Family Foundation School, over 100 former students commited suicide

[OGEmoji]

On 9/17/2018 at 2:11 PM, laPapessaGiovanna said:

Yeah except this is the only dubious claim. A claim you did your best to defend without any actual fact to back it up. Quoting from the article: "Former students sought to find someone to blame, their first target being the school, only to come to terms with a more likely truth, that their dead classmates had been overcome by the sources of despair and addiction that took seed in their youth and brought them to the school in the first place."

Let me translate that bit: it wasn't the school's fault cos those kids were already fucked up and they just brought their fucked up-ness with them in their adult life. Never mind the abuse, nothing to see there.

It's not like being so severely istitutionally abused is a big risk factor for anything right? It's not like PTSD from TORTURE (cos much of what those kids went through would constitute torture in a different context) can be a risk factor for suicide right?

As someone who works with mentally ill patients, I hate hate hate when effects of abuse or simply of bad quality therapy are overlooked because "oh well, they were mentally ill, how do you know it wasn't their illness?".

How is it that if you die of any physical and curable illness as a consequence of bad medical practices nobody feels the need to point out that's the curable physical illness that actually killed you?

In this case you have well documented bad medical practices TORTURE and an extremely high suicide rate among former patients (let's not forget that the school was presented as a place where the kids would undergo therapy). In front of such data, affirming that the former patients death rates aren't attributable to any fault on the school's part but only to the patients illnesses and baseline vulnerability is textbook victim blaming.

Except that saying that the abuse was not a big deal is EXACTLY what you did when you stated that the article excerpt I quoted above is not victim blamey.

I took the highlighted quote to mean that the former students came to the conclusion that their classmates died due to the very demons that sent them to the school to begin with. I don't read that as the opinion of the author but of the people they interviewed.

 

As for victim blaming, there has to be personal responsibility. Did the school help them? Absolutely not. I think the blame lies on many parties. Their home lives were likely bad to begin with, and the school environment piled on. But the only person who took the drugs or committed the act was the deceased, and that places some of the blame on them. There are options beyond self harm, help is out there. It is heartbreaking to think that someone feels that isolated and in despair, and I certainly am not saying that having these feelings is anything to be ashamed of or degraded for, or even diminished, but there does need to be an acknowledgement of the act.

It's similar to a smoker developing lung cancer. Did they start with damaged genes? Likely. But they are the ones who lit the cigarettes and puffed them. It doesn't make them a bad person or a wrong person, but some of the blame has lie on the smoker.

[Palimpsest]

On 10/14/2018 at 10:50 AM, OGEmoji said:

But the only person who took the drugs or committed the act was the deceased, and that places some of the blame on them. There are options beyond self harm, help is out there.

As your last post on this thread was so compassionate, I'm assuming this victim blaming is naivety and ignorance.   Suicide is a big and complex issue and a leading cause of death.  Frankly, your smoking analogy is bunk.  Smoking is a choice.

People do not chose to have a mental illness (usually major depression) or life experiences so dire that they feel despair and see suicide as the only option.  To save time I'm going to do some quoting. Source:  http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/suicide

Quote

 

A suicide attempt is a clear indication that something is gravely wrong in a person’s life. No matter the race or age of the person; how rich or poor they are, it is true that most people who die by suicide have a mental or emotional disorder. The most common underlying disorder is depression, 30% to 70% of suicide victims suffer from major depression or bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder.  [1]

 

Many attempted and successful suicides are not by isolated people.  They may have supportive families and be under treatment from qualified professionals.   Who (wrongly) may feel guilt and be blamed for not succeeding in preventing the suicide of a family member or patient.

Also, many people who have attempted suicide have reached out for help but are not taken seriously, are denied help because they don't have the right insurance, or are not referred to people who can help them for other reasons. 

Quote

Although they may not call prevention centers, people considering suicide usually do seek help; for example, 64% of people who attempt suicide visit a doctor in the month before their attempt, and 38% in the week before.

Or their situation and illnesses are so complex and difficult that existing therapies (both pharma and talk) are not always successful in preventing suicide.  People are working hard to improve this, however.

