Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/05/06/how-to-commit-suicide/?utm_content=buffer7da00&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

by Killah911 • 11 years ago

251 142 11 years ago

fourhourworkweek.com

Dewie37• 11 years ago

In a tragically comic way, this was a depressing realization when I was considering blowing my head off or getting run over. Damnation! No guarantees. Death and taxes, yes, but not a breezy afterlife.

Well if the afterlife is terrible, you're going to end up there at some point anyway. So unless your religion says that suicides are punished, I don't quite see the argument.

Pascal's Wager can be used as an argument against any practice that some religion frowns upon, for that matter. If you accept his argument (I stopped doing that many years ago).

EDIT: and though we, in this realm, have no definite knowledge of what the Afterlife (if any) is, there is no guarantee in the Afterlife. So maybe you'll end up betting on Pascal's Wager through all such realities, indefinitely. And who's to say that, even if you have a wider and "higher" perspective, that you can ever be sure of the true nature of reality, and that there is nothing "above"?

o_____________o• 11 years ago

So unless your religion says that suicides are punished

Most of them do in one form or another, especially the Abrahamic tree.

Dewie37• 11 years ago

At least religions like Buddhism don't punish you for an eternal afterlife. At worst it's just "bad karma".

koonsolo• 11 years ago

It's pretty obvious why they have to: "Don't worry about your shitty life now, if you believe in my religion, you will live in paradise for eternity when you die". And then the loophole: "So if I die now, I'll be in a better place? I'm going to kill myself". "No, in that case, you will go to hell for eternity"

Inception2• 11 years ago

The argument is that a breezy afterlife is not guaranteed, so killing yourself isn't necessarily an escape from pain.

whybroke• 11 years ago

Pascal's Wager would also imply you may as well invent as many religions as you please each requiring the thing you want to do as its dogma. Since each such religion has an equal probability of being right in his formula, in this way you can quickly overcome any inconvenience an established religion presents to what it was you wanted to do.

MarkPNeyer• 11 years ago

i tried killing myself many times. every time, something would happen last minute that changed things, and then life seemed to have a different character afterwards.

i started to wonder if i actually did succeed after the first attempt in 2005, becuase life seems so different now than it was back then.

one of the things that finally stopped my suicidal ideation was the belief that i can never actually experience death. i discovered that other people with a background in physics had the same belief - quantum immortality.

http://markpneyer.me/2014/08/13/how-i-defeated-recurrent-sui...

Filligree• 11 years ago

If that really were the case, then I wouldn't be seeing your post and typing this.

You still might see me do so, of course.

murbard2• 11 years ago

Even if you cannot experience death, but you can experience a horrible near miss with massive brain damage. For quantum suicide to work, you'd want to be completely unconscious when it happens, so that you never observe any injury.

Inception2• 11 years ago

I've often wondered about this, but never knew there was a term for it.

In the past, I've been in situations that I probably shouldn't have lived to talk about and often wondered if I really did make it out alive. Or did my perception of reality diverge from the dimension I was in and continue in a dimension where I defied the odds and lived. Thinking in terms of multiverse[0].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

bayesianhorse3• 11 years ago

The point about suicidal thoughts is that the urge to have the thoughts is a symptom of a disease, a phenomenon that is occurring in your brain. And on top of the other symptoms of the disease these thoughts create their own suffering.

My advice is not to try to rationalize the urge. If you ask yourself the question "Why do I have to kill myself?" You will get answers. Bullshit answers, usually, but they don't look that irrational because of your state of mind. And a lot of the suffering is caused by these essentially fruitless discussions.

Another key point is to realize the impermanence of the mind and of the self. Though it sounds like a buddhist teaching, everyone who survived suicidal ideation knows this: You enjoy live, then you don't, then you do again.

The mind is never static. Finding that reality helps one to get a grip on the seemingly illogical phenomenon on suicidal thoughts.

Dewie37• 11 years ago

Right, I've had the experience that thoughts can deeply affect my mood and how I feel about life and myself. I wonder, though, why most people seem to simply leave it at that - "some thoughts are bad, be aware of that". Where's any kind of advice on actually dealing with this mind of ours? Sure, we have meditation and mindfulness, and at least meditation seems to be very effective for many things (I don't know enough about mindfulness). But is the mind really such a chaotic and uncontrollable beast that the only alternative is to focus/quiet it (meditation), or to symbolically shrug at the impermanence of its temperament?

