all the girls have scars on their wrists

Depression is twice as common in women as in men, I'm sure that affects attitudes about suicide.

If I ever tried to kill myslef, I'm sure I would wimp out and go for vodka and pills, or something sketchy like that that would likely leave no more than vomit stains on the carpet.

I have an old friend whose mother killed herself with a gun. His comment: "She must have been really unhappy. Women never do that."

none of it's very practical. Which part do you mean?

xpost - I suspect that the number of men who "play with guns" is small enough to be statistically insignificant in this.

Trying to kill yourself in a non-messy way.

Suicide Deaths, U.S., 2001*

Suicide by firearms was the most common method for both men and women, accounting for 55 percent of all suicides.

More men than women die by suicide.

The gender ratio is 4:1.

73 percent of all suicide deaths are white males.

80 percent of all firearm suicide deaths are white males.

No annual national data on all attempted suicides are available.

Other research indicates that:

there are an estimated 8-25 attempted suicides for each suicide death; the ratio is higher in women and youth and lower in men and the elderly.

more women than men report a history of attempted suicide, with a gender ratio of 3:1.

Not true. Consider the UK. Most people - men and women - do not have access to guns. However, men still are much more likely to succeed at suicide attempts.

Therefore, the fact that men are more likely to succeed at suicide is clearly *not* because they are more likely to use guns, or more likely to have access to guns.

It pisses me off a little bit to hear twisty-turny tangents about the statistic on male suicide. Its disrespectful to the victims. Blaming gun ownership instead of looking at the motivation to use them, and saying it's effort for women to find ammo? Come on. It's just an area where men have it bad. But anyways, speaking of female behavior. The "more attempts/less success" with female suicide sounds like an example of a cry for help, with the expectation of getting attention and support. Using lighter methods because the intention is some outcome besides dying. If someone wants to die they are serious about succeeding, it is really not hard. There are so many ways and plenty of places to find information about it. Believe me if your mind is on it that seriously you will be giving that much attention to research. "Can't find ammo" my ass, it's in the yellow pages.

People with access to guns, kill themselves with guns. In the UK, only a tiny proportion of the population have access to guns.

I don't feel qualfied to comment on why women ATTEMPT more there, but don't succeed.

I don't see why there should be any difference between the UK and US in this respect.

I guess this is what I suspected, that women think about it, write about it, romanticize it more than men but actually carry it out less.

Guns=success half of the time in the US
At what rate do guns=success in the UK? I don't know. Do you?

(off the top of my head I'd guess that they would be more than 50% successful, because msot of the people with access to guns know how to use one properly)

(xpost obv)

Many depressed men may not seek counselling for social reasons.

Contributing Factors

* Many factors in women may contribute to depression, such as developmental, reproductive, hormonal, genetic and other biological differences (e.g. premenstrual syndrome, childbirth, infertility and menopause). [4]
* Social factors may also lead to higher rates of clinical depression among women, including stress from work, family responsibilities, the roles and expectations of women and increased rates of sexual abuse and poverty.4

Gender Differences

* Women experience depression at roughly twice the rate of men.3
* Girls 14-18 years of age have consistently higher rates of depression than boys in this age group.[5]

* Depression in women is misdiagnosed approximately 30 to 50 percent of the time.[12]
* Fewer than half of the women who experience clinical depression will ever seek care.[13]

xposts

* Although men are more likely than women to die by suicide, women report attempting suicide approximately twice as often as men.[10]
* An estimated 15 percent of people hospitalized for depression eventually take their own lives.[11]

That's the question, not the answer.

* An estimated 15 percent of people hospitalized for depression eventually take their own lives.[11]

Not a good stat, but not an awful lot, and still not quite the subject.

