always that people don't know or can't see it. Maybe they know they can't change it so, they learn to accept it and concentrate on what they need to get them through.

I think one of our problems in general here is disatisfaction though. If you feel disatisfied with life- with what you're doing and you can't think of what you'd rather do instead or, you're unable to do that- I think that likely triggers the whole: 'Why am I even doing this? What's the point?' etc etc. Like others have commented- it's like deeper awareness can trigger depression and depression can trigger deeper awareness.

 

[luneylonegirl]

Do you think that being an atheist or nihilist gives you heightened awareness? Nihilism is the truth but it's a cold and hard one…

I'm not an atheist and not a nihilist myself, because i personally can't accept it. I'm an agnostic. But i've ever learn and read their literature in process to finally decide my decision.

But the more you learn about it, i think it will gives a heightened awareness. Before i learn about all this things, i never find a brutal truth about how dark the world is. I think there's God who will saves me and love me no matter what. I will saved as long as i believe and pray to him.

It's a long journey of no help from him and more cruel reality to make me realize nothing can help me lol. I've read an agnostic and atheist believe before but i can't be as commited as before about this.

 

[broth0100]

combo of both for me, i see how awful the world is and how much worse it seems to get by the year, the glimmers of hope tht do exist get kinda snuffed out

 

[ThymeToLeave]

The idea that the maladjusted/outcast people are more aware is a comforting lie we tell ourselves so we don't have to admit something is wrong with us.

 

[sserafim]

The idea that the maladjusted/outcast people are more aware is a comforting lie we tell ourselves so we don't have to admit something is wrong with us.

Wdym? What do you think about this quote? "It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society."