Contrary to popular belief, people demonstrating suicidal ideation are not doing it for attention - they are screaming for help.  

Quote

Eight out of ten people considering suicide give some sign of their intentions.  [2] People who talk about suicide, threaten suicide, or call suicide crisis centers are 30 times more likely than average to kill themselves.

Luckily not every suicide attempt succeeds

Quote

There is one death by suicide for every 25 attempts [7]

and many people who attempt suicide do not try again because they do receive help or their situation improves.  

Quote

Nine of out ten people who attempt suicide and survive, do not go on to complete suicide at a later date.  [9]

But sadly

Quote

40% of persons who complete suicide have made a previous attempt.

It is a complex issue, as I said.

[OGEmoji]

1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

As your last post on this thread was so compassionate, I'm assuming this victim blaming is naivety and ignorance.   Suicide is a big and complex issue and a leading cause of death.  Frankly, your smoking analogy is bunk.  Smoking is a choice.

People do not chose to have a mental illness (usually major depression) or life experiences so dire that they feel despair and see suicide as the only option.  To save time I'm going to do some quoting. Source:  http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/suicide

Many attempted and successful suicides are not by isolated people.  They may have supportive families and be under treatment from qualified professionals.   Who (wrongly) may feel guilt and be blamed for not succeeding in preventing the suicide of a family member or patient.

Also, many people who have attempted suicide have reached out for help but are not taken seriously, are denied help because they don't have the right insurance, or are not referred to people who can help them for other reasons. 

Or their situation and illnesses are so complex and difficult that existing therapies (both pharma and talk) are not always successful in preventing suicide.  People are working hard to improve this, however.

Contrary to popular belief, people demonstrating suicidal ideation are not doing it for attention - they are screaming for help.  

Luckily not every suicide attempt succeeds

and many people who attempt suicide do not try again because they do receive help or their situation improves.  

But sadly

It is a complex issue, as I said.

I never said anyone chose to have a mental illness, but I do know that everyone has a choice as to whether they use drugs or self harm.  In fact, part of recovery is returning ownership of that choice to the sufferer. Today, right now, they get to choose not to use/self harm. Sometimes that choice feels like the most difficult choice in the world , but each day, each moment they get to make that choice and should embrace that ownership.

 

Saying the sufferer has a choice is not a judgement or a value statement, it simply is what it is. Self harm is not an aneurysm, one is not simply walking down the street and looks down to see a needle in their arm. It was a choice, one that maybe seemed the only option at the time, but still a choice and an action.

[AliceInFundyland]

@OGEmoji I kind of get your drift about accepting responsibility and recovery.

BUT do you have any fucking clue what it’s like to be in the hell of being suicidal? You feel both responsible for yourself....and then, if you love anyone else, you feel horrific guilt, and you want to push them away, and also make things easier for them. You don’t know what to do. Are you being Selfish or Selfless? That’s often where all the obsessive planning comes in.

And this is why it’s a fucking illness. You really should be making healthy rational choices and not y’know bingeing or cutting or purging or popping a pill or refusing to leave your house* but you don’t cause your wires have gone off yet again.

If you understand that it is an illness than understand the symptoms of said illness!!

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

24 minutes ago, OGEmoji said:

I never said anyone chose to have a mental illness, but I do know that everyone has a choice as to whether they use drugs or self harm.  In fact, part of recovery is returning ownership of that choice to the sufferer. Today, right now, they get to choose not to use/self harm. Sometimes that choice feels like the most difficult choice in the world , but each day, each moment they get to make that choice and should embrace that ownership.

 

Saying the sufferer has a choice is not a judgement or a value statement, it simply is what it is. Self harm is not an aneurysm, one is not simply walking down the street and looks down to see a needle in their arm. It was a choice, one that maybe seemed the only option at the time, but still a choice and an action.

They should "just say no" right?/sarcasm

And yes it is EXACTLY like aneurysm. A person who is seriously mentally ill can't just decide that they are fine and walk away as if they were healthy anymore than a person with an aneurysm can. It's just not how it works.