Back up your sexist theory. If you do the research you will find that there is a disproportionate difference in support, health care and amount of social stigma between suicidal men and women. The statistics on treatment are skewed because men do not report.

ok, first orbit says that women dont think of guns as a weapon against themselves and says that she doesnt even know where to buy bullets if she had a gun. now this is completely ridiculous because if you have a gun in the house, why on earth would you have NO bullets. none at all? many women live in houses where a gun or multiple guns (with bullets) are present... because y'know, their husbands or fathers may enjoy hunting or feel that they are necessary for self-defense. also, orbit said that knives, pills and rope are more prevelant for suicidial females, but how many households really have strong enough rope to hold someone's body weight?
furthermore, when statistics from another industrialized country quite similar to the United States were brought up to prove orbit wrong, she just dismissed it because she says our cultures are soooo different.

and then she completely changed the subject to depression.

she is misguided in her argument.

In 2003, 2,511 men and 759 women had their deaths ruled as suicide in the UK. Of those, 1365 men and 259 women hanged, strangled or suffocated themselves. 611 men and 344 women drugged, poisoned or gassed themselves. 51 men and 31 women drowned themselves, and 96 men and 13 women cut themselves. 99 men and 3 women shot themselves. 67 men and 30 women jumped off things, and 101 men and 30 women jumped in front of things. 9 people (2/3rds men) deliberately crashed their car, and 30 men and 15 women killed themselves with fire, smoke or flames. 85 men and 31 women killed themselves in unrecorded ways.

(the full report is in http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/Dh2_30/DH2No30.pdf on page 246)

Men don't report being dead? I honestly don't follow you.

Right, you self-reported your symptoms and were diagnosed. We have no way of telling how many men don't go to a psychiatrist/counselor at all due to the stigma of being weak or what have you. (And women as well, but to a lesser extent.)

Cancer doesn't carry with it the same stigma of mental health issues and there are usually more verifiable/independent physical symptoms (and tests) to judge who has cancer and who doesn't.

Respectfully, that's really bad statistics.

It's time I left this fucking discussion. Whenever depression comes up there is someone wanting to say things like that.

Depression affects millions of men and women. Perhaps this has gotten off track. What was the question again?

Women attempt suicide more means women are more prone to depression = two unjustified assumptions based on an unjustified assumption.

I'm only saying your logic is way faulty. The facts might well be true.

If you look at the UK statistics I posted: 54% of male suicides were by hanging or suffocation; but only 34% of female suicides. Of course, these don't give any information on unsuccessful suicides.

(one female friend of mine who tried to kill herself tried hanging but failed. She didn't get it right so that she would die instantly, and her boyfriend found her just in time to cut her down)

Forest, it's time for me to leave this conversation.

yeah, but the original topic was "do men use more violent measure for suicide?"

maybe its just me, but i thought everyone knew about how more women are diagnosed as clinically depressed and therefore there are more suicide attempts... which isnt solid statistics anyways. also, because they succeed less often, they are more likely to try again unlike the males who often succeed the first time around.

And, I don't think you can necessarily draw a direct correlation and say "method X is always violent". Take "intentional harm by sharp instrument", which is listed statistically as a single cause of death. How many of those deaths were violent and how many peaceful? it's impossible to tell.

i guess we are just arguing for the sake of arguing... per usual.

Well, yes, that option always (unfortunately) exists - and the statistics (as well as my interaction with other men) tell me that many men choose that path, quite possibly because they don't want to get singled out by their peers/family. Unless there's a biological reason women are far more prone to 'depression' (but not successful suicides) than men, which I've never heard of.

I've certainly not suggested that avoiding help is the right way to do things. I think anyone who can get help should get it. I'm not saying anything other than 'male depression is underreported for cultural reasons.'

Oh, of course. But then again, I'm not sure machismo is a question of machismo. There may really be something deeper going on here than we know how to label.

Elliot Smith apparently stabbed himself in the heart with a knife, something I haven't heard of since Juliet. I will make no gender assumptions based on this.

Still, the statistics are way in favor of men killing themselves in way crazy ways, and women going for the soft sell.

