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Suicide As A Social Phenomenon

Or I am illustrating how a personal bias influences interpretation - hence the *rolleyes*.
Yes, if you have enough experience with these things, you develop a "bias", but other people, i.e. mental health professionals, would call it a proficiency based on experience. If you think goths are morbid you should chat with medics.

Move away from your own definitions that label people incompetent and consider and alternative scenarios. It's an exercise. Used to do it with late teens.

Umm... Nope. My system work just fine thanks. It is a product of doing the whole "alternative scenarios" prior, then forming an evidence based conclusion. What you are offering me is hipster logic, which I don't accept. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has feathers and a beak like a duck, eats duck food, and hangs out with other ducks, it's probably a duck. The same goes with hipsters. Labels work, and that is why we have things like clinical diagnoses, which are, after all, only labels (supported by decades of research and observational models).

Some one who has it in their head that the reason people do whatever it is - the "correct" reason in their view - is to kill themselves, won't be able to change the emphasis. Instead of stating that the subgroup that doesn't reach what you think is the goal, trying changing the terms.
Could you reword that and try again please? I think I understood what you meant, but the grammatical ambiguities render the statement ambiguous.

For example, rather than group A failing and group B succeeding, try the idea that they are after different goals. In this case this leads to the possibility that group B is failing at "trying to get help" and group A is succeeding.
On the contrary, as something of a Nihilist, I am not going to make such a moral judgement against the value of some people committing suicide, providing their choice isn't formed resultant from a state of depression. Suicide can be a perfectly sensible moral choice in my opinion, and I certainly support another human being's right to die in fair number of circumstances. A heartbroken or bullied teenager trying to kill themselves doesn't count as any of those however; they need help, and should call a suicide hotline. An elderly person facing a painful terminal illness however should be offered the opportunity for mercy we would present any other suffering animal under those circumstances.

As to the example you offer, it is fundamentally flawed. Neither group is interested in seeking help if they are actually proceeding with the action of suicide. The notion that just because group B fail at suicide, that there must have been some sort of intervention where someone helped out is Polyanna thinking. I propose that that is yet another category, namely group C, where a successful intervention took place, which is a small subset of failed suicide attempts. Mostly group B will vomit up their poison, or their method was usuccessful for other technical reasons. I was going to go into details but decided against it.

Totally agree with this. One of the ways "we get it right" here is to look at all views of something, coming out of comfort zones and trying different a different model. For the exercise it doesn't have to work, it has to stretch us - of course, then we should look at of the mind refusing to swallow is confirmation bias or because something doesn't fit.
But you aren't doing exactly what you recommend I do. Do you seriously think changing the location of the goalposts is going to change the outcome? Why should anyone accept your definitions if you lack the courtesy to properly address theirs?

Perhaps the person in your anecdotal evidence wasn't trying to kill himself and failing. He was trying to connect, ask for help, get a human contact - and failing. My own bias here means that my primary analysis here is that isn't primarily to do with him, it's to do with those he was trying to communicate with - "A great fool ", "hopeless ", "Sheesh ", "worse", "total incompetence ", "nobody was taking him seriously ", "we just stifled our laughter ", "attention seeking"... perhaps his error lay in him trying to communicate with this particular group of people? Remember, this is an exercise, don't get attached to the idea of discrediting a possible interpretation - this is one of the things we do here, isn;t it?
No, he was badly drunk at the time, and possibly other drugs, and was notorious drama queen. He was raving about how his boyfriend had "made him gay", and other very crass remarks that would be construed as intensely homophobic if they hadn't come from the mouth of an apparently gay person. The individual in question was well known to me, but not someone I could pretend to respect, as I don't suffer fools gladly (unless they are doing dares for my amusement). And seriously, you just can't kill yourself that way. Anyone who knows anything about committing suicide will tell you that your autonomic nervous system will force you to pull your head out of water and draw breath. He had made no attempt to restrain himself, and we were keeping an eye on him in case he got the clever idea of jumping in, which might have worked given his drunken state. You might be surprised to know that he is married with 2 kids these days, and still an idiot and a drama queen.

I'll rephrase this from my own angle "Teachers/members of a group where the suicide rate is greater than the general population, especially old ones like myself, deal with a lot of suicide, and you quickly get a sense that trying to find out the why and wherefore is akin to the problem of accurate weather forecasting."
Well there are a lot of pretty biased assumptions nested in that statement. Have you ever looked at yourself and thought "Wow, maybe I'm a total hypocrite and my whole position is BS?"

