One of my department' honors graduate makes some more excellent points about the problematic ways our social groups talk to each other about suicide. Older, she‘s already internalized some of the oppressive attitudes. As the pained person, she assumes responsibility for making sure that everybody else is comfortable if the topic enters conversation. She already accepts that others stopping to listen to her and be there for an hour or offer a hug are gifts beyond the pale of reasonable expectations for a person when both of their parents have concluded their own lives (that’s my personal solution to her dilemma over “committed”). But she highlights the way that the VERY LAST activity that has ever or will ever help anyone involved in suicide is that of choosing a few words and using them to shame and scold other people when they use them. Of the dozens and dozens of people I’ve met before or after completed or incomplete efforts to end their lives, NOBODY listed among their problems “hearing guys call my friend ‘crazy’ hot“ or “students called my exam 'insane' because it was complicated” or “the road rager sounded angry when he called the jay walkers ‘lunatics’“. People who want to die have FAR, FAR more important problems. If anything, the word police make things way worse by tainting The whole topic with PC awkwardness that pushes everyone further away from conversations that are mainly opportunities to be judged and called assholes. Word patrol has been a primary element of other “identity politics” and, as far as I can tell, those groups seeking “justice” seem now to be further separated and in tension with all other groups than ever before. So I’d hope that’s one road the mentally ill can be clever enough to just skip.
JAN 16, 20185:57 AM
