Anon is a paramedic
19d 17h ago by sh.itjust.works/u/Early_To_Risa in greentext@sh.itjust.works from sh.itjust.works
im not staying alive for their fucking feelings. if they cared that much they could have treated me like a human being when i was a kid. im staying alive for my cats. and yeah it means i love them more than my shitty parents.
Hey, staying alive to snuggle cats and spite your parents works too.
Me n you both. cept I have my plants lol
FUCK I need to water my plants.
Go ahead and water yourself while you're at it
Braided rope. One end in water bucket/tank, other in the planter. Watering is just filling the tank once a month. Great success!
I'll have to try that
FUCK, I should really set an alarm
im not staying alive for their fucking feelings. if they cared that much they could have treated me like a plant when i was a aapling. im staying alive for my symbiotic fungi network. and yeah it means i love them more than my shitty owner.
Your plants, probably.
So say, we all.
For some reason, this flashed into my mind
For your cats is an absolutely beautiful purpose and reason we all still need you as long as we can have you. Also, there’s an inevitable piece of news that will make at least 75% of the entire world instantly erupt in celebration. I’ll be very sad if my time comes before that happens.
Your cats will eat you when you die
We all express love in different ways.
And? Your dad will bury and/or incinerate you. At least the cats get some use out of you.
Just get a cat door
Does everyone in this comment section have a horrible relationship with their father??
What the hell, am I the only one here NOT hating my parents??
Cherish that fact.
I think it's survivorship bias. People with functional relationships with their parents (myself included) probably don't feel much need to weigh in.
People's families are complicated, and sometimes they need to vent. I (generally) don't see a problem with giving them space to do so.
This is the exact reason I'm choosing to just scroll past some of these comments that are missing the bigger picture.
My own relationship with my family is incredibly complicated. But it's not really about the family. It's about the fact that somebody will miss you. But when you're that deep into depression, it's really hard to see.
People rarely feel the need to talk about how good their relationship with their dad is. Well except for one friend of mine, but to be fair to her her dad sounds exceptionally good.
But yeah, my father and I haven't been on speaking terms in a decade.
... this is the tame, fishbowl, lemmy version of 4chan community.
Yes, yes obviously most of the people here come from very fucked up families.
... do you think normal, well adjusted, happily raised children... tend to end up anywhere near 4chan?
There's a reason 4chan has been repeatedly targetted and 4channers have been repeadtedly weaponized by extreme right wing political groups.
4chan's demographic is primarily fucked up young men/boys.
Some of us aren't subscribed to the community, but just browse All
I'm really curious who isn't out here browsing by all. Maybe some lemmy.world weirdos? Like, I scroll my subscriptions, but the majority of my curiosity is sated by all.
I feel like there's no human relationship that doesn't experience strain and parental ones can be tough.
Even though my parents are wonderful people we still have our stresses, mistakes, a few scars, and our differences. They will never know I'm bisexual, they will never know I've done weed let alone hard(er) drugs, they don't share my sense of humor - so we're not "friends" - but we do love each other.
my folks my entire life thought I was gay. even though I had girlfriends my entire adult life... they just had such a stupidly narrow definition of straightness that things like reading books and liking school made them 'suspicious'. my siblings, friends, and even gay friends, my entire life never ever once accused me of being gay or anything other than perfectly straight.
and i still meet so called 'progressive', adult women, who think this way to this day... esp because i cook and clean. because in their mind, no 'really straight' man can do these things... actually some of did they 'well if you aren't gay, you must be bi'.
some folks are just so weirdly obsessed with gender stereotypes in their head, and just totally reject anyone who doesn't conform to them.
Have experienced similar. People love to speculate on this shit, for some reason. Ain't they own sex lives interesting enough?!
They are afraid of how it would 'reflect' on them. That's why they are so paranoid about it.
They are afraid of the shame and judgment of other people knowing their child is a sexual deviant.
I dunno, it don't think most folks are different. I have hung out with plenty of self-identified queer/sexual open people... who also viciously judge other people for what they perceive as non-conformity to their own sexual expectations. Like, queer couples who live in fear their child will be 'a straight' or see being 'cis' as a negative thing. Folks just want you to be what they want you to be, and they are mad when you are not.
People generally just feel the need to police other's sexual behaviors and gender identity, and a lot of people have hypocritical double standards around it.
Mine was not horrible, just exasperating. I warned him about every single thing that caused him issues, but he refused to listen, and that killed him.
Sometimes I wonder how many suicides are invisible, people start to skip medicines, they dont care about health etc
Nah. He didn't have depression or anything like that. He was just the type of person who thought he was always right and the smartest person in the room. If warned about something, he'd do the opposite out of spite, rather than obey someone else.
that isn't suicide. suicide is the active act of killing yourself.
dying from neglect, or self-neglect isn't suicide.
though both, are 'deaths of despair'. in the sense they are entirely preventable and due to a lack of emotional/social connections.
actually that's called "passive suicidal ideation" and is in fact exactly what it sounds like:
a kind of "if this happens to kill me, oh well, at least it's over." kind of mindset and it is an earlier stage in the process of suicide.
quick copy paste from the wiki:
Or "PDW" when I've got 2 minutes to write down your life story before moving on to the next patient in handoff. It's not uncommon for me to scribble down something to the effect of:
"PDW w/o plan iso ++life stress" (passive death wish without plan in the setting of multiple life stressors)
...multiple times per assignment. Like out of a six-patient assignment for the night I'll probably write that at least twice.
If it's only one specific stressor or I'm not too pressed for time I may specify. Common specific stressors include:
- homeless (most common)
- job loss
- SO/mom/dad/sis/bro/pet/fam died (usually only one buuut)
- charges
- SUD (substance use disorder)
- chronic ill.
...but yeah people be checking into the psych ward for passive death wishes that all the time. 9/10 times the stressor is homelessness and realistically many are exaggerating a little for 3 hots and a cot but I probably would too tbh and I also really don't wanna live in a world where we gotta question the validity of somebody's expressed suicidal ideation.
hey that's interesting, thanks for sharing!
