Suicide is Not Painless, Part 2.

[Eisa]

I agree with that, t_g! I don't think it's non-empathy, I think it's frustration...

I've felt about the same way about a particular friend with an eating disorder. I think she's doing a little better now, but for months upon months, she WOULD NOT see that it was killing her. No matter what anyone did or said. She could/can apply it to others, but when it comes to herself? No. It doesn't apply to her. I know what eating disorders are like. I'm still in recovery from one. But even when you love someone to death, it is FRUSTRATING AS HELL when they refuse to do anything to help themselves and sometimes actively let themselves get worse.

[Rageaholic]

I agree with that, t_g! I don't think it's non-empathy, I think it's frustration...

Yeah. I normally despise "get over it" as a response to someone who's depressed or suicidal. Now after getting more backround, I understand where Jester is coming from. There is only so much you can do for someone who won't accept any help that only makes it all the more frusturating when they start to affect other people.

[Jester]

I get the feeling that once Jester is your friend he is fiercely loyal....and will do just about anything to help that he can possibly do. It's just more through actions than words....although the words are there too when it's directed at you.

Pretty much accurate, for better or worse. To be honest, I'm not always the easiest person to have as a friend (especially if you're around me when I'm drunk, but that's a whole different can of rotting beef), but I'm pretty sure my friends would tell you that I am someone they want around when things go sideways.

[Eisa]

Yeah. I normally despise "get over it" as a response to someone who's depressed or suicidal. Now after getting more backround, I understand where Jester is coming from. There is only so much you can do for someone who won't accept any help that only makes it all the more frusturating when they start to affect other people.

Yeah. You can't make someone get better.

[LexiaFira]

It depends on why you want them to live.
It's not selfish to be thinking of how that person's death will affect their parents,friends, children etc. That person is only thinking "I want to die" that is selfish.
...
If someone takes their own life it will suck for me and I will hate it but I would rather that I be the only one that feel that way.

Yes as you said, it "does suck" and I am still angry, not just at a specific person that we know of but that these people that I know are gone. And that I couldn't take away their pain be it physical or emotional. And you or I may be the only ones that feel this way, yet to me, its still, thats it. This person's life is over there will be no more, no potential, no more memories to be made no more smiles.
And its easier for some to get up and move on, but for others not so much as that person was such an intergal part of his or her life that its as if he or she that is gone was literally torn from the fabric. Or tore a piece of me.

However the main post from the OP is the frustration when said person continues to be suicidal or refuse help. And as others that yes a psych ward is just a band-aid but does anyone tell these people that after you are released its a very good idea to continue to see a counselor? Or even find a support group and by that I mean literally a support group or pass the info along to a close group of trusted friends so that should another episode come again these people know what to do to help.

This is of course if the person in need of such (ie the suicidal or depressed) is willing to do so. Frustration can often lead to anger and anger can often lead to apathy for having tried so many times and little good comes of it.
and i rant from too many past experiences.

on another note my reason for not wanting him to go...i suppose not wanting him to be gone, not just from me but from everyone who was his friend.
And I wanted him to live because I THOUGHT most of his physical pain was gone, but whatever pain that remained just took over and became too much.

[Ree]

I'm curious to see what Ree has to say in response to this....I personally don't think he's being non empathetic at all. He HAS been there for me to talk when I needed to. Along with the therapy and meds I"m trying right now. I'm finally in a place where I can find some peace with what Plaid did, and Jester was part of that, along with many other people from here...you know who you all are

I never once said that Jester didn't support his friends through their emotional ups and downs to the best of his abilities.
I'm sure he is a fiercely loyal friend.

He seems like a really caring guy, and I know he has been there for a lot of people.

If he hadn't been successful in helping you through what happened with Plaid, though, and (all the heavens and gods forbid) you had decided to take the same route I have no doubt that he would probably be making yet another post pointing out how selfish you were for not taking his help and advice and for taking a "cowardly" way out.

What I am saying, I guess, is that, as long as his friends stay on this side of the dirt, he will fight tooth and nail to keep them here, but if they succumb to the emotional despair, he will condemn and fail to understand the pain that brought them to that horrible decision.

If saying that makes me harsh and judgmental too, then I guess I stand guilty.

[telecom_goddess]

I like to think that while he seems like he's condemning people and calling them selfish it's probably coming from a similar pain and is just expressed differently.

[Ree]

I like to think that while he seems like he's condemning people and calling them selfish it's probably coming from a similar pain and is just expressed differently.

That may well be true.

[Eisa]

I like to think that while he seems like he's condemning people and calling them selfish it's probably coming from a similar pain and is just expressed differently.

Not that I know Jester all that well, but I agree with this. People express pain different ways.

And well, it is selfish...

[Jester]

What I am saying, I guess, is that, as long as his friends stay on this side of the dirt, he will fight tooth and nail to keep them here, but if they succumb to the emotional despair, he will condemn and fail to understand the pain that brought them to that horrible decision.

You are both right and wrong.

One can understand the pain that brings another to a decision like suicide, and still condemn the act of suicide itself. The two things are not by definition mutually exclusive.

You make it out as if I wrote Plaid off after he took his leave of us. I did no such thing. I was expressing anger at him for what he did, but that does not mean I turned my back on him as a friend. It can be likened to expressing your anger at a friend who does something that you consider to be a poor choice, whatever their motivations. That does not mean you love your friend any less, it just means you are not always going to rubber stamp their decisions and their actions with your approval.

I have, in fact, done this very thing. And my friends have also told me, at various times, when I have done something they did not agree with. Should we treat suicide any differently? After all, to many of us, it is a decision made by a friend that we don't agree with, whatever the motivations that brought that friend there. The main difference being, of course, that if the friend succeeds, as Plaid did, then they won't be there to receive our disapproval.

Plaid's gone. Nothing I say can change that. However, I do believe that things I say, that things you say, that things a lot of people CAN change someone else's destiny, can perhaps make another suicidal person rethink their chosen course of action. I believe that to the very core of my being. So I will continue to speak my mind on the subject, to hammer home my points, to remind people that suicide, whether justifiable or not (and I do not say there are not situations where it is justifiable, mind you), is, at its core, a selfish act. As I said in my original post in the other thread, being selfish is not always a bad thing.

With Plaid, I lost a friend who I knew online. With Nurse Betty, I almost lost a longtime friend and one-time lover, and her children almost lost their mother.

People don't always agree on things. And even when people DO agree on certain things, they may not agree on the best way to handle such things. You and I certainly have not always agreed. And I have no doubt that we will continue to disagree on a myriad of things in the future.

That being said, I don't think you're harsh, and I don't think you're judgmental. I never did. But if you think I am going to apologize for yelling from the mountaintops about this matter that has touched me so closely, when I believe to firmly that I am helping people by doing it, you're out of your mind.

[Eisa]

Hmm. Jester thinks I should post this, so I suppose I shall.

Today was the Pride Festival in my town. At the end, we held a vigil and then a march for a boy named Ryan. Ryan committed suicide back in January.

I felt sad today, but I also ended up feeling angry. You see, the whole attitude is like he's a martyr for the LGBT cause, he's an LGBT hero, etc. Almost like he's akin to Mathew Shepard.

Well...no, he's not. He killed himself. That's not noble. He gave up. I know that he was bullied, I know that he was harassed. He came from Spokane to here and I KNOW that there is a HUGE difference in tolerance and acceptance between the two places.

But he fucking gave up. There was a fuck-ton of people who had been reaching out to help him...would have helped him. All he had to do was ask. They were there. They were even there and trying that day. And he gave up.

And while yes, it is sad, it pisses me off, too. Hope this makes sense...