Ireland and suicide

katherineconlan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118234311#Comment_118234311

That's true. "Downer" drugs or CNS depressants are said to be much more addictive and dangerous to withdraw from than "Upper drugs/CNS stimulants.

Benzos, alcohol, and opioids are probably the most addictive drugs and they're taken regularly in Ireland.

Strumms

Problem is as I’ve seen it and experienced with a work colleague who was behaving poorly, getting away with murder, dragging the team down with him... manager went to action it and got told.. ‘mental health issues ’... he was advised by hr to back off...

guy was apparently asked what condition he’d been diagnosed with.. the answer.. “ erm don’t know, my general mental health “... what practitioners he’d seen... “ that’s confidential “...

so IF there is an issue people with mental health you need to acknowledge it, find a pathway to get help and actively engage with that help.

im 95% over a physical health issue... I went, got diagnosed, did something about it... exercised, took relevant medications as recommended...

Richard Hillman

There are a lot roots toward it as people have said, drugs, drink, work environment etc. I think major factor too is economics.

There is very very little hope for males around 30ish that have started to give up on hopes of having that life that you always thought you would have. Decent enough job, somewhere of your own to call home, a partner, children.

You can do everything that they say is right. Eat well, drink well, excercise, talk about your feelings etc but no psychological councillor can bullshit you into truly believing everything will be alright.

You can kick the drink, drugs, gambling, whatever all you want. You'll still be in your 30-40s, in miserable job, single and living in your ma's box room.

I wouldn't know anyone personally who has committed suicide. Only a few friend of friends or faces that I would know from the local area. They would all have similar characteristics in that they didn't really have great futures to look forward to. I know that sounds awful to say but no amount of mental health supports or councilling would have convinced them that in the long run that things will work out just fine.

I don't think there is really any answers to solve it. For general depression, people going through a tough few months. Some of them just need a bit of a reset and to detox their minds for a bit. Supports can work for them.

But for your down and outer, no prospects, no voice in society, no amount of councilling will bluff them. Only drugs would work.

Apologies if my post is a bit grim but its reality.

SEPT 23 1989

If you can’t handle the comedown from drink and drugs stay well away from them

that would solve the majority of the suicides of the youth in this country

thefallingman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118236460#Comment_118236460

You really are clueless when it comes to depression.

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118214736#Comment_118214736

yes suicides only began after someone invented the participation medal

and dirty children were all healthy and not dying before getting to their teens, I believe the invention of soap caused disease in fact

You really have the world upside down

DoctorEdgeWild

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252135#Comment_118252135

I don't think that poster said anything like that, seemed a fair comment and question about teaching children how to deal with the adversity that they will encounter as they grow up.

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252219#Comment_118252219

no that is exactly what they said

Whether they believe what they say is questionable, but that the root of most of the posts

its not adversity that is causing suicide and he well knows that

If anything we are better placed to deal with the real issues now than ever

ciantheod

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118209526#Comment_118209526

Drugs is often a symptom of a deeper fundamental underlying issue, so it is not a waste of the health services to try to help these people

Fandymo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252362#Comment_118252362

Fcuking hell. Try reading my post.

DoctorEdgeWild

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252334#Comment_118252334

I disagree, I think they were pretty fair in their question, nor do I think they said adversity is causing suicide, rather, giving children the tools with which to overcome adversity, could lead to a stronger defence later in life so that they'll have a stronger defence against some of the small things that can develop into larger mental health issues that then lead down the road to suicide.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252334#Comment_118252334

We don't know the real reasons a person takes their own life. We can only speculate. I think being emotionally and mentally resilient is important for our well-being and therefore should go quite a way to preventing a suicide attempt.

That's what Tax is saying I think.

There is a study being undertaken at the moment to look at the experiences of people who have been affected by suicide and identify the supports needed and any gaps in providing those supports here currently. It's the first study of its kind here in Ireland. Anyone who has been beareaved by suicide or affected in some way, from family and friends to health workers to neighbours and acquaintances, can take part in the survey. Hopefully it will unearth valuable information that can be used to enhance services going forward.

I have no involvement with it, I just heard about it and I thought it was interesting because it's clear a lot more people are affected by a suicide than we might at first think. The after effects can be much wider in the community than we might expect.

Anyway, the survey link is on Hugg.ie, if anyone did feel up to contributing their own experiences.

thesultan

I feel there is going to be a massive spike in suicide rates here with the consumption of drugs amougst the youth..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252135#Comment_118252135

You wrote a couple of things that are not at all what I just said - and based on what you said rather than what I said - suggest my world is upside down?

Where do you get all the straw for your straw men?

If you want to reply to anything I actually said though - I am all ears.

