Thoughts on suicide prevention

[NoWayOut015]

I have been suicidal for a while now, often it's just a passive feeling in the background, at the moment it's very strong. Nonetheless I've tried to convince myself in the past that life can get better and is worth living and therefore suicide prevention is important.
What I think I just fully realized now, is that I had a completely wrong idea what suicide prevention is about
I thought it was about helping suicidal people get better, find joy and purpose in life again but actually it's just about making it harder to find methods that work.
Most people don't really care if I get better and like my life as long as it's hard enough for me to quit it and am forced to go on.
I wouldn't mind someone telling me that I'm wrong and there's actual hope but I'm very sceptical now.. I know I'm stupid for thinking otherwise but this makes me sad and angry...

 

[Forever Sleep]

Yeah- I think they kind of gift wrap it up saying we all 'deserve' to live happy and fulfilling lives. Still- they also say stuff like: 'Life's hard for everyone.' That's the more realistic, transparent phrase I believe because it also insinuates that life is indeed hard but you HAVE to get on with it... even though we don't.

I agree though- by removing as many of the peaceful options as possible, they hope to keep us hostage here. They don't REALLY care if we 'get better' or not. If we don't in fact- that's more money on therapists and pharmaceuticals.

 

[RatMaster250]

I believe that suicide prevention should be offered to people that consent to it. If a person is still in need of having a happy and fufilling life, then it is likely that they will reach out to the mental health industries. I do think that it is unfair that a person that is going to kill themself is forcefully stoped by other people.

We have a right to our own bodies, and we should be able to control whether or whether we shouldn't live in this world. I am actually seeing a pshychologist because I know that it is what's best for me. I don't currently have a plan on ctb but the reason that I am on this site is because I want to have it as an option.

 

[AerialBoundaries]

Some people can't be saved. Some people have no chance of living a decent quality of life.

I don't advocate impulsivity suicides due to break ups, bereavements etc., but people that have been suffering long term mental and/or physical health problems deserve to die with dignity.

There's no cure for long term depression. When you add into the mix being on the spectrum, anxiety, anhedonia, addiction and social isolation. Am I supposed to just sit idly by and suffer for the next 5 decades?

 

[Praestat_Mori]

There is no use in suicide prevention as this causes more suffering for people who just want to leave this world in a peaceful and dignified way for their own personal reasons. This should be fully respected. There's still enough struggle left to overcome SI in the end.

One should only decide to ctb when there is really no other option left any more because ctb cannot be reveresed.

 

[MoriLori]

Totally agree with you. The funny thing is: taking away peaceful methods doesn't even prevent suicides. People are STILL suicidal, they'll just find more gruesome methods.
Suicide prevention doesn't care about helping the individuals either. It's just about forcefully keeping us from ctb. Even if it means making us suffer more.

 

[SilentSadness]

Suicide prevention is useless and barbaric, in fact it's an ancient practice that people don't care enough to shut down. It has promoted the problematic lie that anyone cares about a suicidal person's suffering, which couldn't be further from the truth.

 

[FuneralCry]

Suicide prevention is only prolonging suffering, the idea that suicide should be prevented rather than being respected as a personal choice disgusts me. It's inhumane and absurd banning peaceful and reliable method options as we are only waiting around to die anyway, one cannot escape from death, so I could never see a point to suffering so unnecessarily. I despise existence and how there's endless potential to suffer in this dreadful world, not wishing to delay the inevitable will always be perfectly logical.

 

[JustAGuy]

I don't think it's bad in theory, just ineffective and pretty useless at the moment.

 

[blujay21]

The general ideas behind suicide prevention are pretty bad, at least in the United States. I found this website through a youtube video that was very critical of it, to the point they fell into the same trap. I think a lot of people genuinely are concerned for suicidal people for the most part, there is just a disagreement on the solution. Good analogy would be how the United States handles crime. We lock people up and throw away the key rather than addressing the issues that cause them to do crime in the first place. I think the same issue exists for suicide.

 

[Aplev]

It's not convenient for them that we die. They need people suffering so they can feel better about themselves and glad that they are not us. It's cruel but the way that it is.

 

[pinkribbonscars]

I'm for suicide prevention for treatable cases. I wish doctors and advocates used a more humane strategy tho. In my ideal world, social workers would stop by at the houses of suicidal people and counsel them. If the client's suffering is untreatable, they would respect their choice and sign off for a doctor to preform euthanasia. Unfortunately, the reality is police officers, forced psychiatric holds, and psychiatric drugs.

Mental illness is debilitating. If a person has tried to manage their condition and still finds it unbearable to live with, they should have the right to die.

 

[pinkribbonscars]

I also think suicide prevention should focus on alleviating actual suffering. Preventing poverty, homelessness, prison, discrimination, unemployment, bullying, exploitation, abuse, trauma, addiction, and other factors that contribute to ctb

Instead, advocates and professionals focus on preventing people from ctb, which still leaves them suffering.

 

[Pluto]

I've commented before that in ancient Rome, there was a sensible and balanced policy which offered euthanasia to suffering individuals, at the discretion of the state. By comparison, what we have today is a blanket opposition to euthanasia, with the possible exception of the most extreme circumstances, such as imminent terminal illness.