I do not deny that "choice" plays a role in addiction. But that first time "choice" isn't always as free as you'd like to think. And the hundredth time it isn't free at all. Willpower is not enough to heal from addiction, not nearly enough actually. It can be enough for the first two steps: understanding that's you have a problem and asking for help. Much, much more is needed to heal.

Now if an adolescent with a mental health issue cries out for help and, instead of providing help, you hurt said adolescent in a torture camp, it is as if you started kicking in the gut the person having an aneurysm. Why the fuck would you do that? How can you think that when, as foreseeable, things go south, you aren't at fault in any way? You didn't cause the aneurysm after all and it was the aneurysm that killed the guy, right?

[OGEmoji]

14 minutes ago, AliceInFundyland said:

@OGEmoji I kind of get your drift about accepting responsibility and recovery.

BUT do you have any fucking clue what it’s like to be in the hell of being suicidal? You feel both responsible for yourself....and then, if you love anyone else, you feel horrific guilt, and you want to push them away, and also make things easier for them. You don’t know what to do. Are you being Selfish or Selfless? That’s often where all the obsessive planning comes in.

And this is why it’s a fucking illness. You really should be making healthy rational choices and not y’know bingeing or cutting or purging or popping a pill or refusing to leave your house* but you don’t cause your wires have gone off yet again.

If you understand that it is an illness than understand the symptoms of said illness!!

 

I never, ever said they had a choice to feel the way they do, or that anyone was to blame for having those feelings. Mentall illness is just that, illness, and of course nobody chooses to jave to fight that battle. Agqin, no judgement or value in what I said, just that the actual action is done by the sufferer. That's all.

 

8 minutes ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

They should "just say no" right?/sarcasm

And yes it is EXACTLY like aneurysm. A person who is seriously mentally ill can't just decide that they are fine and walk away as if they were healthy anymore than a person with an aneurysm can. It's just not how it works.

I do not deny that "choice" plays a role in addiction. But that first time "choice" isn't always as free as you'd like to think. And the hundredth time it isn't free at all. Willpower is not enough to heal from addiction, not nearly enough actually. It can be enough for the first two steps: understanding that's you have a problem and asking for help. Much, much more is needed to heal.

Now if an adolescent with a mental health issue cries out for help and, instead of providing help, you hurt said adolescent in a torture camp, it is as if you started kicking in the gut the person having an aneurysm. Why the fuck would you do that? How can you think that when, as foreseeable, things go south, you aren't at fault in any way? You didn't cause the aneurysm after all and it was the aneurysm that killed the guy, right?

You are making big leaps here.  Mental illness is unpreventable, but the actions of the sufferer are preventable. I am so glad there are helplines and that this country has made huge strides in recognize our needs for mental health care.  We have a long way to go, but at least we are talking about it.

Again, I said the school didn't do anything to help these young people. They, along with the parents and others, probably did make the deelings worse. But the only person who chose self harm was the sufferer, and that's all I meant by what I said. That doesn't make them  bad or less valuable or anything negative. I know many addicts and know they are beautiful people underneath the addiction. But the choice to use is theirs and theirs alone.

[AliceInFundyland]

What you are saying, or strongly implying is that the sufferers have choices.

Sometimes people are SO Mentally Ill, they are incapacitated. They cannot make good choices for themselves. They do things they would not do otherwise. This includes drug use and self harm.

You are not getting that.

[Topaz]

1 hour ago, OGEmoji said:

I never said anyone chose to have a mental illness, but I do know that everyone has a choice as to whether they use drugs or self harm.  In fact, part of recovery is returning ownership of that choice to the sufferer. Today, right now, they get to choose not to use/self harm. Sometimes that choice feels like the most difficult choice in the world , but each day, each moment they get to make that choice and should embrace that ownership.

*Possible trigger warning*

 

I can’t speak to drug use as I never have, but I am a self harmer and sometimes it really does not feel like a choice. There have been times when I could have asked for help but didn’t and then cut myself, but other times I was not in a place (physically, mentally or both) where I was able to do that and I just had to do something to counter the pain I was feeling mentally. At that point self harm was still technically a choice but the other option was to end the pain permanently. I see the self harm as a side effect of the mental illness at that point.