TIL. I get this when I'm off my meds. Never knew there was a name for it.
You just love being wrong don't you
My close person died in very young age. Cancer. That person knew that was something going on because of trumor, but tried to postpone doctors visits as long as possible. When was diagnosed, it was in last stage.
That's a semantic distinction that doesn't add to the conversation. Read the room, friend.
Welcome to broken society. THIS is why people fail to build families these days.
people refuse to build families because it's not economically viable. the cost of raising a kid has exploded the past 20 years. t
that's the real reason. if the economy took off in the next 5-10 years, people would go back to coupling up and popping up babies a lot more. the cost of raising a child has gone up double digits year over year, almost every year for the past 10 years.
People were historically building families throughout far, far worse conditions than we have today. Additionally argument about insufficient income is most relevant for bottom 10-20% earners and even in countries with huge safety nets and family subsidies population is shrinking.
it's not an argument, it's reality.
birth rates and economic growth are directly correlated. people fuck and breed more when life is good, and less when it's shitty.
but keep telling yourself reality is just an argument if that makes you feel superior to reality, i guess? must be nice to be so smart where you think the actions of other people only exist in your own mind.
it has nothing to do with safety nets or culture. it has everything to do with economic growth.
it’s not an argument, it’s reality.
The reality is that the least developed countries have highest birth rates and most developed have it very low.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-vs-human-development-index
This is an inverse correlation. Exactly opposite to your claim.
Interesting part is that there are no highly developed countries with high birth rates, and there are no poorly developed ones with low birth rates.
No, it's not. It's about economic growth.
less developed countries have way more growth than developed ones... oi.
highly developed countries have shit birth rates because they have shit economic growth.
I'm not aware of any proof that growth itself drives birth rates.
Not me. Had a great dad who disappeared after my conception
On average a person will rather share negative things than positive things.
While my relationship with father is bittersweet, I would by no means term it horrible. The man taught me most of the things I know when banks were crushing him.
No one consents to being born. Love my parents, even if they are MAGA morons. Even if they kicked me out of their house when they could. Even if they give me massive shit for how I live my life almost every time I see them.
Despite all that, I can see their intentions. My mom wanted a baby to love. My dad wanted me to be a wage slave master and not a wage slave.
I like my parents well enough
I love my parents. We had great relationship growing up and still do. They are weirdos. I love them.
That said, parents fuck you up even the awesome ones lol. Being a parent fucks you up too. It's a crazy complicated relationship to have good or bad.
Count yourself lucky
yes.
people who don't hate their parents are rare.
even people who had wonderful parents... i know tons of them... hate their parents for not doing more for them.
a lot of children are infinitely resentful of their parents for not giving them more than they could. like, my favorite example is I dated a lady once who was enraged her parents only gave her $50,000 as a graduate gift, and spent every other date going on about how terrible and awful her parents were to her despite them giving her an objectively awesome life. She was an only child. Met sooo many people like that, and they are so weirdly arrogant, they would lecture me on how my parents being poor and abusive was 'more privileged' than them..
and it's also true, many of us had really bad parents. i think my parents tried they best, but their best was objectively shitty, and it was abusive. because well, all they knew was abuse themselves, they didn't know any better or how to break the cycle of abuse. so i had to do that. my own siblings actually, actively admit my parents were objectively shittier to me than they were to them... and they said they never really could figure out why my parents hated me so much, even though i was a really good kid who never did anything bad or wrong. for whatever reason, esp my dad, just hated me for not being what they wanted me to be, and even though I got into Harvard, they looked down on me for it. even at my college graduation they were not proud, they were resentful. what my dad wanted was for me to be a state uni football player douche bro, and what i was was a massive nerdy sensitive theater kid.
oh, and my graduation gift? Was a $20 handshake, and a bill for my healthcare costs that was like $2,000, and my first student loan payment, which was $300. lol
I think in the bubbles that we are in, including Lemmy, people with bad parents are overrepresented. Simply because of sexual minorities, progressive or radical ideas, or just plain old not conforming to the norm in terms of behaviour and character.
Plenty of people never had an issue with their parents, but also, plenty of people never had to tell their parents that they are homosexual, think their political beliefs are stupid, and have ADHD, for instance.
Plus, I would say that lonely people tend to flock together, likewise, people with no strong family ties probably end up using the internet more.
i dont know, i know plenty of 'normal' people who are all over the internet. True though, they don't really use reddit/lemmy sites, they use instragram, facebook, twitter. and IME their usage is actually way heavier than my own. but I'm only on here to kill time between tasks at work.
i think people here echo chamber themselves though a lot into beliefs that are not necessarily true. they don't kind of stand back and question their emotions towards their folks (or anyone else at all, really), or see their parents as flawed/limited people who perhaps, were just making mistakes or could never really be the parents they wished they were. my own parents were totally incapable of being the parents I needed as a child, and like, can i really be perpetually angry about that? i simple vastly exceeded them in every capacity, and sadly they resented that, rather than were proud of it. but it's who they were, they could be any different, and i'm kind of an asshole for wishing they were.
but then again, very few people ever do that. i def have met people who are grown 30 something adults, who idolized their folks and are still in a state of emotional and financial dependency on them... which you might say the danger of having 'too good parents'. and form where i stand it's just... i can't seriously imagine a parent financially or emotionally supporting me... since mine basically didn't.
That is a bit of a hen-egg question, isnt it? Do people in certain circles see their parents negatively because the circles echo such thoughts, or because such circles attract people like that? I have no definite answer, tbh.
Maybe it is because those circles make it easier to speak about such things?
Maybe because someone who experienced hardships themselves might turn to more "left" ideas to avoid this happening to others?
