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I've had suicide close to me more than I'd like and I really found you just can't help those that won't listen and don't want help. Believe me, I've tried. Suicide in most cases is irrational and there's usually no reasoning with people intent on doing it.

Instead of asking suicidal people to listen to you... it might actually be more helpful to listen to them. Suicidal people often need to talk to people who won't judge them or tell them what to do (or not to do)...
 
Instead of asking suicidal people to listen to you... it might actually be more helpful to listen to them. Suicidal people often need to talk to people who won't judge them or tell them what to do (or not to do)...

I completely agree. I'm sorry I didn't word my response properly. I do listen to them and try to find out why they're depressed and the like. Whats hard is the feeling like you're letting them justify to themselves why its ok or a good idea to commit suicide. I hope you understand what I mean :eek:
 
I completely agree. I'm sorry I didn't word my response properly. I do listen to them and try to find out why they're depressed and the like. Whats hard is the feeling like you're letting them justify to themselves why its ok or a good idea to commit suicide. I hope you understand what I mean :eek:

Every person has the right of self-determination: in this context that's the right to harm or kill themselves. And, no matter what anyone else might say to them, they will make their own decision. But being listening to, non-judgementally, can be helpful... not in trying to influence their behaviour... but in showing that you accept how they are feeling. It's powerful medicine...
 
Oh come on! give me a break! You can't blame the internet for teen suicides. How about we go blame the real cause of teen suicide - PEERS! Teens kill themselves cause of what others say about them. Peers humiliate, bash and bully one another until one of them can no longer take it anymore and the only way out, they think, is to kill themselves.

I saw it everyday in school - people talking about others behind their backs and spreading hurtful, disgusting rumors. Rumors and lies that inevitably make the poor kids self destruct and either kill themselves or bring a gun to school and shoot it up.

Most American schools have the 'Zero Tolerance' policy. For those of you who do not know what it is or have never heard of it, let me explain. The 'zero tolerance' policy is kinda like an 'one strike and you're out' rule in which if a student bullies or threatens another student, the authority figures take strict, immediate action against that bully. The punishment - immediate suspension from school.

Unfortunately, getting suspended from school, in the eyes of the person who got suspended, is like a vacation from school for a week. Then, a week later, they come back and everything seems cool. Then, the bully starts harassing that same kid again but this time even worse. The bully now knows that the kid 'ratted' him/her to the deans and begins spreading even more hurtful lies about that person. Then, before you know it, you got entire cliques bullying this kid.

So, what happens next is a huge chain reaction. The child gets depressed and no longer hangs out with friends, no longer participates in class. Their grades begin to fall which puts them into an even bigger depression and while this is happening, they are getting hammered by these hateful comments and rumors.

In the end, you see this in the newspaper:
http://www.halflifesource.com/news/2007/11/14/article10088.htm

Prof.
 
The Internet don't kill people, we do. It's like putting the blame on the knife, when the fault lies in the hand that hold it.
 
Very well said! The one thing I would correct is that the link that you sent does not describe quite the situation that you explained. While the circumstances you discussed are much more common, the story you linked to is a bizarre and mean-spirited prank enacted by an adult, not other kids.
You are absolutely correct. However, the girl thought it was a guy who had a crush on her. So in her mind, it was a fellow peer.
 
Suicide ...

... almost always is connected to severe mental illnesses like depression, psychosis, schizophrenia and the like. It can affect any age, any sex, any class. Suicidal thinking itself is not by any means related to the depressions anyone of us is experiencing when severe anger or sadness propulses your feelings.

Dealing with suicidal partners, relatives, friends must immediately be focused on getting professional help as fast and soon as possible. You can´t stand the pressure of sufferance and pain delivered on and from both sides yourself. Help is not only needed in terms of psychotherapeutical frameworks, though, but the more in terms of detailed clinical assistance and medication.

I am not talking easy here - I came too close to this human event horizon myself. Without a loving and dedicated partner, family and professional help, you are doomed - always and merciless. And its a social taboo to be mentally ill, anyway. This still seems to be perceived the Lepra of the 21st century ... so many misunderstandings, so many false judgements.

And believe me: It is NOT the least funny debating frantically with yourself about ending your own life, which is more anihilation than destruction; call it self-execution or a shortcircuit with hell.
 
Anti-Depressant meds. Someday I wish this information was more known than today. Drug companies just have too much power I guess.

My concern with anti-depressant meds is that they just tweak with very large and generalized neurotransmitter systems. This probably does a decent job suppressing symptoms, but as you pointed out, there are lots of nasty short-term and long-term side effects.

If there is a fundamental molecular mechanism behind these diseases, we need to find it. Right now it's something of a black box. To some extent, it's the imprint of life experience on the brain--which probably causes such complex neural rewiring that the only way we can treat it is symptomatically. But to the extent that there is predisposition or an aggravating biological mechanism (after all, a lot of kids are depressed without major precipitating circumstances), we need to find that and treat that, instead of just saying, "Hey! We can change synaptic concentrations of serotonin! Woohoo!"
 
Actually I think the cause is Global Warming :p

The town next to mine is pretty yuppy, there's like 1400 people in the high school, and it's extremely competitive. In the past 3 years, 3 kids have committed suicide. One kid hung himself on a light fixture in his bathroom. A friend depressed because of that and other things hung himself on a tether-ball rope somehow. Last year a kid killed himself as well.

I would say its not because of social networking sites. I would think its because of in our age school as well as the stress that goes along with it is an over burdening pressure, at least where i live. I mean everything is about how well you do in school. In today's fast pace society I think its much easier to get stressed out and not know how to deal with your emotions.
 
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