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Important rules
A full detailed explanation of each rule can be found here.

1) Personal information is NOT allowed, whatsoever. If there is any post offering a full name, an address, a specific location or a time and date for committing an act, it will be removed immediately.

2) No posting or requesting 'amateur' pictures or videos of suicidal acts, or any graphic content for the most part. Documentaries or news videos will be allowed, but web-cam captures and home videos of suicide attempts will not. Text-posts will be judged by the content, please don't get more gory than what is required to get your point across.

3) Posts requesting and/or discussing the physical act of committing suicide and methods for doing so are not allowed and will be removed. As well, any direct links to websites that offer suicide kits will be removed. Finally, invites and/or requests for suicide pacts are not allowed and will be removed. Other subreddits have been removed for publicly discussing this, and we don't want that happening here. There are external sources on the internet for such things.

4) Posts inciting violence will be removed. This includes posts encouraging others to commit suicide.

5) Spam will be removed. Threads can be considered spam if:

    There is no easily identifiable link between the post's content and the theme of suicide & motivations for suicide, and there is no relevant question posed.

    There are over three "self-posts" with all text created by a user in a 24 hour period. (Self posts that offer discussion of a related link provided in the self-post do not apply to this limit)

    The text is copied directly from another source and pasted without any additional information or invitation for discussion.

If actively suicidal

If you are going through an acutely difficult time in your life right now, please call our official hotline, Samaritans UK, at +44 808 164 0123. This is a free call worldwide through Skype and unless you give them your exact address, they have no means of dispatching police to you.

If you would rather type, r/SuicideWatch is a great place to get through short bouts of active suicidality. r/SanctionedSuicide is geared more towards long-term, rational suicide and may well push those who are only temporarily suicidal over the edge.
Subreddit overview

Now that that's all said and done, welcome to /r/SanctionedSuicide! As noted in the description, this subreddit is designed to allow casual discussion of suicide from the cognitive perspective of suicidal people, as well as the discussion of the moral implications of the act itself. The subreddit is intended to be based in philosophy and discussion, but please feel free to post rants or links to any articles you find pertinent to the discussion.

If you do NOT believe that the right to die is an inherent right and would like to discuss it with people, please refrain from using the age old responses of, "There's so much to live for!" or "You're being selfish!" or "Have you tried not being a pessimist?" If these are your go-to thoughts about all suicidal people, you clearly don't understand. Suffice it to say, none of those three stereotypical responses mean anything to the users in this subreddit.

For the most part, the intended user base will be people who have accepted suicide as their inevitable end from a lifetime of thinking, be it from depression, nihilistic views, or anything else.

As well, if you have friends/family who you believe are suicidal, feel free to talk about them here; our users may be able to help you gain a greater insight into their minds.
Related subreddits

If you are planning to leave this existence behind you and would like to immortalize your last words, they have a safe home at r/SuicideNotes.

If you would like to discuss suicide from a scientific standpoint, and understand the neurological/psychological work that's going into preventing suicide, please visit r/Suicidology.

If you would like to discuss the legalization of suicide from a political perspective, please visit r/SuicideLaws.

If you believe that life itself holds negative value, and reproducing is in itself a wrong act, please visit r/Antinatalism.

If you find you dislike most humans/humanity itself, please visit r/Misanthropy.

If you would like to discuss freedom of choice about mental health care and right to die, please visit r/PsychiatricFreedom.
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A Question from a Psychologist (self.SanctionedSuicide)

submitted 2 years ago * by itstopsykretz

Hey r/SanctionedSuicide,

I'm here as someone who's curious about the possible underlying or overlooked effects this forum has on people suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts.

A bit about me: I personally have suffered from manic-depressive bipolar disorder since about the age of 10; I also attempted to commit suicide at age 16. I went to therapy for about a year after that and decided in that time that I want to become a psychologist, now more specifically involving experimental research psychology.

Upon hearing about this subreddit in an article online, I started to think about possible implications of a group people can reach out to that more-or-less promotes suicide to those who are "rational" in their decision to do so. It worries me that this could allow the subreddit to become an enabler for those with suicidal thoughts and deter them from seeking professional help. As someone who's been through the system and now works hand-in-hand with therapists, I think it's important that whether or not you believe in assisted suicide or things of the sort that you consult someone on the possible causes for why you're feeling the way you are, especially if it could mean resolution of those feelings.

As an advocate for depression and suicide prevention and awareness, I do commend you for attempting to make suicide a more approachable issue and get people to talk about it in an open community forum free of judgement. I just want to make sure that people use that forum to not affirm their own ideas and fall victim to confirmation bias, but to use this as a medium to come to the root of their problems and make a well-informed decisions as to how to handle the way they are feeling.

Please let me know what you all think of this, I would love to hear your responses and how you feel this subreddit effects it's users. Ifinformation is fruitful enough, I may even be able to write a case study on this group and expand your resources and outreach capabilities.

Have a great day and thank you for taking the time to parse my thoughts.

Regards, TK

Edit: I've replied to as many comments as I can and will continue to do so, have learned a ton about this subreddit and believe you make a lot of very valuable points. As to prevent continual repeats, I'd advice reading my comment replies before posting your own responses so I can address new topics more easily. Thanks!

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 52 points53 points54 points 2 years ago* (31 children)

Problem is money. And the world is a mess. And people have health problems.

Professionals can't help you with money. Or health. And they can't fix your relationships. It's luck of the draw the world you're born into and the genes you get.

Depression is just a bullshit label given to everything to explain away the fact that life is fucking hard and we have created the most unequal, competitive, feudal society in human history. And the environment is fucked. Every day, 30,000 children starve to death and millions of animals are tortured in a brutal industry that is killing the population with obesity and cancer while filling the earth with garbage. Millions of animals are tortured and eaten. People die in stupid accidents. And all people care about is fucking making MONEY so they can get a mortgage (to avoid being a slave to their feudal overlord) and have babies because they can't control their animal instincts even when their relationships are a disaster or they are incapable of raising healthy children. Everything is about money. And countless millions are slaves in pointless jobs they hate that enrich others while destroying the planet, because we all gotta eat and scrabble to the death for resources, even though the Sun bombards us with eye-popping amounts of energy every minute. The world is absurd, overpopulated and the modern world is not fit for human habitation. It doesn't take a genius to work out why people are getting ill. We don't need psychiatrists and their snake oil bullcrap.

Do something about those, then come back.

Seriously, don't patronize us with this "please seek professional help" tripe. We've heard it all before. In the words of Christopher Hitchens: it's bullshit; don't waste my time. Professionals can't do jack shit to answer most of the real-life or existential problems people face. Only talk and take money.

The end.

PS this is not directed at you personally, just so you know.

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[–]immortality1 11 points12 points13 points 2 years ago (0 children)

10/10 post. You just articulated my entire brain in a better way then i could have ever imagined

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[–]willyoubethere 2 points3 points4 points 2 years ago (0 children)

Couldn't agree more to what you have written. Incredibly accurate.

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[–]sancs_throwaway 1 point2 points3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

People don't just care about money - I'd say that pretty far down the line. You are massively simplifying the complicated spectrum of human emotions and motivation.

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago* (0 children)

As in, I don't mean most people are obsessed with money, because only a few are like that. But simply that money is the primary motivator and focus of most people's lives, because it has to be.

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[+]itstopsykretz[S] comment score below threshold-12 points-11 points-10 points 2 years ago (26 children)

Psychologists were never meant to fix your problems. All psychology was ever meant to do was give people the tools to handle the stresses in their life better. I can't fix your relationships, sign your paychecks, or give you a brand new set of loving parents that'll coddle you through life. What psychologists can do is help you learn to see signs of dysfunctional relationships and how to get out of them or work to fix them yourselves. We can help you overcome your anxiety and feeling of being "stuck" in your life so you can pursue new education or a new career. We can help you learn to realize that your relationship with your parents or the community you were born into does not define you and you can develop beyond it.

