Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on Jun 14, 2018 21:09:34 GMT
I wish we lived in groups who had roles. People were hunters, gathers, made clothes, cooked, built shelters, lead people, etc... Same with the old Hebrew tribes and a lot of old world middle eastern tribes. This notion that we each go to school for 12 years, go to college, get a degree, begin a career, and pay bills. I hate it. You are telling an 18 year old kid to decide what he/she is going to do for the next 45 years of their life. It's really easy to take the luxuries of life in modern liberalized societies for granted. People living in those old Hebrew tribes and Old-World middle eastern tribes didn't have a lot of choices. Have you taken a look at the biblical book of Leviticus lately? Are you familiar with what happened to Malala Yousafzai? In modern liberalized societies, you can choose to marry--or not to marry. And if you do choose to marry, you yourself can choose whom you marry, rather than be forced to marry whomever your father or tribal leader chose for you. If you have married but are not fulfilled by the marriage, you can choose to divorce. You can choose to have children, or not to have children. You can choose where to live.
You won't be beaten to death for not following the rules of the caste that your parents, grandparents, great-great-great grandparents were born into.
You can choose to be a writer. An artist. A professional cook. A musician. A pastor. Work in an office. Work on a farm. Become a fisher. Join the army. Dig ditches. Drive a bus. You can choose what kind of work you do yourself, not be forced to do a particular sort of work by someone else. If you don't like the choice you have made, you can leave and do something else. You don't have to do the same kind of work for your whole life. You can try different things over your career. One of Britain's greatest actors, Glenda Jackson, left acting and served as a politician for many years. She just won a Tony award last week after returning to Broadway. Feeling hungry? Take a trip to the local market and be overwhelmed by the abundance of choices of foods. You don't have to worry about starving because the crops failed this year. Feeling bored? Bake a cake. Turn on the radio and listen to some cool music. Go to the library and choose from any of tens of thousands of books to read. Watch a movie or a tv program. Play a game. Go volunteer at a pet shelter. Argue with idiots on the web. Have a fap. If you're reading this, chances are that you don't have to worry about being sent to the frontlines in a war, or having your home destroyed by an invading army/hostile tribe. You surely don't have to worry about never seeing your family or friends again because the slaveholder has sold you away to a different master. You can choose which god to worship and how to worship. In fact, you have the freedom to not worship any god, if you do not want to. And nobody will try to murder you and your entire family because of your race or your ancestors' religion. You don't have to worry about your baby being taken from you and ritually sacrificed to appease someone else's god. www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-43928277Life today is far from perfect, but I would much rather have all these wonderful choices than be restricted to the grim options available to our ancestors. If you are unhappy with your life, CHANGE IT! YOU have the power!
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Post by goz on Jun 14, 2018 22:05:42 GMT
I wish we lived in groups who had roles. People were hunters, gathers, made clothes, cooked, built shelters, lead people, etc... Same with the old Hebrew tribes and a lot of old world middle eastern tribes. This notion that we each go to school for 12 years, go to college, get a degree, begin a career, and pay bills. I hate it. You are telling an 18 year old kid to decide what he/she is going to do for the next 45 years of their life. It's really easy to take the luxuries of life in modern liberalized societies for granted. People living in those old Hebrew tribes and Old-World middle eastern tribes didn't have a lot of choices. Have you taken a look at the biblical book of Leviticus lately? Are you familiar with what happened to Malala Yousafzai? In modern liberalized societies, you can choose to marry--or not to marry. And if you do choose to marry, you yourself can choose whom you marry, rather than be forced to marry whomever your father or tribal leader chose for you. If you have married but are not fulfilled by the marriage, you can choose to divorce. You can choose to have children, or not to have children. You can choose where to live.
You won't be beaten to death for not following the rules of the caste that your parents, grandparents, great-great-great grandparents were born into.