 

From outside you see the person as having a choice but that isn’t necessarily the way they are experiencing the situation.

[formergothardite]

1 hour ago, OGEmoji said:

but I do know that everyone has a choice as to whether they use drugs or self harm.

No 

Spoiler

I don't discuss my mental health issues online a great deal or actually in real life, but I'm going to make an exception here. When I was suicidal I was past the point where I could make a choice. I was way past the "everyone has a choice" stage. The problem with the shame I held over being mentally ill is that it kept me from seeking help, from letting anyone know I needed help till I ended up at the point my mind was so lost that there was no making choices for me.  I've discussed this with my therapists that healthy me can't really relate to the person who ended up suicidal. It was like I was a totally different person. Right now I can talk to you all day about how I can make good choices, but it wasn't the case during that period of my life. I blamed myself so much as I recovered. I kept saying that I should have been able to make myself better, I should have been able to choose a different path, to stop myself. It has taken a hell of a lot of therapy to get to the point where I now accept that I wasn't making a choice because I was too sick to do that. I don't have to beat myself up anymore for being mentally ill and the side effects of that. This important aspect of mental illness is something you don't seem to understand. 

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

13 minutes ago, OGEmoji said:

But the only person who chose self harm was the sufferer

That's as much of a choice as when my skin decides to have eczema. I have stupid eyelids, they get all itchy and red and swollen. They should know better than choosing to suffer.

My mother likes to say that all allergies are rooted in people's emotions and she heavily implies that I should manage my emotions better. Yeah, it doesn't make sense. Neither your argument does.

[AliceInFundyland]

People like you are infuriating.

I have a huge bag of trash in my kitchen. Somehow, in the last few weeks, I’ve made the “choice” that it would be easier to continue to fill it up. Because, I do not like going outside right now. In daylight. To my office. Where my newunpleasant coworker who tried to get me fired six weeks ago might be. Or across the parking lot to the trash can because my neighbor with the barking dog is there at all hours and he thinks I’m mean and he’s fabulous. Or anywhere. Everything can be delivered.  I am fully aware that this is my “choice” But I cannot move. My brain is flat. You don’t know what that’s like till it’s you. And if this triggers me, I hope to Rufus some of our other members don’t encounter you.

Yeah, less than ten times in two months. Tell me how easy it is to just make the choice to change that. I’m hoping the huge effexor bump will help.

 

[Smash!]

I never said anyone chose to have a mental illness, but I do know that everyone has a choice as to whether they use drugs or self harm.  In fact, part of recovery is returning ownership of that choice to the sufferer. Today, right now, they get to choose not to use/self harm. Sometimes that choice feels like the most difficult choice in the world , but each day, each moment they get to make that choice and should embrace that ownership.

Re the bolded. It seems to me that you’ve thankfully never had to experience major depression yourself or the ones who are nearest and dearest to you. Otherwise you wouldn‘t make a statement like this even tough of course in theory you‘re right, everyone has a choice. Until mental illness takes it from you. You don‘t seem to understand that depression (among others) messes with your brain. It limitizes your thinking. It‘s like the people affected were in a different state of mind. In a hellish state to be clear. No one, absolutely no one wants to die. So, someone with a major depression episode has to fight every minute, every hour, every day. To get up. Get something done. Simply to stay alive. To find the courage to live this life that means demons, anxiety, hopelessness, darkness, agony and much more. And then, someday this person has no strength left and surrenders to the pain and horror that depression is and commits suicide. Like a weak animal in the desert on the way to the next waterhole that is too exhausted to go on and lays down to die. Would you still say this person or animal in the desert had a choice not to die?

I know it wasn‘t your intention but for me you stating that it‘s a choice to do no self harm is victim blaming. Because people this ill don‘t have that choice anymore.

My best and dearest friends dad killed himself and left a suicide note to his family stating that they‘re better off with him gone. He was very loved and his children still young. How fucked up had his mind have to be because of depression to think that? How desperate did he have to be that even his children couldn‘t give him the courage to carry on?

[OGEmoji]

1 hour ago, AliceInFundyland said:

People like you are infuriating.