Frankly, you have a fairly distorted view on the world as a whole. Yeah, the world sucks. It's horrible. That doesn't mean the majority of horrible things effect your ability to live a stable, productive life that could potentially make a difference. That being said, you don't need to by any means. It should be your right not to be forced into living, but that doesn't make it any more selfish and horrible than any of the other things happening in our world. The world is bigger than all of us, I've dealt with the shit of the world too and seen some horrible things happen in across the globe in my lifetime, but that doesn't mean I stop living because of the atrocities, now I live to help prevent them in my own way. You don't have to, but please at least acknowledge the people that do.

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[–]exzact 17 points18 points19 points 2 years ago (15 children)

Frankly, you have a fairly distorted view on the world as a whole.

Bitch please, there ain't NOTHING man just said that's distorted. Just because you're so used to people focusing on the positive of the world doesn't mean that when people admit the negative that it's somehow distorted. It's an easy thing to say to discredit everything else he says, though. Clever, I'll give you that.

It should be your right not to be forced into living, but that doesn't make it any more selfish and horrible than any of the other things happening in our world.

Are you saying our being forced into living is selfish, or that suicide is selfish?

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[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 2 years ago (14 children)

Isn't suicide selfish? You're doing it for yourself mainly. You may have a justification for it but that doesn't make it not selfish. I mean it's certainly not selfless in most cases.

I'm killing myself for me, fuck everybody else. It's selfish, yeah, but that's the least of my worries.

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[–]exzact 3 points4 points5 points 2 years ago (9 children)

It is only as selfish as others asking one to live so that they don't have to experience one's dying.

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[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 2 years ago (8 children)

Eh, there's definitely some selflessness to suicide prevention. Sure, some people are doing it for their own peace of mind, but some just want to help others any way they can.

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[–]exzact 2 points3 points4 points 2 years ago* (7 children)

If we're talking about a suicide hotline, then maaayyybbe. But family members stopping you? After you've explained to them best you can your rational reasoning for no longer wanting to live? Pfft, ain't nothing selfless about that.

Which, I mean, hey, that's fine. They're emotionally invested in you. They're not perfect. We're programmed to be uncomfortable with death; I'm not blaming them. But let's call it like it is, eh?

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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (6 children)

Well now we're making assumptions about a hypothetical suicidal person and their hypothetical family lol, unless you're talking about yourself. A lot of suicidal people probably don't have a sit down talk with others about their 'rational reasoning for suicide,' and who's to say that the reasoning is rational at all? Their reason could be crazy nonsense. It could be over a problem that'll blow over with a bit of time. Maybe a simple misunderstanding.

There are lots of selfless reasons for relatives to help out a suicidal family member. A sense of responsibility. Genuine desire to see that person happy. It's not easy to reach out and help somebody like that, it takes someone who cares.

Then there are people who just don't wanna lose their loved ones, like you said. It's selfish, but perfectly understandable in the same way the suicidal person's actions are understandable. They all just don't wanna suffer.

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[–]exzact 2 points3 points4 points 2 years ago (5 children)

I think you're being perhaps a bit too academic here.

Of course there are stupid reasons for suicide, but as a general rule on this forum, we talk about rational suicide. Because if every. single. posting. on this subreddit had to clarify that we're not talking about little 14-year-old Lucy Loo who is heartbroken about her first boyfriend having just been seen with 15-year-old Sally See and swallows half a bottle of Tylenol to send out a message, we'd get absolutely nowhere on here.

So, yes, in such an instance I would absolutely wish for Lucy Loo's father to step in and take away the Tylenol. In that instance, it's all the very least neutral, and possibly even closer to selfless on the spectrum.

But the rest of us on the forum? The ones of us who have spent years making sure that there's no alternative for us, the ones who have spent countless days researching methods to make sure it's most painless for both us and those who find us, the ones who try to reach out to our family to give them a heads-up so we can go out on good terms? Puh-leeze, if you're trying to tell me that the mother of one of them calls 112 to stop their daughter's suicide truly and only out of respect for the daughter and her best interests rather than her own self-interests, well then you're just delusional and I'm not sure how much good can come from this debate.

In short, after a certain number of years of explaining how very much X is what I want and will make me happy, if someone stops me from doing X, it can only be out of selfish reasons. Plain and simple.

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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (4 children)

"The ones of us who have spent years making sure that there's no alternative for us, the ones who have spent countless days researching methods to make sure it's most painless for both us and those who find us, the ones who try to reach out to our family to give them a heads-up so we can go out on good terms?"

Okay, if we take your specific assumptions about a sucidal person's circumstances to be "the general rule of the forum" then we can discuss from there. (I mean I haven't done most of these things, and I imagine its the same for a lot of people here.)

Even still, trying to prevent that kind of suicide doesn't have to be out of self interest at all. Could just be a difference in morals or perspective. Some believe that suicide is inherently wrong, and so they're trying to do the right thing for the sake of goodness. You might think that's stupid, but it's not selfish. Some believe that their role is to help you struggle through your problems, in the hope that things get better for you. Tough love in a way. Maybe stupid/misguided help to some, but not selfish.

"Puh-leeze, if you're trying to tell me that the mother of one of them calls 112 to stop their daughter's suicide truly and only out of respect for the daughter and her best interests rather than her own self-interests, well then you're just delusional and I'm not sure how much good can come from this debate."

But you've already decided that I'm wrong here so yeah, not much point in debating. Your impression of a sassy black woman has been entertaining though :P (And if that's who you are irl, then good job making me accurately imagine you over the internet :P)

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I actually agree that suicide is selfish, in a strict sense. As in, it is about acting in self-interest. And yes, it is almost always not selfless. But, virtually every other thing we do in life falls into that category too. As an easy target, having children is a prime example of that. How many women were not guilty of having babies partly or largely out of selfish motives for their own gratification and enjoyment? Look at the lengths some people will go to just to conceive, to avoid having to adopt one of the millions of unwanted orphans. Look at the circumstances of so many people's births, born into environments that were far from ideal if the interests of the future human were the primary concern and not the interests and desires of the parents at the time.

I'm killing myself for me, fuck everybody else. It's selfish, yeah, but that's the least of my worries.

But you lost me here, I'm afraid. This is not how it works, at all. At least in my case. This is what the average idiot in the mainstream population thinks, that we're all selfish bastards who just hang ourselves on a whim because no one listens to us or something. Do you have any idea how much consideration I have given to the devastation it would cause my family and those who know me if I eventually do kill myself? How many nights I have cried myself to sleep because I know the only thing standing in my way of exiting this suffering life is what it will do to others? It's not some fucking childish tantrum for god's sake. Do you think we want to kill ourselves to get back at someone or make others suffer or something? It's because we can't bear life in this world. Don't you think, if there was a way to avoid suffering for others, that most of us wouldn't fucking take it? I find this sort of oversimplified, flippant attitude deeply hurtful to be honest.

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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

About the first point, yeah we're in agreement. Selfishness is a motivation behind many actions, including suicide. The whole conversation about suicide being selfish is just a way to try and get suicidal people to think twice.

"But you lost me here, I'm afraid."

I was talking about me as an example, and I thought that was pretty clear based on the pronoun usage. Don't know why you're talking as if I was accusing you of something. I don't care about my family. Don't have friends and don't want any. PEOPLE DRIVE ME FUCKING NUTS. I consider myself a pretty selfish individual with many significant flaws, which you'd expect considering I want to murder myself. It'd be a god damn miracle if I could work up the nerve and willpower to actually go through with it though, let alone take anyone else into consideration.

I mean I do feel empathy for people and I'd hurt people by killing myself. It sucks. But I've already accepted what a terrible person I am and god damn sometimes I get angry enough not give a single shit.

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

I read your first comment as if it had speech marks. And I'm in a pissed mood tonight.

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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (0 children)

I can relate! :P

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[–][deleted] 12 points13 points14 points 2 years ago* (0 children)

Your first paragraph is only relevant if the person wants to be helped. I, for one, am currently seeing a psychologist who is extraordinarily helpful, and as I said, I'd wholeheartedly support anyone who was being helped by being in therapy and wanted (as I do) to keep living. That does not change my desire to have control over my own death. Nor does "making a difference", or the ability/capacity to do so, take away anyone's autonomy in the matter of their own death.