There are difficult and complicated moral dilemmas that need to be faced, if only society were open to a genuine conversation. Some examples:
* How to define 'consent' for euthanasia when many suicidal people end up recovering and immensely grateful to whomever saved their life?
* How to offer euthanasia to the elderly whilst protecting them from being discarded as a social burden by a soulless society, or pushed to exit this life by family members impatient for their inheritance?
* How to offer end-of-life options to the poor without it turning into a genocide against disadvantaged communities?

Society's answer is just to block and ban everything, including mature dialogue on this difficult topic. Even this would be somewhat understandable if they were not resorting to borderline violent means such as involuntary incarceration of suicidal people, and extreme measures to block access to peaceful methods.

Society is not being reasonable at all, it is simply turning its back on a complex moral dilemma and allowing religious fundamentalists to dictate public policy. People in need of a genuine solution are being left to fend for themselves.

 

[Aplev]

It's always the same story. A tale as old as time.

 

[Freyja13]

I also think suicide prevention should focus on alleviating actual suffering. Preventing poverty, homelessness, prison, discrimination, unemployment, bullying, exploitation, abuse, trauma, addiction, and other factors that contribute to ctb

Instead, advocates and professionals focus on preventing people from ctb, which still leaves them suffering.

More of this!!

These are massive driving forces that push a person towards suicide who may not otherwise have any mental illness. These are huge life stressors that make the future look bleak and unbearable. Yet we have a huge fascist resurgence in North America which is essentially anti-human rights. It's laughable how these same people are anti abortion while stripping people who are actually currently existing of any and all supports to help them live a life worth living. Then they go and say how suicide is "cowardly" and "selfish" and it's like bruh... YOU LEAVE US FEW (if any) OTHER OPTIONS LMAO.

Suicide prevention is fine and dandy but if it's not consistently backed up by societal supports e.g. human rights, universal healthcare, representative democracy, affordable housing, consistent access to food, affordable higher education etc., it's kinda like... what the fuck is the point? Do the powers that be even care? Okay I mean I know they don't lol. I'm just venting frustration. I'd love to see some of the rich and powerful lose their housing and status and see how they cope then.

 

[Bronzehawkattack]

It's funny. Most people who want to prevent suicide seem to feel a painless death is worse than a painful life.
So, they'll put in the effort to make sure you can't attain a painless solution to dying, and even actively stop you by arresting you, detaining you, or other such things, but they stop just short of the part where it comes to actually helping you relieve your pain that drew you to want death.
That just seems to ass backward to me. In fact, it feels intentionally sadistic.

A large part of it is just brainwashing, no one consciously thinks about the pros and cons of letting someone die.
The government has ZERO upside to letting people willingly die for their own reasons (rather than die in for their government) so they make sure society understands It's supposedly bad to want to die.

 

[pinkribbonscars]

It's laughable how these same people are anti abortion while stripping people who are actually currently existing of any and all supports to help them live a life worth living. Then they go and say how suicide is "cowardly" and "selfish" and it's like bruh... YOU LEAVE US FEW (if any) OTHER OPTIONS LMAO.

Pro-lifers deny women the right to personal ownership of their bodies. They want to whore out women's bodies, cannibalize them and sell them to the state. They do nothing to fight the factors that lead to abortion. They instead fight again welfare, social safety nets, women's rights, reproductive freedom, and comprehensive sex education. They tell you God will take care of you or that you should pull yourself up by your boot straps and take "personal responsibility" for yourself. If you are unable, they fault you for your choices. It makes sense they would have the same agenda against the suicidal.

The religious right do not care when babies are born to single addict mothers in poverty. Nor do they care when the suicidal suffer due to external factors out of their control. They have proven time and time again they care exclusively about the sanctity of life, not about the autonomy of living things. They don't just want you to live. They want you to suffer (because your suffering is the result of your sins).

Suicide prevention is fine and dandy but if it's not consistently backed up by societal supports e.g. human rights, universal healthcare, representative democracy, affordable housing, consistent access to food, affordable higher education etc., it's kinda like... what the fuck is the point? Do the powers that be even care? Okay I mean I know they don't lol. I'm just venting frustration.

I wish we could treat suicide as a social problem in opposition to viewing it as a medical one. I agree with everything you said. More social programs and advocacy over law enforcement, incarceration and institutions.

I'd love to see some of the rich and powerful lose their housing and status and see how they cope then.

They never will. If their economic capital is stripped away, they still have enough social capital to make up for it and will climb back up economically again. Cancel culture and de-platforming doesn't truly exist for the rich.

If anything, cancel culture is the biggest threat amongst conservatives. They're trying to shut down SS after all.

 

[leavingsoon99]

If a person wants an outside perspective on their suspected suicidality, then they should seek out preventionists. I think suicide prevention is more for people who are unsure about how they feel and want to be a part of life. That's consensual and opens the door for preventionists to offer what they see as hope and help. To me, there's nothing wrong with that. If a person is looking for a reason to like life, then may they find it.

 

[Pidgeons_Sparrows]

some of it is fine while some other of it is literally torture kidnapping and enslavement all in one
also violates a persons right to die and freedom of choice over their own life and body
if you ask me, most of it should be outright illegal

 

[aGoodDayToDie]

Fuck the government. Many of us have no hope of a worthwhile life