ashedout
Member
- Jan 22, 2021
- 93
I have no idea where I learned about suicide - but I vividly remember my 10th birthday where I decided that was how I was going to die. I was proud of myself for surviving till the big double digits, and it would be a poetic send off (to my 10 year old self at least). You can probably hazard a guess as to what kind of childhood a 10 year old girl has to decide suicide is the only way out of it. This would have been in 2001 and I didn't have much access to getting myself the means to do it - wasn't for a lack of trying though. I can't tell you how many pills from the medicine cabinet I swallowed, how many ties went around my neck, how deep I tried to cut in my pre-teen to teen years. I have no idea what permanent damage this caused to my body though I have an aversion to taking pills now.
I was 13 the first time I lost a friend to suicide. That's how I learned how to do that properly. I'm 29 now and I've lost more people than I can count to suicide. My family members and my friends. I KNOW what it feels like to be left behind - the anger, the pain, the grief, the loss, the confusion, the shock, the blame. It's also how I learned more of what and how to suicide correctly. The methods of how to CTB are out there. They are in text books, they are in normal reading books, they are in movies, they are in the news, they are in a basic Google search, they are in how you lost someone you know to suicide. Hell, the Law and Order SVU episode I have on right now in the background just had a character jump from a balcony....
I was in university when I started developing a serious eating disorder (bulimia). Eating disorders are so often romanticized in the media as some tv characters 2 episode story arch. You get this sweet dainty girl, not getting enough attention from her parents or by the boy she likes or her friends are mean to her because shes not as pretty as girls in the magazines .............she skips breakfast and throws up lunch and is immediately hospitalized and treated and everyone loves her forevermore. Yeah. Right. I never cared how fuckable men/people thought I was and I don't care how I look compared to a model. I actually resent the shallow ideas of what people think eating disorders are. The amount of money you have to shell out for treatment alone is criminal. Almost 10 years later, I'm not bulimic but some of the ridiculous food rules I have would make you laugh yourself silly and that has nothing to do with what an instagram model looks like compared to me (I dont even have social media).
Sounds similar to suicide though...a bunch of self proclaimed experts telling you how you feel and why you feel it. How suicidal people are presented in all forms of media. How it's a young adult, down on their luck, brilliant beyond compare, had a passion for life but couldn't overcome some random thing and impulsively decided to suicide to escape it - quick and easy and painless on their first try. That's not me, and while if its okay if its you, I'm going to hazard a guess and say it's probably not.
As I went through university, I found myself on private eating disorder forum. Have any of you guys been on those? This was my first exposure to a group of people who understood what I was actually feeling and going though and how it was so different than what everyone "knows" about eating disorders.
That's where I learned harm reduction. Sure - I was making myself throw up but the TiPz and TrIcKz I learned on the website was "you are going to do it anyways, heres how not to die and how to have teeth in 5 years". I learned about laxatives from a TV show....I learned how to use them safely on those websites. Again, I was going to do it anyways, but I never became irreversibly dependent on them. I was going to fast, and calorie restrict, and throw up not matter what but I learned how to keep my electrolytes in check so I didn't have a heart attack before I even graduated university.
Those websites have a long history of being demonized and being shut down and popping back up again and again and again because "its killing teen girls". I think it's the same as the safe injection places that were hot button topics pre-Covid. People are going to do it anyways, lets keep them as safe as we can. And if nobody is willing to look at, let alone fix, the broader systemic issues that contribute to eating disorders, suicide, and drug addiction, then harm reduction is our best bet at saving lives. I think that's more humane treatment than anyone could ever hope for. Not being seen as degenerate to be forgotten about and demonized and blamed for all issues with no supports to help overcome them.
Now of course there are cases on every website or in every space that cross some lines. But your lines and my lines are probably different - who is to decide what is the most correct? I think harm reduction is doing more than doctors/medicine, policy makers, and regular normal folks out there trying to tell me who I am, what I feel, and why it's wrong. If I am going to suicide anyways, why can't I talk to someone who understands so for once I don't feel so alone. Why can't I know how to be safe so as to not cause harm to the environment or people around me? Why can't I know what will leave me as a vegetable (any method shown on tv that I could copy) which is arguably worse than straight up death. Why can't I read stories and posts about people just like me to give me a sense of community while we are in a pandemic where community and connections are illegal/unsafe? I can honestly say that for me, this website falls under harm reduction because it has REDUCED the harm I wish upon myself and, if/when the day arises, will reduce the harm I cause those around me. I suppose this might be one of those things that you can't understand unless you've lived it??
