World suicide prevention day: 'Could I have stopped my dad killing himself?' | Hacker News Reader

World suicide prevention day: 'Could I have stopped my dad killing himself?'

bbc.co.uk

15 pointspmoriarty12 comments

"In my father's case, the loss of his 45-year marriage partner, whom he had cared for devotedly in her final years, left him struggling. His retirement had not brought the contentment it had promised, and no number of visits from his children could dispel his loneliness. He had little in the way of a social circle - another factor that differentiates older men from women, who tend to be better socially connected."

This actually hits really close to home with my own Grandmother. She lived 11 years longer than my granddad, but she never was truly the same after he passed away. My mother (her daughter) and their siblings did all they could to help, but all of her kids were spread throughout the US (due to most being pretty successful people). She also didn't have much of a social circle until she went into assisted living, which I actually think was really good for her. She was able to meet folks and socialize, and they forced her to go out and do things. But I don't think it did too much to help her loneliness from losing my grandad. She didn't die from suicide, but I think at one point she just lost the will to live, which I think that finally took her.

I don't have answer to that. I also think about it with my own mom and dad. She is bound to lose her husband (or he her) within the next few decades, and I don't want to see her have the same downward spiral I saw in my grandma.

> His retirement had not brought the contentment it had promised, and no number of visits from his children could dispel his loneliness. He had little in the way of a social circle

This is actually a concern of mine regarding retirement and part of the reason I tell people that I will likely never retire. A large number of my social interactions are through work, and I feel if I didn’t have something “productive” to do I would be pretty listless and depressed.

I get wanting to enjoy leisure time and hobbies, etc, but there is something rewarding about doing work that you enjoy that is different for me.

One needs to build meaning in their life and find purpose to ward off depression. Setting goals, making plans, and working at something meaningful will greatly help generate the necessary conditions for drive and emotional stability.

Happy World Suicide Prevention Day.

I've learned it's best not to assume why someone took their own life, because chances are I'll be wrong. In the case of Chris Cornell, if I hadn't assumed I wouldn't have even had to know, but it helped for me to search and find out that he had a very severe physical pain problem that was treated, understandably, with prescription drugs that carried risks. It doesn't seem his mental strength was much of a factor in his death by suicide. Now I can enjoy his music more.

While I haven't got to the bottom of some other suicidal behavior that I've been affected by, I've started to see it as extreme pain and lack of sufficient means to deal with the pain. Every situation is tragic, and most who survive a suicide attempt are glad they survived, and 9 out of 10 will not die by suicide at a later date. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/survi... Suicide prevention is about providing help, not interfering with someone's wishes. When someone makes it through to the next day, that's another opportunity for them and others to build up resources to deal with whatever it is they're struggling with.

Please be careful talking about suicide. The phrase "died by suicide" doesn't bring assumptions into it like some other phrases do.

Finally, here's a good article about it that addresses both grief and what it's like to be suicidal: https://tim.blog/2015/05/06/how-to-commit-suicide/

Interesting article. It is worth noting that in the UK statistics, suicide is lumped in with poisoning of undetermined intent, so when they say "suicide is the leading cause of death <50" they are including drug overdoses. [1]

This actually helps explain why "unintentional injury" is the leading cause of death in the US under 45, followed by suicide. In the US poisoning, and thus drug overdose falls under unintentional injury.

I suspect there is no way to get clean statistics separating accidental overdoses from intentional ones. I personally feel that drug overdose and suicide are most appropriately grouped together, as they tend to have similar causes.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...

[2]https://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcause.html

I stand by my view that anyone should have right to kill themselves.

I would be very sad if someone close to me did so but that shouldn't stop them from doing it. I consider this a basic freedom of being a living creature. If you don't have the power to end your life then do you really own it?

It's pretty much impossible to take away that freedom, killing yourself is not particularly difficult. The more interesting question is whether someone else should be able to kill you, if they think it is what you want.

And I think suicide prevention is still very important, since many people who attempt to commit suicide regret it afterwards.

The problem isn't ending one's own life, but doing so with dignity, in an orderly fashion. How not to leave a mess behind? That takes solid preparation, which is difficult given the massive social stigma. Wouldn't it be nice if one didn't need an "excuse", like a terrible disease, to be allowed an uneventful exit? I'd find it a liberating idea if such a thing were normalized. Parties are more enjoyable when you can leave any time you like. Let me stay just because I want to, without worries what will happen should I change my mind.

At the end my dad asked the nurses to stop the oxygen he got via a mask. They called a doctor who made sure he knew what the likely consequences of his request would be, and he assured the doctor he did. So they turned it off and took of his mask. He passed away a few hours later.

Technically I guess this is assisted suicide. He had untreatable cancer in the lungs, he'd just gotten pneumonia and he and the doctor knew it wasn't going to get better. So he decided his time was up.

But from what I understand this is not the common case. Rather it is people who struggle with their emotions[1][2], which can pass or be treated. For those I think it's important to not give in to their temporary wishes, and to help them get past it.

[1]: https://www.nrk.no/osloogviken/truls-om-selvmordsforsoket_-_...

[2]: https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/xl/trigger-warning-1.14716227

I find it pretty crazy that suicide is considered bad, it's kind of selfish honestly. Of course there's a lot of situations in which the way the person feels is just temporary, but a lot of suicides aren't a spur of the moment decision. People often think about such an important decision very carefully.

The lengths psychiatric institutions and society is willing to go in order to deny you the choice of living is absolutely disgusting.

I mostly agree, but I'm not sure complete "suicide liberalisation" is the answer.

For most people, suicide is a very temporary state of mind, and many people who are prevented from committing suicide are glad that they were stopped.

Given the very final nature of the act, perhaps it's best to have some cooling off period before a state sanctioned suicide can be authorized?

Not sure people are generally arguing different.

Most people consider other people who want to kill themselves in a point in time as having temporary insanity so stopping them in the act is ok, because it is not 'them'.

It is also ok to want to stop people wanting to long term kill themselves like stopping adictive behavior.

Using force here might be controversial but we can just do the same playbook as addiction.

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