Suffice to say I am somewhat overqualified in the area and no longer very interested in it, which is why I moved to neuropsychology. I mean, this is not to say that coming home from volunteer work at the suicide hotline didn't make me a "little ray of death". I'm sure I could have used all that lovely negative energy to create a completely statistically ambiguous cancer cluster via ritual magic if my neighbors had been less pleasant.
 
So..... you've ignored the repeated "this is an exercise" statements. And decided that nothing can be found of interest by reframing the situation. This is a discussion - or at least I take it as such; is your interpetation of this that you are going to lay down the law and no change of view, however theoretical, is permitted without attracting your personal comments?

You seem very invested in this - lots of unsupported assertions about what I think, lots of swaggering about your qualifications... have you noted and considered mine? Or asked? I tend to assume that people know what they are talking about and interest comes from the differences in how that expertise manifests.

I repeat, this is an exercise - I made a semi-flip comment reframing someones assertions from earlier in the thread. With a *rolleyes*. You took it ultra seriously and rather than just dismiss your effort of typing by ignoring it - since you had obviously missed the point - I did you the courtesy of continuing to play the game.

On the contrary, as something of a Nihilist, I am not going to make such a moral judgement against the value of some people committing suicide, providing their choice isn't formed resultant from a state of depression. Suicide can be a perfectly sensible moral choice in my opinion, and I certainly support another human being's right to die in fair number of circumstances. A heartbroken or bullied teenager trying to kill themselves doesn't count as any of those however; they need help, and should call a suicide hotline. An elderly person facing a painful terminal illness however should be offered the opportunity for mercy we would present any other suffering animal under those circumstances.

For example, you produce this as if it is a development that counters something I have espoused. I haven't. What you put is roughly the ethics which arising from my morals. So how are you misinterpreting this so badly? Again, THIS IS AN EXERCISE.

In continuing do please remember that here you critique the arguments but not the person.
 
So..... you've ignored the repeated "this is an exercise" statements. And decided that nothing can be found of interest by reframing the situation. This is a discussion - or at least I take it as such; is your interpetation of this that you are going to lay down the law and no change of view, however theoretical, is permitted without attracting your personal comments?

If you won't engage in my "exercise", why should I engage in yours? Do you not see how this is condescending, rude and inapropriate? Do you not see how if you insist on an "exercise" without actually engaging with the alternative opinion, that amounts to a dismissal? Implicit in my primary comment to which you were replying there was an "exercise" too, in case you missed it.

You seem very invested in this - lots of unsupported assertions about what I think, lots of swaggering about your qualifications... have you noted and considered mine? Or asked? I tend to assume that people know what they are talking about and interest comes from the differences in how that expertise manifests.

You haven't volunteered any quals. It is obvious that you are trying "cognitive reframing", which is, to quote dead Dr Lecter, a "blunt little tool". What's next? Are you going to offer me a questionnaire Clarice ?

I repeat, this is an exercise - I made a semi-flip comment reframing someones assertions from earlier in the thread. With a *rolleyes*. You took it ultra seriously and rather than just dismiss your effort of typing by ignoring it - since you had obviously missed the point - I did you the courtesy of continuing to play the game.

Well, again, if you won't do me the courtesy of considering the alternative perspective I was offering, why would I consider doing your exercise?

For example, you produce this as if it is a development that counters something I have espoused. I haven't. What you put is roughly the ethics which arising from my morals. So how are you misinterpreting this so badly? Again, THIS IS AN EXERCISE.

Actually it does contradict what you said, because you offer your "exercise" as a counterpoint, get it? Do you seriously think I don't know how cognitive reframing works? You never engaged with what I wrote, so why should I engage with what you wrote?

In continuing do please remember that here you critique the arguments but not the person.

Hold on a minute, your whole tone and approach was rude, condescending and inappropriate. It was founded in a pretense to standards that you were not actually practicing, which is the dictionary definition of hypocrisy, and that invalidated your argument. A coloquial expression for an invalidated argument is "BS". I believe everything I related to you was factually accurate on that basis. "BS" is not rude btw, it is an abbreviation to avoid the crass language, and if Jesus can call people hypocrites, then that is hardly crass and abusive language either.
 
But do you agree that, what with the likely reduction in available employment and thus the loss of status, the number of young male suicides is likely to increase ?

linechartimage


The UK male unemployment rate is currently 4.1%

l was a beat bobby when the rate peaked at 11 or 12%. l don’t recall having to tour my patch every morning ringing a bell and crying “Bring out your dead!