"The world sucks" and "Things may get irreparably worse and not become appreciably better" aren't distorted views to have, and even if they were, it's up to the person who has them to decide whether or not to keep living; it doesn't fall to you, me, your mother, the checkout guy, Alan Joyce, the APA or anyone else to interfere with or restrict the right to suicide in any way.

It should be your right not to be forced into living, but that doesn't make it any more selfish and horrible than any of the other things happening in our world.

Thanks for acknowledging that. Many of us here recognise the harm that suicide might do to families, bystanders and those who are inadvertently killed as a result of our suicides. This is why the legalisation of 'suicide on demand' at rtd clinics and Nembutal is so important, because the number of people killed by people jumping off buildings and landing on them, or traumatised train drivers as a result of suicide, will be reduced greatly.

now I live to help prevent them in my own way. You don't have to, but please at least acknowledge the people that do.

Good for you. I mean that sincerely, and I'm not anti-psych in general. But there are, as you say, some people that don't wish to be helped and/or that have endured decades in therapy without result, and having no legal, safe and painless recourse has made them bitter. I am sorry you're getting such a beating in this sub.

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[–]deadman5551 5 points6 points7 points 2 years ago (0 children)

It's funny, I considered becoming a clinical psychologist for a short time before I realized the same thing you said in your first paragraph. A psychologist is basically just a bouncing board that helps you focus on the things that are screwing up your life and help you recognize what your options are for fixing said things. Arguably that's the most efficient way to fix the world; teach a man to fish and all that.

Unfortunately that hero-complex is ironically what ended up making me wholly apathetic about humanity. No matter how well you show your competence or how perfectly you can give an outline to someone for how to fix their life, the majority of people just seem utterly incapable of applying such knowledge without long-term, consistent prodding. It made me feel like people don't actually want to fix their problems because it gives them some weird sense of individuality or something.

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 5 points6 points7 points 2 years ago* (0 children)

so you can pursue new education or a new career.

This is exactly what I hate about the world.

The struggle for money. The idea that there are good jobs and shit jobs, and success is all about striving to "better ourselves" so we don't end up like those losers stuck in their dead-end, low-paid jobs.

We're all thrown in a pit at birth. And it's apparently up to us to study the "right" course, or get the "right" bullshit career so we can drag ourselves out of the mud, or we risk being labelled lazy, pathetic, unambitious. Personally, I've tried all that, and I can't be fucked. I am not beyond redemption. I may yet find a "career" I enjoy. But currently I can't be fucked.

Frankly, you have a fairly distorted view on the world as a whole.

I am interested in what areas you feel my thinking is distorted. Please could you explain. Thanks.

but please at least acknowledge the people that do.

I do not have a problem with people trying to make the world a better place and help others. I encourage you to do this. However, I am simply frustrated by people claiming to offer help to alleviate a person's suffering, who later turn out to not have the means to do so.

dysfunctional relationships and how to get out of them

There are some relationships we cannot get out of so easily, like family relationships. It is luck of the draw who we are born with and who comes our way. All we can do is reach a detente, or limit contact, but it may never be possible to have the healthy relationship we desire. Even breaking off so-called "toxic" friendships is not as simple as all the positivity bloggers make out. Severing ties with a person is extremely painful for both parties, and modern communication makes it even harder to drift away from people and start afresh.

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[–]sancs_throwaway -2 points-1 points0 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Itstopsykretz, you have come to the wrong place if you are looking for a rational discussion on suicide and the world we live in. You might find a few people capable of a reasonable discussion but not many. This is a pro-suicide board masquerading as a pro-choice board.

Your comment was well articulated and meaningful and it gets downvoted. The rambling comment you were responding to, which seems to advocate some nihilistic, antinatalist envirosocialist worldview, gets upvoted. You're wasting your time.

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[–][deleted] 3 points4 points5 points 2 years ago (0 children)

I agree with you to some extent. Yeah, if you question the idea that suicide can be a good thing, or at least a 'rational option', then the sub will come down on you like a ton of bricks. This sub is in direct opposition to the mainstream notion of suicide prevention. On the other hand, if someone comes on here and wants to talk about how they overcame their problems, how they want to find help, etc. then they'll be encouraged and cheered on. I think people here are just tired of being called crazy for feeling the way that they do.

"You're wasting your time."

Someone in his line of work with his experience probably doesn't feel that way. Suicidal people can be bonkers. Angry, hateful, guilty, and any other flaw you can come up with. If he's to help anyone then he has to deal with "rambling" people and their feelings.

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[–]thr0w1tallaway -1 points0 points1 point 2 years ago (0 children)

Whether we are capable of reasonable discussion is up for debate.

The pro-suicide/pro-choice point I would probably agree with.

Envirosocialist is a new expression on me, but I'll take it. I wasn't always so nihilistic by the way. Rambling? Meh, I write a lot of crap. Sometimes people say it's insightful and well-structured. Other times it's rambling or distorted. All sounds the same to me. (It's always good to get out for a hike in the woods every now and then anyway.)

Meh, I didn't ask for the upvotes. Blame everyone else.

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[–][deleted] -2 points-1 points0 points 2 years ago (0 children)

This is a pro-suicide board masquerading as a pro-choice board.

This is so obviously not the case that you can't not be retarded to think that. You're masquerading as someone capable of reasonable discussion while being a complete dimwit.

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[–][deleted] 24 points25 points26 points 2 years ago (1 child)

Your life is ultimately your decision. Not everyone is interested in being talked out of suicide even if it were possible. I have no particular desire to seek out psychological help at this point. I used to lurk pretty hard here and I didn't really ever see many people discourage others from seeking help.

Also, I think the last thing this sub needs is mainstream attention.

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] -2 points-1 points0 points 2 years ago (0 children)

I agree it's an individual's decision, but I still think external perspective helps at least make more informed decisions.

I definitely don't think there should be more involvement by the mainstream, honestly just one thread like this where people can ask and answer questions would be the only way to have an effective interaction with the mainstream, but it would help you guys if your ideas were shown to more people so they know it exists and can consider their merit.

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[–][deleted] 2 years ago (1 child)

[deleted]

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points14 points 2 years ago (0 children)

Agreed. This is an outlet for me, among other things. It's a sort of beacon of people who've got the right idea in an otherwise deluded world. Talking about suicide helps, to some extent.

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[–]space_au 21 points22 points23 points 2 years ago (0 children)

Upon hearing about this subreddit in an article online, I started to think about possible implications of a group people can reach out to that more-or-less promotes suicide to those who are "rational" in their decision to do so.

Suicide is not promoted here. This is a pro-choice sub.

I am greatly thankful to this subreddit and the people here. Talking to people here has been cathartic and therapeutic for me.

Talking to people outside this subreddit had the opposite effect. Which is understandable as most people cannot relate to the ideas and opinions discussed here . The moment you start talking to people about the deeper issues of life and whether life is worth living or not, their defense mechanisms activate resulting in the end of the conversation. Which is fine. If you are having a wonderful dream ( which most people are ), why mess with it ?

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[–][deleted] 16 points17 points18 points 2 years ago* (0 children)

I would never, ever discourage someone from seeking help if they felt they needed it. If anything, I'd be happy for them. I hope most people here feel the same.

I agree that parts of reddit - /r/depression and this place - are down on psychology as a whole. And yes, that stopped me from getting help at first. But I think that's either because they themselves haven't had any help from years, even decades, of therapy, or (more pertinently for this sub) because of the vehemently anti-choice mentality displayed by the psychiatric industry as a whole. Indeed, several here are currently seeing a therapist.

No one here is against treatment for others, no one is pro-suicide. All of us believe that suicide is ultimately the decision of the person involved, that it's a human right, and that legal, safe, accessible and painless is the name of the game. That, I think, is not too much to ask for. Whether it'll be granted is quite another issue, and that is partly what gets a lot of people's blood boiling.

