NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/suicide/holiday/3192

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-29 | 6.8 KB

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From: [e-mail] (sine nomine)
Newsgroups: alt.suicide.holiday
Subject: Re: Arguing people out of suicide (was Re: Christmas comes but once a year)
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Date: 29 Dec 92 21:24:26 GMT
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Stan Brown ([e-mail]) wrote:

: First, I never said or implied that all emotional pain is incurable.  In
: fact I believe that much of it is curable.  My point, which may perhaps
: not have been stated clearly enough, is that there _is_ such a thing as
: incurable emotional distress, just as incurable physical distress; and
: that it is for the victim of such distress to decide when enough is enough.

i'm still not convinced that there exists incurable emotional pain,
and since part of being in great emotional pain is a distortion of
judgment, i'm not sure that people who are suffering from the
condition are qualified to decide whether or not that pain is
incurable. i know you're going to jump my ass again and say that i'm
generalizing from my own experience, but my statement about people in
pain not being able to think clearly is backed by hundreds of hours of
listening to people in pain.

: Second, I cannot subscribe to your tolerant, forgiving attitude toward
: therapists.  I might be more kindly inclined if I'd ever heard of one of
: them saying, "I'm sorry, I can't help you, so I'm not going to sit here
: and take your money hour after hour."  When a doctor prescribes
: medication and the patient takes it, but it doesn't work, it is not the
: patient's fault.  But when a patient goes for therapy, works as hard as
: he or she can and follows the instructions of the therapist, it's
: supposed to be the patient's fault for not getting better?  I don't buy
: it.

there do exist bad therapists. but there also exist good ones. and
unfortunately, there's no way except trial and error to distinguish
between the two. and i've known of therapists who've turned patients
away because of a belief that they (the therapists) could do nothing
useful for that patient. i think you might be guilty here of assuming
that your experience is exhaustive.

and psychotherapy is not a static thing. and it's not an all or
nothing thing. sometimes when you think nothing is getting done,
you're actually laying groundwork for future action. i dunno. most of
the people i've talked to who've gotten help form therapy had a moment
when it really became clear to them that change was possible and they
could make it work. sometimes this was almost immediate, and sometimes
it came after months of feeling like nothing was happening.

the thing that sucks is that most of the work in therapy is up to the
patient. this doesn't mean that the patient is to blame if nothing
happens, not by a long shot. and i'm angry that you've twisted my
words to have me blaming people for being where they are emotionally.
what people are responsible for is their current reaction to their
situation. you seem to be eager to blame the therapists for
everything. "therapy didn't work, it must be that therapy is bad"
instead of realizing that there are a lot of factors involved.

: Fourth, you say that "years" of trying are not enough.  How much is
: enough, pray tell?  Surely you must admit that there is _some_ point at
: which one must admit that no more progress is going to be made.  Or
: would you have us unable to learn from experience?

how can you know when is enough? to answer that question would require
treating people like mechanisms, deciding that there are timetables
for these things, and turning a highly interactive, individual process
into a rubber-stamp operation. none of these are things i'm willing to
do.

would you have us unable to change? do you claim that there exists a
point in human beings where change is no longer possible? and how do
you propose we know that point has been reached? if you claim
introspection, then i'd point out that deciding the point of no change
has been reached is indeed a change. so you might say, okay, fine,
then use introspection to decide that a point has been reached at
which no positive change is possible. but you still end up in a
hopelessly self-referential tangle.

: past a crisis point in your life.  But that does not entitle you to
: assume that others can necessarily do what you did.  Circumstances may
: be different, the nature or causes of the distress may be different,
: luck or fate or the gods may play a part, whatever.

first, NOWHERE did i take an "i did it, other people could do it if
they'd just stop being so lazy" attitude. that's bullshit and i won't
allow you to put those words in my mouth. what i said, and what i
continue to say, is that saying "it's never going to get any better"
is as stupid and shortsighted and without foundation as saying "it'll
be all right." i stand by that assertion. unless you can prove to me
that extra-sensory perception exists, you have no proof that things
will never get better, just as i have no proof that they won't.

what really strikes me about that last sentence is how it shifts all
responsibility for the outcome from the patient. this seems to be a
major theme of yours. i'm not going to get off onto a rant about the
role a feeling of powerlessness and helplessness plays in all this.

perhaps not everyone can heal themselves emotionally. there's really
no way to know, no way to tell. what i do know, from my experience and
that of others, is that people who feel as if they're suffering from
incurable emotional pain have often, in fact, been gathering resources
and later been able to deal with the pain in ways that were
constructive. i'm not saying that all people who are in emotional pain
will be able to do this (and i am insulted by your putting those
words, so opposite of everything i believe, in my mouth) but that
there's really no good way to tell which ones will and which won't.
not even introspection by those people involved is reliable as a way
of determining which pain is curable and which isn't.

you're in pain. you want to justify ending your life and ignoring the
effect that action will have on others around you. that's your
prerogative. in fact, if you, after discussing it with an objective
person trained in suicide intervention, still believed suicide was
your best option, then i'd defer to your judgment (that's the attitude
most suicide counselors take: the decision ultimately belongs to the
person making it, not to anyone else). even if i didn't think your
pain was incurable, i'd not try to make your decision for you.

i'm sorry you misread what i said and read into it a lot of things i
never intended. and that it seems to have made you angry. oh, well.

--
sine nomine | deb martinson
sigh. it's a fine line between realism and self-pity.