We tell people to exercise if we want to get stronger, but the mind is seemingly something that we either try to repress in an unhealthy way (alcoholism and friends), just blurt out/vent whatever it has been nagging us with lately ("talking about our feelings"), or meditate/mindfulness. The last alternative seems very promising and healthy, though sorely underutilized by most people, even the "my body is my temple". But I find it strange that there aren't more alternative (and complementary) approaches that are being suggested, like trying to think more constructively ("positive thinking" being a part of this).

People who see the mind as a separate and wild beast will probably say that the mind can not be controlled. And I would be inclined to agree. But I think it can be steered to some degree, or at least nudged.

gopher22• 11 years ago

I have found basic cognitive behavioral therapy techniques like the "three column method" to be immensely helpful in dealing with negative thoughts/moods. Especially in combo with meditation. Copy of the book 'Feeling Good' is about 10$ and will teach you how to do it and give lots of good examples in different practical contexts, or just google 'triple column method cognitive therapy'.

Steps are generally: write down your automatic thoughts when you are feeling bad, identify how they are irrational or distorted, write down more accurate, balanced, realistic ones -> feeling better.

bayesianhorse3• 11 years ago

Mindfulness is not enough. For one thing, being mindful of your breathing won't help you a bit when dealing with unpleasant thoughts. But you can start to become more mindful of these thought, especially when not in a formal meditation.

The "observing" of these thoughts alone can improve the situation a lot.

Mindfulness training also improves the prefrontal cortex and thus the ability to control impulses and thoughts. The idea is to evolve the ability to choose to have a certain thought or not.

Knowing what to do is one thing, doing it is another. Meditation can immensely improve the latter!

Meditation is not a sufficient treatment for depression or suicidal thoughts, but it can help to avoid relapses, and it helps to deal with the consequences of recurring depressions.

0xdeadbeefbabe• 11 years ago

If I tried to quiet my mind or focus it during meditation I would get tense. The idea is to let it focus.

alexashka4• 11 years ago

It's a can of worms - there's this notion of freedom of religion for instance.

Anybody can think and believe any crazy idea as long as it's a fairly mainstream religion. That's our current state of affairs - we take any ideas seriously as long as many people take them seriously.

There's not much other criteria at play.

So people live with crazy incompatible ideas that keep causing internal conflict and what vague solution can you propose that'll sell? (Capitalism is the new religion, so things MUST sell :)) Right, 'mindfulness' - in other words, just don't pay attention to the internal conflicts you are continually having - they'll go away on their own.

They don't really, but we can't say ok, we have to use logic and sense to approach these things - because then archaic ideas like freedom of religion are going to fall apart.

So we are where we are, mindfulness, 'positive thinking' and other sterile methods that don't talk about the real problem - your mind is a big mess and it'll take a while to sort through it.

We as a society haven't even started - we're too busy coping with never-ending fuck-ups that stem from people in power not losing their heads for being incompetent. Of course they love it that way, they're at the top of the heap and beyond scrutiny, how convenient. Just don't get caught with hookers and blow.

smorrow• 11 years ago

No. Someone may well work out perfectly logically that there's nothing more for them to do in life. And that's their choice. You're pathologising someone just for coming to a certain conclusion.

Of course, people might also make emotion-based decisions to kill themselves, which might be a symptom of their depression or whatever, but that doesn't mean that all suicide must be a mistake. You'd kill yourself to keep the Borg or the Alien from getting you, wouldn't you?

If you're pro-choice w.r.t. abortions at all, then you should really be pro-choice w.r.t. suicide. If your logic for the first one was "it's their body, so it's their choice", you're inconsistent in your logic if you oppose the second one 100% of the time.

illogical

Given that there's no good reason to be alive in the first place, it's perfectly logical. It's only ill-logical if you assume that what's good for the (selfish) genes and what's good for the individual are the same thing, which they're not.

Just let people make their own decisions.

gohrt3• 11 years ago

You wrote "No" but did not disagree with anything parent wrote.

bayesianhorse3• 11 years ago

That's just not the reality. If you look at suicides, you pretty much always see someone who was depressed for a long time.

And that disease of depression has been studied in so immense detail, that your point of view about it is plainly wrong. The suffering is clearly immense. And it is clearly temporary for almost all patients, especially with good treatment. It can't be rational to kill yourself to avoid temporary suffering.

Of course you can construct situations where it would be more rational. But really, if someone has suicidal thoughts, the assumption that this is an irrational, "insane" idea, is pretty much a no-brainer.