I personally am very grateful to my parents, they sacrificed a lot of potential happiness for their children. And yes, they are flawed human beings in a flawed world, who make mistakes, have some issues of themselves and so on. But psychology is messy, fuzzy, and hard to wrap in nice logical statements.
it's easy to talk about such things in therapy, but a good therapist isn't going to bias-confirm you, or engage you in escalation/exaggeration. online communities do that, inevitably.
your therapist also isn't going to flip out at you and call you a ungrateful piece of shit when you complain about your parents. people online and irl will definitely do that.
there is a cultural default where you are not supposed to be critical or resentful towards your parents for sure, which I think forces almost all of us to internalize this stuff. personally i've never had a partner who i could talk to about my parental issues without serious blowback and judgement for what a shitty person i was for daring to say such things about my folks... but my siblings? yeah they are more than happy to be critical about my parents esp def to how difficult they were about elder care, which made us all angry and frustrated with them. and i had to keep point out to my siblings... my parents were like this their entire lives... they weren't magically like more difficult as they got older, they had always been inflexible, stubborn, and refused to be proactive... so we basically had to do all that for them as they aged.
Obviously, people online and even good irl friends cannot replace professional therapy.
I've seen both, the "social default" of having a somewhat ok relationship with one's parents, and people in certain circles who tend to assume that there must be at least some difficulties.
true, some folks relationships, parental or otherwise, are just... boring and staid and uneventful and they are fine with that. some folks want something deeper, or more dramatic.
but that's also true of their own lives. I've def met people whose lives seem unfathomably boring to me, but I'm sure they were happy just not in any way that i would conceive of happiness, personally. But such folks often think my life is miserable for the same reason, because what I like is boring to them.
people who don't hate their parents are rare.
As someone else pointed out above, people who have good relationships with their parents generally don't talk about it.
Wait til they're dead like the considerate son/daughter you are.
My dad killed himself so he beat me to it.
I held his jacket and was glad I didn't see his body honestly. Good on that paramedic
Lost one of my boys a little over a year ago. Still get crippled with grief from time to time - maybe every other day now instead of multiple times a day. It gets easier, but never easy. In the process of getting a ring with some of his ashes built into them and I think that'll be pretty special to get to bring him everywhere I go.
Not looking for condolences, just wanted to put this perspective out there in a sea of folks who seemed to have bad relationships with their parents. To those: I'm sorry. I can't imagine.
Thank you for sharing your experience. As someone who doesn't have kids to begin with I can't even begin to imagine
Sending love your way <3
Thank you for sharing. My coworker just lost her daughter to suicide and she has been understandably inconsolable. She's had an outpouring of sympathy, but I wanted to give her something more than just words from a childless adult who could never possibly relate to what she is going through. I will suggest the ring made with some ashes. I think that will help bring her some comfort.
Remember, that people grief in different ways. And it's not always about the time after the event that helps, but knowing that someone else acknowledges their struggle(s) after that the event. At least, that was true for me after I lost one of my good friends years ago to suicide.
And now... I'm getting teary eyed just thinking about him and that time period of my life. Like @Artaca@lemdro.id said above... "It gets easier, but never easy." It's 100% true. All these years later and I still have days where he comes to mind. And while a lot of the heartache has surpassed, I still have moments of sadness and rare blip moment where I grief over it for a short time.
Anyway... I'm starting to make this too much about me I think.
I'd encourage you to find a way to show that you're there for her if and when she needs a moment or a person. It goes a long way.
I don't think I could handle being a paramedic for this reason. The memories just build and they get so many.
I've witnessed death myself upclose as family members died. Their final moments burned in forever.
Those memories never fade, you just distract yourself from it. But the memory is always waiting for when you recall a time together with them. There is that fucking final moment again, like a punctuation on a good thought.
To have that be part of a job, even if they are not related has to weigh heavily. They don't get paid nearly enough for that burden.
I was homeless for a while.
... I know I couldn't handle being a real paramedic.
Made my way as a make shift paramedic, treating various injuries and wounds that people would... appear with, at or near an encampment or something. Usually just field dressing a laceration, jerry rigging a makeshift splint.
Occasionally a gunshot wound.
I always begged people who needed more care than I could provide to go to a hospital.
Sometimss they did, sometimes they or their friends would refuse.
Fentanyl... zombies is actually pretty close to an accurate description.
I've seen more necrotic flesh, gray tissue and pus where either a stab wound or injection site once was... than I want to remember.
Your body can't naturally heal when it's ... hooked on the blues. The stuff was all crushed blue tablets where I was, everybody just called em 'blues'.
Successfully stabilized a few ODs ... not all of them.
Also happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time: drive by shooting.
The streets are basically like a warzone, if you're in them too long.
Fuck, I'm two years out of homelessness now, and I'm still doing PT to recover from my own injuries.
I knew a guy who, as part of his job, had to clean up suicide scenes.
That really did a number on him. He developed polytoxicomania, hit rock bottom and never really got back on his feet again. These memories must be haunting you forever.
Fair, but I believe it is different to do this as. a job, with strangers, and to experience it with close people. Still sucks.
My dad was a drunk and made sure I learned every racist term in the book before I was 12. I'm sure he'd be devastated if I managed to kill myself, without ever realizing how much he contributed to the desire in the first place.
My life has only gotten better since he died. Rest in piss old man, I'm glad you're dead.
Edits: also, single moms rule — I'd fight a T-Rex for my mom. I'd lose, but god damnit I'd try.
I'd be willing to help you train to fight the T-Rex. You don't have to lose.
My parents are crazy too but they’re drug free, which has always confused me. The problem is their personality, not an addiction. But I have thought about how they’d react - my mom would play the victim and my dad would play pickleball/tennis. That’s just what they’ve always done. I look forward to the day they die. When all of my grandparents died my parents became slightly more tolerable. I imagine my baseline will also rise….
Boots on the ground
They'll cut you off at the ankles
And throw the rest away
gods damn, that's a damn powerful haiku
As an old and retired paramedic myself, there are definitely parts of me, as a human being, that will never grow back. And I worked in a rural area where you work on neighbors, family, and friends mostly. It was never easy to explain to the family that might be present that not me or god could fix what was wrong. I also did a few suicides over the years. Never easy and they leave a mark that won't grow back by morning.