I doubt a study will accomplish anything unless it shows an extreme openness to pro-choice ideas - among them, that not all suicide is due to 'mental illness'. Anything that sets up suicide as anything other than a right and a personal choice from the outset will do more harm than good.

Thanks.

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[–]CaptainFUp 14 points15 points16 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

No one here promotes suicide, our lives have all driven each and every one of us to the simple conclusion that suicide is the only real permanent way to make the pain stop.

I've sought professional help many times, seen countless doctors and psychologist but they can't help. They can't change the fact that I am forced to live when I stopped wanting to live 12 years ago. Can you even understand that? That someone doesn't even WANT to live? Not because of my current circumstances, my circumstances are currently the best they have ever been, but because I just don't want to exist.

Of course just like any shrink you parrot the idea that someone who wants to die just isn't thinking logically and needs to be shown the "truth". You also believe that people here haven't ever tried getting "help" before but maybe people on this subreddit are here because they can't ever talk to a fucking shrink about suicide without getting locked up.

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] 1 point2 points3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

I don't think it's not logical, it's certianly a rationalization that can be deemed understandable in a number of situations. I'm actually moreso into the promotion of talking about these ideas more openly without having to worry about getting "locked up." There are a number of concerns on both side of this issue that have merit and I personally think it's help the masses understand your side more if they saw some of the points you've all shown me on this thread.

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[–]drudgelmir 5 points6 points7 points 2 years ago (0 children)

It's perfectly logical.

If you're doing something that causes pain, the logical and rational answer is to stop doing that thing.

If however you are self-harming with a view to relieve some stress/frustration then that too is logical but may seem irrational.

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[–]imnotplayinggoddeath is silence 12 points13 points14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

The difficulty I have is that some of us have tried help, and we find that it hasn't helped us at all. Some of us have physical problems for which there is no cure. Others have existential reasons for not valuing life. Our reasons are multifaceted, they can't be reduced to the way psychologists and psychiatrists see it. (Suicide = caused by mental illness = irrational = justified to intervene coercively, which is by the way a very weak chain of logic IMHO).

Myself, I find that I have very little respect for psychology and psychiatry, because of the usage of coercion when it comes to treating the 'mentally ill' (I hate that term but I won't go into it). I have no problem with anyone seeing a therapist or taking a medication so long as there is consent involved, but in my view, the edifice of psychiatry is based on coercion. That coercion in turn corners us - can't talk about suicide openly because of the genuine fear of being locked away and forcibly medicated, so where else do we have left?

The whole of society tries to talk us out of suicide, and even prevent suicide using coercion (something i feel very strongly is morally incorrect, it's my damn life, I'll do as I please). Any confirmation bias is towards the 'live at all costs' mentality, because you've got the whole of society on one side of the case, and this little subreddit on the other. The whole of society is a life is great circlejerk, at least when it comes to suicidal people.

Of course people who dissent from this view are going to be funneled into the very small number of places where they are actually accepted for daring to dissent from this circlejerk. Can't we just have one little tiny place where we're allowed to discuss how we feel without immediately being told how selfish, cowardly, immoral and irrational we are?

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] 3 points4 points5 points 2 years ago (0 children)

I can completely appreciate that and I agree that this place is a huge help to talk without fear of judgement, it's part of the reason why I chose to make my own post here and don't intrude on other conversations because I fear my bias could be harmful to the productive discussion taking place. I personally just wish this conversation could happen more openly where the masses could not be so judgemental but we could have an objective talk about suicide and the stigma attached to it.

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[–][deleted] 2 years ago (2 children)

[deleted]

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

yep this is for people who are at the very end of the line. They've taken the meds, they've talked it out endlessly with 'professionals' and yes, they know there are people out there who care about them.

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[–][deleted] 3 points4 points5 points 2 years ago (0 children)

I would add the caveat that only some people here have "tried it all". Others don't want to, and some (such as myself) have only just begun to.

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[–]Planetof12 8 points9 points10 points 2 years ago (7 children)

I'm actually glad you posted this.

We need dialogue with the world outside. You see, assisted suicide is a fundamental right. We do not choose to live, so we should at least be given the choice of dying painlessly. How rational or irrational suicide, whether or not there are better options DOESN'T MATTER.

People aren't morally obliged to choose better. A person should be able to choose shitty beer over craft ones. A person should be able to choose isolation. No matter how harmful these things are, we must not prevent the person from doing if it's their wishes. You can argue against suicide, but the right to die is different.

You're a psychologist and I want to believe you care about others. You CANNOT have dialogue with suicidal people unless you respect their right to die. Until you respect a person's decision to die, you are hostile. Look at the aggressive responses here. The fact suicide is vilified and demonized is what drives us here, is part of the reason we want to die in the first place.

You need to change your whole mindset. Suicide isn't bad at all. It's merely a person rejecting a life they didn't ask for in the first place. A person only needs help if they don't really want to die. Some suicidal people want to live but can't find a way out of their situation. Others just want to die. The greatest help you can give someone is helping them understand what they want. However, never make the choice for them.

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] 6 points7 points8 points 2 years ago (6 children)

I entirely agree, after conversing with more than a few of you guys I actually think I'm coming up with some proposals which may be feasible for groups such as this to pursue to enact the right to life and it's counterpart. Psychologists should never make life choices for others, but what we do is try and show people why they believe certain things and see if we can provide any resources to help resolve their issues.

One way I was thinking of approaching this is to recommend you treat this topic like people treat abortion, which may possibly grant you access to similar rights. If you're not familiar with the practices, there are conditions which any woman can get an abortion if she meets a certian criteria, but there are also cases where they are not eligible (mainly due to how far along the pregnancy is). They need to be of sound mind to make the choice and I think you could argue a similar practice could be help for assisted suicide.

How this could potentially work is people come into the clinic, fill out the necissary paper work, and get a mental health evaluation to show they are of sound mind when making this decision. There would then have to be a waiting period of about 2-4 weeks where there would be a follow up evaluation, with the procedure taking place very closely to the final evaluation. Expect it to be very hard to do, especially at first, but it'd be a major step for your position.

I certainly have no right to force someone to live their life the way I do mine, and I can most certainly advise a thousand other alternatives to suicide, but if someone comes to that conclusion in sound mind and makes sure all things are taken care of before hand as to not leave any children or dependants without care, then I don't believe this position should be any different than signing a DNR. I will most certainly never stop trying to prevent people from getting to the point they consider suicide or trying to persuade those who've already made up their mind to change it, but it's not my life and I can only do so much.

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[–]Planetof12 4 points5 points6 points 2 years ago (0 children)

I'm glad you're understanding us better now. We do hold similar ideas about euthanasia, but a few more questions: - What is a 'sound mind'? Is a person who has mental illness not qualified for euthanasia? That's odd, because it's these mentally ill people who need euthanasia the most. No one should be forced to live with their mental illness or the memory of it. A person should be free to choose to die because of their mental illness. - In the end of the waiting period (Which I think should exist, because suicide is the last decision you'll make. A small waiting period would allow the person to make sure they really want it) who gets to decide? The psychologist or the person? It's important to always keep the decision in the person's hand. The evaluation shouldn't be used to withhold euthanasia. The evaluation should help the person understand themselves better. - People who have others depending on them like children/elderly should also have euthanasia available, but first they must solve that problem. They shouldn't be allowed euthanasia unless there's a new caretaker.

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[–]AnthonyRosario 3 points4 points5 points 2 years ago (0 children)

One way I was thinking of approaching this is to recommend you treat this topic like people treat abortion, which may possibly grant you access to similar rights.

Fun Fact: a few generations ago, abortions were also considered to be derived from 'mental illness' (see how subjective psychiatry can be?).