NoMoreNicksLeft2• 11 years ago

The point about suicidal thoughts is that the urge to have the thoughts is a symptom of a disease,

This is wrong. Thinking of it as a "disease" is a misunderstanding, it makes it impossible to truly understand it.

Alcoholism might be a disease... excessive alcohol consumption probably doesn't have any benefits. Suicide though? It sort of does.

You see, biological organisms aren't programmed to survive... we're programmed to reproduce. And that means not just laying the eggs, but making sure that at least some of the offspring survive. So it became advantageous if a parent (or even uncle/aunt) was psychologically capable of killing themselves or letting themselves be killed.

And we're not necessarily talking about throwing yourself in front of a rabid grizzly either. There are all sorts of circumstances (killing yourself so there will be enough food for the other to survive a famine).

The psychological machinery is all there for killing yourself. Hard-wired into your brain through countless thousands of generations of people who only lived because a close relative voluntarily died.

But evolution isn't intelligent, and it goes with a "what works most of the time" method of keeping a trait or not. And this is probably cross-wired in with quite a few mental illnesses and other questionably-useful traits.

It's a malfunction of a (once in a great while) useful tool.

jessaustin• 11 years ago

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

On HN, it's anything other than the strict mental health party line on suicide. On other threads, I've seen people looking down on David Foster Wallace, as if they had a prayer of doing in their lives what he did.

I upvoted, because interesting comments on this topic are rare.

fsloth2• 11 years ago

"This is wrong. Thinking of it as a "disease" is a misunderstanding, it makes it impossible to truly understand it."

I would classify it as a medical condition since that is how the modern society can provide attention to it. If one is clinically depressed and borderline on suicide the way to get help is to seek immediate medical attention.

I'm not sure what the philosophical difference is between a "malfunction" and "disease".

lmz3• 11 years ago

This is why I never want to have kids. I deeply resent being born and being forced to outlive my parents (his point 2).

brador2• 11 years ago

Don't think of it as outliving, think of it as continuing their legacy.

_khau2• 11 years ago

This doesn't mean anything if you've decided never to have children yourself. The 'legacy' ends with you regardless.

gohrt3• 11 years ago

Kids often bring joy. Consider reaching out to kids (who are already born) and helping them enjoy their life, and brighten yours.

I don't know how old you are, but in many cases, elderly folks have time to wind down their lives in a graceful way, to the point where saying goodbye is bearable.

Obviously people can still die accidentally/early, and ultimately you'll outlive about half the people you meet, but there is a way to learn to appreciate the time you have together, and to let go when that time ends.

lmz3• 11 years ago

It's not the "getting left behind" angle that I don't like. It's the fact that I have to wait +/- 20 more years for them to die before I can FOAD because that is what society expects.

alexashka4• 11 years ago

You need a reality check - you're placing blame on outside factors (like your parents) for not being where YOU'd like to be in life.

Owning up to that is the first step toward recognizing how incompetent you are at being happy.

I used to be a moping ball of negativity myself once upon a time - it just doesn't work. Sooner or later you have to recognize that the way you are isn't working and take steps to change that.

Today sounds like a good day to start.

lmz3• 11 years ago

I don't blame them for where I am. I blame them for "I am" and being a roadblock to me getting to "I am not".

nosuchthing4• 11 years ago

It should be a liberating thought - that you've got nothing to lose, go try something exciting like

  white water kayaking, 
  hike the Pacific Crest Trail, 
  sail across the ocean, 
  challenge yourself at a sport, biking, swimming, climbing?
  take a safe amount of MDMA and go to a music festival?
  listen to some alan watts [1]
  try fresh cannabis [ideally from Washington/Colorado/California], and music

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtQf5kSHKhE

csdrane• 11 years ago

When you're feeling suicidal good luck enjoying any of those.

titanomachy• 11 years ago

Not necessarily impossible. I've been completely "distracted" out of the depths of depression, at least temporarily. Depression is a cognitive feedback loop, sometimes a major change of scenery or activity can effectively disrupt it, if you can somehow bring yourself to do it.

samatman• 11 years ago

That's the beauty of MDMA actually: there's little that suicidal ideations can do in the face of a massive flood of serotonin. It's like an antidepressant that works within an hour and lasts for about three.

It can lead to insight that produces lasting change.

Please heed this last part: if you choose to treat suicidal urges in this way, tell someone what's going on so you can have support for the following week. The crash can be dangerous to someone in an unstable place.

DanBC3• 11 years ago

From the article:

include wording like “impossible situation,” which was reflective of my thinking at the time, not objective reality.