See "biological factors" here: http://web.nami.org/helpline/women.html

And how.

Anyhoo, bedtime. I love you guys. G'night. Take care.

This is the cruellest, truest, best thing ever.

But given that depression serious-enough that it manifests in genuinely suicidal behavior is a documented cognitive illness, isn't it likely that a very equal number of women and men share this condition? That it's evenly broken on gender lines?

And that severely depressed women are more able to use attempts-to-fail as a lifeline than the severely depressed men don't so much want to be helped?

xpost

For the record, not reporting was not an option. No matter how hard I tried, I think the medical authorities would have noticed something wrong when I ended up in hospital after my (entirely serious but obviously failed, due to dumb luck) suicide attempt. And I'm also a bit bewildered at the comments about not being able to separate depression from my self - there are some minor areas where the illness has exaggerated existing tendencies and problems, so there is some grey area, but all the genuinely major stuff is still unmistakeably new and alien.

I think it's dangerous to use statistics to prove that women outnumber men in depression and, vice versa, men are *better* at killing themselves than women. (In Belgium it's far more common for policemen to shoot themselves simply because they have access to guns.)

It's a very complex issue. I'm really interested in the history of depression: how was it diagnosed in the past, how is it linked to the physical, it's psychosomatic so how does that work out,... There are so many factors that play into it.

I don't buy into the "they attempt to kill themselves but it's just a warning, a cry for help." (Something which is also said of serial killers when they become so sloppy and thus get caught.)

I do believe there are people who make halfhearted suicide attempts as a cry for help. When I was in my teens, I did what amounted to this - I took a moderate overdose, then immediately went to the hospital. It was something like a cry for help, an expression of how hurt and pained I was, something like that. It wasn't done with a full intention of ending up dead. The much more recent attempt was, and it almost worked, and only failed through bad luck.

I'm not sure about these M-F differences. I'm just about ready to believe that men may underreport depression or suicide attempts more than women, but it's a hell of a leap from that to the conclusion that there is no difference, since the gaps are really huge. I am therefore inclined to believe that women attempt suicide more. This would fit with more depression, and there are some promising speculations, at least, as to why that might be the case. Why do women fail more often? I find that hard to imagine. I can't see any particular reason why women should be any more likely to be making token attempts than men, nor can I see why they should be any less good at killing themselves, but surely one of those things must be the explanation.

I just did a search and found this study in Norway on suicide among women with or without children:

What was distinct was that among married women, the more children they had, the lower their rate of suicide. Women with six or more kids had one-fifth the okayed rate of childless women. Parenthood was protective even when the kids grew up and left home.

And I think I know you from Sinister, which is even more confusing because neither callousness nor denseness seems in character. Or do I have the wrong Caitlin?

No, I'm not. I've said nothing of the sort and you appear to be looking for a reason to be offended.

I don't much care how he meant it. He is telling me, quite unequivocally, that I could have sucked it up and toughed it out.
Where? Where have I ever dismissed 'depression' a real and horrible affliction? Where have I ever suggested that those suffering from depression shouldn't seek help?

I haven't.

I don't know what he imagines he knows about my life and health, but I'm guessing not all that much. It's arrogance, it's ignorance, and it is incredibly dismissive to a real and devastating experience.
You're reading, apparently, something I never wrote.

On the other hand, there are times when it's no more possible to "tough out" a period of severe depression than it is to "tough out" a diabetic coma.

Right, you self-reported your symptoms and were diagnosed. We have no way of telling how many men don't go to a psychiatrist/counselor at all due to the stigma of being weak or what have you. (And women as well, but to a lesser extent.)

Is there some part of that you disagree with? No matter what your illness, there's always an option to not seek treatment, be it for cancer or depression, be it for income reasons or fear of stigma. Nowhere have I suggested this is a legitimate, healthy choice.