I have a huge bag of trash in my kitchen. Somehow, in the last few weeks, I’ve made the “choice” that it would be easier to continue to fill it up. Because, I do not like going outside right now. In daylight. To my office. Where my newunpleasant coworker who tried to get me fired six weeks ago might be. Or across the parking lot to the trash can because my neighbor with the barking dog is there at all hours and he thinks I’m mean and he’s fabulous. Or anywhere. Everything can be delivered.  I am fully aware that this is my “choice” But I cannot move. My brain is flat. You don’t know what that’s like till it’s you. And if this triggers me, I hope to Rufus some of our other members don’t encounter you.

Yeah, less than ten times in two months. Tell me how easy it is to just make the choice to change that. I’m hoping the huge effexor bump will help.

 

Please contact someone close to you or a prevention hotline anytime you are feeling scared of your thoughts or actions. I do not wish for anyone to ever hurt themselves, and sincerely hope for you to get the help you need. 

[Palimpsest]

First, I want to thank everyone who has shared their experiences and struggles.  I know  it cannot have been easy, in fact really hard, and I applaud you all for sharing.  Much love and hang in there everyone.  I've been there too and lived. 

Second, oh, crap.

"From ghosties and ghoulies and lang-legged beasties - and uninformed people who double-down on the Internet when they are wrong - May the good Rufus preserve us."

2 hours ago, OGEmoji said:

You are making big leaps here.  Mental illness is unpreventable, but the actions of the sufferer are preventable. I am so glad there are helplines and that this country has made huge strides in recognize our needs for mental health care.  We have a long way to go, but at least we are talking about it.

We have been talking about it for 40 years, in my own experience, and apparently we have only succeeded in getting people like you to assume every person who attempts suicide is somehow still to blame.  And you still keep harping on drug addiction and choices.

You don't seem to get how hard it can be for anyone to reach out for help - or that the right help isn't always available. 

Yes, some people self-medicate and sometimes it is with illegal drugs and alcohol.  That is known as dual diagnosis.  Sometimes they abuse, or self-medicate with. prescription drugs. Not always.  And some people are actually drug free when they top themselves in despair.

Also know that sometimes legal and prescribed drugs (for many health conditions) have side effects that make people suicidal.  Even commonly used anti-depressives can sometimes exacerbate depression and cause people to feel suicidal.

Yes, we have made strides.  Meds are getting better.  Therapy is getting better.  But neither are infallible - again this is an incredibly complex issue. 

29 minutes ago, OGEmoji said:

Please contact someone close to you or a prevention hotline anytime you are feeling scared of your thoughts or actions. I do not wish for anyone to ever hurt themselves, and sincerely hope for you to get the help you need. 

Well, I agree with this completely.  I think we all want people to be safe and free from pain.

However, you seem to think that reaching out is a silver bullet.  It is a first step - that is all. 

Now blame the illnesses or the circumstances that bring people to the brink.   Stop blaming people for "failing" to reach out.  And stop blaming people for supposed "bad decisions and actions" when you obviously are too uninformed to begin to comprehend the issues.

@OGEmoji, it is time for you to read what people have written here and learn from it.

And it is more than time for you to move on from this discussion.  You are just making yourself look bad.

[AliceInFundyland]

1 hour ago, OGEmoji said:

Please contact someone close to you or a prevention hotline anytime you are feeling scared of your thoughts or actions. I do not wish for anyone to ever hurt themselves, and sincerely hope for you to get the help you need. 

Oh you condescending twatwaffle. How DARE you? Did I say was scared of my feelings or that I was going to hurt myself at this moment? You recycled the same sentiment you expressed to the other poster upthread who mentioned a familiarity with suicidal ideation. 

Get bent and excuse yourself.

[OGEmoji]

12 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

First, I want to thank everyone who has shared their experiences and struggles.  I know  it cannot have been easy, in fact really hard, and I applaud you all for sharing.  Much love and hang in there everyone.  I've been there too and lived. 

Second, oh, crap.

"From ghosties and ghoulies and lang-legged beasties - and uninformed people who double-down on the Internet when they are wrong - May the good Rufus preserve us."