Distorted thinking tells you that the only way to escape the impossible situation is death. If distorted thinking told people to go whitewater rafting we wouldn't have 112 Americans dying by suicide each day.

https://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures

ChrisArgyle• 11 years ago

Major depression turns life into quicksand. It seems like anything you do makes it worse so you choose to do nothing. Eventually it gets unbearable and suicide starts creeping in.

michaelochurch4• 11 years ago

I understand the sentiment but I disagree with it.

I'd stay away from the drugs, except in a monitored therapeutic context (which is probably still illegal, but may be helpful). Depression can be secondary to anxiety, and drugs can cause panic attacks. A bad trip is essentially a panic attack boosted by persistent altered consciousness. I'm not anti-drug but there are people who shouldn't use them (I'm one of them; I don't even get drunk).

Severe depression also makes it hard to do any of these things. But people don't usually commit suicide in the thick of a depression; they do it in the period of emotional volatility that tends to happen at the end of a depression. They're exhausted by having been depressed, but not depressed at the time of the event.

Anyone who is having suicidal thoughts, even if he's pretty sure he'd never act on them, should see a professional first and foremost and get the depression and, if they exist, panic issues treated. Then taking up the sports (which aren't especially dangerous; even scuba diving is safer than inactivity per minute) is a great call. Developing a meditation discipline is also a great idea.

tptacek9• 11 years ago

Also liberating in a similar sense: full-blown rabies, amoebic encephalitis, prion disease.

Potentially fatal illnesses are medical emergencies, not mood shifts or errors in judgement.

nosuchthing4• 11 years ago

Depression is an incredibly broad umbrella label for a mental condition that is nothing like rabies or traditional diseases.

Depression is a state of mind, often (but not always) induced by circumstantial situations, financial, existential, diet, stagnation/exercise... the cause of Depression for many can be resolved, with effort - and it takes a significant amount of effort for someone with depression to do things as simple and necessary and normally enjoable as eating a meal or taking a shower.

The point is, if you're going to do something as extreme as quit life, you might as well try to see if your depression may just be caused by a lack of exercise or "tunnel vision" of your perception of the world that could be drastically contrasted through experiencing therapeutic mild doses of MDMA [1][2] or cannabis or pharmaceuticals.

[1] http://www.maps.org/ [2] http://boingboing.net/2015/05/05/crowdfunding-medical-mdma-a...

iliis• 11 years ago

Some guy on Reddit swore by playing a horror game (e.g. Amnesia: The dark descent) when he's feeling down. I tried it with mixed results, but it certainly is a powerful way of feeling something strong and different. Similarly for movies, there are some powerful ones too (for example from Studio Ghibli).

But most importantly: Be with others. Family, friends, random guy in a bar, whatever. Even if it doesn't sound appealing (nothing does when you're depressed) just do it, talk to them.

When you're going trough hell, don't stop walking.

pjc50• 11 years ago

Depressive brainstate will make you think that those are unreasonably hard to achieve, and cause them to be unrewarding (except the drugs)

On a bad day people can find "go to shop and buy myself an icecream" an insurmountable challenge.

Cantremeber• 11 years ago

Can confirm. I got to the point where I stopped shower for multiple days because I thought it would take to long. I know that it should take twenty minutes top but in my mind my time estimate was closer to an hour. I literally did nothing but smoke weed and watch Netflix, nothing else was interesting enough for me to bother.

That being said, avoid weed on depression, and find dissociatives. The third person perspective on your life they provide can be a life saver. Just be careful as you can get quite intoxicated by this effect.

lfuller• 11 years ago

If you're depressed to the point of considering suicide, those things aren't exciting. Nothing is.

nosuchthing4• 11 years ago

The point is to seek out life, maybe you'll find something exciting if you try - rather than quit and throw all the untapped potentiality of your future away.

Riseed• 11 years ago

When my brain is functioning properly (according to third parties), this sounds like great advice, and I can even intend to head it next time I sink.

However, once my brain was processing my every action as futile, I was often too depressed and incapacitated to shower, or even to get up and make food when I was hungry. In that state of mind, things like kayaking and hiking were functionally impossible. Music remained, but my brain retreated to the comfort of Radiohead's "Street Spirit" or "Creep" (etc).

My point is that it's almost like being a different person. Reality is persecution, logic is warped, and intentions from good days do not always carry over.