Nowhere have I ever suggested that anyone shouldn't seek help, or that seeking help was a sign of weakness, or any of the other things you've accused me of.

'Stiff upper lip' and 'tough it out' are your words, not mine.

MILO Z AUCKERMAN: Well, yes, that option always (unfortunately) exists

(/court reporter)

Now what we have here is a failure to communicate. (/Strother Martin)

Well, considering that proficiency in this regard makes one... deader, perhaps "half-assing" isn't as demeaning as it might appear. Women do make more suicidal gestures, which are less about trying to die and more about asking for help. I would think that it's better to seek attention even in a somewhat passive way and invite an intervention, rather than to put a bullet in your head. Caitlin's wording might be blunt, but I don't think her ideas are really very controversial.

Also, when has anyone ever suggested that obviously there is the option of not seeking help about cancer, diabetes, broken bones? Do you not see a very big difference between the way you and many others talk about depression as against these clearly physical illnesses? Have you ever known anyone threatened by cancer? Would you have said that they 'self-reported', or is that a term that you (like everyone else who uses it) reserves for things where they are unconvinced by the reality behind it? Would you have suggested they have the option not to bother with medical help? Would you have told them they had the option to tough it out?

I don't seek arguments. I find that one of the words that people most often come up with about me here is affable. I especially don't seek arguments on this subject, because this is the biggest and most horrible thing that my whole life has thrown at me, and I am still about 90% sure that it will kill me one of these days. I (and other people who don't say these things here, but write or IM me personally) am thoroughly sick of having to wade through this kind of thing every time the subject is discussed.

I'm pissed off and angry and very upset. You are trying to win. Please consider yourself the winner, celebrate as you wish, and I'll do my best to avoid you from here on, and maybe you can refrain from ever interacting with me again.

Would you have said that they 'self-reported', or is that a term that you (like everyone else who uses it) reserves for things where they are unconvinced by the reality behind it?
I answered this - cancer manifests itself in more identifiable physical symptoms and determined to a greater degree by physical tests than depression and carries with it little or no stigma.

Diseases which carry a stigma rely on the sufferer overcoming social stigma to seek help. Being seen as weak, 'lesser' men dissuades many men from seeking counselling for less-serious depression - where women aren't necessarily bound by the same cultural rules and can seek help easier.

Here, again, you're accusing me of being "unconvinced by the reality" of depression, which is simply bullshit. I've made no value judgement (other than people should seek help and not seeking medical treatment for any cause is stupid), I'm just trying to figure out why men would commit suicide at higher rates but (allegedly) suffer from 'less depression.'

I'm not trying to 'win,' I get (justifiably, I believe) rather annoyed when I'm accused of harboring beliefs that aren't my own.

p.s. i am a different caitlin, the other one is around here somewhere.

Ignorance of depression annoys me too, but in my experience that ignorance is quite as much at home amongst health professionals as it is the General Public. I don't think depression has a purely physiological cause; that being the case, "treatment" quite often is not enough.

Martin amazingly OTM.

I would like to take this opportunity to recommend you all a book. It's about depression, but it's not depressing. It's revelatory.

Yeah, it's really that good.

This makes me terribly sad. I sincerely hope that this is not the case. Hope against hopelessness.

It's basically an autobiographical chronicle of William Styron's descent into suicidal depression and ultimate recovery. It can indeed be depressing, but it comes the closest I've seen to describing the indescribable agony that is severe depression, and with incredible lucidity.

Actually, there is, in fact, the option of not seeking help for all these things. People who do so often die, depending on the nature of the illness; sometimes people are able to fight off, on their own, things that can potentially be lethal, like an infection. Not having health insurance drastically raises the odds that, even if a person knows something's very wrong, s/he won't seek help (or, at least, not until it's too late). People also sometimes won't get help if their ailment carries a stigma -- venereal diseases, teenage pregnancies, and certain diseases associated with aging all come to mind.