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252404#Comment_118252404

again, no, he has a long list of posts like this that we are raising kids too soft and this is a problem

basically snowflakes yadda yadda

like giving a participation medal is softness and this softness leads down a road to suicide

this is completely false, minor adversity is not causing suicide, a bit of toughness as a child is the answer, sure a kick up the hole as an adult is too

kids now are better prepared, better balanced, better loved, better educated and more robust than they have ever been and yet unfortunately some of them wont be reached and will end up at this terrible place

Some people can only see things in simplistic terms and think only in simplistic answers

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252408#Comment_118252408

Sure of course we do, plenty lay it out in explicit detail

The idea here is that we are teaching our kids not be resilient which is total bullshit, that we need to inflict suffering to be able to be robust

now that is mental and has been shown to not work at all given the broken down nature of previous generations who went through all the hardship

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252463#Comment_118252463

I do not think I have a "Long list" of posts of any sort saying kids are too soft. It is entirely possible you are mistaking me with someone else. However if the list is so "long" I am sure you can quote a few examples of what you mean.

If I had said "softness leads down the road to suicide" you could certainly pull me up on that. It would be a dumb ass thing to say and as such I never said it. You are simply making it up.

What I did say is that I wonder - and there is nothing wrong with wondering - if there is any merit in taking an approach to suffering where we can make robust people and whether our moves (and I gave a single example of that) to reduce even the mildest of suffering might be counter productive. After all what is the reasoning behind giving everyone a medal rather than the winners?

And I said that as part of a complete and holistic approach the subject - but you ignored all of that analogy I made between this and our immune system of disease in order to manufacture your little straw man for me.

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252439#Comment_118252439

They are not a misrepresentation of what you said

you are looking to bring suffering into the lives of children (you probably don't have any)

there's not much else to say

chicorytip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118202263#Comment_118202263

People suffering from Paranoid Schizophrenia or Clinical depression tend not to think in the logical manner that you seem to be suggesting they ought to. The reasons many of those suffering with these conditions end up in psychiatric wards, doctors surgeries or even prison cells is because of suicide attempts or ideation, serious assaults , drug and alcohol abuse and other harmful behaviours directly attributable to the mental illness they suffer from. I agree that there tends to be a lot of misdiagnosis and over prescribing of medication in the psychiatric services but the thing is people are never going to recover from any sort of mental health problem on their own, using their own resources. It is essential to talk to and interact with others. A culture of silence or secrecy only leads to human misery. In the past, this could be said of so many facets of Irish society. Today, we can at least discuss subjects which were once taboo in an open fashion without shame, embarrassment or stigma.

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252514#Comment_118252514

you seem to have blocked the ability to view your old posts, i wonder why

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252514#Comment_118252514

But this is exactly what you are saying even if you are trying to wonder it away

you mistakenly believe for some reason that we don't produce plenty of robust people even those who received a participation medal at some point in their lives, somehow not fatally crippling them

the immune system approach was just part of problem by implying that this complex problem has some sort of simplistic solution

Are you worzel gummidge or what, you love straw men

DoctorEdgeWild

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252463#Comment_118252463

I'll step out then, no interest in these sort of post history discussions about posters, I don't know anyone and like to keep it that way. 😄

The posts didn't read that way to me, no mention of kicks up holes or minor adversity directly causing suicide, but I don't bother with discussions where people's posts are misrepresented and the personality clashes of Boards.ie.

B.A._Baracus

suicide makes me sad :(

I am a firm believer in it's not over 'till it's over (like when you have no choice in your life ending) But you don't know what people are going through. Some just have had enough.

I always remember reading a story about some poor chap who committed suicide years ago in the paper. An Irish farmer. I tried to look up the article before when I wanted to reference it on boards but couldn't find it. Out of respect like. They say you die twice, when you first die and then when no-one mentions you. The events the article wrote about was sad. He was living with his dad and built this contraption around his bed. It was a guillotine. He had set it up to go off at a certain time and it was believed he took some sleeping pills and let it happen.

The article said the Gardai were astonished at the engineering of it. But it's sad when you think about that. He had to have spent lots of time working of it. Setting it up right. Choosing one night to use it :(

If anyone can find the guys name... let's say it.

monkeybutter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252514#Comment_118252514

has the whole hygiene thing not been debunked at any rate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252530#Comment_118252530

I think I am in a better place to tell people what I said - and what I meant by what I said - than anyone else. Especially you. Your representations of what I have said are so far the opposite of what I actually said and meant - that I somewhat suspect malice rather than error. But everyone has a choice on a forum like this to have a conversation where you either A) Ask people to explain their position and ask them to clarify if clarification is required or B) Presume to tell them what they mean even when they tell you you are wrong. One of these options is honest, open, and polite. The other is not.

However no nothing I said was about bringing suffering into the lives of children. Rather "controlled adversity". Which is not actually my phrase - but the phrase of someone who deals with his emotional and mental health issues through martial arts and pushing himself physically.

But things like working towards a competition and coming away from it empty handed rather than a medal for merely showing up would be an example of "adversity". What is the benefit to "protecting" children from something like that by simply giving everyone the same medal? What are we actually trying to do with something like that? What's the goal? Allowing our children to try and fail is not to my mind a bad thing. Letting them see the winners get medals when they get nothing is also not a bad thing.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252552#Comment_118252552

I have done no such thing. Your need to make things up is unparalleled :) I did make my profile private when the new site went online however - which was recommended at one point because the new website was exposing things like users email address to google searches. But searching posts that I have written using the standard search should be working the same for me as anyone else.