EU average unemployment rate ( l can’t be arsed to separate by sex) is 6.5%, with Greece triumphant at 18.5%

https://www.statista.com/statistics/268830/unemployment-rate-in-eu-countries/

Europe must be a bloodbath.

maximus otter
 
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Who wants to construct a data set? (jk, the answer to that is obviously no-one sane).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
The UK is doing pretty well, coming in at 109, coming in at 107th for male suicides and 113th for female suicides.
The USA is not nearly so good, coming in at 34th, despite the mles being at 38th and the females at 42nd. If you average that out, why isn't that 40th? You will be pleased to know that suicide is illegal in many countries. Yes, if you try to kill yourself, they put you in jail. Obviously their legislators are complete rocket scientists.
 
Maximus otter,

So you didn't notice that I wrote..

..with the likely reduction in employment available...

It was a projection; and you responded with history.

INT21.
 
It was a projection; and you responded with history.

You speculated that high unemployment might raise suicide rates. A little bit of Googling might enable you to support your thesis.

l’d be interested to see the results.

maximus otter
 
I'm not at all sure that this is in any sense a Fortean subject, but I see the thread is a spin off from a spontaneous tangent on another thread.

I have no relevant qualifications or professional experience. I knew one young lad who was very much marginalised and socially awkward who threw himself from a 7th floor window. I know one adult female who has repeatedly taken overdoses and been hospitalised but always survived with no long term physical consequences. I do not see suicide as a subject to be trivialised.

Suicide is complex. Looking for correlations between rising or falling rates of something else (falling employment, rising homelessness, etc.) or contriving a supposed association with some pet peeve about the absurdity of the modern world won't help anyone to understand it. There are websites that will search big data and match curves to unrelated things as a jokey way of demonstrating that correlation does not imply causation.

When comparing rates of attempted suicide, we need to be aware that there are some behavioural differences between males and females. These apply consistently across populations but certainly not to every individual.

Males tend to be more physically aggressive; females tend to be more socially aware. A male may be more likely to choose a physically destructive method of killing himself such as a gun, or jumping in front of a train, or from a tall building. A female may be more likely to choose a less conspicuous method, such as an overdose.

Also, being more socially focussed than males, a female may be more likely to use a method that is unsuccessful because it is, to use the cliché, a cry for help.

I think people commit suicide when they feel that it is the only power or control that they have left.
  • An unemployed person with realistic hope of employment in the future is unlikely to commit suicide "because" he is unemployed.
  • A person with no job and no hope of a job in the future, and who has no supportive family network, and who can see no way out of his situation, may be more at risk of suicide. Someone with a political agenda may simplistically attribute the person's suicide to unemployment, but in reality it was for a complex set of reasons.

There are, crudely, two sorts of suicide:
  1. "I've had enough. I can see no way out of my predicament. I have no hope and no one cares."
  2. "No one cares? Well, I'll show them."
The first kind is a person who, for whatever reason, is in a state of absolute despair. They may have financial and work problems, family problems, terminal illness or chronic pain, and possibly depression — whether clinically diagnosed or not. They may at one time have had a normal degree of success and status and then lost it, and they now feel abandoned and hopeless. In some ways, losing status is harder to bear than never having had it.

The second kind may have some or all of the above characteristics, or they may always have been outsiders and felt marginalised or spurned. They are more likely to choose a violent method. I have heard a saying that a person who commits suicide does so to hurt two people: their self, because they have a self destructive urge, and someone else — e.g controlling parent, bully, ex partner... . I think that in the "I'll show them" cases, there is some truth to this.
 
Suicide is complex. Looking for correlations between rising or falling rates of something else (falling employment, rising homelessness, etc.) or contriving a supposed association with some pet peeve about the absurdity of the modern world won't help anyone to understand it. There are websites that will search big data and match curves to unrelated things as a jokey way of demonstrating that correlation does not imply causation.

Your post was thoughtful and accurate Mikefule, and I'm glad I read it. The paragraph above that I have chosen to highlight in particular is something that always concerns me, as picking over methodology and statistics; the whole ongoing process of peer review in psychology is difficult, and as you say correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation. In fact, sometimes the actual causation is nested somewhere related to the correlation, but only becomes apparent after hours of interminable nitpicking of every angle of a conceivable study and then being very lateral in one's thinking. It frequently takes real detective work, and when you see it (or worse, someone else sees it and you didn't), you kick yourself that you feel you were staring it in the face the whole time. When my hairline starts to recede I will blame statistics.
 
Your post was thoughtful and accurate Mikefule, and I'm glad I read it. The paragraph above that I have chosen to highlight in particular is something that always concerns me, as picking over methodology and statistics; the whole ongoing process of peer review in psychology is difficult, and as you say correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation. In fact, sometimes the actual causation is nested somewhere related to the correlation, but only becomes apparent after hours of interminable nitpicking of every angle of a conceivable study and then being very lateral in one's thinking. It frequently takes real detective work, and when you see it (or worse, someone else sees it and you didn't), you kick yourself that you feel you were staring it in the face the whole time. When my hairline starts to recede I will blame statistics.
Thank you.

