This one goes out to all the mental health activists who are ghosting here.
I get it. I really do. I don't want to kill myself. Not usually. Most of the time I am fine. I have a successful career, a good marriage, fulfilling work... I just bought my first apartment. Even my health is pretty good, though I am taking lots of pills.
So why do I, every once in a while, flip out and try to end my life?
Well, first of all, no one knows why. I have been diagnosed, variously, with bipolar disorder (which is really just a grab bag category these days for "does whacko shit that we really don't understand"), depression, and anxiety disorder. The only thing four different psychiatrists agree on is that I am some sort of nuts and, while they have prescribed various meds for me over the years, the only ones that seem to have any stable effect are Esc and Rivotril.
While this combo makes me feel better 29 days out of 30, on that 30th day I REALLY want to kill myself and often try. So what the profession is REALLY doing is keeping me happy and socially productive 97% of the time while increasing the chance I'll off myself the other 3%. And I am definitely a psych success story.
I have found no site that is willing to admit that this is pretty much what is going on, other than this one. And while I am happy I don't make folks too uncomfortable most of the time, and gosh, I am productive, I resent the fuck out of the fact that this is basically what psychiatry sees as its bottom line AND it charges me about ten percent of my salary just to do that.
And during my crises... fuck, I do so much suicide research that I am innudated with "suicide prevention resources" everytime I go online. And yet, outside of my shrink and this community, there is no one I can talk to when I am ready to chuck my belt over the door and do a partial suspension hanging. Every single "resource" is always offline, full, or run by robots. NO ONE CARES. Really. At least as far as I have seen. Even my shrink — and he's a lovely guy, literally a life saver — even he just basically shrugs. I mean, he knows that if I am going to do it, I am going to do it. I will find a way. He hopes I won't. I am sure he'll be bummed for awhile if I do. But hey: that is the risk of the profession, right?
My family? Oh, they love me. They really do. But all of this is a hell of a burden on them. They are totally flummoxed when I tell them I want to die and how I plan to do it. I can see it hurts them, but I also decided a long time ago, "It is best people know". They will be sad when I go, too, but they will get over it. And that is the way it should be.
Bottom line: this is the only place I have ever found that is HONEST about suicide. Reading it these past two years has indeed made me more capable of killing myself, but also much less likely to do a botched attempt. Now I know what I will REALLY have to do, what I can expect, and what are the consequences of fucking it up.
Do you know how bloody hard it is to get that information?
Keeping it from me doesn't make me any better, more likely to seek help, or less likely to attempt suicide:it makes it much more likely that I will make messy, botched attempts.
Now, if we lived in a society that put a premium on human life and dignity maybe — MAYBE — keeping this information out of people's hands would be justified. But we don't live in that type of society. We live in post liberal capitalism, where even my disease is harnessed to create capital. We live in a society where police are allowed to put seven bullets into an unarmed man's head at point blank range, where 17 year old vigilante killers are glorified by world leaders who are going to be turned into Leaders for Life. Where leading politicians come right out and say "sacrifice grandma for the sake of Wall Street".
Let's face it: if I wasn't so damned privileged, I would have offed myself a long time ago. But because I still can produce and have some cash to be squeezed out of me, society judges it adequate that I be allowed to limp along as long as I can. It is not because anyone cares. Not in the slightest. It is because I still am profitable. The minute I ain't... well, as Hitler said and Trump and many other world leaders believe, "there are lives that just aren't worth living".
Anyone with brains enough to avoid voting for someone like Jair Bolsonaro, Trump, Duterte, or Johnson can read the writing on the wall. And faced with that, your little internet reminders about "available resources" aren't even laughable: they are fucking obscene. They are obviously produced by people who got money, somehow, somewhere, to pretend to give a shit about problems most of them can't even fathom, nor even want to try.
So please: piss off with your self-congratulatory pats on the back about shit like how "reddit now has a feature where readers can turn others in if they think they are suicidal". Oh, yeah. As if that isn't going to be fucked with by every thirteen year old on the internet. "Gee, I was gonna off myself but some rando gave me the text contact number of a place that has no available councilors! Thanks, Reddit! You're a real lifesaver!"
At least Sanctioned Suicide is honest. Long may it exist.