My hope would be that if suicide were openly discussed without fear of aggression, it would enable people to have these discussions BEFORE teetering on the edge of the abyss. Sort of a way to tap-out before you start to blackout. I'd argue to say that if more people realized just how fragile life is and how and the impact they can have on each other, fewer would actually mourn the dead but would instead take advantage of every moment with the living (or maybe readily available suicide options would simply make people care less about the living?).

For those who have experienced it, feeling suicidal with no outlet can feel like you're burning alive on the inside or drowning. And as one person pointed out, if you begin discussing suicide openly, you can and often times are forcibly committed. It's one of the reasons why it unofficially goes without saying, "keep this shit to yourself" or "never call a suicide hotline" or "always be behind a proxy/vpn/tor if you do."

Some people who have had the opportunity to explore suicide and have gone to the edge of the abyss and stared deep into it have also been able to catch their second wind. For one, life's hard, but so is killing yourself. If you want to do it right that is. There's the research, planning, choosing a method, dry runs, choosing a time-frame, mentally overcoming the survival instinct etc..

It all really boils down to personal choice and the freedom to choose.

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] 3 points4 points5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

That being said, it should be expected that people close out ties in their own life before being able to commit suicide. One of the biggest burdons is on families paying for both burials and such along with any existing debt. It would most likely need to be required that people pay for these in full or have a payment plan set up with a family member in order to appropriately "close out ties" the individual would have left in the world. It wouldn't be a comfortable process but it would give people who truly want to end their life the means to do so painlessly and effectively.

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[–]Planetof12 1 point2 points3 points 2 years ago (0 children)

I agree. One of the reasons I advocate for AS is because it makes it so much easier. A person can sort out their life before dying, get ready for a funeral, make sure the people they're caretaking (Elderly/children) have a new person. AS would allow suicide to not be a suckerpuch, but an event we can prepare for. Isn't it much better this way? Both parties benefit.

Also, the body can be used to donate organs! A person who doesn't want to live can have his body used for a person who DOES want to!

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[–]humanbeingthrowaway 2 points3 points4 points 2 years ago (0 children)

uhhh....but who decides who is of sound mind?

if a person is not judged of sound mind, do they immediately get locked up?

i suck at tests, especially when i'm nervous

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 2 points3 points4 points 2 years ago (0 children)

get a mental health evaluation to show they are of sound mind when making this decision

The problem being that given the mental health system, by definition virtually anyone who has reached the point of being suicidal would be deemed as "not of sound mind". Which is what we currently have, in that only people suffering from terminal illness are apparently "sane" enough to justify wanting to die. Every other reason makes you crazy.

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[–]drudgelmir 4 points5 points6 points 2 years ago (0 children)

Hey r/SanctionedSuicide,

I'm here as someone who's curious about the possible underlying or overlooked effects this forum has on people suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts.

A bit about me: I personally have suffered from manic-depressive bipolar disorder since about the age of 10; I also attempted to commit suicide at age 16. I went to therapy for about a year after that and decided in that time that I want to become a psychologist, now more specifically involving experimental research psychology.

Isn't manic depression and bi-polar the samething?

Upon hearing about this subreddit in an article online, I started to think about possible implications of a group people can reach out to that more-or-less promotes suicide to those who are "rational" in their decision to do so. It worries me that this could allow the subreddit to become an enabler for those with suicidal thoughts and deter them from seeking professional help

As someone who had haf professional help I do not believe this would deter me from seeking it

As someone who's been through the system and now works hand-in-hand with therapists, I think it's important that whether or not you believe in assisted suicide or things of the sort that you consult someone on the possible causes for why you're feeling the way you are, especially if it could mean resolution of those feelings.

I cannot disagree with this, tuough who you consult matters greatly

As an advocate for depression and suicide prevention and awareness, I do commend you for attempting to make suicide a more approachable issue and get people to talk about it in an open community forum free of judgement. I just want to make sure that people use that forum to not affirm their own ideas and fall victim to confirmation bias, but to use this as a medium to come to the root of their problems and make a well-informed decisions as to how to handle the way they are feeling.

Those who feel this way are likely to find this subreddit, they've probably already come to the ideas themselves

Please let me know what you all think of this, I would love to hear your responses and how you feel this subreddit effects it's users. Ifinformation is fruitful enough, I may even be able to write a case study on this group and expand your resources and outreach capabilities.

Done, I guess

Have a great day and thank you for taking the time to parse my thoughts.

Uh, you're welcome

Regards, TK

More people should say regards.

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[–]Notsane1 3 points4 points5 points 2 years ago (0 children)

What if the person's root problem is that they are sick of life. There are many different reasons a person may have to kill themselves. Some good or bad but that's subjective. At the end, no one alive knows what happens after you die, period. As long as there's doubt you can never have a definitively good reason to live.

As for myself I am dealing with some physical chronic pain. But overall I just don't like the society that we all live in. Nothing in it entirely makes sense to me. I currently live life as more of a spectator and as a result the crappy parts of life cannot be ignored. Everyone else that is happy to live are just distracted by the few pleasures. They don't want to admit how crappy life is for most people. At the end of the day you have to be a bit selfish to live a fun and fulfilling life. Resources are not unlimited. Most of the time in order for a person to be more happy or accomplished, lots more people needs to fail.

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[–]AnthonyRosario 3 points4 points5 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

This is actually a very good thread/read. Would be great to get more upvotes on it. I don't think I've seen this many different users on one thread before.

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 1 point2 points3 points 2 years ago (0 children)

Controversy stirs up emotion which makes for riveting debate.

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[–]exzact 8 points9 points10 points 2 years ago* (7 children)

I know that people are trying to seem all welcoming and courteous about your presence here, but I'm gonna be honest: I do not welcome you here.

This is our safe space, and you are an intruder. Female rape survivors have their own male-free spaces. People of colour have their own support groups to deal with their realities. All we have is this right here, and here you are, trying to better understand us, yes, but in the same way that one looks into a monkey enclosure at the zoo to get into the mind of the primates. This is necessarily, because of society's understanding of us, an exchange between two parties of unequal power.

Our entire lives are spent protecting ourselves from you and your profession—excuse my French, but how the FUCK could we NOT have a bit of an anti-psych bias when you lot help to create a culture where honesty elicits fear rather than understanding? And here you are, you kind, caring psycho-saviour, coming to grace us with your willingness to try to see things our way… no, that's bullshit, that's what it is. You're, fuckedupidly, in a position of power, and that we should be made to explain our reasoning to you is just bullshit, too. It's like when white people think they have the right to ask #BlackLivesMatter activists to help them better understand the movement. Fuck that! You're the one doing the oppressing. It's not our fucking job to convince you that we're worth not oppressing, it's on you to justify the oppression. The only reason it's not like that is because society evolved that way.

This isn't to say that I'm wholly opposed to dialogue between our people and yours, just that this unilateral intrusion into our safe space is sort of ironic given that the psych profession is so big elsewhere on creating them.

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] 3 points4 points5 points 2 years ago (6 children)

I completely understand your concern with someone outside of this community coming in and attempting to understand your cause more through dialogue, but if you don't talk to others, than how do you expect to expand so this becomes more widely recognized? I'm a full supporter of open dialogue about suicide but that needs to be a conversation where all parties get an equal amount of representation, including the larger ones. Whites have full right to ask and try to understand black lives matter campaigns without ridicule be ause without understanding of all sides of an issue, no progress can be made. The same goes for here. If people don't see your position and understand why it exists, there is no reason for them to change their own way of thinking.

Honestly, psychologists have a very miniscule role in comparison to the media and other entities in the formation of our societal norms and understandings. We have a huge stigma attached to our practices because people don't have a solid understanding of what we do and why we do it.

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[–]imnotplayinggoddeath is silence 10 points11 points12 points 2 years ago (4 children)

"We have a huge stigma attached to our practices because people don't have a solid understanding of what we do and why we do it."