The same is true of people who suffer from major clinical depression, an illness that obviously can be lethal. Treatment obviously makes a huge difference in stemming that lethality. Nonetheless, some people get help, and still end up taking their own lives; some people don't get help, and end up coming through it, for whatever reason. To say that this is the case -- to say that there are people who have survived the illness without getting any help or treatment -- is a statement of fact, and is not the same as saying that a particular person "ought to" have been able to come through without treatment.

You shouldn't be insulted at the notion that someone else quote-unquote "toughed it out" where you could not, any more than you should be insulted because your ancestors sometimes managed to fight off infections for which you would take antibiotics. It's not an implicit criticism, but a statement of fact. No one thinks less of you for having received treatment (though some might think less of you for the nasty, bullying tone you've adopted on this thread, but that's another discussion).

If you had been raised a bit differently -- perhaps with less love, or greater sadism, on the part of your parents -- it might well be that, when your major depression set in, you might have carried with you a false image of masculinity that led you to resist, or even sabotage, all possibility of getting treatment ("help") for fear of being weak, or unmanned, or stigmatized as a "crazy person", etc. There are other people who have done this; many of them are no longer here to tell us their stories. To say that they exist -- some as survivors, some not -- is no more a criticism of you than it is to say that there are people who've gotten septic infections, and survived without antibiotics. There may be something heroic in that survival, but few of us, if any, would think it worth emulating.

If I'd been raised with any more sadism by my parents I would have been dead many years ago.

Do you not see a significant different in emphasis between pointing out that there have been cases where people have not sought help for cancer and so on, and suggesting that they always have the option of not seeking it? I mean, that isn't so subtle, is it?

I don't know who you are, I don't recognise your name, so I don't know how to respond to allegations of bullying. I got very upset and angry because I felt (and still feel) that I was being told completely untrue and seriously belittling things about my personal experience by someone who knows nothing about it. I can't see how I bullied him in any way - I can't even see how I could bully someone I don't know, across a message board.

As I've said, so far as I can see you're taking great offense at things I never said and/or arguments you've attributed to me.

I think this is the part you're not understanding: I'm pretty sure that Milo is arguing that you had the option, while simultaneously acknowledging that it might well have killed you to exercise it. I don't know whether you were involuntarily committed, but assuming you weren't, the option to refuse treatment is always there in any medical condition. Milo's post is a critique of the "stiff-upper-lip" mentality, not an endorsement, specifically because it increases the number of people who blow their brains out (or otherwise take their own lives). Milo is saying, "People think they can tough it out, and that sucks, because they often die trying."

Oddly enough, neither I nor, I suspect, most people who read this thread came up with the interpretation that you did of Milo's comments. If you were so easily blinded with rage by a post that was basically innocuous, perhaps in the future you ought to wait a bit before posting a reply, or at least ask a few people around you for their opinions, to make sure that you're not reading in an insult that isn't there?

(xpost)

1. More from ages 14-18 because of hormonal changes coupled by societal attention to their developing bodies

2. Post-partum depression is a real thing (see Verta Taylor, Rock A Bye Baby)

3. Major life events like divorce or death of a spouse affect women differently; women's income on average goes DOWN, while men's goes up after divorce; women more often have the kids, more stress can lead to depression; financial stress can lead to depression. (see any reference in the field of sociology of divorce)

4. It doesn't matter what women say, they are often dismissed as "crazy, dramatic, histronic, hyterical" (see Women & Mental Illness")
regardless of what their subjective experience is. This could lead to failure to diagnose (it's just her being dramatic, hormones etc).

5. More women and children live in poverty than men (see US Census); the stress of poverty leads to depression.

6. Men suffer from depression, too. So what is the argument here? That they are under-diagnosed? Well, women probably are too, since the stigma against mental illness also works for women.

Put in the case of aggregate numbers, the demographics of large groups, all the evidence that I have seen points to women as a group having a larger incidence of depression. This evidence might not convince you, milo, but it convinces me.

