When I read all these people saying to reach out, to get help when talking about the Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade suicides, i get mad. Help can be of so little value. Yes you can call the suicide hotline and it might talk you off the ledge for a night or so but it doesn’t help much in the long run. You can go to therapy. Take meds. And still feel every single f’ing day that you want to kill yourself. Still feel the agony. If it were as easy as reaching out for help, we wouldn’t have so many people offing themselves! Pisses me off.
17 comments
yeah, I get this. I have “reached out” many times and…well, I’m still frequenting this site, so I will let that speak for itself…the “help” available doesn’t always, well, “help”…and where are you supposed to turn then? Why can’t we have a conversation about that?
Exactly. It seems like just a way for people to feel better – somehow it vaguely shifts the blame to the person who kills himself or herself. If he would have just reached out blah blah blah…the sad truth, as you say, is that the help available doesnt do anything. And where doea that leave you. The help offered is often like taking a bb gun to a automatic weapons fight.
People get arrested for feeding the homeless. Clearly “help,” must be a venue only reserved for the powerful to neglect, and no-one else must steal the spotlight, even if it’s empty.
People get arrested for feeding the homeless? Man where is that happening?
I guess in Canada we are much better to our homeless (feed them, cloth them etc) but not to our mentally ill/depressed. Here the psych wards are mixed gender so you can be a woman placed in a lockdown ward room with men in the 3 other beds. Waitlist for mental health counselling is 6mos-18mos (unless you can afford private therapy @$110-$200/hr) the psych wards dont do therapy there. Group or 1-on-1. They hand you a bunch of pills. Keep you around until they need your bed and deem you fit to leave.
I’m in Canada too, have insurance that pays for therapy luckily, and if it makes you feel any better, private therapy doesn’t help either. Doesnt help me anyhow. Get help seems so simplistic and a way to perpetuate the idea that all mental health problems are resolvable. Well, they aren’t! ! Maybe the emphasis should be on how to live with the pain and what to make of all the pain. Bc likely it won’t go away. Even with help. It’s an untreatable condition for many.
It further limits the scope of discussion for me. How can I be honest and tell my friends how sad I am now? They’ll section me, effectively guaranteeing my suicide.
Yup, tell someone how bad you really feel and they lock you up until you shut up about it. So that no one is liable if you suicide.
Well re suicide hotlines, oh yes, lets just call a suicide hotline and our problems will magically disappear and we won’t be suicidal anymore. (Note sarcasm)
(Sarcasm continued) Oh exactly, when we call the Suicide Hotline (1-800-All-Fine) our neuronal level damage from adverse events (read: child abuse) will all be repaired in just a jiffy. Well plus all the trauma from molestation will be immediately processed to a full conclusion and cessation of further pain. But that’s not all folks, call now (our highly qualified clinicians are standing by!) and we can reverse the consequences of up to five years of poor decision making OR indecision!
Beautifully put…yes, it is pretty ridiculous if you think about it: “Call now and our 19 year old volunteer will do what no one else in your life has been able to do thus far!!” Don’t get me wrong, I know the volunteers on the line try hard and usually they are pretty good at listening…and sometimes it really does help in the moment to talk to them…but then the moment passes and you are left alone and all the pain comes flooding back again…
Research neuroplasticity if you feel permanently damaged from past head trauma. The brain is very adaptive in this way.
Your problem is more likely to be psychological than biomechanical. This doesn’t imply it’s less valid.
Also, hockey player Nick Boynton very recently (this week) published “Everything’s Not O.K.” on this topic.
@kirlin-blair Neuroplasticity seems to be at work in me. Far from a one phone call process, it has taken about 3 years to start seeing results.
How does neuroplasticity-based treatment work? If it offers some hope I’m all for it, even if it takes 3 years!
It’s more like an evolved property of the brain, if one area is damaged it can usually store the functions elsewhere. I’m not aware of and can’t recommend any “treatments” besides consciously trying to be happy.
It really frustrates me that all these people on facebook are sharing the link to hotlines and convincing themselves that this one simple share is going to stop suicide. It isn’t putting a dent into the problem. Having a real discussion means going THERE. Wading into the real pain and darkness that people who are suicidal feel. And let’s be honest: no one (well hardly anyone) wants to actually do that. So by all means, let’s all share the hotline number (oh and please continue sharing the US only number if you are in Canada!), and put cute pink clouds around it and pretend we are actually doing something to help. Sigh.
Exactly. To really acknowledge that this is some people’s reality and that it is NOT going to change, even with “help ” is not something that most people can stomach. Let’s go into denial about the chronic pain people live with and think it is all solved by “reaching out”.
And if you guys think, your mental health systems suck, you should see how we have it in the third world countries. It’s a shame, so frustrating.