Posted by Dory on June 6, 2007, at 13:46:55
In reply to ****suicide discussion thread*****, posted by gazo on May 31, 2007, at 19:11:15
having said all of that factual stuff in the last post, i personally am pursued by suicidal ideation. It used to feel like a panic reaction but now has become a feeling of being a solution. i am not sure how to handle that scenario.
Along with that comes the question of how to help another.. what can one say or do when you feel the same pain? Should you intervene? You should give arguements that you don't whole heartedly believe in?
In "suicidal mind" the author talked quite a lot about suicide notes, and in fact, that is what got him started in studying suicide. He discovered that only roughly half left notes at all. Most only gave brief and sometimes cryptic clues as to why they were taking their own lives.
If you were to write a suicide note and try to say exactly why you were doing this... what would you say? i'm talking about an exercise in examining your own intent. Instead of "good bye jane, i know you will be happier without me...signed john" what if you wrote out *exactly* why you were doing it? WHat if you gave your reasons and how you felt? what if you included all the things which condensed into that exact moment of potential action? i think the result would give an insight into the false hope suicide offers.
Is it false hope? i don't know the answer to that and the troubling thing is that no one does. Regardless of one's individual faith or belief, it is just that, faith. It is not concretely based, it is a idea. No one really knows until you're dead and then you can't tell the rest of us. The fate awaiting you upon your death is really an unknown.
Sometimes i don't care. i am in so much pain i just don't care. What can anyone say then?
the idea of sacrificing oneself is not entirely in the realm of negative action. There is a concept of altruism which means you give your life for a reason, a cause which is generally to save another. ANimals even have this decision process...think of mother birds protecting her young. It happens in other cases within animal situations as well. What is the brain process which makes this happen? ALl of our biology is geared toward survival. How is it that a switch gets tripped which allows us to perform otherwise? Can this switch, which seems designed to protect offspring, be tripped in the case of a suicidal person? The two must be intertwined somehow.
thoughts?
poster:Dory
thread:760660
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070525/msgs/761489.html