For example, there are probably a lot of suicidal people who never tell anyone, even including never post on the internet. They probably just stay silent, while struggling on their own (for many different reasons & factors we never really know for sure).
Some (or probably a lot) of suicidal people are probably just too tired to even say/do anything at all. Because they feel that it’s all pointless, meaningless, or hopeless.
It’s sad to think that perhaps all those numbers & statistics of “suicidal people” in the world therefore are probably HUGELY underrepresented, by any ‘mainstream’ media, articles, or even studies & researches by the so-called “experts” or “professionals” in the mental health industry, etc etc etc.
A LOT of people are probably now just struggling alone with their suicidal thoughts, without nobody knows anything at all about it. I would personally call it “the silent data”, or “the silent numbers”, which is probably a LOT.
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I too am certain it is greatly underrepresented all along the way. Ideation is kept very private, attempts are well concealed whenever possible, and even completions, because many of those are underreported as accidents.
Only after my attempt did I start finding out how many more of the people I knew had the ideation going. Before my attempt I knew about some of them having the ideation but I just thought of it as a passing thing, etc.
Underrepresented is a line of thought well worth a conversation.
Yes. This
there are also more suicides than can be accurately reported. We catch the suicides that look like suicide, but given the stigma there is substantial incentive to create a cover, IE another apparent cause of death. I think quite a bit about that accidents are such an effective smoke screen
also, addiction, it’s always trotted out as some unescapable habit formation, and I’ll buy that for many it is, but there have to be some who go in with full knowledge that they’ll burn out their stomach, heart, kidneys or liver. Again, something I dwell on, when I’m particularly angry or in pain I tend to ask people to provide me with strong narcotics…. win/win from my perspective, either I die or I get to not feel for awhile
everything said here is so true. people hide their thoughts on suicide, the media doesnt report suicides (literally the rules on ‘ethical journalism’ prohibit reporting suicides unless it’s ‘noteworthy’ whatever tf that means), and i would say most drug overdoses come from a place of suicidal intent. i’ve never met a hardcore drug user who didn’t think of suicide a lot. add it all up and i wouldnt be surprised if the actual suicide numbers are 10x higher than the statistics.
current statistics say about 1 in 10,000 die by suicide? thats bs because i’ve known 4 close friends and family who killed themselves and i sure as hell dont have 40,000 friends
If the studies are close to right, there are 500 people I am acquainted with. Four of those offed themselves. So that’s 1 in 125 during my life time. But the statisticians often like to express it in terms of ‘cides per year per 10,000 and so the number looks really puny.
But then there is this: Of those four ‘cides I knew, just two were ruled Suicide. One was ruled “Natural” after letting people know he was not long for this earth, then downing a bottle of heart medication and having the resultant heart attack. Then one was an “Accident” when he shot himself in the stomach. But because he was “not alone” (his wife was in the next room) and he left no note, it was an “Accident”.
My one person’s observation does not a statistic make, but I do wonder how many times people are having “accidents” on purpose and dying “naturally” after an overdose of prescription medicine. Dunno but I wonder.
Indeed, I’m sure suicidal ideation is very common but it’s little discussed or reported on due to the aversion people have towards thinking about death. I’ve heard it’s also still criminalized in some countries and there are religious taboos around it.
I’m sure without religion calling it a ‘sin’ more people would’ve probably ended their lives. I find that opposition to suicide by religion to be esp. revolting, since it’s forcing people to live terrible lives that normally a rational person wouldn’t put up with.
That’s not to say everyone in a bad life should just off themselves, but I believe when it comes to real freedom, it includes the choice of deciding not to live if there is no value left in life, esp. if one is suffering a lot and there’s no way out (except death).
Ofc the biggest problem is that there is no safe, medical access to self-termination (euthanasia) for millions of people, except where it’s allowed in limited ways, in mostly liberal countries like Holland and Canada.
If I learned anything in life, I think the best lesson is that virtually all human problems can be solved by openly discussing them and creating the right solutions.
Why can’t we say “if you hate life, if you want out, fine let’s make that happen. We’ll offer you the best drugs for a quick, safe, painless and easy death. Sorry your life sucked, here you go…happy trails.”
The trouble is that many people don’t want a straightforward discussion, esp. the religion nutjobs. They want to force their values and backwards ideas on everyone else and they want to prevent the rest of us from creating an easy means of ending a bad life. This is why euthanasia is not universally available, though it should be.
Once we get rid of religion, then it’ll become a lot easier to implement such things, including abortion, equality for LGBT and so on. Religion got one foot stuck in the Bronze age and the other in the modern age and they’re trying to hold us all back.