I was fortunate to have understanding and patient friends who helped me work on this during my good days. Kayaking is still unobtainable, but now I am able to turn to, e.g., "Katamari on the Rocks"[0] for music, and Alan Watts as well. The Zen Habits reminder to breathe [1] is a permanently open tab in my "distractions" group.

As the quote from Infinite Jest says[2], the flames become terrifying. I can only speak for my own terror, but the help and support I've received have made it easier to face and combat. Long talks with friends, smiles from strangers... it has all been important. Thank you.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsB3IfttE50

[1] http://zenhabits.net/more/

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9501234

kzhahou2• 11 years ago

I know you mean well, but this is classic terrible advice, based on an incorrect understanding of depression. It's not boredom (cured by white water kayaking). It's not a lack of endorphins (stimulated by biking, etc). It's not stress (-> cannabis). It's not that one just forgot that there's good things in life, and some Alan Watts will snap you out of it.

nosuchthing4• 11 years ago

Stagnation, lack of exercise, and lots of oily/sugar/processed foods - all have a direct impact on everyone's baseline well being.

Cutting out fast food / snacks / soda (substitute fizzy mineral water), and making the effort to do fresh stir fry veggies with some ginger, spice, and coconut oil has been life changing. I no longer feel tired all the time, or get drowsiness after I eat. '

Going for a hike, or cautiously ingesting a small amount of cannabis has done as more to reinvigorate life and eradicate dismal states of despair and bleakness as I could ever imagine.

a_c_s• 11 years ago

You seem to be thinking about having "nothing to lose" as being like having a magical credit card that you never have to pay back. Since it never has to be paid back, one is now "free" to buy whatever they want. This could indeed be a liberating experience.

However, depression can manifest in feeling like the only thing that is available for purchase is nothingness. If you "know" that whatever you buy will turn out to be an box full of nothingness then having a magical credit card isn't very exciting.

throwaway8694• 11 years ago

"It was only then that I realized something: my death wasn’t just about me. It would completely destroy the lives of those I cared most about. I imagined my mom, who had no part in creating my thesis mess, suffering until her dying day, blaming herself."

I'm sorry, but that consideration just doesn't help. If the pain (or emptiness) is so strong that you just want everything to stop, this consideration is absolutely worthless and unimportant.

mikeash• 11 years ago

Different people can be helped by different things. I think it's rather odd to take something said by somebody who was in the middle of planning his own suicide, and who got stopped because a certain event made him think about something he hadn't considered, and say that thinking about this particular thing doesn't help. It helped him, therefore clearly it can help.

tptacek9• 11 years ago

You're being downvoted, but if you read advice on how to help people currently experiencing suicidal impulses, one of the first things you learn is not to try to combat them with messages of guilt or obligation.

As I understand it (surely someone on HN has more exposure to this than I do; I've lost friends, but not myself experienced the impulse):

The "do's": listen, empathize, stay calm, be hopeful in tone, vector them towards help.

The "don'ts": argue them out of it, get emotional, judge, try to fix it yourself.

michaelochurch4• 11 years ago

This is great advice. While suicide is often associated with depression, because people with major depression are often suicidal, the predominant attitude at the time is often one of unbearably intense anger or anxiety. Getting judgmental or combative is going to increase that.

Also, many suicides involve alcohol (which, in some, produces a volatile state that mixes despondency and extreme anger) and drunk people don't exactly listen to reason.

I think that it can be worthwhile to remind the person that he has friends who'll miss him, dogs to feed, etc. I don't think that laying in with guilt is the way to go. You want to give them images of the people they care about being happy, not images of them being wrecked by their own possible death.

tomjen3• 11 years ago

That depends. For some the guilt may be enough. For others it just makes them more miserable or they point out that it is not really fair that they should suffer.

My parents love me, but they never asked me if I wanted to be born. If I was in pain that couldn't be treated and it made my life not worth living I would not feel obligated to continue living for their sake.

Lawtonfogle• 11 years ago

It depends upon the person.

For some, causing pain to those close is a forcing pulling them away from doing it.

For some, it doesn't matter.

For some, causing pain only makes them want to do it more.

rip7472• 11 years ago

What about the thoughts of how much better people's lives would be without you. I've have too many nights where I've just sat there in the dark thinking how much better life would be for everyone around me if I wasn't here. I've gotten over it though medication and therapy and still chug along, cause frankly, I've got too much stuff _I_ want to accomplish before death. I guess this is why I don't have or want but a select few people that are close to me in my life.

alexashka4• 11 years ago

Stupid question - why would their life be better?

