Do you think this is all futile? We can talk all day about the struggles that suicide persons and their families go through, we could bicker all week about who's at fault, and we can develop apps or solutions for people struggling on both sides. Fixthe26 and SS may be listening and trying to collab together, but they both are not in charge of enacting positive change in the mental health community. Wouldn't even make a dent in the eyes of suicide researchers or even governmental politicians. You can go down the list of all the people that Fixthe26 have tried to get attention from to shut this place down, and no one batted an eye or gave them 5 minutes of their time. If they did, it would've been swept under with all the other issues that people face.
Sanctioned Suicide, Exit International, and Church of Euthanasia are all outliers in a world that believes that all lives matter, even if stricken with terminal illness or incapacitated in a vegetative state, it takes legal precedence to overturn a person's ability to make sound end-of-life decisions. These organizations provide an outlet for those who have been scorned and ostracized by society. All fighting for a humane way to end a person's life the same way we humanely put down sick animals, but also giving a voice to those who still want to live, and find better treatment options. I think accessibility and availability of treatment options plays a big factor in treating a person's mental health.
I think humanity is ingrained to never give up and we are considered "woke" if we are willing to give up for the greater good of things. Like mental health is in it's infancy stages, letting people legally kill themselves is a new novelty. Won't gain traction for a long time unless some environmental or war calamity befalls humanity to where they are forced to suicide so that others can survive.
Would take a special person to change the world, and then many more special people to change it even further. I won't be around to see it.
/endrant
Very astute and based as always, Symbiote. I fully agree with you. I have my own rant as well on this topic even though it probably sounds like a load of rambling cause I'm very knackered right now.
There needs to be extreme alterations made to the mental health system before we will see any noticeable change in how suicidal people are treated. I don't think one app, even if it is spawned from good intentions and eagerness to help, will dismantle the structural failings of the mental health industry that have been born from its shoddy foundations.
As you mentioned, the quality and effectiveness of treatment is a huge factor in whether someone will attempt ctb. Currently, a lot of of mainstream treatment options are no better than placebo if you thoroughly examine the studies. Personally I believe that creating websites, apps and awareness campaigns that direct users to suicide hotlines and counseling resources doesn't make even a modicum of a dent in the suicide problem. Why?
If we push for better accessibility to treatment, the treatment should be worth it's salt. For most of us here, the resources that have been offered to us have been useless at best and damaging at worse. There is so much money wasted on prescribing innapropriate CBT therapy courses and the same SSRIs even after you've taken everything in that drug class.
It's the same principle as work smarter, not harder, I think. Considering all the effort, time, and money that gets expended during suicide awareness campaigns, surely we could divert that towards research and expanding access to novel treatment options?
For example, Ketamine infusions cost thousands in my country because the health service will not pay for them, so I'm blocked from anything that could potentially help. Doing ketamine in a medical setting would be anxiety inducing for me and I'd rather take it sublingually, but the industry gives us no freedom or choice in the treatments we are allowed to have.
They don't allow us to take any risks and treat us like simpletons when we do our own research. Like cmon, I am training in a Neuroscience degree, I'm not Joe exotic or something, but this entire profession infatantalizes anyone who dares question them or requests agency. Don't forget the many of us who have real physical pain that gets blamed on "mental illness" because doctors will label anything they don't understand as psychosomatic and abuse their power.
Psychiatrists and therapists need to be able to admit when they can't help as well. Having a proper right to die process would take away a huge burden from the shoulders of many SS users who have incurable physical and mental conditions. Just knowing that the option is there and there's a guarenteed way out if things get unbearable would be a huge relief for me.
Society can't come to terms with memento mori, so it feels like as a collective that people are forced to run and hide away at the mere mention of a discussion on death and dying. They won't acknowledge mortality until the grim reaper comes knocking at their door.
Until we can have these conversations and get the ball rolling on right to die, abusive psych practices like involuntary hospitalisations and nonconsentual administration of antipsychotics will be allowed to continue, cited as a necessary evil in order to quell the desires of "those irrational suicidal people". It is not rehabilitation, but punishment.
Besides the harms of psych wards and ineffective therapies/pharmaceutical treatments, the mental health industry has the achilles heel of completely ignoring one's life circumstances in favor of the medical model of mental illness. So there are pretty much 0 resources for people whose problems are financial or social in nature. Therapy and pills won't fix poverty. People who live in isolation shouldn't be told to take antidepressants for their loneliness, they should be given some actual human contact.
The entire system sucks and needs to be thrown in the bin and done over from scratch. As long as we pretend like the rickety old house can be fixed, we can never build a stable structure in its place. All the ad campaigns, slogans, and charity hotlines are reinforcing a broken industry that does not work for a large number of people.
As long as people refuse to acknowledge how awful the current mental health system is, we will still all be on this website and treated as taboo, much like the men who chose to flee the city in Farinheight 541 because they would have been persecuted for spreading knowledge and reading books that were not acceptable in their utopia.
