If you’ve been following my last few posts, you know I’m not a fan of “suicide prevention” efforts, because obviously nothing has helped any of us here. I guess I’m just going to leave a trail of posts like this, so that when someone finally investigates my suicide, they’ll see the problem.
If you get in a serious car crash, you press 3 numbers on your phone and then you can pass out knowing that the ambulances, police & fire trucks will come and do everything in their power to save your life.
If you are diagnosed with cancer, the diagnosing doctor will immediately present you with all your options, referrals, and a clear course of action. Healthcare, medicare or Medicaid will step in and assist (flawed as they are).
But if you are in danger of suicide, what do you get? A ridiculous 800 number to call where the person on the other line just repeats pre-scripted rubbish about why you shouldn’t do it. A recording would be just as good. That’s all that this multi-million dollar industry does to help the actual victims. Apparently they’re too busy organizing marches, printing t-shirts and patting each other on the back for raising awareness to do anything for the person who’s about to jump off a bridge. At best, you’re told to “seek help”, but nobody tells you where this help is to be found, aside from cold calling shrinks in the phone book who care as much about your mental health as your dentist.
There is no infrastructure to deal with the epidemic of suicide. A lousy 800 number, basically a “customer service” line that can’t do anything but talk. Useless.
If you really want to be disgusted with life, google ANY “suicide prevention” foundation. Visit their website. Weed through all the DONATE buttons and Hallmark greeting card catchphrases designed to sucker the people with loose purse strings. Tell me if you find ANYTHING that could possibly help you, or any other suicidal person.
Meanwhile the dollars rack up. And with every suicide, these organizations drool because they can shout louder that “something needs to change!” and collect more money. Nothing has changed. Compare today to 100 years ago, to 1000 years ago. There has never been any real effort to save suicidal people. Maybe it’s because we’re worthless after all. But we sure make an emotional splash for the scammers to profit from.
I’m about to fucking kill myself. I’m so close, and my method has a 90% success rate (bang bang). I need help bad. I’ve called the 800 number, I’ve texted the crisis chat, I’ve seen doctors and therapists, even been locked up. Everyone is just going through the motions without doing a thing. It’s as if you call the ambulance after a car wreck and they show up and tell you, “We can’t help you into the ambulance unless YOU help YOURSELF into the ambulance” and then they log their hours and drive away, Then they send you the bill. I guess we get the last laugh if there’s no one alive to pay it.
24 comments
Nobody really gives a shit about other people
Theres no money in the truth. If there was a cancer cure (and I think there is), the cancer society foundation would go bankrupt. Every major corporation is greedy as fuck making an buck from our illness.
What happened AXYZ ?
I know they are useless. I’ve never tried them, no matter how miserable I felt in the past. I was locked up too.
Yes, they tell you nothing helpful. Yes, this world is crazy.
But I think that we can really change if we use the RIGHT information and go to the RIGHT people.
There are good people on this planet who serve the light.
If you wish I can talk to you and perhaps we can find a way together to get you out of your seemingly hopeless situation.
Hi hope432, it’s just like my post implies. I’m sick of being told that “help is available” when that’s clearly passing the buck. There is no help available, unless your life can be fixed by blabbering on an 800 line. Below I outlined real, tangible resources that could help suicidal people. Nothing like that exists in this country, or any other as far as I know. At a certain point you start to realize that suicidal people are literally the trash of society. And if that’s not bad enough, people are profiting immensely from our pain. If that doesn’t make you want to eat a bullet, I don’t know what will.
I think unconditional love and unconditional dedication is a massive help during times of despair. If you can form a relationship like that at any point you will find it to be your purpose, your strength, and true unabridged help.
This is a rare relationship to have with anyone however. It requires a very large portion of time and energy, but if it’s any consolation it never feels like that in the moment.
That being said, formal help, private health care, anything really as far as health care is concerned has a dollar sign in front of it in the United States at least.
Hope is right as well when he says that there are few who “serve the light”, but you must learn to read between the lines a bit, to discover the difference between who is serving the “light” (i believe hope and i have different definitions of this abstract word) and who is actually just serving themselves or some perverted obsession.