You can choose to be a writer. An artist. A professional cook. A musician. A pastor. Work in an office. Work on a farm. Become a fisher. Join the army. Dig ditches. Drive a bus. You can choose what kind of work you do yourself, not be forced to do a particular sort of work by someone else. If you don't like the choice you have made, you can leave and do something else. You don't have to do the same kind of work for your whole life. You can try different things over your career. One of Britain's greatest actors, Glenda Jackson, left acting and served as a politician for many years. She just won a Tony award last week after returning to Broadway. Feeling hungry? Take a trip to the local market and be overwhelmed by the abundance of choices of foods. You don't have to worry about starving because the crops failed this year. Feeling bored? Bake a cake. Turn on the radio and listen to some cool music. Go to the library and choose from any of tens of thousands of books to read. Watch a movie or a tv program. Play a game. Go volunteer at a pet shelter. Argue with idiots on the web. Have a fap. If you're reading this, chances are that you don't have to worry about being sent to the frontlines in a war, or having your home destroyed by an invading army/hostile tribe. You surely don't have to worry about never seeing your family or friends again because the slaveholder has sold you away to a different master. You can choose which god to worship and how to worship. In fact, you have the freedom to not worship any god, if you do not want to. And nobody will try to murder you and your entire family because of your race or your ancestors' religion. You don't have to worry about your baby being taken from you and ritually sacrificed to appease someone else's god. www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-43928277Life today is far from perfect, but I would much rather have all these wonderful choices than be restricted to the grim options available to our ancestors. If you are unhappy with your life, CHANGE IT! YOU have the power! Is there some mystical connection here that no-one has told me in the sixteen year I have been arguing with idiots on the internet?
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Eλευθερί
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@eleutheri
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Post by Eλευθερί on Jun 14, 2018 22:39:55 GMT
It's really easy to take the luxuries of life in modern liberalized societies for granted. People living in those old Hebrew tribes and Old-World middle eastern tribes didn't have a lot of choices. Have you taken a look at the biblical book of Leviticus lately? Are you familiar with what happened to Malala Yousafzai? In modern liberalized societies, you can choose to marry--or not to marry. And if you do choose to marry, you yourself can choose whom you marry, rather than be forced to marry whomever your father or tribal leader chose for you. If you have married but are not fulfilled by the marriage, you can choose to divorce. You can choose to have children, or not to have children. You can choose where to live. You won't be beaten to death for not following the rules of the caste that your parents, grandparents, great-great-great grandparents were born into.
You can choose to be a writer. An artist. A professional cook. A musician. A pastor. Work in an office. Work on a farm. Become a fisher. Join the army. Dig ditches. Drive a bus. You can choose what kind of work you do yourself, not be forced to do a particular sort of work by someone else. If you don't like the choice you have made, you can leave and do something else. You don't have to do the same kind of work for your whole life. You can try different things over your career. One of Britain's greatest actors, Glenda Jackson, left acting and served as a politician for many years. She just won a Tony award last week after returning to Broadway. Feeling hungry? Take a trip to the local market and be overwhelmed by the abundance of choices of foods. You don't have to worry about starving because the crops failed this year. Feeling bored? Bake a cake. Turn on the radio and listen to some cool music. Go to the library and choose from any of tens of thousands of books to read. Watch a movie or a tv program. Play a game. Go volunteer at a pet shelter. Argue with idiots on the web. Have a fap. If you're reading this, chances are that you don't have to worry about being sent to the frontlines in a war, or having your home destroyed by an invading army/hostile tribe. You surely don't have to worry about never seeing your family or friends again because the slaveholder has sold you away to a different master. You can choose which god to worship and how to worship. In fact, you have the freedom to not worship any god, if you do not want to. And nobody will try to murder you and your entire family because of your race or your ancestors' religion. You don't have to worry about your baby being taken from you and ritually sacrificed to appease someone else's god. www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-43928277Life today is far from perfect, but I would much rather have all these wonderful choices than be restricted to the grim options available to our ancestors. If you are unhappy with your life, CHANGE IT! YOU have the power! Is there some mystical connection here that no-one has told me in the sixteen year I have been arguing with idiots on the internet? ::rofl::