The worst thing about any of it, was meeting a family member in a cafe or store in our small town. And they would invariably come up to me and give me a hug and tell me how grateful they were that I was there for them. Despite the fact I couldn't do shit for the dead person beyond calling dispatch and telling them to send law enforcement to come and do their paperwork and secure the scene until the funeral home got there to haul the body away.
I think often just being there makes a big difference, even if there's nothing that can be done.
I'm sorry, that sounds so hard. Handling logistics in a traumatic situation is such a hugely important task. Definitely don't sell yourself short. Even is you didn't do anything you're "holding space"
It ruined that scene in the The Princess Bride for me.
Do you hear that, Fezzik? That is the sound of ultimate suffering. My heart made that sound when Rugen slaughtered my father.
I've heard it to varying degrees, but the worst was the kid that shot themself by accident because dad got drunk and left his handgun out. Mom made it to the hospital and was obviously distraught ... then she saw the body.
The noise she made is indescribable. An overcrowded, chaotic Emergency Department full of hardened nurses and doctors dropped into 5 seconds of complete silence and inactivity. Even other patients screaming in pain stopped.
It triggers some primal response in your brain you didn't know exists until you hear it. It will stay with you for the rest of your life. The sound a mother makes she she sees her dead child is inarguably the worst sound in the world.
Yeah, only once have I heard the whole ER seemingly go silent. It was when we brought in a young trauma victim, (car accident). The pandemonium of a 6 people working all at once, the voices calm but tense and a bit louder, and the er Doc standing in the corner watching and directing the action. We worked the code for maybe 5 or 6 minutes before the Doctor called it. Everything just stopped. People froze from what they were doing. And the whole ER was dead silent for what seemed like hours, but was only a few seconds before everything came back to real time.
Only twice have I had to hear the agony of a mother. Once when I did a drowning. We were searching for the husband/father. I found him in about 6 feet of water. (my big toe went into his mouth-- a feeling I will never forget). My partner and I got him shallow water along the shore. And I did the math and estimated he'd been down 25 to 45 minutes. So we agreed to call it. So I started walking to the house, all soaking wet, to deliver the news. I can still hear her wail right now as I told her and her young son that daddy was never coming home again.
The other time was when we were paged out to a 4-wheeler accident. And an 11-year-old boy somehow drove too close to a drainage ditch and rolled in about 20 feet down. I went down with a rope and found him pinned under the 4-wheeler face down in about 3 or 4 inches of water. He had been dead long enough to be beyond anybodies help. I climbed back up the ditch and explained to the mother her 11-year old son was gone. To this day I pray to whatever gods there are that he was dead before he drowned pinned face down under that 4-wheeler.
The worst part of ALL of those moments was when you were done and driving away from the scene, and you still had that pager on, and you needed to get your shit back in a row and fast. The next call was going to happen at some point. You needed to be ready to 100% focus on that call with no time, or too much time, to process what had happened.
A classic. This one hit me hard when it was first written
I think its what i fear the most with my son. He's a toddler, but life goes by fast and one day he'll be grown with his own problems to solve. I just give him everything i can, from love to time to entertainment, and i wish i'll do a good enough job for him to come seek refuge to me rather than with the tool to end his life.
I love him so much, just sharing because this anon shook me with this story.
I don't have kids. But in pondering questions like this, I would take some solace that people have always been having children. ALWAYS. Pick the most horrific events and eras in history; there were people having kids and trying to find the most happiness they could for them and their children. The Black Death? The Bronze Age Collapse? The sacking of entire cities by Mongol hoards? People living in literal death camps in the Holocaust? There were people there having children. And when they did, they did their best to give their children as good a life as they could, same as you do now.
The best you can do is teach him the tools with which to deal with and celebrate life.
I like ABA Naturally in terms of helping you practice getting into the mindset for "I want to understand why my kid is doing this, and teach them how to navigate life."
A large part of my younger self wanted to be a paramedic. But I quickly realized I didn't have the emotional resilience to be one.
I remember watching Nic Cage in "Bringing out the Dead" (Excellent film by the way) and that movie putting the big ol' nope on that plan once and for all in the early 2000's.
My uncle was a paramedic. It really messed him up.
A similar experience I had was when I saw my mom cry and pay respects to my grandpa for the last time as he was sent to be cremated.
I respected my grandfather but as we lived half way across the world, I wasn't emotionally attached to him and didn't feel very sad. But seeing my mom, usually a very silly lady and a very strong, loving grandma herself, turn into a daughter saying goodbye to her dad in tears for that split second broke my heart.
I saw my dad lose his best friend to suicide in my teens. I've struggled with suicidal ideation since before even that. I'm not close to my dad, I have lots of issues with the man, but I can never put him through that again, no matter what.
I've lost several people to suicide. The hardest was a good friend I'd known for years and who had been my roommate one summer.
That one was 25 years ago and it still hurts.
Not a paramedic, but my mother was once a nurse in a hospital. Gave up on the job (where ahe was actually well paid) and switched careers because she couldn't handle seeing people die every day.
Thinking about how my family would feel was/is probably my biggest concern of it all.
This is because you have empathy which is part of what makes truly good people. You can do it
Meta comment, but I like that Lemmy can have these threads, and it’s probably mostly real.
It’s some human 4chan anon, whether they’re making it up or not.
Maybe the majority of comments here are legit.
Meanwhile, when I stumble into a Reddit thread like this (mostly when I miss old.reddit.com and get bombarded with weird engagement bait), it’s… mostly bots?
It’s either obvious, or very suspicious and likely engagement bait.
And if it's a Tweet OP is referencing, well, that's probably fake or bait too.
I’m sure this place will get flooded with bots, eventually, so we remake it again. The cycle continues.
So do it after Dad dies is what I'm reading.
Dad, Mom, sibs, close friends, person who's nice to you at the bus stop, and of course the person you hate most in the world
Mom is already dead so that's one name off the list.