Personally, I disagree, I feel like psychiatry has had a big influence on how we perceive the world, even if it's through the dripfeed of the media. It's widely accepted, for example, that suicide is down to 'mental illness' which is something that can be prevented by just going 'to see a therapist' etc. It's widely accepted that taking pills to help with a mental condition is good and anyone who doesn't want to take them or is uncomfortable with the idea of doping themselves is considered to be a crackpot Scientologist or something. I agree that the media is not always 100% right or oversimplifies things, but really the idea that (almost) all suicide is down to mental illness therefore its invalid and irrational is what psychiatry actually believes, not a misrepresentation.

Psychiatry as an institution has immense power in my opinion, the power to justify human rights abuses (locking up, forced treatments) in the name of medicine, and this is fully accepted by the media, the courts, the MPs, etc. Even politicians who are recognized as having dissenting views from the mainstream don't recognize this issue. Psychiatry is the hegemonic perspective. The human rights abuse is very rarely questioned, and also even more rarely questioned by anyone who has not personally experienced the horrors of the system. And of course the psychiatric institutions dismiss anyone who questions this forced treatment who has been within the system as 'mad' insane' 'not able to make decisions for themselves' so we can dismiss everything they say.

Psychiatry has the power of 'naming', the power of being able to call the individual 'suicide risk', 'schizophrenic', etc. and then on that basis, do whatever they like to them. This is about as moral as the US gov't calling a random dark-skinned person an 'Islamic terrorist' and then locking them up and torturing them in Gitmo. Psychiatry, at a bare minimum, through this power, has the second face of power, the 'non-decision making power', that is, "Non-decision-making power is that which sets the agenda in debates and makes certain issues (e.g., the merits of socialism in the United States) unacceptable for discussion in "legitimate" public forums." (from the Wikipedia page on Steven Lukes)

TLDR: You have massive, massive power, and you don't realize it.

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] 1 point2 points3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I entirely agree to an extent. Catagorization is probably our biggest power, but it has a weird quirk about it. We name what the actual disorders are and we change the definitions every 5-10 years to ensure clarity and to keep up with current findings. The media, then, goes and picks out what they find to be most interesting and expoits it (see ADD/ADHD Epidemic, early 2000's). The problem is the media places HARD judgement in those with mental disorder where we see that almost EVERY SINGLE PERSON has some mental disorder. They shouldn't have the stigma they do, and a lot of people in psychology are working to end the stigma! You can actually look up lots of activist groups for the issue. The media also doesn't change their opinions when we recategorize or redefine a disorder and leaves the public with wrong impressions and makes them believe we have archaic, out of date practices.Yes, some people are deemed mentally instable or a danger to themselves or others and need to be monitored but most cases are temporary and very short lived (suicidal having a standard containment time of 4 days to 2 weeks depending on nature of the issue). We have some power in our words, but like always in politics, they can most definitely be twisted to fit the political agenda.

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[–]imnotplayinggoddeath is silence 5 points6 points7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

While there is stigma against people like us, I am coming to see the term 'mentally ill' an almost a stigma in itself, as the term 'mentally ill' reduces the individual into a 'sick' person/object who is 'wrong' and needs to be acted upon/'fixed' by psychiatric intervention. The psychiatrist becomes the subject, the 'sick' person the object. If I was being really cynical, I would argue that psychiatry wants to end the stigma for its own benefit, because it means that more people are likely to approach 'mental health' 'services' if there is no stigma to it. I'm sure some do have honest intentions, but it seems pointless so long as they condone forced medical treatment, I cannot see them as people who are really caring about or empathizing with us.

I think the main judgement against the 'mentally ill' in society is not really in the media, but in aspects like employment prospects, like, if you admit that you've been in contact with such 'mental health' 'services' nobody's going to employ you. I mainly find the media condescending rather than negatively judgmental per se, 'oh what a shame X committed suicide, please go phone the Samaritans blah blah blah' (just to clarify, it's not the concept of suicide hotlines per se I have a problem with (so long as they don't involve forced psychiatry), after all no-one is forcing someone to phone, I just hate the blithe 'go phone a hotline' as if it will magically solve all your problems.)

The constant re-categorization of 'illnesses' in the DSM is more likely to make me doubt the whole enterprise than anything else. In the past, women were diagnosed with 'hysteria', homosexuality was a mental 'disorder' (and one of the people I most admire, Alan Turing, fell victim to this), etc. The criteria for determining what is a 'mental illness' seem arbitrary, and many things could be said to not be a mental illness even though painful (for example, grief is not a 'mental illness', it's a normal human reaction, yet it's similar to 'depression' etc, doesn't this suggest that 'depression' is a normal human response to circumstance and not something to be written off as 'sickness', as calling it 'sickness' implies people don't have legitimate reasons to feel that way). I know science evolves in response to new evidence, but the 'evidence' that homosexuality was an 'illness' and the evidence that it wasn't seem more to me about changing social mores. Also, if every single person (or almost) is to some degree 'mentally ill', doesn't it make more sense to dispense with the concept of 'mental illness' altogether, because if the 'normal' state is to be ill, that's just normal rather than sickness. Like, say for arguments' sake, the vast majority had Asperger's (assuming that's a coherent concept for argument's sake rather than going off on a tangent), Asperger's would be the normal state and 'normal' people would be the 'disabled' state. It's arbitrary.

And to me, sectioning is wrong, no matter how short lived it is, I know you said you didn't like Szasz but he summed it up when he said "From a civil rights viewpoint, depriving a person of liberty because he might commit an act in the future is anathema. Doing so because he might commit an act that is not a crime is an outrageous injustice." (http://www.szasz.com/freeman1.html). I don't feel there's much else to be said in many ways, if we agree with individual liberty and autonomy, suicide is part of the deal. Also, if I was sectioned and forcibly drugged, I can safely say that the trauma from that event would hasten and ensure my suicide, because atm there's a slim chance that I might change my mind, but if I suffer another traumatic event in my life, I'm done.

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (0 children)

Yes x 3.

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 2 points3 points4 points 2 years ago* (0 children)

we see that almost EVERY SINGLE PERSON has some mental disorder

And there's your problem right there. I really don't want to be involved with a system that chooses to pathologize the entire human race for simply being alive. You can choose to label every human behavior, belief and function as a disorder if you like, but I would rather be left out of it, thanks.

a lot of people in psychology are working to end the stigma!

No. You're working to end the very stigma that you yourselves (or your profession) created by your diagnoses which, once labelled on a person, can never be removed. This is the irony. How do you get undiagnosed? I don't want some retarded anti-stigma campaign. I don't have time to wait 50 years for society to catch up the way it has has taken that long to go from actually locking up gay people to just ripping the piss out of them every day. I just fucking want my life back so I don't have to fight the stigma in the first place. 100 years ago I could have lived my life free of any labels and been treated like every other fucking member of society with the same opportunities. Now I am a fucking leper. I don't need anti-stigma. I need to have not been branded in the first place. Does a criminal need society to become less prejudiced towards them? Yes. But would they have preferred to never have spent time in jail in the first place? Difference is, I didn't commit a fucking crime, other than to be "ill".

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[–]exzact 1 point2 points3 points 2 years ago (0 children)

What a fuckin' joke.

Whites have full right to ask and try to understand black lives matter campaigns without ridicule because without understanding of all sides of an issue, no progress can be made. The same goes for here.

This is a question of privilege, not ridicule. You don't see it, but I don't blame you, because how could you? You are in a position of power and privilege. You can walk into a congregation of suicide pro-choicers and expect to be heard out because you know that we are so desperate for recognition and validation, the very thought of getting heard out by a real-life shrink gets our mouths watering. For us, though, it's not like we could demand audience from a group of psychologists to communicate our beliefs in the same way. In real life, and online. You come onto this subreddit, and we bow down and worship you like Jesus himself. But the second we wanna express our beliefs on /r/SuicideWatch? Pfft, like that shit would fly. In short, file under: You don't know what you don't know.

What you say:

Honestly, psychologists have a very miniscule role in comparison to the media and other entities in the formation of our societal norms and understandings. We have a huge stigma attached to our practices because people don't have a solid understanding of what we do and why we do it.

What we hear:

I'm faultless because I'm equally oppressed. I contribute nothing the problem and am unable to be part of the solution.