I once read that the biggest problem with data from psychology experiments is that a disproportionate number of the subjects are psychology students or friends of psychology students. I don't know if that's literally true or a standing joke.

The problem with correlation is that too many people think:
  • If A then B.
The more sophisticated people think:

  • If A and B then C.
The even more sophisticated ones may think:

  • If A and B, and not C, then D.

However, the real situation with psychology is more likely to be along the lines of

  • If any 3 from (A B C and D) and not (both E and F) then the probability of G increases by X%

Therefore, in the circumstance you described as —

<<... when you see it (or worse, someone else sees it and you didn't), you kick yourself that you feel you were staring it in the face the whole time.>>

— there is a real risk that you are seeing what you were half hoping to find. Depending on your choice of angle, a cylinder may be a circle or an oblong, but neither of those is an accurate description of a cylinder.


To my mind, a psychological explanation is only valid when it allows you to make predictions that are more accurate than if they were made randomly. In the case of suicide:
  • I can imagine theories that might lead to reasonably accurate predictions about trends across populations, and may lead to successful intervention strategies. I hope so.
  • I find it much harder to imagine a theory sufficiently accurate to make useful predictions about an individual person. It would also be hard to test in each individual case.

If a theory says, "There is a 10% chance that Dave will commit suicide" the outcome will either be that Dave does or he doesn't. The theory allows for both outcomes and the event can only happen once or not at all.

If a theory says that a 50% increase in provision of shelters for the homeless will reduce suicides among the homeless by around 25%, and then there is an increase in provision of shelters, and then the suicide rate among the homeless drops by around 25%, then the theory appears to have some utility.
 
Thank you.

I once read that the biggest problem with data from psychology experiments is that a disproportionate number of the subjects are psychology students or friends of psychology students. I don't know if that's literally true or a standing joke.

Nope, it's true. As a student you are offered course credits to take part in other peoples studies and experiments.

This is fair enough if said study/experiment is for teaching purposes only. The problems with this in real research are several.

The first is that many psychology experiments rely on obfuscating the true purpose of the study, so that the subject don't second guess or unwittingly bias their response to that which they think the experimenter wants. Psychology students know this.

The second is the age demographic is narrow.

The third is that in psychology, there is often ten females for every one male subject, so gender biases can also creep in.

There's probably more problems with this approach. I pushed hard for a web-based survey for my dissertation as I wanted a wider demographic, a large sample size and really wanted to find out if my hypothesis was supported.

I personally consider psychology (in the UK) doesn't set or insist on an appropriate level of numeracy for students - they are (imo) not taught enough about statistics, what they really mean, or given enough time to consider experimental protocols and the necessity of them for sound results.

I read a prize winning study in the Psychologist magazine which stated that the hypothesis was 'proved' - in psychology studies one supports or does not support a hypothesis. Just getting p<.05 does not mean 'proved'. It means that if the null hypothesis was true, the result gained would occur five times in a hundred trials, that is, 20% of the time - by chance.

The problem with correlation is that too many people think:
  • If A then B.
The more sophisticated people think:

  • If A and B then C.
The even more sophisticated ones may think:

  • If A and B, and not C, then D.

However, the real situation with psychology is more likely to be along the lines of

  • If any 3 from (A B C and D) and not (both E and F) then the probability of G increases by X%

Therefore, in the circumstance you described as —

<<... when you see it (or worse, someone else sees it and you didn't), you kick yourself that you feel you were staring it in the face the whole time.>>

— there is a real risk that you are seeing what you were half hoping to find. Depending on your choice of angle, a cylinder may be a circle or an oblong, but neither of those is an accurate description of a cylinder.

Correlation means that a percentage of variance in the outcome can be explained by the variance in the the predictor variable. It's not immediately obvious what this means and many assume that, as you say, 'If A then B' or variants of it.

To my mind, a psychological explanation is only valid when it allows you to make predictions that are more accurate than if they were made randomly.

That's nicely put.

In the case of suicide:
  • I can imagine theories that might lead to reasonably accurate predictions about trends across populations, and may lead to successful intervention strategies. I hope so.
  • I find it much harder to imagine a theory sufficiently accurate to make useful predictions about an individual person. It would also be hard to test in each individual case.

If a theory says, "There is a 10% chance that Dave will commit suicide" the outcome will either be that Dave does or he doesn't. The theory allows for both outcomes and the event can only happen once or not at all.