In the end I suppose we will have to agree to disagree.

Milo, your posts were general points about depression, and I therefore took them to include me, so I asked you if your points covered my case, and you insisted they did.

I haven't noticed Christmas Lights on here before, and wondered who he/she was. I note he/she is clever enough to suggest that I may not perceive accurately - that is indeed a problem with depression. Well spotted. For the record, I have had more support in writing from more people for my interpretation than you have. That doesn't at all prove me right any more than your assumption that most people disagree with me made you right. It makes you an arrogant cunt for assuming I must be misreading things, of course.

I am now out of here, and I will not even read this thread any more, and I will do my very best not to speak to these two people here again. I imagine they won't want to speak to me either, so we can all happily continue with a policy of, I hope, polite avoidance.

It seems your problem is solved, or at least finished to the point where you need to take it to email if you have a problem with it.

As I've said absolutely nothing - directly or indirectly - to insult or diminish Martin's troubles, any upset he feels is simply not my responsibility. I'm sorry he thinks that he was attacked - but he quite obviously wasn't (as everyone else seems to have noticed), and I'm not going to be apologetic about something I didn't do.

The only 'argument' I want to win is the one where statements and beliefs are being attributed to me that I don't hold.

Clinical depression and being situationally depressed are two wholly different things. And "having suicidal thoughts" does not mark you as being clinically depressed. Nor, for that matter, does serious clinical depression mean you're obligated to think about offing yourself.

No one person has the premium on having depression: symptoms and manifestations are infinitely mutable within individual cases, and vary enormously from person-to-person. But major depressive disorders DO (though emphatically not in the eyes of those who genuinely suffer from them) have a certain market value with some groups of people. And these people who (likely) struggle with other illnesses and some less serious depressive-forms such as dysthymia, or come out of their depression within a measurable time, use the terminology of the truly imperiled to receive the help they need. And what's difficult about this is that it makes the truly, truly, depressed feel even more isolated (something like a thought of "If that person's depressed ... I must be insane ... "), and even more helpless that the language and systems that've been designed to help them are preempted by "lesser" illnesses. And as weird as it sounds, I think a fairly common symptom of CD is a certain ego-attachment to the idea of depression as personality trait. Like: because it's so integral to the sufferer's entity, the sufferer begins to enmesh their being with the depressed monkey on their back. I'm not a clinician - nor even close - and I don't know what this process is called, but I know from extensive experience that the net effect is often a weird defensiveness of the depression that isn't part of the person who suffers.

I also wanted to say (though I don't know that anyone here would argue with me) that a failed suicide attempt is 10000000x better than a sucessful one, and people who make cries for help rather than offing themselves quietly strike me as much the braver.

Often folks with conditions that are not depression, weird as it sounds, 'want' depression, convince themselves (and their doctors) that they have it, and take the proper attention and definition away from the people who really suffer. A really ugly and gross metaphor once offered to me is: "If you had a nameless and painful condition that required you to have your impacted bowels scraped out every day with a long-handled spoon, wouldn't it make a lot of sense to claim rectal-cancer instead of impacted-bowel-spoon disease?" And it would make things easier, except for the people who truly suffered from rectal-cancer.

xpost - I think of acknowledging someone's feelings as kindness, but you can call it "catering" if you prefer.

Interesting you mention this, Remy. Honestly, I've had to deal with my own so long I'm not really sure what kind of person I'd be were I magically cured somehow.

