A watched an interview with a philosopher about safe spaces. The segment was pretty short. But it made me think. There are like local safe spaces or ones on the internet. Often safe spaces have a negative connotation due to the culture war about wokeness. There is a debate whether colleges are safe spaces. Whether they are supposed to be such places.
My take on colleges as safe spaces. The way the media talks about it is very superficial. They pretend there was a dichotomy between the brave truthtellers who fight for an unbiased freedom of science and the snowflake activitsts (often LGBTQAI+ ones) who introduce Orwellian newspeak. Well the reality is not that black white. The right is also involved in that. There are many examples like DeSantis in Florida. Banning books which educate teenagers about sexuality is ridiculous. Banning talk about Critical Race theory is authoritarian. Where is here the fair and just competition between concepts in a fair debate in open societies? Does this only apply for concepts you approve and welcome? Then right wingers want that stonage creationism is taught to children presented as equal to scientifical facts.
On science personally I think it is a necessity that the freedom of science is guaranteed. In my opinion parts of the right and left, over-bureaucratization, economical incentive structures are very contraproductive for the progress of science. But the media only wants to talk about wokeness. I have issues with how some people of the left influence debates. In Germany recently a very reasonable TV moderator was attacked with a cake in his face during a discussion about politics. He made some critical remarks on islam in the past. They were not offensive at all. In Germany there is often such a hypersensivity to talk about certain issues. The people hate the thought policy. And such attacks on critical but still very resonable people is highly counterproductive. You also see that with climate activitsts that increase anger and hate on climate protection measures with protests that average people just despise. Their tactics are stupid as fuck. The left also moralizes topics too often. But I go off-topic. The debate about science is still very interesting though.
One last remark I barely experienced discrimination at college for social awkwardness. I feel accepted. I am not sure whether these people really behave better or whether it is just apathy towards me. I assume it might be a combination of both.
Now to this forum. The people here call it often a safe space for suicidal people. The media criticized such descriptions. I think there is one concern about safe spaces in general. The problem of filter bubbles. That some topics become to a taboo, that there are rules everyone agrees to but noone articulates, uniformity of opinions and sheep like thinking.
I feel relatively safe to post here. There are probably some people with evil intentions/bad actors because a place with a lot of vulnerable people attracts such people. I am sceptical about other people but this rule applies to the internet in general.
There are several reasons why I still feel more safe on here than on other platforms. First of all I don't have to fear to be forced to a psych ward when I explictly talk about my suicidality. Even just a very low chance that this could happen would make me pretty anxious. I always had to censor my honest thoughts and feelings. I don't have to fear that here and I appreciate that.
I like the thought of self-determination. I think this is a pretty high value for most people. I don't feel belittled when expressing my desire to die. Professionals deny any discussion about assisted suicide. I have made a lot of bad experiences. Many therapists seem to be overburdened with a patient who is persistingly suicidal for more than a decade. Knowing there actually is an exit makes my hell a little bit less unbearable and I appreciate every single inch because I feel with my back against the wall every single day.
From my experience most people have a stigmatized notion of suicide. It is a taboo. There were different types of people (who faced me and my story) so many that it is difficult to categorize them. There were people who insult you because of it and make fun of it. There are such bullying communities on X (former Twitter). There are also the anti-choice people who panic when people want to die and start a debate with you about the right to die in inappropriate situations e.g. when I feel the need to vent about my life. For my own mental health I stopped debating people on the right to die. There is no need for me to persuade other people on this highly emotional topic. There are the people who feel awkward and behaved kind of contingent. They don't know how to react. Some of them make an inappropriate joke, some just gawk and you and ask stupid questions, some people start a monologue about having to try harder, about ones motivation about wanting to heal which has to be increased, they also imply that actually everyone can recover if the person really wants it (which is in my opinion cynical for people who are just too broken for recovery).
Sometimes I feel like this forum needs more stories of people who actually recovered. Success stories of people who were able to overcome chronic suicidality, people who achieved the seemingly impossible. There are some stories like that in this forum. However most people leave the forum pretty quickly after they overcame their (acute?) suicidality,
But I still like that I don't have to deal with some people who don't know how to handle suicide in this forum. Some people just make me feel pretty uncomfortable for example religious people that want to create a guilty conscience in people for suicidality. Personally I lost my faith and this made it easier for me to live with chronic suicidality.
I feel less alone in this forum. Being suicidal is kind of a unique experience. Especially if it last over a very long time period and treatment resistent. I often skim through threads and feel like I can absolutely relate to them. Especially on bad days the threads in the suicide discussion resonate very well with me. Though I think it was a good change to add a recovery sub-forum to prevent a filter bubble effect. The people on here know frustrations, desperation, chronic pain (mentally, physically or other types). I feel understood on here.