If a theory says that a 50% increase in provision of shelters for the homeless will reduce suicides among the homeless by around 25%, and then there is an increase in provision of shelters, and then the suicide rate among the homeless drops by around 25%, then the theory appears to have some utility.

That sums it up rather well. A theory ought to say that there will be a 10% increase in suicides in the demographic of which Dave is a part.

A percentage increase in 'Event A' in a population, caused by a variance in 'Predictor B' across the same population, can be validated and had utility, but often when applied to a single individual will have little or no utility.

It's worth noting the real correlations in social psychology are generally very low. I got a 10% correlation on my dissertation between one predictor and the outcome, and although that's at first glance small, it's quite typical. I also got p < 0.01, which is suspiciously good, results that good are generally flawed experiments, although the markers didn't find the flaw. I haven't (yet).

On this subject; there are well validated studies that show a very strong correlation between low socio-economic status and health outcomes (mental and physical). On that basis a forward thinking country would ensure that poverty was eradicated...in the UK there's a tendency to consider poor people as lazy and therefore to blame for their predicament.

Essentially, this is an argument based on the (possibly wilful) misunderstanding that correlations in a population are based on 'if A then B', so if there is one instance of 'If A, not B' then the whole correlation argument is bogus. So one genuinely lazy person 'disproves' the study and so does one really industrious and lucky one.
 
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You speculated that high unemployment might raise suicide rates. A little bit of Googling might enable you to support your thesis.

l’d be interested to see the results.

maximus otter

It's projection based on my own assessment of the future situation. So it probably won't chime with anyone else's thinking.
 
My reading of the odds is slightly different.

If 10 people in a group of, say, 100 ex miners, commits suicide then the chances of a similar group would also be 10%.

But for each person in the group the odds are 50/50. Either they will or they won't.

Demographic differences will make a large difference in the number of potential young men killing themselves. And as the number of workers required will be inversely proportional to the increase in young men coming of work age, I predict that this demographic will have an increase in suicides.

INT21.
 
Numerous survey and / or longitudinal studies have repeatedly found that unemployment is strongly correlated with an increased risk of suicide. These increases typically involve circa double to triple the suicide incidence among equivalent employed cohorts.

For example, this 2003 study from New Zealand is one of the most cited ones:

T. A. Blakely, S. C. D. Collings, & J. Atkinson
Unemployment and suicide. Evidence for a causal association?
J Epidemiol Community Health 2003;57 : 594–600.

https://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/57/8/594.full.pdf

However, correlation does not automatically mean causation. As the study cited above indicates, it's difficult to determine whether unemployment is a direct versus indirect causative factor in suicides.

Furthermore, there's no particular reason to raise this question with specific regard to young men. The same general effect is noted for women, too. For example, this 2001 longitudinal study:

Kposowa A. J.
Unemployment and suicide: a cohort analysis of social factors predicting suicide in the US National Longitudinal Mortality Study.
Psychol Med. 2001 Jan; 31(1):127 - 38.

... stated the following:

RESULTS:
After 3 years of follow-up, unemployed men were a little over twice as likely to commit suicide as their employed counterparts. Among men, the lower the socio-economic status, the higher the suicide risk. Among women, in each year of follow-up, the unemployed had a much higher suicide risk than the employed. After 9 years of follow-up unemployed women were over three times more likely to kill themselves than their employed counterparts.

SOURCE: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11200951?dopt=Abstract
 
If 10 people in a group of, say, 100 ex miners, commits suicide then the chances of a similar group would also be 10%.

But for each person in the group the odds are 50/50. Either they will or they won't.

The fact that there are only two options (will/won't) does not make the odds 50/50.

Imagine a cube with "will" on one side, and "won't" on the other 5 sides. Now, roll it like a die.

The answer will be either will or won't but it's not 50/50. In this example, Won't is 5 times as likely as will.

So, back to the original example: if it is the case that the suicide rate for a group is 10%, and you know nothing else about an individual except that he is a member of the group, the odds of him committing suicide are 10% (or 1/10, or 90/10 against).

However, if you know more about the individual, you may find that he scores high or low on more specific risk indicators (e.g. age, marital status, good/bad health, etc.) then you may calculate that his personal risk is, say, 5% or 20%.

However, as I said in an earlier post, the difficulty is in testing whatever percentage risk we attach to that individual, because it is not a repeatable experiment.

One individual will either commit suicide or he won't. You can only count the one occasion when he does (if indeed he does) or observe the one occasion when he reaches the end of the study period still alive.