While society preys on the weak, there are humans who care, but at the end of the day the best you can ever do for yourself is to involve others in your life. The best you can do is to pursue any chance you get to be social because that’s where you meet the bastards who love you.
anthropophobia, I completely agree that unconditional love and dedication can heal anyone. I had (what seemed like) that for a while, and suicide was the furthest thing from my mind. The problem, aside from it being harder to find than a speck of gold in the Sahara, is that it has to be constant. In other words, sure you can get back on your feet, but I think relapses will happen until we die. The problem with human unconditional love is that it eventually wears out. Of course if we’re talking about dogs & cats, it’s inexhaustible. Unfortunately dogs & cats can’t drop everything and drive to a bridge in the middle of the night to talk you out of jumping.
One way or another, it’s well beyond the scope of any service that these suicide prevention groups offer. Hell, if you’ve talked on the suicide hotline you already know that these people are trained not to get too personal, because I guess that’s when legal complications arise.
Still, in an ideal world, there would be non profit organizations run by volunteers who exhibit this trait of unconditional love, and even that would be a nice break from the isolation.
Well when you need an ambulance they deal with your specific injury. There is something visible that can be fixed/treated, same for cancer.
But there is no cure for suicide nor is there is any real interest in trying to understand and solve the problem. People want to end their lives for many reasons that are vastly different, from depression to poverty, loneliness, old age or they’re just sick of being alive.
When I was a kid I wished the world to be a better place but I realized we have to live in reality as it is, not how we’d like it to be. When it comes to suicide it is a personal decision and no one can help us. Sure there are therapists and helplines but that’s it, the rest is up to us.
If they really want to help those wanting death they should legalize Euthanasia completely and give it to anyone who asks for it. We have proven, effective methods that and help people end their lives safely, quickly and painlessly.
Living can be torturous, esp for those who are homeless or dirt-poor (like kids in Africa or India). That is not a life worth living and euthanasia would be a release from that suffering for those people.
If you feel suicidal yet you want to live, then you need to find out what’s wrong in your life and fix it. If you don’t want to live then there are guaranteed ways that work to end one’s existence. What I don’t understand is people who don’t want to live yet won’t end their lives.
Of course, I’m not encouraging anyone to take that route, I’m wondering why they keep going when they hate life and wish they were dead on a daily basis for years and years. Either they’re not serious about it, they’re fear dying or they just prefer to be miserable until nature does them in.
*that can help
My ambulance analogy was to show that every other health condition has some emergency infrastructure in place. Whether it’s a broken leg, pneumonia, or even a hypochondriac complaining of phantom pains, with 3 buttons on your phone you will get a response and a clear path toward treatment.
I assume you’ve never had the pleasure, but ask around. If you make the same call and tell the dispatcher that you’re in danger of suicide, it’s anyone’s guess what will happen to you. You could end up shot by police, involuntarily hauled off and incarcerated, arrested, and most certainly you’ll be marked with a mental health record which will only make your life worse. They don’t treat the problem; they remove nd penalize the problem (you).
In past posts I’ve outlined what a useful “suicide prevention” program could entail, and it’s not that much of a stretch. Just like homeless shelters and shelters for battered women, these millions of dollars could construct a suicidal safe house in major cities. Where anyone in danger of blowing their head off can come in, grab a coffee and just enjoy an environment of people who genuinely give a damn, rather than being isolated with our destructive thoughts. Other useful programs could involve low interest loans (as with students) for people who have suddenly lost everything and are deep into suicidal depression. Another program could be, as with senior citizens and homeless people, a service that employs suicidal people so they can stay occupied doing productive things.
Any of these things, I guarantee, would make an appreciable difference. I would sign up for all 3. But instead everyone hides behind the veil of “mental health is too complex for any solution” so nobody tries. All the while they collect millions of dollars and rent billboards and put up tv ads (soliciting more funds, of course).
The problem of suicide is NOT hopeless. With the right amount of money in the right hands, I bet each one of us could be helped. Imagine if there were a non profit organization that help suicidal people by sponsoring them like Alcoholics Anonymous.
God there are a million ideas. So really. Don’t fall for the “mental health is too complex to fix” pablum, or worse “mental health recovery depends on the individual wanting to get better”. Those are convenient excuses for the suicide prevention groups to do absolutely nothing but pad their own pockets, claiming they’re “researching” and “educating”. How many damn centuries more research do they need before figuring out what I just typed?
I don’t think you got the point of my post. I know what you meant with your ambulance analogy which is why I said they can fix some identifiable problem at the hospital.
With suicidal ideation, there isn’t any “injury” they can fix, unless of course you botch your attempt to kill yourself and need to be helped. This is why there aren’t hospitals for people who feel suicidal.