And I can rather sympathize with Martin. Though I'm doing better now than I have in years, were I a betting man, my chips would still be on depression leading to my death over anything else.

there are so many things i want to respond to on this thread, but...long thread. i had moderate-severe depression back in high school, and made some half-assed attempts to hurt myself that i didn't tell anyone about til years later, because i didn't want to be one of those people who were just trying to get attention. that seemed like it was thought of as a sort of weakness, and i had no interest in that sort of attention. i've always thought that if i want to die, i want to do so successfully, and in an especially low period, i figured out the chemistry of a varied drug cocktail that would get the job done (and yes, i'm female). it's the risk of it failing that would keep me from ever trying it, were i to feel suicidal.

but what i wanted to speak of was this 'wanting' depression. i have a serious and much misunderstood physical illness now, which is often misinterpreted as depression by lazy doctors. i get really defensive about this, because i know my own mind, and i know when i'm depressed. i don't want it because it's not true (though i certainly have quite a bit of dysthymia), and because it's denial of what's really going on, as frustrating and hopeless as reality may seem.

but there was a time when i wanted depression. i wanted any diagnosis that i could get that could get treated. i wanted a brain tumor, for god's sake. sometimes you feel helpless and out of control and beat down by whatever your affliction may be and yeah, you want a label, a treatment protocol, some measure of hope. but when it was clear what depression really was and that i knew i didn't have it, i was insulted when doctors assumed what was going on with me emotionally was the cause of my problems, rather than the result.

i'm not even sure what i'm saying, but thought i'd chime in.

Here's what comes with ADD: inability to pay attention. (Duh.) Poor performance at school or work. (This can easily lead even the smartest person to have a string of terrible jobs.) Trouble in relationships. (If you've ever dated an ADD person, you know them by their inability to commit not just to you, but to five minutes of their own time.) Poor impulse control. (I have always been known to say and do things that other people just won't say and do. This amuses more people than it annoys, but only because I'm so damn charming.) Money management skills that are even worse than the relationship skills, and owe a great deal to poor impulse control. (I am always dead flat broke. Always.)

This is not a recipe for a healthy, productive life. This is, in fact, a fairly rotten way to go about your days. There's an upside, I guess: ADD people are often pleasant, active, creative, good conversationalists, and the like. But the downside is pretty huge. Depression is part of your life if you're like me -- situational and episodic, but no less real. Work is a daily ordeal, love is reduced to just another impulse, and we won't even get into the amount of self-medication that classically happens.

I find myself now in a situation common to people with my condition. I have a terrible job, of course, because I can't hold a decent one. I was dumped yesterday on accurate charges of needing more care than she could be reasonably expected to give. I have been slightly drunk for about ten years. I need care and treatment as much as anyone I have ever known, and I include my friend whose mother killed herself with a gun. (He's awfully depressed. Surprise.)

I sympathize with Martin, and like him, but his shit isn't automatically worse than mine just because it's clinical depression.

Brilliantly! Unlike depression, which is multifaceted and difficult to medicate, ADD is a fairly simple brain malfunction. It's very much like hyperactivity in children. A few mild stimulants, and the difference is like night and day.

But remember -- I live in America. Bad job equals no medical insurance. And no medical insurance equals no medication. To get medication, I have to somehow bootstrap myself out of this hole I've dug for myself.

Are you in rehab at the moment, Aaron? It wasn't clear from your original post, and it hasn't been mentioned subsequently in the thread.

I just wanted to say that, if you are, I hope it's going okay for you.

See a sliding-scale therapist or clinic or get into the social services system if you have to. For meds, order online (often cheaper), ask for samples from your doc, or write the drug companies and ask them for help -- they need the good PR right now and may well oblige you.

Arrrgh.

that's great that meds work so well for you, kenan...some people with ADD are unresponsive to meds and have a really really hard time of it (a friend of mine, who can never keep a job and is a total mess). buuuut of course insurance can be a nightmare, and the latest meds are insanely expensive. some of the drug companies have programs for people with low incomes/no insurance...they may not be very easy to get hold of or get info about (because fuck knows the companies want to /seem/ all charitable but not actually help people in need), but they are out there, and i have even gotten a med paid for, once.

hi remy. i go anon sometimes, specially since i can't log in anyway lately.

Would it be rude to ask...?