I suppose mathematically, you would say there was a 10% chance of him being 100% dead, and a 90% chance of him being 100% alive at the end of the specified period.
 
I would disagree.

Take a coin flip.

The odds it will come up heads is 50/50 for each flip.

But obviously the number of times it comes up heads for a given number of flips is variable.

I suppose it could be argued that in a more or less infinite number of flips the eventual count will be 50/50.

Everything averaging out.
 
Going back to your example of the dice with the single '5'. It is erroneous in this context due to the odds being 5:1 for any throw.
 
I haven't read all the pages in this thread, so please excuse me if I make a contribution that echoes another post.

I live with a mental health condition and also volunteered and worked in that area for many years. Mental illness, in its many shapes and forms can kill. It often kills. It kills you either by suicide, self-medicating with various substances or engaging in risky behaviours. When I was working in the field in the 90s & 2000s, people with schizophrenia had a conservative 10% death rate from suicide, even when treated.

Some 'scary' illnesses like cancers can have a lower death rate.

Men and women choose to end their lives to end unbearable pain, whether mental, emotional or physical. Sometimes the choice is informed but normally it's irrational, bewildering and incomprehensible to us when we're well. I've been in states when I simply wanted to lay down and die because my brain chemistry was making my existence hellish but I'd also made a pact with myself and my family that I'd never do this. I had to endure weeks of symptoms of total panic, bleak cold emptiness and lack of will to live but being forced to. It's horrible. Give me physical pain and illness anyday (I've had a lot of that too but that's another story).

There is no simple answer but I'd hazard a guess that the massive cuts made to NHS mental health services & support services since 2009 are now biting very hard. Most areas will not take inpatients even when they are a risk to themselves, to be frank they don't have the beds, staff or energy to care if you do top yourself. I know some GPs and police are getting people sectioned just to get them into a safe place for a few days.

As to the figures, I suggest that as death rates from other causes has been dropping (traffic accidents, illness & disease) suicide has remained fairly constant and has now overtaken other causes. I remember when I was a teenager (early 80s) that car crashes were the biggest cause of death in young men, much has changed since then but mental illness will always remain.
 
I live with a mental health condition and also volunteered and worked in that area for many years. Mental illness, in its many shapes and forms can kill. It often kills. It kills you either by suicide, self-medicating with various substances or engaging in risky behaviours. When I was working in the field in the 90s & 2000s, people with schizophrenia had a conservative 10% death rate from suicide, even when treated. Some 'scary' illnesses like cancers can have a lower death rate.
It is incredibly tricky trying to "de-bug" a human brain and its chemistry. It is like trying to fix a computer when you have to retro-engineer the machine and its code without any point of reference, but worse, as the human brain may well be the most complicated thing in the universe that we have yet discovered. Oh, and you aren't allowed to turn the computer off or you "lose". Somehow, against the odds, humanity is making progress on this front.

I know it is likely cold comfort to people suffering from mental illness like yourself AnonJoolz, but there are a lot of dedicated people plugging away at the various problems every day, trying to find the answers. I am glad that you are highlighting the scale of the problem AnonyJoolz . Seriously, I wish you all the best with your illness and I hope you get adequate care.
 
It is incredibly tricky trying to "de-bug" a human brain and its chemistry. It is like trying to fix a computer when you have to retro-engineer the machine and its code without any point of reference, but worse, as the human brain may well be the most complicated thing in the universe that we have yet discovered. Oh, and you aren't allowed to turn the computer off or you "lose". Somehow, against the odds, humanity is making progress on this front.
So true.
 
It is incredibly tricky trying to "de-bug" a human brain and its chemistry. It is like trying to fix a computer when you have to retro-engineer the machine and its code without any point of reference, but worse, as the human brain may well be the most complicated thing in the universe that we have yet discovered. Oh, and you aren't allowed to turn the computer off or you "lose".

Good post, thanks.

I would add that very often, the problem is not with the person, but with the interaction between that person and wider society.

There are women alive today (or at least, there were in the last 10 years or so) who spent their whole lives in mental hospitals because they had underage sex in the early 20th century. In the late 20th century, Homosexual men were treated as mentally aberrant and given drugs and electroconvulsive therapy. In the former Soviet Union, people who challenged the state risked being "diagnosed" as mentally ill.

Allowing society to determine what is "mentally ill" and what cure is appropriate is a dangerous business.

Today, a man who is long term unemployed is at risk of depression at least partly because of the way that society regards his position. Very often, the financial situation can be made at least bearable with benefits and other means of support, but the lack of social status and the lack of emotional support are a major problem.