Be careful keeping a list with names ticked off or crossed out, that may raise suspicion.
Especially when you only cross them off after they're dead.
For years I lived right by the sea. I had plenty of alcohol and medications. the prevailing currents would've swept my body across the border into a hostile country, where no one who found it would've cared. I don't live to spare anyone else's feelings, not least those who would mourn me as dead for living the life I want to live. I live because I deserve it, I deserve my family's respect and care while we're both here, and I don't need anyone else's shame.
To live on solely for obligation and guilt isn't living at all, and anyone who wishes that on someone else just so they can remain a half-dead trophy they can congratulate themselves for "saving" can eat shit. If you're reading this and you need to hear something, keep going. Keep trying. We live in an insane world; sometimes you have to try the same thing over and over so you can get different results. Live another day and see what happens. Not for anyone else, but because it's a shame to miss out on this wild a ride.
This post honestly just pisses me off. Your life is worth living. Not your parents' child's life. Yours.
I survived suicide. As a side effect, the action showed me who my real friends were. People started to finally pay the fuck attention to me and my struggles. Turns out I had a rare physical disease that was making it very difficult to participate in society not just as dude, but as a whole. As many have said, don't do it, I still have stomach issues from the wombo combo of meds I took to do the deed. I was lucky. If you ever feel like no one loves ya or that your are nothing. Just poof for a week to somewhere they can't reach you and where you are safe. Don't hurt yourself. Check to see how many reach out to you. If the number is low or zero, instead of saying: "see, no one loves me." Go "damn, these fucks don't give a damn about me, let's find someone who will!"
It's insane, but: you don't die, you learn who loves you, and you have your health.
Go forth and fight the demons. As long as you are fighting them others will assit.
That is certainly some experience, and a good life lesson. I just want to remark, if my best friends disappeared for a week, I would assume they just wanted to disappear for a week, and had their reasons to not tell me. Doesn't mean I don't care about them.
I think this is less about guilting the victim and more about reminding them that people care about them. The assumption is that those who take their own lives feel like no one cares for/loves them.
Unfortunately, this take often reads like conservative pundits that only "care" about fetuses until they're born, at which point they're considered a drain on society.
A lot of the quotes people repeat when trying to help someone ends up backfiring. You can't just repeat plattitudes. People suffering from mental illness aren't stupid or deaf, they've already heard the lines before. Mimicry doesn't help.
The only generalized thing I can recommend people to say when trying to help someone with mental issues is to just ask: "What do you need?". If they need space, give it. If they need to talk, listen. If they need something else, be honest about whether that's in your ability to help with.
Another important thing to note is to not view them as something that needs to be fixed. And you need to be very honest with yourself about that. Most people will try to "help" because it makes them feel better, not the person they're trying to help.
there is a difference between someone caring for me as a feeling, and doing it as an activity.
like yes, my parents cared about me, emotionally. but their actions, were hardly ever caring.
and people don't seem to understand the difference. i have had the same thing in romantic relationships. someone saying they care about you is very different than them actually doing this that show that they care, and sometimes, their feelings of care, lead them to engage in activities that are abusive and make the other person feel like absolute shit about themselves and the relationship.
have you ever been in a relationship with someone who claims to love you, and just systematically does things that show you they don't love you, or does those things under the guises of love, but is actively harming you?
because that's what physical/emotional abusers do. they see their abuse of you as them loving/caring for you. or 'just trying to help'.
i think my favorite example was LTR i was in once, where i had a girlfriend who showed she cared about my studying for cert exames, by buying me pencils... cute. but then she systematically got enraged that i was spending so much time studying and not spending it with her, and that she engaged in active sabotage of me emotionally so that i'd fail the exams. but she 'was loving and supportive' by buying me... pencils... least to say i was never able to articulate the problem to her of her actions. She basically just told me I was a awful jerk for 'neglecting her' by needing a couple of nights off to study... she was co-dependent and saw those 5-6 hours of me investing in my (and our) future... as 'theft' from her need to be with me everyday. i only broke up with her because shortly thereafter she physically assaulted me, again under the guise of 'correcting' my 'abuse' of her, which she alleged was because I was not 'doing enough' to impress her parents...
everyone cares about when you're dead
because at that point you are nothing but a memory and you can't ever upset or burden or annoy them. they can just idealize you.
you don't get to decide that for other people. they do.
we have no control over other people, especially not their inner emotional lives.
So? That's their problem. There are people who'd dance on my grave if I died tomorrow, too, and what they think has just as little bearing on my decision to keep living. Categorically irrelevant. You can't show someone the beauty and joy of living by dragging them through shame. Worse still, pegging your self-worth to others' suffering creates an implicit threshold, a thought stuck in the back of your mind: "What if the suffering I cause now is more than the momentary pain I'd cause by stopping?"
It feels good to tell people things like this. It's one of the most awful things to hear.
I think they may have meant that you don't get to decide on how other victims of depression feel about suicide. Nobody else shares your life, experiences, and values so iyou shouldn't assert what they should do with their lives.
If that's the case they were trying to make, then they didn't do the best job explaining themselves. Or I could have completely misunderstood their comment
so if it's their problem why are you resenting them for not sharing in your views? why do you feel compelled to pass judgement on them for not sharing your philosophy and feelings on life?
I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Who are "they," and what is "that" in your initial reply?
kinda makes me want to do it to hurt my dad but tbh he would probably still not realize that he's the reason
dw i'm not suicidal but yeah
Let your vengeance be living past, well and better than.
that's boring. and tbh i don't even want revenge, literally all i want is for him to acknowledge that he hurt me, but he refuses to even admit he ever even acted aggressively or anything towards me
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents might be the book for you. It wrecked me for weeks, and then I had one of my parents read it. It wrecked them too. This sort of thing is a generational trauma.