Ugh. It's fucking frustrating even having to type this. This is emotionally exhausting, like every minute of the day I spend off the subreddit. You really have invaded our space, pal.

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[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

:(

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (0 children)

I'm personally not a fan of Szasz, mostly because his writings are dated in the essence that psychology and society as a whole has changed a tremendous amount since his works were published, especially "The Myth of Mental Illness." Even in the last 15 years there have been countless changes in our view on suicide and mental illness, it's extremely volatile right now. I may check it out though, could be an interesting read.

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] 4 points5 points6 points 2 years ago (16 children)

Thanks for the responses guys, I definitely see the role this sub-reddit has for you guys and there are definitely unarguable benificial aspects to this type of open discussion. I'm gonna keep lurking and see what the environment is like, while not overarching I still feel there is a bit of an anti-psych bias among pro-choice for suicide communities as well as some misunderstand of what depression really is. Glad to see this is such a thorough and thoughtful community!

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[–]t4taylor 10 points11 points12 points 2 years ago (8 children)

I still feel there is a bit of an anti-psych bias among pro-choice for suicide communities

There are some people here that are completely against any kind of therapy or medication.

However, I would say that the position of most people here is the same as my position: that is, therapy and medication can and do work, and that they can be helpful to some people. However, I (and others) feel that therapy and medication don't really change the reality of the world in any way, they just try to change how a person feels about it using either psychological tricks or chemical agents.

Sometimes, these approaches can be valid (for example, when someone has a truly delusional view of the world). However, I don't believe that it is a delusion to think that the world is, in many cases, a truly terrible place. We're born without our consent, forced to work tedious, stressful jobs until our bodies and minds start to give out, and then we die - and none of it has any real meaning or purpose.

You may find these posts useful in trying to understand the mindset of many people here:

On the tedious pointlessness of life:

https://redd.it/45of7w

Are therapy and medication just self-delusion and chemically-induced mental anesthesia? (by me)

https://redd.it/43bq56

I'd be interested to know what your thoughts are on these matters.

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] 4 points5 points6 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Actually, you'll be happy to hear on one account you're wrong. As of recent updates to the DSM, it is almost universally believed that those suffering from depression are actually viewed as more objective and realistic in their views on life, not delusional.

In terms of tediousness, and this is not a professional opinion but one I hold myself; I think that life, in itself, is meaningless. Tiny quarks moving in just the right way to create beings that can percieve the world around them. What is amazing is the cognition we have because of those things occuring. Life only had meaning because we are here to percieve it an create one. No one can force you to do anything; one of the key components to the diagnosis of depression is actually a feeling that you don't have control over your life. If you disregard the consequences, you can literally do anything (more or less). Nothing. Beside social constraints and my own concern for my family is keeping me from saving up some cash, taking a flight to Wyoming, and becoming a rancher. Yes, there are obstacles, but almost any obstacle can be overcome if you don't get stuck in the mindset that there is nothing you can do about it.

As for the legitimacy of therapy and medication, you have to understand that all "normal" people have what I'd certainly consider delusions. Everyone tricks themselves into thinking the world is great and just. Personally, I have no problem with any outlook on life, my job is to just make sure that your mental processes are not interfering with your ability to live a stable life. A mental disorder needs to be 3 things: Deviant (from local cultural norms), Distress (from the patient's perspective), and Dysfunctionality (cannot live a productive life). Therapy isn't meant to change the actual circumstances of your life, it's meant to change how you handle the stresses that be in order to allow you to make changes that will improve your quality of life.

I hope I explained those two well, I would be happy to answer further questions on my personal thoughts on the matter.

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[–]moralmisanthrope 8 points9 points10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This is one of the most horrific things I have read in recent memory. Why is deviant from local cultural norms a category of evidence for a so called "mental disorder"? To me that just smacks of inherent judgement with an aim of enforcing conformity. Some of us have enough insight into human history to realize that "local cultural norms" are fundamentally arbitrary and subjective. Furthermore the local cultural norms of modern Western society are rife with systemic cruelties and inequalities. Realizing this, looking at ones own culture and actively deciding not to agree or participate in such norms is not evidence of a "mental disorder."

Second is "distress." The presence of distress is not important but rather the reasons behind it. Why is everything. It is not and should not be used as a category for a "mental disorder." There is no limit to the variety or amount of different things a human life can experience that can legitimately cause one distress. This thread alone has numerous examples.

And third dysfunctionality or productivity. Who defines functional? Or productive? Why is productivity a valid category to judge a "mental disorder" on in the first place? As others have stated in this thread, I and many others look at the current societal economic system as pointless, horrifically unequal and broken. Deciding that one doesn't want to "be a productive member of society" in the sense of working a meaningless, stressful and quite possibly boring job for 50 years for the reward of just continuing to exist is NOT a sign of a "mental disorder."

The entire basis of judging "mental disorder" or "mental illness" on behavioral traits is inherently problematic and dangerous. It leads to inherent judgement and a constant attack on the acceptable kinds of self. It is an assault on the diversity of human experience. A difference of opinion becomes a mental disorder. Becomes labeling. Othering.

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (0 children)

Yes.

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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 1 year ago (0 children)

BOOM. 👊🏼

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[–]t4taylor 8 points9 points10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Therapy isn't meant to change the actual circumstances of your life, it's meant to change how you handle the stresses that be in order to allow you to make changes that will improve your quality of life

Thanks for your response. For some people, the process you described above will be helpful (particularly if they do want to continue living).

I suppose my personal dislike of this kind of approach is that it ignores (or even facilitates) the truly horrible state of the world (wage-slave jobs, truly shocking inequality, destruction of the natural environment etc). Society's (and many psychologists') response to a person finding the state of the world unpleasant and unbearable is to insist upon medication and therapy, instead of trying to fix the fundamental problems with the world.

For instance, the prevalence of mental health issues in young people is really worrying (things have become so bad in parts of California that the CDC have been called in1). However, rather than deciding as a society to take some of the pressure off these young people and give them more downtime to relax, we insist that they continue to work at revising for their exams and doing their schoolwork, and preparing for a high-pressure future, and we try to facilitate this using therapy and medication.

Mainstream approaches to mental health put the emphasis almost entirely on treating the symptoms of a broken society, rather than fixing the problems with society itself.

Overworked? Under pressure to "succeed" at school/work? Stressed? Anxious about the future? Exhausted? No need to address the underlying causes! Let's just teach you some mental tricks to distract yourself, or use some chemicals to synthetically remove the mental and emotional pain. That way you can go right back to being a happy, functioning, productive little slave.

As a society, we generally look down on drunks and junkies that use chemical substances to make themselves feel better, but we will enthusiastically recommend that people basically use the same method in the form of prescribed pills!

When you get right down to it, the world is a pretty messed up place. I, for one, would rather confront this fact honesty and decide to not participate in it (suicide) rather than trying to fool myself that it's not such a bad place after all, and then going right back to being a compliant little cog in this horrific, destructive machine.

1 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/teen-suicides-in-affluent-california-city-to-be-subject-of-cdc-study/

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] 1 point2 points3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

I see what you're saying entirely, but you're sort of pushing the blame on psychologists where there shouldn't be. I know many therapists that are caring passionate people that would love to take every patient under their wind and beat and abusive spouse or yell at a parent for neglecting them. We're people, and pretty empathetic ones at that.

The three problems with this are our legal constraints, numbers, and directive. Obviously because of doctor-patient confidentiality we can't kick in doors and physically make changes to people's loves. In fact, we can't even use first names or describe their condition TOO precicely when talking to anyone other than them. Secondly, psychologists (clinical counselors, specifically), are relatively few and far between and they hold VERY little weight in the big social impactors (media, politics, etc). It's incredibly hard to ger anything done to help improve mental health care because congress and the american public doesn't have a solid understanding of what we do. To account for our small numbers, we try to do what we can to fix bigger problems by treating individuals to have those tools to fix them. Psychologist numbers are small, and we do our best to help with what we can outside of work, but by making people who were once not capable or not believing themselves to be capable able to help make an impact, we exponentially increase our weight in society.