I would love to hear your guys thoughts on harm reduction and your experiences!!! I haven't been here too long so I might be out of the loop on some stuff :)
I was 13 the first time I lost a friend to suicide. That's how I learned how to do that properly. I'm 29 now and I've lost more people than I can count to suicide. My family members and my friends. I KNOW what it feels like to be left behind - the anger, the pain, the grief, the loss, the confusion, the shock, the blame. It's also how I learned more of what and how to suicide correctly. The methods of how to CTB are out there. They are in text books, they are in normal reading books, they are in movies, they are in the news, they are in a basic Google search, they are in how you lost someone you know to suicide. Hell, the Law and Order SVU episode I have on right now in the background just had a character jump from a balcony....
I was in university when I started developing a serious eating disorder (bulimia). Eating disorders are so often romanticized in the media as some tv characters 2 episode story arch. You get this sweet dainty girl, not getting enough attention from her parents or by the boy she likes or her friends are mean to her because shes not as pretty as girls in the magazines .............she skips breakfast and throws up lunch and is immediately hospitalized and treated and everyone loves her forevermore. Yeah. Right. I never cared how fuckable men/people thought I was and I don't care how I look compared to a model. I actually resent the shallow ideas of what people think eating disorders are. The amount of money you have to shell out for treatment alone is criminal. Almost 10 years later, I'm not bulimic but some of the ridiculous food rules I have would make you laugh yourself silly and that has nothing to do with what an instagram model looks like compared to me (I dont even have social media).
Sounds similar to suicide though...a bunch of self proclaimed experts telling you how you feel and why you feel it. How suicidal people are presented in all forms of media. How it's a young adult, down on their luck, brilliant beyond compare, had a passion for life but couldn't overcome some random thing and impulsively decided to suicide to escape it - quick and easy and painless on their first try. That's not me, and while if its okay if its you, I'm going to hazard a guess and say it's probably not.
As I went through university, I found myself on private eating disorder forum. Have any of you guys been on those? This was my first exposure to a group of people who understood what I was actually feeling and going though and how it was so different than what everyone "knows" about eating disorders.
That's where I learned harm reduction. Sure - I was making myself throw up but the TiPz and TrIcKz I learned on the website was "you are going to do it anyways, heres how not to die and how to have teeth in 5 years". I learned about laxatives from a TV show....I learned how to use them safely on those websites. Again, I was going to do it anyways, but I never became irreversibly dependent on them. I was going to fast, and calorie restrict, and throw up not matter what but I learned how to keep my electrolytes in check so I didn't have a heart attack before I even graduated university.
Those websites have a long history of being demonized and being shut down and popping back up again and again and again because "its killing teen girls". I think it's the same as the safe injection places that were hot button topics pre-Covid. People are going to do it anyways, lets keep them as safe as we can. And if nobody is willing to look at, let alone fix, the broader systemic issues that contribute to eating disorders, suicide, and drug addiction, then harm reduction is our best bet at saving lives. I think that's more humane treatment than anyone could ever hope for. Not being seen as degenerate to be forgotten about and demonized and blamed for all issues with no supports to help overcome them.
Now of course there are cases on every website or in every space that cross some lines. But your lines and my lines are probably different - who is to decide what is the most correct? I think harm reduction is doing more than doctors/medicine, policy makers, and regular normal folks out there trying to tell me who I am, what I feel, and why it's wrong. If I am going to suicide anyways, why can't I talk to someone who understands so for once I don't feel so alone. Why can't I know how to be safe so as to not cause harm to the environment or people around me? Why can't I know what will leave me as a vegetable (any method shown on tv that I could copy) which is arguably worse than straight up death. Why can't I read stories and posts about people just like me to give me a sense of community while we are in a pandemic where community and connections are illegal/unsafe? I can honestly say that for me, this website falls under harm reduction because it has REDUCED the harm I wish upon myself and, if/when the day arises, will reduce the harm I cause those around me. I suppose this might be one of those things that you can't understand unless you've lived it??
I would love to hear your guys thoughts on harm reduction and your experiences!!! I haven't been here too long so I might be out of the loop on some stuff :)