This sort of thing is a generational trauma.
yeah, 100%. my dad had an extremely abusive upbringing, like his (adoptive) mother forced him to sleep in the dog house and hit him with whips and crazy shit, so he can't even perceive that the way he treated me was abusive (even though i have a fucking scar from where he threw a knife at me for literally no reason) because what he did to me doesn't even register to him as abuse because he loves me.
i'll look into the book, but fwiw, i've had many years of therapy, and i've near enough made peace with the idea of not having him in my life. i really struggle to communicate with him, his denials register to me as gaslighting which is really triggering, so it's hard for me to help him. he also doesn't read books at all, probably because of undiagnosed dyslexia
I went through this with my mom. In one of our last conversations, I mentioned that years ago, when I was 18 and lived with her briefly, I took like fourty of her seroquel pills to try and kill myself. "Remember when I slept for three days straight?" And told her what I remembered of that time. Instead of her saying, "oh wow I didnt know that happened" and empathizing or something, she just denied it ever happened, got mad at me and called me a liar.
I never spoke to her again. I dont remember our last words but this one one of the staws for me.
The last time I spoke to my step father, the real abuser, was when I was 16. Letting go of that mess was easy.
Sometimes healing, or "forgiveness" (I hate that word) is in letting go. My Bio dad/mom were both raised pretty fucked up, especially my bio dad, not dissimilar from what ur father went through. I mourn his childhood, but not his death (he died) nor who he was as an adult.
Stay being good to yourself, I hope you find peace and healing in letting go <3
Christ, what a mess. Sorry for that. I just can't stop recommending this book to everyone, but I know books can't solve every problem. It did help me reframe things, but it did also slightly burden me with a certain understanding about the way the world is. So much boils down to emotional immaturity and people never growing up.
it's not your job to help him. it's your job to help yourself.
literally all i want is for him to acknowledge that he hurt me, but he refuses to even admit he ever even acted aggressively or anything towards me
I think i had some good thoughts regarding this in my big-ass reply to you, so if you don't read all of it, here's the relevant bits:
- bring up instances of when he hurt you, but as 3rd person stories; "my friend took 2 cookies from the jar when he was 11 years old and his dad shouted at him and called him a fatass" Your Dad:"what a jerk" Yiu: "Yeah. Well, that was you and me when i was 11 Y.O"
- If that for instance doesn't work, because maybe he approves of that behaviour, then gloss it up a bit: "... Now this friend had trouble feeding himself because he associated the executive decision to get food with his father's ire. He also started to see abusive name calling as something fatherly and it lead to him putting up with some pretty shitty friends, bosses, romantic partners. We are left with a man with an E.D surrounded by awful people in their life, because he was too young to put his foot down and defend himself and, in those small ways, he has been stuck at that traumatised age ever since.
- send letters about what he did that hurt you. He will read it more than once - how many letters do you send him regularly? Probably not a lot.
tbh, I doubt any of that would get through and it would just prolong an unhealthy relationship.
It's best to cut ties and move on if possible.
Source: my mom sucks and nothing is ever her fault. The exception to the rule was when she got wicked drunk at my dad's memorial service and kept shouting that she'd killed him. She only stopped once a couple people stepped in to try and reassure her that she hadn't, which brought the focus back on her. (Spoiler alert: she did. Without her actions he'd still be alive.)
Half the problem with those is that it is SO easy to justify doing things. Oh, your kid turned out well with a decent job/family/friend group? Well, everything you did must have been worth it then!
I ran into that thinking with my grandmother, when we were just casually discussing pre-k in the context of its effects on people's chances in life. She immediately threw out the classic, "well, all of [your parent's siblings and your parent] came out just fine, and we didn't let them start until first grade! Earlier schooling would have doomed them!"
For them, everything was with "a reason," even if that reason is completely post-hoc. They don't do 'X thing' that is socially inappropriate? It's because they were spanked for doing it! Spanking is good! They have a good job now? It's because they were yelled at if they weren't studying for hours after school! Yelling is good!
And conversely, they don't care if the person was hurt. In your example of the traumatized man with an eating disorder? It's his own damn fault. He was always going to turn out that way. He might have even been fat if he wasn't yelled at!
It's just sickening. There's a reason to cut off parents who don't acknowledge their actions.
Oh that's definitively more complicated and much less actionable, you'd have to engage with them a lot to change them in the right direction, or just Hope™ that someone else does that job for you.
This does NOT work. People don't say "Damn, that girl I bullied is doing well?! Shit, I feel terrible!", no. The bullies will live their lives and I'll live mine. They will pass their entire lives without being punished for their acts while I'm being punished for not fighting back.
Yeah people say things like "they'll get what's coming to them" which is mostly true if the person never learns or grows, but yeah sometimes people just get away with doing bad stuff and that's kinda just how it is. It's fine to be mad at them, the "well I need to get back at them by..." is still focusing on them though. Usually best thing you can do is say "wow what a POS" and try to fix your life for your own sake, sometimes unfair stuff happens and all you can do is try and deal with it.
At the end of our lives, we are completely free. Give your bully a visit in their retirement home.
nobody is punishing you. other than yourself for shit you did or didn't do decades ago.
let it go. or see a therapist who will help you move on from that shit.
There is no finer revenge than being happier than your bully.
There is one: being happier than your bully and have it that other people openly point that out to them.
But hey, pretty decent second place!
Ah, no, you still care about what they think. You need to move past that shit and just be happier.
kinda makes me want to do it to hurt my dad but tbh he would probably still not realize that he’s the reason
You're right, he wouldn't. And if you try to use suicide to make pthers feel guilty, it's not going to work; i presume he's not the only person who you would want to hurt. Some of those others will actually rejoice at your passing, your dad will rationalise it in his head that it wasn't his fault but rather some lifestyle choice you picked up or a mental illness or "mind virus." The more you try and put in a suicide letter, the more willing to dismiss it people become; there is no way to succeasfully drag people down with you.
I've considered it myself just to get at everyone who ever hurt me. I too have been cruelly treated, by probably everyone i've really known for a sizeable amount of time, whether it's a friend a bully or a relative stranger. You will never manage to drag them all to the pits of hell, it's really only their own actions that can determine that.