I think forgot some points that I wanted to mention. But I am pretty exhausted and need to wake pretty early tomorrow I better end it here.
My take on colleges as safe spaces. The way the media talks about it is very superficial. They pretend there was a dichotomy between the brave truthtellers who fight for an unbiased freedom of science and the snowflake activitsts (often LGBTQAI+ ones) who introduce Orwellian newspeak. Well the reality is not that black white. The right is also involved in that. There are many examples like DeSantis in Florida. Banning books which educate teenagers about sexuality is ridiculous. Banning talk about Critical Race theory is authoritarian. Where is here the fair and just competition between concepts in a fair debate in open societies? Does this only apply for concepts you approve and welcome? Then right wingers want that stonage creationism is taught to children presented as equal to scientifical facts.
On science personally I think it is a necessity that the freedom of science is guaranteed. In my opinion parts of the right and left, over-bureaucratization, economical incentive structures are very contraproductive for the progress of science. But the media only wants to talk about wokeness. I have issues with how some people of the left influence debates. In Germany recently a very reasonable TV moderator was attacked with a cake in his face during a discussion about politics. He made some critical remarks on islam in the past. They were not offensive at all. In Germany there is often such a hypersensivity to talk about certain issues. The people hate the thought policy. And such attacks on critical but still very resonable people is highly counterproductive. You also see that with climate activitsts that increase anger and hate on climate protection measures with protests that average people just despise. Their tactics are stupid as fuck. The left also moralizes topics too often. But I go off-topic. The debate about science is still very interesting though.
One last remark I barely experienced discrimination at college for social awkwardness. I feel accepted. I am not sure whether these people really behave better or whether it is just apathy towards me. I assume it might be a combination of both.
Now to this forum. The people here call it often a safe space for suicidal people. The media criticized such descriptions. I think there is one concern about safe spaces in general. The problem of filter bubbles. That some topics become to a taboo, that there are rules everyone agrees to but noone articulates, uniformity of opinions and sheep like thinking.
I feel relatively safe to post here. There are probably some people with evil intentions/bad actors because a place with a lot of vulnerable people attracts such people. I am sceptical about other people but this rule applies to the internet in general.
There are several reasons why I still feel more safe on here than on other platforms. First of all I don't have to fear to be forced to a psych ward when I explictly talk about my suicidality. Even just a very low chance that this could happen would make me pretty anxious. I always had to censor my honest thoughts and feelings. I don't have to fear that here and I appreciate that.
I like the thought of self-determination. I think this is a pretty high value for most people. I don't feel belittled when expressing my desire to die. Professionals deny any discussion about assisted suicide. I have made a lot of bad experiences. Many therapists seem to be overburdened with a patient who is persistingly suicidal for more than a decade. Knowing there actually is an exit makes my hell a little bit less unbearable and I appreciate every single inch because I feel with my back against the wall every single day.
From my experience most people have a stigmatized notion of suicide. It is a taboo. There were different types of people (who faced me and my story) so many that it is difficult to categorize them. There were people who insult you because of it and make fun of it. There are such bullying communities on X (former Twitter). There are also the anti-choice people who panic when people want to die and start a debate with you about the right to die in inappropriate situations e.g. when I feel the need to vent about my life. For my own mental health I stopped debating people on the right to die. There is no need for me to persuade other people on this highly emotional topic. There are the people who feel awkward and behaved kind of contingent. They don't know how to react. Some of them make an inappropriate joke, some just gawk and you and ask stupid questions, some people start a monologue about having to try harder, about ones motivation about wanting to heal which has to be increased, they also imply that actually everyone can recover if the person really wants it (which is in my opinion cynical for people who are just too broken for recovery).
Sometimes I feel like this forum needs more stories of people who actually recovered. Success stories of people who were able to overcome chronic suicidality, people who achieved the seemingly impossible. There are some stories like that in this forum. However most people leave the forum pretty quickly after they overcame their (acute?) suicidality,
But I still like that I don't have to deal with some people who don't know how to handle suicide in this forum. Some people just make me feel pretty uncomfortable for example religious people that want to create a guilty conscience in people for suicidality. Personally I lost my faith and this made it easier for me to live with chronic suicidality.
I feel less alone in this forum. Being suicidal is kind of a unique experience. Especially if it last over a very long time period and treatment resistent. I often skim through threads and feel like I can absolutely relate to them. Especially on bad days the threads in the suicide discussion resonate very well with me. Though I think it was a good change to add a recovery sub-forum to prevent a filter bubble effect. The people on here know frustrations, desperation, chronic pain (mentally, physically or other types). I feel understood on here.
I think forgot some points that I wanted to mention. But I am pretty exhausted and need to wake pretty early tomorrow I better end it here.
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