One thing to be clear, and I mentioned this is another comment somewhere on here, is that most people in psychology actually don't approve of medication for a lot of diseases. Only psychiatrists (MD's) can oerscribe them and they generally fail to treat patients correctly as they don't have a background in human interaction. Always see a psychologist for life advice and counseling and if need be they can direct you to a psychiatrist for medication if there is an extreme need.

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[–]t4taylor 3 points4 points5 points 2 years ago (0 children)

I see what you're saying entirely, but you're sort of pushing the blame on psychologists where there shouldn't be.

I didn't mean to single out psychologists, and I apologize if my post came across that way. It probably seemed that I had focused on them particularly because of the nature of this post/thread.

The blame lies squarely on society as a whole (of which psychologist are just a part). We've decided that it's better to fix people, rather than fix the society that breaks them in the first place.

You could sum up my world view with this quote:

'It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.'.

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (0 children)

it is almost universally believed that those suffering from depression are actually viewed as more objective and realistic in their views on life, not delusional.

How gracious of them! To admit we might not be so stupid and irrational after all. /s/ Last time I checked, I didn't need my views to be validated by some random scientists. But I'll take the compliment, I guess.

Deviant (from local cultural norms),

How do you define local cultural norms???? Cultures vary so vastly from time and place that this becomes extremely shaky. Why should the culture you're living in determine the reality of your experience? What if my culture is just totally at odds with the kind of person I am and my values? Does that mean I am justified in being labelled "ill"? What if my entire culture is suffering from a collective illness?? Then by this standard, the only sane people will be labelled as "ill". This sounds not only precarious, but actually worrying. I'm sure we can all think of situations throughout history where this would be problematic. Are we really saying that a person who could be considered fairly normal in one culture could be diagnosed as mentally ill if living in another, purely on the basis of being at odds with their fellow inhabitants? Does that mean that an Israeli citizen who refuses to do military service is mentally ill? Or an atheist in Afghanistan? Or someone who wishes to practise polyamory or swinging in the West?

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[–]humanbeingthrowaway 4 points5 points6 points 2 years ago (6 children)

anti-psych bias among pro-choice for suicide communities as well as some misunderstand of what depression really is

i'm guessing you are in your twenties and was born with a silver spoon in your mouth. did you know that people can be suicidal and not be depressed? anger and sadness and resignation that life is the way it is, but not depressed...

now you are probably thinking what pills would i give a suicidal person that is not depressed.....there must be some kind of pill to fix this

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[–][deleted] 5 points6 points7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

i'm guessing you are in your twenties and was born with a silver spoon in your mouth. did you know that people can be suicidal and not be depressed?

With all due respect, there's no need to be classist and patronising. I'm in my mid-twenties and was arguably born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and I support people's right to die as and when they choose.

I also have other problems, as does everyone else round here; wealth and youth are fine things, but they don't make for a happy life or a 'meaningful' one, nor do they eliminate other problems. So can we please not play oppression olympics and bring OP's age and wealth/lack thereof into the picture? Thank you.

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[–]humanbeingthrowaway 2 points3 points4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

you're right. my apologies..........i just have a thing against psychiatry and psychology.......and young people practicing it.........they find it hard to believe that sometimes death is the best answer, also, fixing people and making lots of money, what could be better

i'm sorry

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[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (0 children)

It's okay. Thanks for explaining!

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[–]itstopsykretz[S] 0 points1 point2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Actually... Not really. Depression is a very general disorder that covers anyone who feels "sad" and has lowered interest; on top of this, it is only diagnosed when such behavior is deviant from social norms, the patient is distressed by this behavior, and when it causes the patient to be dysfunctional in life. If you're consistently angry, resentful, and sad and this is causing you to be unhappy with your life and making you want to kill yourself, this fits the description.

I'm actually not a fan of medication's involvement in psychology as a whole, either. While certainly some disorders require medication to see a relief of symptoms, most disorders, especially in the realm of depression, can be managed fairly effectively without medication.

Like I said, I feel that your idea of me and my field is skewed by this anti-psych bias. I hope you take the time to learn more about what depression really is, most people don't understand and have similar viewpoints to you.

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[–]thr0w1tallaway 2 points3 points4 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

If you're consistently angry, resentful, and sad and this is causing you to be unhappy with your life and making you want to kill yourself, this fits the description.

No. If you're consistently angry, resentful, and sad and you are unhappy with your life and want to kill yourself, then...you are angry, resentful and sad, unhappy with your life and want to kill yourself.

These are not illnesses!

You might be a miserable cunt if you experience these things. But it is not an illness. Anger, resentment, and sadness are natural emotions that arise from real causes. Being unhappy with your life might mean that...you are unhappy with your life! Because your life is shit and not going the way you want it to. Because you made stupid decisions or mistakes, or had bad luck, or crappy circumstances, or didn't know what you wanted, or didn't work hard enough, or whatever.

Also, a reminder that suicide =/= depression in my book. (Just better issue a disclaimer before I get sued for misleading the vulnerable youth: I'm not saying that suicide and Depression aren't heavily linked; I'm saying that not everyone fits that description, and I really wish to God people would stop trying to throw this label on me no matter what I say. I've got 99 problems and Depression ain't one. I am not suicidal because I'm depressed. I am suicidal for lots of other reasons. And now one of those reasons to add to the list might just be the fact that no one fucking will shut up about assuming I must be depressed in order to feel suicidal. I have so many freaking problems, and Depression is not the top of the list!)

I am suicidal, in that I regularly am so tired of this life that I desire to leave it, and am sometimes extremely tempted to say Fuck It For Real. Like today for instance. But I am not depressed. Certainly not all of the time. I don't even feel depressed. I feel fine inside. I'm just extremely unhappy with my life, and with the world. It doesn't mean I don't have shitty days or moods where I feel depressed. But, I do not suffer generally from Depression. If I did, I wouldn't be able to keep going to work and functioning and doing all the things I currently do every day that I wasn't able to do when I was actually depressed and could barely get out of bed. Of course, now that I have received a diagnosis in my past, whatever I say will be written off as that, or of me being in denial, or refusing to acknowledge that I am still, actually suffering from depression, but in a different form, or whatever. And I will be made to look like a fool who needs to read his DSM better, and of course I'm not a psychologist so can't argue. It's annoying, because in the past, I could, like everyone else, have just had a shitty day or week, and left it at that. Now if I have a shitty day or week, it must be because I'm Depressed and experiencing symptoms. (Or maybe I just fucking had a shitty day or week? Because my job sucked, or I had a row with someone, or I woke up on the wrong side of bed. Or I got stuck in traffic and was late for an appointment. Or someone made a comment that hit a raw nerve that reminded me of my past and I felt bitter. Or I drank too much the night before and am feeling cranky and "depressed" from withdrawal, or I didn't sleep or eat properly. Or the weather was shit and affected my mood. Or am just in a fucking foul mood and feel like fucking swearing a lot and arguing with everyone, like TONIGHT.)

It's ironic. Because I seem to remember just 20 years ago everyone was going around trying to convince everyone that depression was a real condition, not just "feeling blue" or whatever, because people still used "depression" in its original, general sense. (Seems hard to imagine that ever happened now.) And now the word has gone such full-circle that it's almost impossible to convince anyone the other way, or to speak of simply being "depressed" one day, without actually suffering from Clinical Depression. When will people stop trying to argue that suicide and depression are glued at the hip? It is, believe it or not, possible to be so fucking tired of life and the world you think about suicide, while still being able to get up and function fine, not be depressed, and not even feel depressed or down. Being desperately unhappy is not the same as being Depressed for me. Unhappiness is an emotion. Depression is a condition.

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[–]DFofSEA 0 points1 point2 points 1 year ago (0 children)

Except for the forceful language your writing my thoughts and feelings exactly. ( I've got a headache at the moment so not doing my words thing all that eloquently.)

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