So. I'll state the obvious conclusions: you cannot kill yourself to hurt others who have hurt you. Even if they're usually close to you. Only the people who love you and genuinely tried to treat you perfectly would be proportionately hurt by it. And we only triumph over people who hurt us by living better than them, and a lot of the time you never get to know what that means - so you can only aim on treating yourself well, which aught to be enough.
I've also seen one guy who has major beef with his dad basically try this, threaten suicidal behaviour, tell him all his problems are caused by him. It bounced off him like a rubber ball. Maybe your dad is Gen X, boomer, or even older - people of that age are very very stubborn, you cannot expect thsm to react to things the way young blood would.
I stopped talking to that friend (he hasn't been depressed in a long time and is just an asshole with a massive friend group now). I saw his father in the park recently and he was weeping, as if really reflective about something, some earth shattering news. My only conclusion is that he finally got the message regarding how badly he's treated his son.
This shows that the best thing you can do to, you know, "drill it into your dad's skull" is keep talking to him about it. Do it creatively if it helps: send him letters covering what you want to tell him, tell him hypothetical stories and ask what he would do in the situation, then go "well that was me at x years old, and you did/said Y to me and it was terrible."
In regards to more distant people in your life - you have to assume their sin catches up with them. It seems to be the case for all sorts of peopls, and it weighs on their minds 24/7 and hurts them as much as they hurt you.
I don't understand the concept of killing yourself to spite your enemies. Your enemies would inherently be happy you're gone. If anyone loved you enough to be sad that you died, killing yourself just to hurt them is a dick move. It also makes zero sense at all. Usually people consider being loved as something to live for. I would never kill myself. I don't like giving my enemies good news.
Yep, absolutely - a great summarry,
unfortunately this happens on a daily basis in places like Palestine
My heart drops to see others cheer or downplay other's suffering. The only people that need to die are the ones who desire war.
Damn.
My grandparents both lost children. It sounds weird to specify, but they were children from different marriages. They shared this coincidence. My grandmother had this sort of incident with the body; I think my grandfather only received the news. Both developed illnesses now suspected to be caused or worsened by stress: cancer and Alzheimer's. They were sad people after their losses, very sad people. I do believe it slowly killed them. Just anecdotal evidence of the damage of losing a child...
Damn, I was having a nice night. FK you OP.
Jokes on u my dad offed himself before it was cool. No jackass left to moralize except me.
Not to worry, I have no family to lose me.
Don't do it
We're right here, bro.
You have people here who care for you, bro
I have that feeling too somedays. I just tell myself I don't want to miss out on cool shit.
Even when I am depressed to the point that I honestly don't believe cool shit can happen again I make a point to remind myself of it.
Take care of yourself. There is cool shit to miss out. Don't let your brain fuck with you
fffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
Don't tempt me. I'd relish a chance to hurt him like that. Not worth to die for it though.
Aye, don't send innocents to war, not their war, but fuck politic dumbasses. Let ppl gain some living salaries, nothing luxury, but something to live with, throw some respect if they do weirdo decision about themselves... don't act like an assholes who know better how others should be. Don't push anons to such stories, to no stories where they pick a shotguns and aim, anyone.
He who wants war, must be sent himself.
Shutup I'm not crying you're crying
Damn that's some fucking sad shit. Gave me some goosebumps.
People with dead fathers: Sucks to be you, I guess
TBH my dad dying was one of the best things that ever happened to me. my life massively improved after he was gone.
on his fucking deathbed, hours before be passed, he told me how disappointed he was in me for not being a football player. literally the only thing he ever fucking cared about. think about what a raging cunt of a human being he was to do that. he didn't love me or was proud of me. his kid who went from a uneducated family to a nearly full ride at fucking Harvard, who got a graduate degree, who worked in prestigious institutions, etc. No, none of that matter. all that mattered was his bitterness towards me that i didn't play football in high school and college for 8 years of my life...
i'm just glad he died before he could vote for Trump. he was MAGA before MAGA was a thing.
Those achievements sound impressive, and I'm proud of you. I know it's not nearly the same to read it from me - a random fediverse stranger - as it would it to heard it from him, but I still want to say it. Also glad to know things got better for you.
Hm, not sure I feel bad for someone who signed up voluntarily to go kill my family 🤷
Seems like the sympathy is more for the parent
I don't feel bad for them either. They raised a child that went to my country and shelled the town my family lived in.
In the US, military service is sold to clueless teenagers and brings welfare benefits that you can't find elsewhere.
Not arguing that you should pity them, though.
same! there shall not be any sympathy toward these westerns!
I get it but you are in less immediate danger and the post isn't targeted at you then. Please get the help you need though.
perhaps he shouldn't have sent his son to iraq ?
Life ends eventually anyways, whats the rush? Just not give a shit and do what you can.
Do you really think you being the one who is shot will make this a better place to live? What if you could die slightly later in life for a good cause?
That said I get it. Life blows for the vast majority. I didnt have kids so they didnt have to go through the pain of existence. Did you get your vasectomy yet?
One night I had the weird headache out of nowhere. Still don’t know what it was or where it came from. No idea why, but I ended up on the couch just thinking “everything is bad, I’m bad, why even bother, I fucking suck at everything, etc.”
I’m pretty good at separating myself from my own thoughts, especially when things get out of hand, so I knew to just sit and let it blow over. This was very, very good because in that moment I caught a glimpse of where someone might be if they were thinking of commiting suicide. It was such a strong force of self-hate and hopelessness all I could really do was lie there and hope it would pass.
Had a normal day after that, but holy hell. There’s not a lot of logic to it, the best you can really do is be kind to people and pray they see the lighthouse in the storm.
Yeah people who don't get this are lucky enough to have never experienced long periods of their entire reality being negative. Not just thoughts, the experience of getting little to no positive feelings at all from anything. Living with that for a few days/maybe weeks is bearable, but for quite a few people that's just their full experience (and loss of community etc makes it worse).
Chronic pain and discomfort can certainly make you want to rush to the end.