In fact - is there even a button/option to block people seeing old posts? Let me know where that is would you? I do not see one. But happy to turn it off if there is as I very much want my post history visible to all.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252578#Comment_118252578

Once again your need to tell me what I think and believe rather than listen to me telling me you have got it wrong is telling. And it is not just me telling you that you are getting it wrong. Two other people have too at least. Making stuff up that I never said - and digging down on it when everyone else can see it's not what I said only makes you look bad not me.

I do not think we are not producing robust people. What I said was that I wonder if we are going in the right direction to keep doing so. OR are some of the moves we are making (and I gave one example of this) likely to undermine that and reduce the robustness in the same way (analogy) that over protecting our children from dust and dirt and germs actually undermines their immune systems and leaves them more prone to suffering through disease than not.

Keeping our children squeaky clean and away from dirt probably seems intuitively like a great thing to do. We learn later that doing so actually had unforseen side effects and problems. And I wonder out loud - much to your distress it seems - whether we are in danger of making any analogous errors here. So rather than suggesting a simplistic solution to a complex problem - as you pretend - I am actually doing the opposite. Because I acknowledged in my post (another bit you simply ignored) the many other approaches we can take to the situation of suicide in our society. But wondered if on top of all that there is yet another approach to consider too.

You know me choosing to discuss one aspect of a whole complex subject - does not magically mean that I think that one aspect is the only thing happening or worth discussing? I hope. But if you do not - maybe get hip to that or if you need any more help with it I can 'splain it to ya more.

As for who loves straw men - you're the only one creating them here.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252601#Comment_118252601

Perhaps? It's an analogy. An analogy is meant to help describe a point being made. Like a picture beside some text. The analogy still functions even if it has been debunked. If an analogy bothers you - simply consider the point without the analogy. The point being that if learning to deal with any kinds of distress or adversity or so on is something we develop over our lives - then we can consider as a valid question whether any attempts to reduce such things during childhood is going to have a good - bad - or neutral effect in the long term.

It's a valid question - regardless of what the answer turns out to me. If the question itself bothers you so much that you have to make up things about me over and over - maybe thats worth asking yourself why.

Quite frankly some of the posts in this thread are depressing and reflective of the inner unhappiness of said posters. I dare imagine that kind of over-thinking would be well-represented in the thought patterns of those who take their own lives.

castletownman

It 100% remains a stigma and talked about in hushed tones still. Look at any death notice on rip.ie that you know stems from suicide and it's always referred to as "died unexpectedly/tragically at home" and quite often donations if desired to Pieta House/Aware. I do wonder is it an off-shoot of good oul Catholic Ireland and the shame associated with some dying that way?

And I do agree that it's virtually impossible to detect before it's too late. I lost my godfather to suicide three ago in the summer just gone. He had suffered from depression all his adult life (something that wasn't really discussed of course), was a bachelor farmer living at home with his eldest brother and the brother's life. In the space of a few weeks, another brother, his idol, died unexpectedly, while the wife of the brother he lived with, died after a terminal illness. I have been told that his doctor had been regularly visiting him in the last few weeks of his life, and he actually appeared to be on the mend, and back getting up bright and early to farm. Killed himself the morning after his sister-in-laws funeral after appearing in good form the previous day (I know this is a common theme for suicide victims).

And I have seen no suggestion that there has been an improvement in mental health services and general awareness among young men. Some young lad in the community killed himself only last week, and I know at least two more that died by similar means since the end of the summer.

Burt Renaults

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118202445#Comment_118202445

It's far from a sure thing. I know people who've escaped from horrific crashes (genuine accidents) that they really shouldn't have. I witnessed the immediate aftermath of a particularly bad one a few years ago, and assumed that the person involved couldn't possibly have survived. Even AA Roadwatch described it as a "fatal accident" at the time, due to the speed and damage involved. It turned out that he was conscious throughout and went on to make a very good recovery.

I've been suicidal, and deliberately crashing a car would never even have been close to my list of chosen methods. Not least because the consequences of nearly succeeding could leave you with even less to live for, and in an unfit state to ever try it again. The same also applies to the vast majority of other methods, obviously. I'm glad, with the benefit of hindsight, that my own method (the details of which I won't go into) was (well, obviously) unsuccessful, unviolent and didn't leave behind any lasting physical damage.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118252530#Comment_118252530

Children need support to help them with life's struggles. That's different to suffocating and mollycoddling them. The area of child development and how it leads to emotionally stable adults is massive but here are two small examples of building resilience:

Encourage them to take safe risks such as talking to the new child in school or joining a club. If your child and their friend have a falling out let them find ways to figure it out themselves rather than jumping in to protect and 'fix'. Give them space while at the same time provide a secure base for them so they know you are always there.

It is not about making them suffer monkey.