For me, most people I meet day to day, they don't even exist past our minor interactions, most of which are positive because I'm positive.

The few folks who I interact with on a regular basis - it is all positive, or else I'd stop interacting with them.

There are situations where you have to regularly interact with people who are going to be annoying (teachers in school, parents if you live at home, boss at work, etc) - you just have to learn self-defense tactics and work toward being more independent.

The people who are annoying - they are just incompetent at life. Their life sucks with me in it and with me not in it. The rest are either not affected or affected in a positive way.

So I don't know where you're at but if you're not a net positive to those around you - you have got some work to do.

icc97• 11 years ago

I think the point is that it helped him. It might not work for you in your situation but it was the major trigger that stopped him doing it.

eastbayjake• 11 years ago

In January, a student from my alma mater flew all the way across the country to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. I ended up reading a New Yorker article from 2003[1] about Golden Gate jumpers and this anecdote stopped me:

Motto had a patient who committed suicide from the Golden Gate in 1963, but the jump that affected him most occurred in the seventies. “I went to this guy’s apartment afterward with the assistant medical examiner,” he told me. “The guy was in his thirties, lived alone, pretty bare apartment. He’d written a note and left it on his bureau. It said, ‘I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.’”

He jumped. And ever since I read that, I've made it a personal mission to smile at everyone I pass on the sidewalk every day. Not only does suicide have unknowable impacts on all of the people around you, but even your most insignificant actions could have an enormous impact on the people around you. Be good to others -- you never know how much it might mean to them.

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/10/13/jumpers

gheiou• 11 years ago

I knew her--the days after her suicide were pretty surreal, because I always needed to ask my self if I had just been a little more hospitable or a little nicer that one time, could it have made a difference?

How we act matters.

tptacek9• 11 years ago

How we act matters, but we are not as a rule inadvertently responsible for the serious medical conditions of others. Suicide isn't a disease of affection deficiency.

It should help to know that reaching the state of being one smile away from suicide implies a profoundly severe illness; the problem wasn't smiles, it was the way we route the ill to the mental health resources they need.

hga• 11 years ago

Not necessarily. Because of cognitive distortions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion) it's entirely possible people smiled at this person and they didn't realize it, or accept it.

That said, I've never seen any harm in being generally nice and hospitable, and it can do more than a little good.

Dewie37• 11 years ago

That's a nice gesture and sentiment. But this kind of thinking would be a ridiculous way to live. A smile towards someone can be interpreted as you laughing at them, which wouldn't help someone who felt bad about themselves. Yes, you've got to consider this possibility if you accept that train of thought. There are simply too many variables and the state of people's mind is too complex to ever hope to save people from going over the edge by such small gestures and actions, or to avoid sending them over the edge by some totally innocuous and well-meant action.

gohrt3• 11 years ago

One specific thing you can do, that is rather unlikely to counterintuitively backfire like many ideas, is to simply make plans with some to meet and talk/eat/play with no pressure.

Having something planned -- an easy commitment, but not a heavy intimidating responsibility -- gives people a sense of purpose to move foward through their day/week/month, buying time for luck and expert assistance to come together.

This in addition to steering toward professional help.

rcpt• 11 years ago

The best quote on this topic that I know of is terrifying:

The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.

-David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

AceJohnny2• 11 years ago

He would know, he ended up committing suicide after spending most of his life battling depression :(

jacques_chester2• 11 years ago

I've been suicidally depressed.

It was never the balance of fears.

It was pure exhaustion.

As time goes on, the doorways in your life seem to close and the only one left is marked "stop". Everything else is just ... ugh ... so tiring.

This feeling is an illusion. It's not real. But depression is a disease that attacks the mechanism that enables you to understand the world.

throwaway234567• 11 years ago

I've been depressed recently -- maybe not suicidally depressed, but depressed enough to think about it a lot* -- and for me it's absolutely a balance of fears. The weights of past regrets and past failures, the fear of facing them, the fear of future failure (I'm co-founding a slowly failing startup now), the fear of disappointing or alienating loved ones -- they all gang up and become completely overwhelming. The passage above captures it pretty well, though I haven't ever gotten to the extreme it's describing.

Exercise and sleep help.

*I have enough people who love me and depend on me that I know I'll never act on it, but it has become something I fantasize about probably a couple times a day, and many times more on bad days.

coldtea6• 11 years ago

The problem is that the flames are real and unavoidable, while the metaphorical flames of those commiting suicide could be some BS easily overcome and forgotten later, like the bad grades in TFA (a lot of the people commiting suicide do it starting with similar BS reasons, not because they are "medically depressed").