We have been talking about it for 40 years, in my own experience, and apparently we have only succeeded in getting people like you to assume every person who attempts suicide is somehow still to blame.  And you still keep harping on drug addiction and choices.

You don't seem to get how hard it can be for anyone to reach out for help - or that the right help isn't always available. 

Yes, some people self-medicate and sometimes it is with illegal drugs and alcohol.  That is known as dual diagnosis.  Sometimes they abuse, or self-medicate with. prescription drugs. Not always.  And some people are actually drug free when they top themselves in despair.

Also know that sometimes legal and prescribed drugs (for many health conditions) have side effects that make people suicidal.  Even commonly used anti-depressives can sometimes exacerbate depression and cause people to feel suicidal.

Yes, we have made strides.  Meds are getting better.  Therapy is getting better.  But neither are infallible - again this is an incredibly complex issue. 

Well, I agree with this completely.  I think we all want people to be safe and free from pain.

However, you seem to think that reaching out is a silver bullet.  It is a first step - that is all. 

Now blame the illnesses or the circumstances that bring people to the brink.   Stop blaming people for "failing" to reach out.  And stop blaming people for supposed "bad decisions and actions" when you obviously are too uninformed to begin to comprehend the issues.

@OGEmoji, it is time for you to read what people have written here and learn from it.

And it is more than time for you to move on from this discussion.  You are just making yourself look bad.

That isn't what was said at all. It is the exact opposite of what was said.  People are twisting the statement with their own emotions in an attempt to flair up something that isn't there.  Like your quotes there, I never said tjose things. I never called anyone bad or wrong or anything of the nature. You just made it up out of nothing so that you could be angry about something. I have a lot of compassion for people, and hope anyone suffering from these things can find a healthy way to heal. 

 

My original point to all of this, which is so far at the top of this rabbit hole that it can barely be seen, is that the author seemed to be quoting and reporting the opinions of the former students, not placing his or her own values on the story.

[Palimpsest]

9 minutes ago, AliceInFundyland said:

Oh you condescending twatwaffle. How DARE you?

Precisely.  Go Alice!  Don't hold back.

I dunno, I tried for reasoned debate this time, but I think your gut responses might be more effective. 

[AliceInFundyland]

Ahem, sometimes we can be diverted from the original point when other things happen. Someone else can take up the case of the thread topic again.

My issue is the point - which you are now doing the classic dodge on - of - Mental illness will cause self harm and drug use and people to do thing to do themselves. It fucks up your biological and psychological ability to make decisions. Because you doubled down on the notion that at the end of the day everyone has a choice. And now that we are all “emotional” you are acting like you don’t understand. 

You want to go back to rational discourse? Well, admit that perhaps you might have not been thinking it through when you said self harm is a choice. You lost the room there. 

[OGEmoji]

27 minutes ago, AliceInFundyland said:

Ahem, sometimes we can be diverted from the original point when other things happen. Someone else can take up the case of the thread topic again.

My issue is the point - which you are now doing the classic dodge on - of - Mental illness will cause self harm and drug use and people to do thing to do themselves. It fucks up your biological and psychological ability to make decisions. Because you doubled down on the notion that at the end of the day everyone has a choice. And now that we are all “emotional” you are acting like you don’t understand. 

You want to go back to rational discourse? Well, admit that perhaps you might have not been thinking it through when you said self harm is a choice. You lost the room there. 

I think that at this point there is no sense in us going back and forth on this. You have your views and I have mine. I stand by my factual statements, where I neither attacked anyone nor called them names, because my statements can stand on their own without trying to tear someone down. 

 

 

[formergothardite]

52 minutes ago, OGEmoji said:

People are twisting the statement with their own emotions in an attempt to flair up something that isn't there

Feel free to explain how I twisted the quote I took from your posts. You said said self harm was a choice and that shows that you don't understand mental illness.

 

[AliceInFundyland]

4 hours ago, OGEmoji said:

I never, ever said they had a choice to feel the way they do, or that anyone was to blame for having those feelings. Mentall illness is just that, illness, and of course nobody chooses to jave to fight that battle. Agqin, no judgement or value in what I said, just that the actual action is done by the sufferer. That's all.