A person who has been sexually abused as a child may suffer depression which is at least partly caused by the perceived need to keep quiet about it, and by the lack of understanding shown by large sections of society.

A woman who has been raped may be made to feel that "she must have done something to encourage it," and this adds to the risk of depression.

An alcoholic is part of a society that bombards him with images of alcohol consumption being not only socially desirable, but also a status symbol. A gambling addict with no job sits at home and sees that every second TV advert is for a betting company, bingo, or a lottery. And so on.

Modern western society often forces us to pretend, whether it is going behind a hedge to pee out of sight (of people who all know what you are doing), or it is the office worker who is forced day in and day out to be polite to rude customers, and defend company policies that they know are unjustifiable.

Everything about modern western society (at least in the UK) makes a taboo of anything that makes us into "mere animals": defecation, menstruation, terminal illness, death and bereavement.

For most of history, humans have lived lives in which they faced risks and dangers every day, but they had control over their own attempts to get food and shelter and to defend themselves against enemies. Life may have been nasty, brutish and short, but it was so in a more honest way for most people.

As a species, we have evolved to live that sort of hard but simple life of physical work, feeding ourselves, trying to hang on to loved ones for as long as possible, being cold and hungry, being ill, fighting hand to hand, and often dying young. Conversely, we have created a society in which all or most of the creature comforts are taken for granted, yet the rules we are required to live by are artificial, complicated and often senseless.

So, simply "debugging the brain" so that it can cope with modern society is a bit like putting a polar bear in an open air compound in a Californian zoo and then shaving it to solve the problem.

This is only one aspect of the problem, and I am not belittling or trivialising mental illness. I spent many years with daily thoughts of suicide and still have sudden and very deep depressions. Most of my problems have been caused by being intelligent and sensitive enough to see that what is going on around me is often absurd, unfair, dishonest, and pointless.

Or to put it another way, it may not help to adjust your TV set if the problem is mainly with the transmitter.
 
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And do not forget that it is often in the interest of other parties that the person suffering does not get well.

In many cases because if they did, they would leave.
 
It is incredibly tricky trying to "de-bug" a human brain and its chemistry. It is like trying to fix a computer when you have to retro-engineer the machine and its code without any point of reference, but worse, as the human brain may well be the most complicated thing in the universe that we have yet discovered. Oh, and you aren't allowed to turn the computer off or you "lose". Somehow, against the odds, humanity is making progress on this front.

I know it is likely cold comfort to people suffering from mental illness like yourself AnonJoolz, but there are a lot of dedicated people plugging away at the various problems every day, trying to find the answers. I am glad that you are highlighting the scale of the problem AnonyJoolz . Seriously, I wish you all the best with your illness and I hope you get adequate care.

Thank you, sincerely, for your supportive words. It means a lot. I am lucky that the British NHS funds relatively advanced medications that certainly help me a great deal. They help me to have a life, rather than simply breathing and existing.


...As a species, we have evolved to live that sort of hard but simple life of physical work, feeding ourselves, trying to hang on to loved ones for as long as possible, being cold and hungry, being ill, fighting hand to hand, and often dying young. Conversely, we have created a society in which all or most of the creature comforts are taken for granted, yet the rules we are required to live by are artificial, complicated and often senseless...

This ^^ the best therapy is simple living, and working with our hands at something humans have done for millennia; digging, growing, creating, cooking, story-telling, making fire, chopping wood, praying, fishing, childcare. It's now called 'therapy' but really it's just doing those things that humans used to need to do to survive. I find it brings a real focus and purpose to living and I heartily recommend it.

We are at a crossroads, maybe, as a species. Do we use relatively new technologies to help us and support us in our age-old human activities and opt out of the consumerist frenzy and chasing the notion of 'money'? Or do we become subsumed by tech and slaves to it? My personal opinion is that tech is a tool, and it enables discussions like this, around a virtual village communal fire but beyond that it has no meaning.

I try to live as simply as I can within the limitations of my environment and medical conditions but the world around me seems intent on eating itself arse-first. I'm seen as the odd one because I still sit and watch bees working and have a bookshelf and forget to check my phone for a few days. I might have mental pain, but who is the crazy one, really?
 
Enola Gaia,

I was thinking of the Social Worker who is allocated to a (often) teenager who has ended up in all kinds of problems often due to bad behaviour. Or to a family breakdown.

Not so much as the role usually filled by a psychologist., Someone you may go to if you feel you need to 'talk it out' with a person who is outside the problem.

INT21.

I think you misunderstand the role of social workers and or other mental health professionals.