As for the gov’t programs that why I said we need to live in reality, the way the world is rather than how it should be. You’re mad at the govt or others for profiting off the problem of suicidal people and not doing more.
So your options are to join the govt or party and work for change/advocate for more programs for suicidal people or deal with your problems so that you don’t feel the need to end your life.
I know I cannot change the world or fight the govt, it’s way too fkg hard and my life is too short to waste my time on that. Which is why I’m working on making my life better so I’m happier. If my life never improves in about 5-10 years, then I’ll likely follow through on ending my life.
I won’t be here complaining about how the govt should do this or that for me so I don’t feel suicidal, nothing personal. Anything you want out of life is really up to you at the end of the day, even if it means to end it.
Though I think Euthanasia should be legalized as stated, and that is totally worth demanding from our govt because it produces real tangible outcomes, an end to our suffering, so it’s well worth fighting for something all of us in the suicide community should get behind.
Yes, there is interest in trying to understand and solve the suicide problem. And although euthanasia may be helpful for some people, saying that it should be for the kids of Africa and India, only because they are very poor, comes from a mindset of seeing the world as a very dark place.
There are very poor people who do enjoy life, and even those who don’t, they still want to live.
Your proposal also comes perhaps from a materialistic or atheistic perspective. Legalize euthanasia everywhere because there is no life after death, you may say.
You also say that euthanasia would be release from suffering for those people. How can you say that? Did you prove to someone that life ceases after death? Are you sure there is no meaning in life or in suffering and it’s ok to put an end to your life whenever you want?
hope432, nothing wrong with being blunt and straightforward so long as people are respectful to each other. I’m a fan of robust, free speech and thanks for stating that. This is the only way people get smarter and more accepting of others and new or unusual ideas.
I’m assuming you’re on this site because you are also suicidal, which means that at some point you decided to end your life using whatever means are available to do so. Or are you an outsider trying to inject your religious dogma into these discussions esp regarding Euthanasia?
I’m going to assume the former that you’re one of us. So it begs the question why would you oppose Euthanasia when that would be the easiest, safest, fastest, most painless way to die and it’d be medically supervised? If you’d like to chose that route why would you deny it to others?
I read a study on poverty, the indicated that 90% of people born into poverty die in poverty, only 10% are able to escape it. Imagine being born in one of these 3rd world countries with no running water, malnourished, broke, subject to diseases, it’s not a life I’d wish on my worst enemies let alone innocent children and yet we allow this suffering to go on by the billions.
Don’t tell me you’re a sadist who loves to watch people suffer and die slowly. And if you’re not you should be 100% in support of Euthanasia for every person on Earth.
Nobody knows if there is life after death, you’ve never been there and come back, neither have I. Nothing in science says that consciousness leaves the body after death. These are only silly ideas and superstitions that were invented in the Bronze Age in a primitive, pre-scientific era. Either way, it is irrelevant. Ending suffering is a greater good for humanity than worrying about a fictitious afterlife which might or might not exist.
Don’t you think it’s a bit rich and arrogant for you to pass judgment while sitting in the comfort of your first world home with electricity, running water, a full fridge and look down on children who have no escape from their diseases and hunger and who never asked for their decrepit existence and tell them they must keep living because you think you know better?
This is not a religious debate. Regardless of what you believe in (or don’t), I’m sure we can all agree a bad life is not worth living and everyone has the right to end it because it was not something we chose for ourselves or asked for. And that Euthanasia should be universally available.
day2day, I have said this before and ask this again. How can we have more of your comments on here? I love the way you write but I am afraid of a time you will leave and never come back. I would personally like to pick your brain on a few topics.
tiredofchronicpain,
Thanks I appreciate the compliment. I’ve admired your excellent, articulate posts as well. Feel free to hit me up when I’m here or mention my name if you create a new post and I’ll reply if I’m around.
Perhaps if things improve for me in the future I might be here even more rarely but that won’t be for a while, I think. So you got me for now. 🙂
I apologize if I have been too straightforward.
This website is more useful than their collective efforts
*helpful
You’ve put a hell of a lot more thought into this than I ever have.
I’ve been through two periods of mental health assistance in my life, about twenty years ago, and more recently, this year. I walked away from therapy/therapists both times, with really very few positive results. I didn’t really have an opinion on the subject twenty years ago because I was too self medicated to care. I just kept drugging and went on with life, happy and high.