In one typical case, a 17-year old boy who had often complained that his family did not love him injured his younger brother in a fight and was severely scolded by his parents for this act. Not long after this he got drunk and hanged himself outside his house. Another young man from a different island was ordered by his father to work in the family garden even after he remonstrated that he had other plans that day. After the family had left to attend a community celebration, he dug up the garden and then hanged himself. An 18-year old from still another island group committed suicide shortly before his graduation when his request for money from his parents went unheeded. One young man in his early 20s, who is representative of many others, took his life when his family refused to allow his marriage to a girl with whom he had been living for almost two years and who had already borne him a child. Another young man hanged himself after a prolonged drinking bout following the discovery that he had been making sexual advances towards a girl in the household who was classified as his "sister." Boys in their early teens have hanged themselves for similar reasons: one in anger at his mother for giving away a pet dog, another in shame and terror at injuring an uncle with a rock he had thrown, and a third for fear that he would be beaten for returning home late after watching video.

Even a cursory examination of the case data reveals that Micronesian suicides exhibit an etiology markedly different from that associated with suicide in the West. There is almost none of the chronic depression, the vague sense of meaningless of life, or even the despondency at failure in business or school that seems to play such a large part in suicides in other parts of the world.

interesting reading
more interesting reading

What I'm getting at is that the discussion of all these other contextual issues is basically cultural. It's interesting to see just how much difference is already apparent between the people on this thread; I don't actually think ANY of the things that Aaron talks about in his post upthread are necessarily related to suicide except in a high-index-of-coincidence-in-western-culture way. There are lots and lots of people who go through 'awful' experiences and don't commit suicide or even attempt it.

That's not to say I don't appreciate the sharing of personal experiences and narratives on this thread because that's all got a tremendous amount of value, but there are already people doing science on this, and approaches to suicide are usually cultural and learned (like most social customs) laterally, from you peer group.

Personally, I have never learned to tie a noose. Also I would like to point out that using any over-the-counter medication in an overdose attempt or even in combination with alcohol will just result in extremely painful vomiting and dry heaves.

Except not anymore, really!

also, in many cultures, cancer is considered a stigma-bearing disease. for instance, there is a major pr initiative underway in new york city to convince asian-american residents to not under-report or otherwise stigmatize cancer.

Greatest country in the world, isn't it. The low end of the sliding scale at the last person I saw was $50 for one visit, and I was broke with no job! Here in small town USA I called up the county health department, and they said well, we have one doctor on staff for people with no insurance. But she isn't taking any new patients, so sorry, we can't help you. They suggested I call some religious charities. (I didn't.) DIY in the ownership society, fuck yeah.

I don't know how much I believe in suicide as cry for attention concept. Not to offend anyone. But failing suicide makes you feel like a fucking failure.

Kenan's posts in this thread are hitting me pretty hard.

cutters are sessy

abbott, i don't follow.

the place that aaron was writing from, kind of sounds like the kind of place that'd push a guy over the edge, you know? not the ideal environment for anyone.

Thought this was gonna be a thread revive zinging my taste in women

All this thread really convinces me of is that some people are stupid. Also, that discrip of ADD is possib the clearest, most convincing Kenan post I can remember ever reading.

Abbott, I completely agree. It reminds me of people claiming:"Well, the criminal wanted to get caught so he made those mistakes." Wah? In the latter I think it's about arrogance/sloppiness. Of course with a failed suicide attempt that isn't the same, it's just about a failed attempt.

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f86/igotabeefpastry/suicider.gif

(wild applause)

I did that years ago. Two years.

retro-applause, then.

"this is THE END" :-D

All this thread really convinces me of is that some people are stupid. Also, that discrip of ADD is possib the clearest, most convincing Kenan post I can remember ever reading.

I didn't feel it so negatively. I think there's a lot of interesting points being made, by intelligent people.

I still think it'd be interesting to have a 'mental history' of yourself thread.