If a young person is at risk then there will be a multi-disciplinary approach to their care. Yes, they might have a social worker as a case manager, (who will have training in delivering therapy btw), but that case manager is also backed up by the rest of his or her team which is made up of several professionals.
 
The best therapy is simple living, and working with our hands at something humans have done for millennia; digging, growing, creating, cooking, story-telling, making fire, chopping wood, praying, fishing, childcare. It's now called 'therapy' but really it's just doing those things that humans used to need to do to survive. I find it brings a real focus and purpose to living and I heartily recommend it.

Creatures like myself thrive on the glorious technicolor of complexity, but in that regard I am pretty abnormal. For all that I certainly do a lot of meditation to heal up, de-stress, and fine tune my brain. I certainly understand the value of a simple life too, and I have spent plenty of time in the outdoors or in cabins in the woods, and not just to dispose of bodies (jk), but I'm a city kid and "I likes me my creature comforts". I love holidays that allow me to have a simple life, but it is not a life goal for me. I also wouldn't recommend meditation for anyone with schizophrenia, as it has a habit of causing episodes, a bit like isolation tanks. I like the Apollonian maxim that "most things in moderation are fine", as well as the Dionysian addendum "including moderation".

We are at a crossroads, maybe, as a species. Do we use relatively new technologies to help us and support us in our age-old human activities and opt out of the consumerist frenzy and chasing the notion of 'money'? Or do we become subsumed by tech and slaves to it? My personal opinion is that tech is a tool, and it enables discussions like this, around a virtual village communal fire but beyond that it has no meaning.

If by tech, you mean the internet and the devices that allow us to access it, then I completely agree with you. On the other hand, I consider electricity, gas, and water to be "tech", as the systems involved in their provision to cities are remarkable. There is a lot of tech that is not computer based, and much of it is being integrated and improved in various ways by integrating computers. Yes, tech is a tool, but a tool is a means to expand what the human body can do, potentially towards and beyond what we can imagine. As to the consumerist world, well, I would love to see what a post-scarcity world would look like.

I try to live as simply as I can within the limitations of my environment and medical conditions but the world around me seems intent on eating itself arse-first. I'm seen as the odd one because I still sit and watch bees working and have a bookshelf and forget to check my phone for a few days. I might have mental pain, but who is the crazy one, really?

I know it doesn't seem this way, and often everything seems to be getting crazier, but to that end I largely blame the news. This is not to suggest that I think the news is fake, but that catastrophism sells. I find the news to be the main thing that makes me take a dim view of humanity. If you remove the news from your life, after about a week, the world does seem more sane imo.
 
This ^^ the best therapy is simple living, and working with our hands at something humans have done for millennia; digging, growing, creating, cooking, story-telling, making fire, chopping wood, praying, fishing, childcare. It's now called 'therapy' but really it's just doing those things that humans used to need to do to survive. I find it brings a real focus and purpose to living and I heartily recommend it.
I heartily recommend;
The Case for Working with Your Hands: Or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good: Amazon.co.uk
 
Living simply is quite therapeutic. IF you can afford to do so.

We do live in a high tech world. And the 'back to the land and set my soul free' hippy idealism simply is not going to work anymore.
A simple example. A few minutes ago I wanted to pay my gas bill via the web. Something I have done since it became possible. So I get to the sign-on page and can't get past the first stage of entering my Email address. Odd because I have done this many times.

Then it dawns.

Change my browser from Firefox to Avast Secure Browser, repeat the process, and lo! there is a capche that doesn't appear with Firefox.

From then on it's plain sailing.

Tech is moving forward all the time. We have to keep up.

Those who can't can become victims of stress, and may opt out altogether.

INT21
 
Tech is moving forward all the time. We have to keep up.

I worked with Council operating systems and library databases from 1985 till 2009, and know that when you get a good one, you want to hang onto it.

BUT.

It seems that as soon as the IT desk irons out all the glitches, management then decides to have a new one installed, with all the inevitable fine tuning that goes on...or someone in management is competing with a person/friend in a parallel council/organisation/office and decides that we MUST have this because it's all the go in the US/UK.

I am so glad that every book that comes out is not written in a reformatted form of the english language...

I used to say, thank the Gods for work - it would distract me from my self but a new operating system would guarantee a muckraking of the soul and psyche - not to the extent of planning suicide, but sufficient enough to bring all those thought and memories of doubt and social embarrassment back...

The pleasure of a Friday evening at home is many times ruined by the constant thought of needing to get out of bed on a Monday morn...and just trying to keep up.

I love my private, crowded solitude with all its wonders, but that 50 years of dutiful imprisonment that I served to pay enough tax to get my pension was a fucking purgatory, and I can understand why some people choose to opt out.
 
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