 

You are making big leaps here.  Mental illness is unpreventable, but the actions of the sufferer are preventable. I am so glad there are helplines and that this country has made huge strides in recognize our needs for mental health care.  We have a long way to go, but at least we are talking about it.

Again, I said the school didn't do anything to help these young people. They, along with the parents and others, probably did make the deelings worse. But the only person who chose self harm was the sufferer, and that's all I meant by what I said. That doesn't make them  bad or less valuable or anything negative. I know many addicts and know they are beautiful people underneath the addiction. But the choice to use is theirs and theirs alone.

That was your last post where you stated your OPINION about it being a choice. With nothing to back it up.  

I am heated. You are not incorrect. You are making a baseless claim. 

When you simply wash your hands of what I say, and what other sufferers say as “differing views” it comes off as dismissive and condescending. Definitely not compassionate.

[formergothardite]

8 minutes ago, OGEmoji said:

because my statements can stand on their own without trying to tear someone down. 

But you won't address the posts where people who have dealt with mental illness say that your statements aren't true? It makes it seem like you care more about pushing your idea that self harm is a choice than learning about what it is like to be in the place where you resort to self harm. 

Your "fact" was that people make the choice to hurt themselves. That isn't true. It really isn't. I didn't make the choice to attempt suicide anymore than I make the choice to be allergic to dust. 

It is very frustrating when people want to jump into a discussion about mental illness, push a harmful idea(and the idea that hurting one's self is a choice is harmful), and then not even address the people who have suffered mental illness and are sharing their stories. 

[dawbs]

all views are not equal.  SO sure, agree to disagree.  But know that some views have the weight of facts, the weight of experience (of those folks who have BTDT w/ mental illness, with supporting mental illness, etc) and some of them are opinions of assholes who are and obnoxiously and willfully ignorant.

Speaking of smoking...remember the game the cigarette companies played, and played hard? that while smoking CORRELATED strongly with things like lung cancer, since people were predisposed to different things and not EVERY smoker got lung cancer, you couldn't prove it was causative?
Yeah.
Lets turn this free choice bullshit that way.
You take some kids and you subject them to  horrific abuses.  According to the folks that caused that abuse, the abuse didn't CAUSE suicide and drug abuse.  BUt, realistically, we all know that it sure as hell correlates really really really strongly.  And that the only reason it's not 'causative' is because there aren't enough controls because IRL can't ever truly be a science experiment.

Because mental illness is illness.  And frewill only goes so far.  And only because I've seen this pain so close and I don't wish it on anyone, even complete asswipe schmucks, do I not wish for people who refuse (not just not understand, but refuse) to see that up close and personal.

[wild little fox]

On 9/16/2018 at 12:21 PM, jjmennonite said:

I’m 60. I have likely suffered from anxiety and depression my entire life. I was brought up to believe that I was not healed , of anything that ailed me,  because my faith was not strong enough. In addition to my mental health issues, I was sexually abused. Dark story here, with a pretty happy present.

All these years later, I may kill myself. I’m not in any danger, most days, but I have suicidal ideation when I’m depressed. I definitely blame my helpless fundy teachings, and teenage trauma.  I’m certain the trauma suffered by those children at the school plagued them, many years later. 

This is in no way scientific, but I am certain, based on my own dark thoughts. 

I could have written this. Thank you for your post. Much love and support. 

[Iamhispurity]

I am going to respond to you from the point of someone who has CPTSD. The chance of healing that illness in anyone is slim, no matter how hard the person suffering from it will try. Basically your brain doesn’t work the way a normal persons brain would work. Your behavior is not a choice in a lot of situations because your brain doesn’t know of any other way to act, sometimes your instincts take over. These people  experienced those things in that school will probably show at least some of those behaviors. They are tormented by those memories every single fricking days of their lives. They will have to experience those horrors all over again. They can’t escape them. That can seriously make someone suicidal. And at that point there is no feeling of choice. You are past the point of being able to rationally choose life. The only thing you can think about is escaping the memories. So yes the school plays a huge part in their death. The memories of this school are killing them, if not through suicide, them mentally. Every single day.