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2018 11:29:22 GMT
You have to go and see your doctor, that sounds like a classic depression. Your levels of serotonin might be abnormal, and to treat that you need medicine. You see, depression is not just a mentalproblem, it's also physical. And bring a friend/familymember/co-worker/etc with you to participate at the doctor, it's always good to have someone onboard, as we with depressions tend to be forgetful. They can also tell the doctor what changes they have noticed. When you are feeling better, just do it! No one is stopping you from living the life you want, but you. "Depression" is often a rational and proportionate reaction to environmental stressors, rather than just the brain starting to produce less serotonin for no reason at all; and the medicines are often only a temporary fix, if they even work at all: www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/is-everything-you-think-you-know-about-depression-wrong-johann-hari-lost-connectionsI think that our culture likes to label people who aren't happy with life as "clinically depressed", because that enables 'sane' people to pretend that life is objectively a good thing, and anyone who has any inkling that it may not be is categorically insane and irrational. So it's never the case that someone has a life that is bad, or has a rationally pessimistic disposition towards life; it's always the case that anyone who feels that way is pathologically deluded. It works as a defence mechanism.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2018 11:34:14 GMT
I think about suicide every minute of every day, but I feel more angry than sad. Angry at the fact that if I were to commit suicide, it would need to be something that I 'get away with' in secret, and I will have access only to risky and or painful methods that I can procure on my own. Nobody consented to their existence, and I think that it should be a fundamental right to be able to discontinue one's existence in the safest and easiest way possible. Otherwise there is no right to life, but an obligation to life.
If I didn't feel trapped by the laws that prohibit me the right to die, I would probably find it easier to live. A prison becomes a home when you have the key.
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Post by OldSamVimes on Jun 15, 2018 11:46:32 GMT
Truth be told, this recent event with Anthony Bourdain struck me hard.
I have been in a dark place. I can't seem to get out of this rut. I have switched jobs, and I can't get motivated to get out of bed. That new job feeling wears off after about 3-5 weeks, and I'm back to dragging myself out of bed.
Nothing makes me happy anymore. I used to love sports, now I don't really watch them. I find them arbitrary. Once I had that revelation, they feel unnecessary and fruitless.
It is as if once you think about how close death is, you start believing everything is meaningless. Social media, sports, relationships, jobs. It's like, I'm a director at a program, and I start thinking, "This is worthless, I'm going to die and so are the kids and adults I service." Who cares. If you want to do drugs, or drink, if that makes you happy, who am I to tell you you're wrong? Why do I have all the answers?
I find some comfort in Philosophy, Movies, Literature, and religion. However, it only goes so far. Then I'm back in my dark place again. It's as if once I experienced that epiphany about death, and realized I could die tomorrow, everything seems like a waste of time.
I just want to travel, experience things I've never seen before, live life to the fullest. Sitting at a desk, filing reports, doing trainings, standing in front of groups, I'm beginning to resent it. As if it's robbing me of my time, the precious time I have to do anything I wish.
I'll be 80 years old, sitting in a retirement home, being fed graham crackers and being changed 2x a day watching Jeopardy and thinking, "Well, this is it I guess. What was the point?"
You can go two ways... 1. Think about how brief life is, how pointless and meaningless it seems, see that as negative. 2. Think about what a miracle it is to be alive this moment, despite the brief nature of your being. A fireworks display is brief, pointless and meaningless.. but perhaps it's the brief, pointless and meaningless nature of fireworks that entrances people. We are fireworks for all the deities, briefly splashed across the cosmos.
