Current Events > I don't understand how to be empathetic towards the suicidal...

(+) Yeah! (+)

Like...how do you empathize with that? We're talking about someone wanting to end their life, that shouldn't be encouraged or something you should be okay with.
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Consider the fact that a lot of people who have suicidal thoughts simply can't help it. They are not healthy mentally, and it affects all of their decision-making processes.

Also consider that a large percentage of suicide attempts are impulsive acts, and that quite a lot of people who attempt suicide and fail never try again.
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Because suicidal people are not in their right mind, they are irrational and many are mentally ill.

eston posted...

Also consider that a large percentage of suicide attempts are impulsive acts

This too.

To say you can't empathize with suicidal folks is basically the same as not being able to empathize with anyone who has mental illness.
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Well maybe I don't belong among civil society.

Someone ban me.
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Nothing wrong with that. I personally disagree but I have plenty of things I don't show empathy for like willful ignorance or people who make irrational decisions while in a heightened state of emotion so I wouldn't judge you.
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MC_BatCommander posted...

Because suicidal people are not in their right mind, they are irrational and many are mentally ill.

Are you sure? I'm not sure I buy that.

They might be sometimes, but I disagree with this as a general statement.

This is a much more accurate picture, IMO.

"The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote hopelessness or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling."

~ DF Wallace - Infinite Jest
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I don't think you know what empathy means.
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I don't have a lot of empathy either. It's sad someone died but at the same time I don't care that someone dies just because they had a name, as opposed to the thousands dying every minute.
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Why would empathizing with it mean that you encourage it or are okay with it? If anything, it's the opposite. Empathizing with it and trying to understand it are steps towards trying to stop it from happening. If you're not empathetic, it's almost as if you don't really care whether they do it or not, or care more about criticizing the person for doing it rather than trying to help them in their time of need and stop it from happening.

luigi13579 posted...

Why would empathizing with it mean that you encourage it or are okay with it? If anything, it's the opposite. Empathizing with it and trying to understand it are steps towards trying to stop it from happening. If you're not empathetic, it's almost as if you don't really care whether they do it or not, or care more about criticizing the person for doing it rather than trying to help them in their time of need and stop it from happening.

most people are completely unable to help a suicidal person and the R U OK initiative is borderline condescending.
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