Besides, Wallace wouldn't be the best advisor on the matter.

Mz• 11 years ago

I'm someone who does not appear to be biologically predisposed to depression. I have attempted suicide (at age 17), I have been hospitalized for being suicidal (in my twenties) and I do still sometimes become suddenly suicidal.

I have a medical condition that sometimes suddenly and dramatically negatively impacts my brain chemistry. I also have a great many very serious problems that are hard to overcome. They aren't "easily overcome BS."

For some people, the metaphorical flames are a very serious matter. Not everyone has a cushy life where a bad grade is their biggest fear.

munificent• 11 years ago

Wow, this is a truly breathtaking lack of empathy.

a3n4• 11 years ago

You may believe this. I may misunderstand you.

But statements like this are one of the reasons people are reluctant to get help. My problem is bullshit. I'm weak. What will people think?

Regardless of whether the "reasons" or problems are real (to you) or imagined bullshit, people do kill themselves over it.

Don't perpetuate an environment that discourages people from getting help. They're already not thinking rationally.

Which do you think will produce more survivors and thrivers:

"You're problems are probably bullshit."

"You should talk to a professional."

Let the professional decide if it's bullshit or not, and lead the person to the right treatment.

EDIT: removed swearing.

throwaway1584586• 11 years ago

I think you misapprehend the situation. Based on my experience with suicidality, the "BS" isn't what actually prompts the suicidal thoughts. Rather, it's post-hoc rationalization for the irrational feeling of having no future worth experiencing. In a broader sense, this is something that people do all the time: we experience an emotion, then try to explain it after-the-fact. Our brains are incredibly adept at inventing "reasons" for experiences and sensations that ultimately stem from bizarre defects of biology and other caprices of circumstance. The mythologies associated with sleep paralysis (the hag, incubi/succubi, alien abduction) are perhaps the most vivid examples of this phenomenon.

jd3• 11 years ago

The fact that DFW killed himself makes this quote all the more haunting.

pronoiac• 11 years ago

There is help; here are some resources on suicide and depression, including hotlines around the world.

http://mefiwiki.com/wiki/ThereIsHelp

Disclosure: I run the server.

stegosaurus• 11 years ago

Foreword: I do not believe I have ever been in a mental state that could be considered as 'depression'.

That said, I have experienced times in my life that have made me realise that the common views (e.g. you are free to do anything now; it will get better; etc) are false. They all stem from the idea that the individual is selfish.

The worst times I've had in my life were the times in which I tried really hard to be virtuous, to care, to right wrongs.

When I want more than just to 'succeed'. More than just to fix my life. My life is fine!

Bureaucracy, for example. 'Company policy'. It makes me angry and feel as if millions of humans have lost the ability to feel empathy, have been turned into robots. It's not about the fact I can't return a broken lightbulb; I don't give a toss about the 1 GBP. It's about the knowledge that most people don't care about right and wrong. Most people will obey the rules, they will do what authority says, they will take the path of least resistance.

Politics. My country treats the poor as subhuman whilst praising the rich. It fawns over 'merit'; which is really just random chance.

I could go on... basically, what happens when you realise that you're playing a rigged game? It doesn't matter if you win or lose. You can run away and hide. Or you can fight, all the while knowing that your attempts almost certain to be futile.

Once the box is open it never closes. I cope by employing nihilism, but the triggers are everywhere. Every 'intellectual discussion' about the merits of Red vs Blue, about the latest plan to Lock People In A Box for performing something mundane like shuffling some bits around.

And all around, the advice is to take drugs. Think differently. 'Come to terms with it'. Counselling... I don't want that shit. I want a city, a country, a world that treats its citizens well. If not as equals, at least as more than dogs.

guard-of-terra• 11 years ago

My thoughts exactly. At times I actually feel guilty for not killing myself because I therefore submit myself to unfair terms, which is worse than death. If our world is not fixable, we can not lead it to the state we might like, why pretend?

ldarcyftw• 11 years ago

You can't depend on outside world's behavior. You simply can't . It's just outside of your control so there is no point to worry about it.

seiji• 11 years ago

Actual practical thoughts: https://web.archive.org/web/20130721062525/http://suicidesca...

ahruygt• 11 years ago

I have to commend Tim Ferris for speaking out about this. He's worked his brand to the point of steel- making it sometimes hard to see him as a normal human being. I am a fan of his tip and tricks, but I really appreciate that he was vulnerable here in order to start this discussion.

beloch• 11 years ago

For those experiencing everything from mild depression to strong suicidal thoughts, I'd recommend the combination of cognitive behavioural therapy, if you can afford a therapist, and this book:

"Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" by David Burns.