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Post by yezziqa on Jun 15, 2018 12:23:11 GMT
You have to go and see your doctor, that sounds like a classic depression. Your levels of serotonin might be abnormal, and to treat that you need medicine. You see, depression is not just a mentalproblem, it's also physical. And bring a friend/familymember/co-worker/etc with you to participate at the doctor, it's always good to have someone onboard, as we with depressions tend to be forgetful. They can also tell the doctor what changes they have noticed. When you are feeling better, just do it! No one is stopping you from living the life you want, but you. "Depression" is often a rational and proportionate reaction to environmental stressors, rather than just the brain starting to produce less serotonin for no reason at all; and the medicines are often only a temporary fix, if they even work at all: www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/is-everything-you-think-you-know-about-depression-wrong-johann-hari-lost-connectionsI think that our culture likes to label people who aren't happy with life as "clinically depressed", because that enables 'sane' people to pretend that life is objectively a good thing, and anyone who has any inkling that it may not be is categorically insane and irrational. So it's never the case that someone has a life that is bad, or has a rationally pessimistic disposition towards life; it's always the case that anyone who feels that way is pathologically deluded. It works as a defence mechanism. And how is this contradictory to what I wrote?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2018 13:28:51 GMT
"Depression" is often a rational and proportionate reaction to environmental stressors, rather than just the brain starting to produce less serotonin for no reason at all; and the medicines are often only a temporary fix, if they even work at all: www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/is-everything-you-think-you-know-about-depression-wrong-johann-hari-lost-connectionsI think that our culture likes to label people who aren't happy with life as "clinically depressed", because that enables 'sane' people to pretend that life is objectively a good thing, and anyone who has any inkling that it may not be is categorically insane and irrational. So it's never the case that someone has a life that is bad, or has a rationally pessimistic disposition towards life; it's always the case that anyone who feels that way is pathologically deluded. It works as a defence mechanism. And how is this contradictory to what I wrote? You're assuming that the OP's low mood can be explained by spontaneously low serotonin which could be fixed by medication, but that is an outdated and discredited theory of what causes depression, as per the article posted.
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Post by yezziqa on Jun 15, 2018 13:43:04 GMT
And how is this contradictory to what I wrote? You're assuming that the OP's low mood can be explained by spontaneously low serotonin which could be fixed by medication, but that is an outdated and discredited theory of what causes depression, as per the article posted. What does the word "might" mean to you? I even bolded the word for you.
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Post by rachelcarson1953 on Jun 16, 2018 16:07:12 GMT
You have to go and see your doctor, that sounds like a classic depression. Your levels of serotonin might be abnormal, and to treat that you need medicine. You see, depression is not just a mentalproblem, it's also physical. And bring a friend/familymember/co-worker/etc with you to participate at the doctor, it's always good to have someone onboard, as we with depressions tend to be forgetful. They can also tell the doctor what changes they have noticed. When you are feeling better, just do it! No one is stopping you from living the life you want, but you. "Depression" is often a rational and proportionate reaction to environmental stressors, rather than just the brain starting to produce less serotonin for no reason at all; and the medicines are often only a temporary fix, if they even work at all: www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/is-everything-you-think-you-know-about-depression-wrong-johann-hari-lost-connectionsI think that our culture likes to label people who aren't happy with life as "clinically depressed", because that enables 'sane' people to pretend that life is objectively a good thing, and anyone who has any inkling that it may not be is categorically insane and irrational. So it's never the case that someone has a life that is bad, or has a rationally pessimistic disposition towards life; it's always the case that anyone who feels that way is pathologically deluded. It works as a defence mechanism. In all the years I have been on anti-depressants, my doctor has never written the words 'clinical depression' on my chart, but 'situational depression'. It started with a diagnosis of cancer at age 35, then loss of a husband, loss of a father, an ongoing stressor of having and elderly parent to care for while still working myself. Yes, I survived the cancer, but my life has hardly been considered 'easy' or 'a blast'. My life is hard, and the anti-depressants make it possible for me to function better given all the stress, but I am still rationally pessimistic. I struggle to find those moments of delight or contentment, but I do try to find them. But agreed, the meds don't put a rose-colored glow on everything.