This go round, I’ve formed the opinion that, at best, mental health care is similar to SETI. The federally funded Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Until the funding is pulled completely, these scientists get to report that another day has passed with no signal from life in the far reaches of space, then return to work tomorrow to do the same thing with the same result, all the while collecting a salary and benefits. Maybe someday they’ll hear something, but it’s unlikely.
How does anyone “fix” a mind? When is a mind “fixed?” Broken legs can be fixed. Cancer can be sent into remission, at the very least, managed. Physical maladies have a higher fix rate than mental. But the mind. . . the mind is an amorphous pile of consciousness that operates within the broadest set of boundaries imaginable. You can either walk on a broken leg, or not. A fractured mind, on the other hand, can lead one to the presidency, with no outward indication of being damaged. (Wow – there’s a whole other discussion, but I digress.)
I don’t know. The way I see it, if you can make someone think they feel better, then you can claim a victory, and bill an insurance company. I know you’re speaking about suicide prevention specifically, and I’m speaking about the mental health racket as a whole, but during my most recent foray into the game, I am left with the conclusion that because there are no clear-cut definitions of when someone is better, the industry will continue to flourish, especially when a well trained professional therapists number one task is to convince client/patients that what they find insignificant is actually something that MUST BE ADDRESSED in their next session, because “today’s hour is almost up.
Preventing suicide, repairing minds, etc., is like washing a car in a rain storm. You can go through the motions, but the car will still be a mess when the bill has been paid. I suppose suicide prevention organizations primarily thrive because they put up a positive image, of caring and helping, which everyone likes. And, like the mental health racket (oops, INDUSTRY) in general, will continue to thrive as long as the human mind operates in a boundary free environment, lacking the ability to be regulated.
For additional positive images try the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention site. They have the image thing really fine tuned.
BTW, I admitted myself to a mental institution once. They had billing and groping down to a fine art I must say.
“This go round, I’ve formed the opinion that, at best, mental health care is similar to SETI. The federally funded Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Until the funding is pulled completely, these scientists get to report that another day has passed with no signal from life in the far reaches of space, then return to work tomorrow to do the same thing with the same result, all the while collecting a salary and benefits.”
What a great analogy. Just like suicide prevention funding, SETI funding relies 100% on the hope the something can be found. All the suicide prevention websites talk about research, education, awareness. Same as SETI. Research, education, awareness, powerful telescopes, teams of salaried people manning the phones/radios, but ultimately nothing changes. And yet we pour heaps of money into it thinking “tomorrow will be our lucky day”. At what point do we accept that we’re not doing it right, and we need to apply our money elsewhere? Like SETI funds could be diverted to studying the lifeforms on our own planet, communicating with them and integrating ourselves into a cooperative whole. Wouldn’t it be funny if, after billions of dollars, SETI finds the equivalent of a cockroach 10 light years away. How many zillions would we then pour into trying to learn that cockroach’s language and extending our hands in peace? –when we can’t even do it on our own damn planet?
Back to suicide, I don’t think we need to do any more expensive research. We know intuitively how to help suicidal people. Learn their language, show we care and extend our hand in peace, in a very real, tangibe, 1-on-1 way. Enough studies, being treated like a statistic never helped any of us.
Thank you day2day. It means alot to me. I love to write, learn and progress. I guess from your writing I can sense you also love good music and the good life. You might be a fan of Pink Floyd and Genesis, and or Yes. You like good wine and coffee. I might be wrong about my epiphany.
The entire world is a fucking SHAM. Every single entity is trying to sell snake oil from all directions. Its constant bombardment of fuckers trying to get money for their own greedy fucking agendas. I’m talking EVERYTHING, not just commercials and businesses. Every word that comes from anyone’s mouth is either selling something or saying it for their own fucking benefit! The fact that the helpline is useless is just par for the course. Human beings are parasites, using up all their resources and destroying everything in their paths to benefit their own selfish lives. The world would be SO much better off without us. A plague should wipe us out and leave the planet back to the animals.
@no-fate I agree 100%. Money has become more important than honesty and basic human decency and a number of other things people have abandoned in their quest for the almighty dollar.
I’ve even been guilty of it myself at times. I would gladly volunteer to be patient X for the plague that wipes out humanity.
idd. mice should take over the world. at least mice are useful and work together to help each other… humans on the other hand….???????