Depression and suicidal thoughts are often rooted in twisted, invalid logic that we don't recognize as such. For example, say that a stranger unexpectedly smiles at you. It would be logical to smile back, and perhaps even strike up a conversation to ask why they're smiling at you. The reasons are probably good. Maybe they're attracted to you. Maybe they just randomly thought of something funny. The risks of speaking to that person are minimal. A twisted, illogical reaction that many of us naturally have is to assume the person is smiling at our expense and that there's something we don't know. We fear what the person will do or say if we do anything to acknowledge their smile. Instead of smiling back, we retreat inwards, wondering what's wrong with us, why we're so pathetic, anti-social, etc.. Two people can experience the same event in wildly differing ways because of how they process them. For someone who is depressed, events that should be good can easily add to their problems.

Cognitive behavioural therapy focuses on catching those thoughts, identifying them as illogical, and deliberately countering them until the thought pattern in a given circumstance becomes naturally logical. In the situation above, you would need to recognize that you're assuming a lot about what the other person is thinking, recognize that the worst that can happen from striking up a conversation or just smiling back is not very bad, and that the potential gains could be very good. I had a fairly low opinion of most psychology until I came across this. It's actually helpful.

gopher22• 11 years ago

Seconded. I'm very grateful for this book.

ebbv• 11 years ago

This article does a great job of highlighting why I can't stand Tim Ferris. Even when talking about such an important, sensitive and terrible subject he can't stop himself from constantly hyping himself up. Every other sentence is still about how great he is, about how he's constantly talking to celebrities, etc. Awful.

stephenitis• 11 years ago

So what... Better he not be happy about who he is and his accomplishments? I don't think that this suicide post was a big humble brag... it was to address to his own readership a serious issue in his own light. The more role models that follow this line of thinking to their own audiences the less suicides and more awareness there might be as a whole.

I applaud founders/engineers/leaders who speak transparently on the topic. shout out to Kyle at Keen.io for his very personal post in reaction to brad feld's own https://medium.com/@dorkitude/entrepreneurship-and-depressio...

http://www.feld.com/archives/2014/10/founder-suicides.html

downandout2• 11 years ago

I once had someone I looked up to and admired very much tell me that if he had gone through some of the things I had, that he would have committed suicide. Shortly after he said that, he effectively stole nearly $13M from me. I sometimes wonder if he did it thinking that it would make things so much worse for me that I actually would commit suicide (because that's what he would have done), and I wouldn't be around to fight him for it.

You can't let bad experiences, bad people, and just plain bad luck make you start thinking about suicide. The reality is that most people that consider suicide don't do it. However, merely entertaining suicidal thoughts can be a caustic force in your life, as these thoughts affect every aspect of your life, and more importantly, hinder your ability to move on from the situation that caused the thoughts in the first place.

When your life crumbles, chances are it wasn't built on a strong foundation to begin with. As long as you're still breathing, you have an opportunity to rebuild it.

madamepsychosis• 11 years ago

Something I think could help people in these situations but doesn't have much popular support - over-the-counter antidepressants.

It's telling that the author was able to check out a book on suicide, but didn't seek medical help. That would require a) getting past the stigma of suffering from depression b) calling up a doctor or therapist c) suffering through the long mental health wait times that exist in most countries, d) being sent to a CBT therapist, given a self-help book or website e) being referred to a psychiatrist f) finally being prescribed something.

It can be months before a depressed person gets any kind of treatment at all. And they are the last people to have the energy it takes to navigate a byzantine healthcare system, or have a friend or family member help them (many people still believe depression is a character weakness and will punish the patient for speaking out).

Antidepressants aren't all that dangerous, even when compared to other over-the-counter drugs like Plan B. They're not happy pills, they often won't even make a miserable life bearable, but they do give the patient enough energy to deal with his/her problems. Given the number of lives lost to suicide, and the high disease burden of depression, I think the safety tradeoff is absolutely worth it.

I'm aware this comment is going to attract a lot of ill-will and uninformed comments about anti-depressant efficacy/ woo about happy pills etc. so I direct you to read this FAQ first. https://medical.mit.edu/faqs/antidepressants

Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide

Related Stories