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Post by Arlon10 on Jun 16, 2018 20:37:56 GMT
"Depression" is often a rational and proportionate reaction to environmental stressors, rather than just the brain starting to produce less serotonin for no reason at all; and the medicines are often only a temporary fix, if they even work at all: www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/is-everything-you-think-you-know-about-depression-wrong-johann-hari-lost-connectionsI think that our culture likes to label people who aren't happy with life as "clinically depressed", because that enables 'sane' people to pretend that life is objectively a good thing, and anyone who has any inkling that it may not be is categorically insane and irrational. So it's never the case that someone has a life that is bad, or has a rationally pessimistic disposition towards life; it's always the case that anyone who feels that way is pathologically deluded. It works as a defence mechanism. In all the years I have been on anti-depressants, my doctor has never written the words 'clinical depression' on my chart, but 'situational depression'. It started with a diagnosis of cancer at age 35, then loss of a husband, loss of a father, an ongoing stressor of having and elderly parent to care for while still working myself. Yes, I survived the cancer, but my life has hardly been considered 'easy' or 'a blast'. My life is hard, and the anti-depressants make it possible for me to function better given all the stress, but I am still rationally pessimistic. I struggle to find those moments of delight or contentment, but I do try to find them. But agreed, the meds don't put a rose-colored glow on everything. You can't kill Dr, Phibes. Do you know why? Because he's already dead. That was supposed to be funny and cheer you up. If it wasn't and didn't, ooh, am I embarrassed.
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Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on Jun 17, 2018 0:15:32 GMT
(1) Depression takes many different forms. It isn't a single monomorphic condition. People experience it differently. What works for some is not necessarily going to work for others. But by the same token, treatments that might not work for some might be very helpful for others. It would be incredibly irresponsible to suggest to a young person who is depressed and is considering ending his or her life that (a) deciding to end their life would be a rational choice to make and (b) seeking help from a mental health caregiver would be a waste of time because the treatments they are likely to offer usually don't work. Especially if the person has not even tried to get help from a professional yet. (2) Most responsible, experienced mental health professionals recommend antidepressant medication as just one component of therapy for life-threatening depression. In my view, it would be irresponsible to propose popping a pill as a single quick-fix that will make everything better. Just about everybody experiences depression and/or anxiety at some time or other in their lives. But few people experience depression so severe that it leads them to seriously contemplating ending their lives, or even leads them to actually attempting to end their lives. For those in the midst of suicidal depression, the processing of information is altered. Values are weighted differently than they would be by the person if she or he were not depressed. The way that judgments are made is affected. Impairment in the ability to recognize that improvements in their life are possible and that they can be happy and deserve to be happy are characteristic features of the depressed mental state. Events that the person, if she or her were not depressed, would disregard as minor inconveniences take on monumentally greater significance. Everything becomes "the worst possible," "the worst ever," and it seems to the person that nothing will ever, can ever improve. Under such circumstances, the process that someone who is seriously depressed is using to make judgments cannot be considered "rational." Now, suppose someone in the prime of life, with no significant physical or mental/emotional impairments, decides to sit down and make end-of-life plans, addressing questions such as whether he would want his organs to be donated for transplantation if he should die suddenly in a car accident, whether he would want to be kept alive on a breathing machine if he experienced a breathing disorder, and whether he would want to receive full cardiac resuscitation measures if he were to suffer a heart attack. Suppose in this process he thinks about what he would be inclined to do if at some future point he were to be diagnosed with a serious medical condition that would substantially reduce the quality of his life--such as an incurable cancer or progressive, severely disabling neurologic disease. If, in his planning, he were to decide that under such circumstances he would choose to die by suicide rather than continue to suffer, that might conceivably be a rational decision to make under those circumstances. But that is very different from the far more typical situation of a person who is in the depths of depression deciding that their life is shtty and not worth continuing. When you are that severely depressed you are not thinking rationally. And since suicide is totally irreversible, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to first see whether there are things that can be done that could improve your life situation, and, perhaps even more importantly, improve how you feel about your life even if you can't change certain aspects of it, before completely giving up?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 0:32:39 GMT