Now here's comedian Doug Stanhope with a reality bite for all you fluffy bunnies:
I get it. I really do. I don't want to kill myself. Not usually. Most of the time I am fine. I have a successful career, a good marriage, fulfilling work... I just bought my first apartment. Even my health is pretty good, though I am taking lots of pills.
So why do I, every once in a while, flip out and try to end my life?
Well, first of all, no one knows why. I have been diagnosed, variously, with bipolar disorder (which is really just a grab bag category these days for "does whacko shit that we really don't understand"), depression, and anxiety disorder. The only thing four different psychiatrists agree on is that I am some sort of nuts and, while they have prescribed various meds for me over the years, the only ones that seem to have any stable effect are Esc and Rivotril.
While this combo makes me feel better 29 days out of 30, on that 30th day I REALLY want to kill myself and often try. So what the profession is REALLY doing is keeping me happy and socially productive 97% of the time while increasing the chance I'll off myself the other 3%. And I am definitely a psych success story.
I have found no site that is willing to admit that this is pretty much what is going on, other than this one. And while I am happy I don't make folks too uncomfortable most of the time, and gosh, I am productive, I resent the fuck out of the fact that this is basically what psychiatry sees as its bottom line AND it charges me about ten percent of my salary just to do that.
And during my crises... fuck, I do so much suicide research that I am innudated with "suicide prevention resources" everytime I go online. And yet, outside of my shrink and this community, there is no one I can talk to when I am ready to chuck my belt over the door and do a partial suspension hanging. Every single "resource" is always offline, full, or run by robots. NO ONE CARES. Really. At least as far as I have seen. Even my shrink — and he's a lovely guy, literally a life saver — even he just basically shrugs. I mean, he knows that if I am going to do it, I am going to do it. I will find a way. He hopes I won't. I am sure he'll be bummed for awhile if I do. But hey: that is the risk of the profession, right?
My family? Oh, they love me. They really do. But all of this is a hell of a burden on them. They are totally flummoxed when I tell them I want to die and how I plan to do it. I can see it hurts them, but I also decided a long time ago, "It is best people know". They will be sad when I go, too, but they will get over it. And that is the way it should be.
Bottom line: this is the only place I have ever found that is HONEST about suicide. Reading it these past two years has indeed made me more capable of killing myself, but also much less likely to do a botched attempt. Now I know what I will REALLY have to do, what I can expect, and what are the consequences of fucking it up.
Do you know how bloody hard it is to get that information?
Keeping it from me doesn't make me any better, more likely to seek help, or less likely to attempt suicide:it makes it much more likely that I will make messy, botched attempts.
Now, if we lived in a society that put a premium on human life and dignity maybe — MAYBE — keeping this information out of people's hands would be justified. But we don't live in that type of society. We live in post liberal capitalism, where even my disease is harnessed to create capital. We live in a society where police are allowed to put seven bullets into an unarmed man's head at point blank range, where 17 year old vigilante killers are glorified by world leaders who are going to be turned into Leaders for Life. Where leading politicians come right out and say "sacrifice grandma for the sake of Wall Street".
Let's face it: if I wasn't so damned privileged, I would have offed myself a long time ago. But because I still can produce and have some cash to be squeezed out of me, society judges it adequate that I be allowed to limp along as long as I can. It is not because anyone cares. Not in the slightest. It is because I still am profitable. The minute I ain't... well, as Hitler said and Trump and many other world leaders believe, "there are lives that just aren't worth living".
Anyone with brains enough to avoid voting for someone like Jair Bolsonaro, Trump, Duterte, or Johnson can read the writing on the wall. And faced with that, your little internet reminders about "available resources" aren't even laughable: they are fucking obscene. They are obviously produced by people who got money, somehow, somewhere, to pretend to give a shit about problems most of them can't even fathom, nor even want to try.
So please: piss off with your self-congratulatory pats on the back about shit like how "reddit now has a feature where readers can turn others in if they think they are suicidal". Oh, yeah. As if that isn't going to be fucked with by every thirteen year old on the internet. "Gee, I was gonna off myself but some rando gave me the text contact number of a place that has no available councilors! Thanks, Reddit! You're a real lifesaver!"
At least Sanctioned Suicide is honest. Long may it exist.
Now here's comedian Doug Stanhope with a reality bite for all you fluffy bunnies:
