A Word on Suicide.

[cyperian]

This post really got me thinking about some of the posts I've seen both in the past and quite recently. I've always had these thoughts in my head; what do I do, what are the consequences, what's going to happen, what's the moral thing, is this for real? But I've never been able to quantify all of this into something as straight-forward as a chart

Comments

[akarii]

Wow. I read this article and thoguht a lot about it. Technically what the author say is perfectly reasonable and perfectly true. I can only talk about my own situation if I say that I perceive a crucial instance of uncertainty:

Somebody I know killing themselves is so far off my radar that I will have a hard time to even process the idea. The moment I read that kind of stuff I'd be comfortably sitting in front of my computer, reading something someone wrote who I do not know personally, can't assess correctly and they are talking about taking such a drastic, absolute and extreme step that my sheltered mind lacks the fantasy to imagine something bad like this will really, truly happen. It's like reading police reports about gruesome crimes; nobody in his or her right mind would assume people were capable of executing such cruel violence against other people. It's a theoretical possibility, nothing more. I know for a fact that I tend to hope that bad things will not occur unless proven otherwise - and the moment I see my proof it'll be much too late to prevent this death.

See, I'm not saying I wouldn't take a death threat seriosly once I read it, but I'm not sure my mindset is capable of assessing the odds correctly. What may well be a fifty-fifty possibility that a person is going to make good on their suicide threat will probably only be a ten percent possibility in my head.

This is why, all the pretty calculations aside, it really boils down to one rule of action for me: if you know where to direct them, always call the police.

What really frightens me about this scenario is that, as far as eighty percent of my online friends are concerned, I wouldn't know where to direct the police, should anything bad happen. They are real enough friends to me and I like to think I know them personally, but don't know how to assist them should they (appear to) need real-life help.