"Depression" is often a rational and proportionate reaction to environmental stressors, rather than just the brain starting to produce less serotonin for no reason at all; and the medicines are often only a temporary fix, if they even work at all: www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/07/is-everything-you-think-you-know-about-depression-wrong-johann-hari-lost-connectionsI think that our culture likes to label people who aren't happy with life as "clinically depressed", because that enables 'sane' people to pretend that life is objectively a good thing, and anyone who has any inkling that it may not be is categorically insane and irrational. So it's never the case that someone has a life that is bad, or has a rationally pessimistic disposition towards life; it's always the case that anyone who feels that way is pathologically deluded. It works as a defence mechanism. In all the years I have been on anti-depressants, my doctor has never written the words 'clinical depression' on my chart, but 'situational depression'. It started with a diagnosis of cancer at age 35, then loss of a husband, loss of a father, an ongoing stressor of having and elderly parent to care for while still working myself. Yes, I survived the cancer, but my life has hardly been considered 'easy' or 'a blast'. My life is hard, and the anti-depressants make it possible for me to function better given all the stress, but I am still rationally pessimistic. I struggle to find those moments of delight or contentment, but I do try to find them. But agreed, the meds don't put a rose-colored glow on everything. Interesting, as I didn't know that doctors diagnosed 'situational depression' distinctly from 'clinical depression'. Your low mood would be a very rational cognitive response to the repeated bouts of adversity that you have experienced in your life and your brain is responding proportionately to the nature of the forced march that you're on. It's good that your doctor recognises that fact and doesn't label you as 'clinically depressed', which can be taken to mean 'irrationally depressed'. Myself, I haven't faced many dramatic moments of adversity in my life, but I've been suicidal since my early teens. This used to be accompanied by raw feelings of despair and desperation, but the rawness of my unhappiness lifted to a great extent when I started to develop a more rational worldview, as opposed to pining for a fantasy world. That was really also the time when I started to accept suicide as a rational solution to the problems of my existence, rather than being inculcated into the human race's shared delusion that life is always objectively worth living, and that to feel otherwise is prima facie evidence of a mental defect. I've never been diagnosed with any kind of mood disorder, and my mood varies within a stable range that is somewhat on the negative side of neutral, but probably not pathologically so. I don't know how I would respond to real adversity though, and it's possible that such events in my life would be sufficient to help me overcome my cowardice and finally commit suicide; or it's possible that suicide will always be beyond my capabilities, no matter what horrors lie in wait for me.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 0:51:50 GMT
(1) Depression takes many different forms. It isn't a single monomorphic condition. People experience it differently. What works for some is not necessarily going to work for others. But by the same token, treatments that might not work for some might be very helpful for others. It would be incredibly irresponsible to suggest to a young person who is depressed and is considering ending his or her life that (a) deciding to end their life would be a rational choice to make and (b) seeking help from a mental health caregiver would be a waste of time because the treatments they are likely to offer usually don't work. Especially if the person has not even tried to get help from a professional yet. (2) Most responsible, experienced mental health professionals recommend antidepressant medication as just one component of therapy for life-threatening depression. In my view, it would be irresponsible to propose popping a pill as a single quick-fix that will make everything better.
The archetypical "young person who is depressed" deserves the right to be exposed to both sides of the argument. I wouldn't discourage such a person from speaking with a doctor or tell them that all therapeutic interventions are futile; but nor would I go with the knee jerk reaction of telling them that they didn't have any good or rational reason for feeling the way that they do, and that they must be deranged if they've entertained the idea of suicide for even 1/10000th of a second, like most people would. I wouldn't just automatically search for a suicide hotline number that I could quote to them, but I would actually allow them to talk earnestly about why they feel the way they do, without trivialising their concerns or offering them asinine and insincere assurances that "it gets better" and "suicide is never the answer". What about people who are suicidal who aren't severely depressed, though? I'm one of them, and my mood is fairly stable and operates within a range that isn't debilitating. I am capable of expounding upon reasons why I think that suicide makes the best sense for someone in my circumstances; although you'd likely summarily rebuff them by saying that life is always objectively worth living (God wouldn't have made it if it didn't get His objective and authoritative stamp of approval, rite?) and that anyone who thinks otherwise is objectively deranged according to the rules of the universe. Well the way things work at the moment, no suicidal person has a chance to candidly present their reasoning for wanting to commit suicide without being imprisoned in a mental hospital for an indefinite period of time. Our state of mind does alter the way that we weigh up our values, but values are subjective in any case, and being of a pessimistic disposition is not intrinsically irrational. A person with a negative, suicidal frame of mind may well be able to recognise that improvements in their life are very much possible, but may also realise that all that they will be doing even in the best case scenario is trying to stave off the deprivations and harms that are inherent to conscious experience, and that if they curtail their conscious experience, they will no longer have any needs or cravings which need to be satisfied, and will place themselves in an unharmed position from which they cannot lose. All you're really saying is that you have some kind of objective vantage point to be able to tell people what their setbacks and travails "mean" and how they should feel about them. Why wouldn't it be rational to opt out before the catastrophe happens? Right, so if someone doesn't agree that life means what you tell them it means, then that person ought to be locked up in a cage indefinitely and should forfeit their bodily autonomy. ::Hmm:: Suicide is irreversable, but the best evidence and logic tells us that someone who has completed suicide will never more have any desire to reverse the decision. You might say that there are many pleasurable experiences that could yet be enjoyed; but you cannot be deprived of those experiences if you don't have a consciousness. The only way that you can be deprived of those things is to continue living and remaining conscious.
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Eλευθερί
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Post by Eλευθερί on Jun 17, 2018 1:41:27 GMT
knee jerk reaction of telling them that they didn't have any good or rational reason for feeling the way that they do, and that they must be deranged if they've entertained the idea of suicide for even 1/10000th of a second, like most people would. While many people might say that, most mental health professionals would not. Well, that's the whole point of suicide hotlines, isn't it?--to provide to someone who is about to end their life, who doesn't feel there is anyone that cares about how they feel or cares to listen to them, a chance to talk earnestly about why they feel the way they do. The person on the other end of the line is someone who cares passionately about the issue and, hopefully, has had some training in how to listen nonjudgmentally and how to convey a sense of their empathy over the phone to the suicidal person. The concerns of those who are constitutionally dysthymic yet will never attempt suicide have to take a back seat to those who might actually try to end their lives at some point. If someone is chronically depressed and chooses to see being so as rational and chooses to consign him- or herself as remaining so, there's not much anybody else can do to help them. But most people who are depressed and suicidal were not always so. And when they were not so, if you were to ask them how they felt about their lives and what they felt about dying, they would say that they wanted to be happy, were willing to do things to try to be happy, and that they did not want to die. I think our first responsibility has to be to helping these people get back to being themselves. The objective vantage point takes into consideration how other people similarly situated behave and how the suicidal person him- or herself behaved when they were not suicidal and not depressed. The underlying assumption is that most people, most conscious living beings, in fact, tend to want to stay alive. That also applies to how most people who are suicidal used to feel before they became suicidal. People aren't born suicidal. And probably the majority of people who recover from depression after a failed attempt at suicide also acknowledge that their thinking and emotions during the period of suicidality were not rational or healthy. So, going by the numbers, I would say the rest of us who aren't suicidal owe it to someone who is suicidal to assume that he or she deserves to be kept from taking an irreversible step until he or she has had a reasonable chance to receive treatment for depression. If there are a handful of "rationally" suicidal people, as you insist, who will be locked up against their will and forced to undergo treatment in the process, I think that is a risk that is worth taking. It is also inhumane, and needlessly cruel, to expose vulnerable suicidal people who could very well benefit from, and eventually appreciate, an opportunity to feel better about living to the suggestion that suicidal depression can be an almost-normal sort of condition that one may rationally choose to accept for oneself.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 3:07:50 GMT
knee jerk reaction of telling them that they didn't have any good or rational reason for feeling the way that they do, and that they must be deranged if they've entertained the idea of suicide for even 1/10000th of a second, like most people would. While many people might say that, most mental health professionals would not. That's kind of the rationale for why "mental health professionals" commit their patients to an involuntary hold in a psychiatric ward, if the patient says that they have imminent plans to commit suicide. Uh....let me see...NO. You can talk earnestly, but the person on the end of the phone only has one stock answer, which is that you shouldn't kill yourself. And most suicide hotlines will sic the police on their callers as well at the drop of a hat (Samaritans being the one exception that I'm aware of). Empathy and compassion is not having a standardised answer that applies to all people, and it certainly isn't empathetic or compassionate to betray a vulnerable person's trust by calling the police on someone who already felt that they couldn't trust anyone enough to talk openly about their feelings (thus confirming that they couldn't trust anyone). The fact that someone had a different outlook on life at an earlier time, and could potentially have a changed outlook again at some future time does not warrant depriving such a person of their bodily autonomy and imprisoning them for thoughtcrimes against your pro-life philosophy. I believe that people should have the right to access whatever help they want to get through their negative frame of mind and suicidal ideation. The fact that people deserve the right to the help that they desire and feel will benefit them does not entail that nobody should ever have the right to commit suicide. Other people are other people. Having a different disposition from another person who shares similar circumstances is not a pathology, and having a more pessimistic or negative outlook in light of a change in life circumstances or access to new information is not a pathology. The general preference for remaining alive over dying is something that obtains as a consequence of evolution, it isn't objectively more rational than wishing to cease existing (and there is a good case for saying that it's actually irrational). Behaviour which demonstrates an aversion to death obtains also in animals that don't have the cognitive capacity to weigh up the benefits and debits of remaining in life; it isn't a product of reasoning, it exists because organisms which did not avoid death would not have made for successful specimens, and therefore those lineages died out. There's certainly nothing there which warrants the thoughtcrime laws that you wish to continue to see imposed on people who have decided that death would be preferable. It's fairly natural for one's sense of optimism and exuberance to fade as one ages, and as one is exposed to new life experiences and new information, so I don't see how the fact that they were previously unsuicidal is proof that the suicidal phase is always a symptom of madness. And right, it's possible to reindoctrinate people back into the cult of life, especially if they were emotionally suicidal but not intellectually and philosophically committed to suicide. And those who have 'survived' a suicide attempt would also know better than to vouchsafe that they felt that they were acting rationally when they attempted suicide, because they know that any such admission would see them incarcerated again, or at the very least would cause those around them to monitor them more closely. You don't owe it to anyone to charge them with a thoughtcrime, and if the person accepted the 'help' and still decided, after a long period of treatment and introspective reflection, that they wanted to die, then you'd seek to have them re-imprisoned, because you believe that your philosophy is objectively true. Why is it worth the risk, when a completed suicide can never result in regret or deprivation? If we were to imagine a scenario where everyone could have access to a painless and safe method of suicide, what would you be protecting people from by denying them access to this? Do you believe that there is an immaterial soul which continues on after death and then floats about the ether moping about how they had been deprived of seeing the Mets win the World Series, and all for the want of well meaning meddlers who know best infringing their liberty by imposing thoughtcrime legislation? I haven't stated that they should be denied the opportunity to accept whatever help you think should be given. I've only stated that ultimately, they should have the right to choose for themselves without interference from those who think that they know better. I also think that it would be a lot easier for people to readily accept therapeutic help if they didn't fear being imprisoned and closely monitored 'for their own good', and if the psychiatric establishment respected freedom of choice. I'm fine with you thinking that my views are "inhumane, and needlessly cruel". I think that your views are also inhumane and needlessly cruel (I'd also add in the adjectives "atavistic" and "cowardly") and contribute to the fact that many people are too afraid to speak about their problems and attempt/commit suicide in gruesome ways without ever having the chance to confide in someone else without worrying about it being used against them to curtail their liberty.
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