To society, your existence is inconsequential. To your family though, your existence is paramount. An individual suicide has almost no effect on most of society, but has a tragic and lifelong impact on everyone you care about.
Almost nobody is thinking about you enough to warrant hating you. People have their own lives, their own insecurities and their own delusions. The only people who would ever have made a strong opinion about you are your friends and family, and friends you will make in the future. Focus on that, because I guarantee they will care most about anything you do.
So much in life can change. Life is long. A decade away could be a whole new life for you, one where you no longer feel this way. Even if you feel this is never going to happen for you, all I can say is I felt the same. Then decades pass and I worked on every part of my life until I only had kind people around me. I struggled with suicide ideation from 8 years old to 36/37 years old. And then, one day without me noticing, it just stopped. Because I kicked all the mean folk out, and surrounded my life with good. I learned to accepted myself, flaws and all. There is always tomorrow.
I fed the squirrls peanuts I bought just for them this morning. Its love. Give love, get love. Life gonna beat the shit outta you, but one day it could be better. I have one friend, and three close family members, one of which I popped out myself so idk if that counts. Less people, but good people.
My step father would been happy I offed myself, I never wanted to give him satisfaction. Go for spite, find ur spite and draw hope.
I dont hate you, so go on and please keep exsisting.
Is this Elon Musk?
You are wrong. Your father may hate your actions but he does not hate you the person. If you take some steps to turn it around he would be rooting you on (even if he does a shit job of expressing it)
Your story isn't done.
Making a reply this confrontational is probably doing more harm than good. Cookie-cutter replies don't help, you need to actually tailor the response to people's needs.
Also, sometimes parents are completely terrible people. I have a grandmother that only sees people as things to manipulate. She doesn't care about her kids apart from how they affect her image, because she's a Trump-level narcissist. Making claims that could easily be wrong also hurts your case
"Society" hates you? Then suicide would only be a net gain if you cared about everyone's feelings equally. Fuck the bigoted mouthbreathers that would cheer to see you dead, every day you survive despite the odds is a tiny middle finger.
Pissing in Jeff Bezos' morning coffee would probably make him unhappy as well, yet I'd gladly do it and not feel bad about it. Respect and tolerance are an opt-in thing. If someine denies it to others, they don't deserve it themselves
Besides, recognize the symptoms of depression. It is a valid health issue, and it is hard to examine your brain using your own brain. But it helps to make an effort to mentally separate thoughts that would make no sense to an un-depressed person.
nobody cares about you that much. nobody hates you.
you hate yourself. that's what it is. because you don't feel you live up to the idea of what you are supposed to be.
Yeah but the green text said something like: "There is no better food in the world than pancakes"
It was super specific - twice (green text and white text). Why not "a parent losing their child"?
You are right to call me out but as a father of a daughter I felt a bit attacked and just thinking about the combination of her and suicide made me not think right. I'm sorry.
nah, twitter not the only place.
try hanging out with a insecure person. they will do this about literally everything you say.
wait what was the comment?
How is that your take from this post ?
It's very specific (not parents losing children), repeated twice (green and white text). I'm a father of a daughter. The thought of something happening to her made me not think right and write it.
First he tells about the "reactions of loved one", so it covers every kind of loss. Then he goes on about his own perception of what hits HIM the most. It's subjective, and there could be thousands of reasons why that particular type of relationship affects him harder than other ones. Don't take it personally.
Sorry for my reaction, I wasn't thinking right.
It's okay, you have a daughter and you felt like someone was underappreciating your love for her I guess. What bothers me is that your comment started a gender war on a post about loss of loved one, but it's not your fault
No, I see it too. I can't put my finger on it, but "father to son, mother to daughter" stories often have this kind of weird undertone I can't quite name.
Is it like as if the stories want to vanglory (is this the English word) parents as if they were great even though they aren't perfect?
No, maybe its American gender fascism? In my country, media propaganda has an obsession with a certain type of conversation about how men and women should be. Maybe it's "nuclear family" propaganda? Something like that. It feels something like that. I can't put my finger on it.
I think that is a correct conclusion 👍. When Anon says "a dad losing his son," my first thought was "oh are we doing the male scarcity mindset that people had throughout history?"
I can see now that it's just poetic license to convey "parent losing a child"
Grief if not a competition.
For fuck sake....
Nooooo…. It’s the manly love only fathers can feel for their sons. Every other love is tainted, because Femalestm are part of it. Only Anon and his dad can feel this purest form of affection. /s
Females™ got me rolling.
If you wanna opt-out anons... opt-out. Staying alive for the feeling of those who came before you is ridiculous. I can understand staying alive for your children, not your parents.
That is just stupid and fucked up.
Trying to convince at-risk people to kill themselves is stupid and fucked up, actually
Wrong. I am not trying to convince anyone, just saying that using the "pain" of a parent to gaslight people into enduring the ever-multiplying pains of life--is fucked up.
Worst use of gaslight ever
Life's fucked, no doubts. But that doesn't mean you make comments that could potentially harm vulnerable people
I will not submit to tone policing or censorship. Anon made a post demanding people "hold on" out of filial piety. I am opposed to compelling an individual to endure persistent suffering purely to mitigate the grief of their parents.
Look at anon's post. Was that veteran supposed to endure the debilitating PTSD accrued from killing innocent farmers, teachers, men, women, and children in an imperialist war in Iraq, just to ensure his father did not have to cry?
My husband, for a number of years, only stayed going for his cat first, and his father second. He happens to have a good relationship with his father, and recognizes he is lucky in this. But his cat kept him going day to day.
Im glad he held out so I could meet him and love him.
Live for whatever you need to, because life is long and there is always potential for better days.
I will not submit to tone policing or censorship.
Lol. Lmao, even.
killed himself after coming back from Iraq
GOOD 🦀 🦀 🦀 🦀
don't wanna know how many parents had the same reaction as his because of what that shitstain was at the very very least enabling. The fact that he got so bad he couldn't live with himself anymore tells me it was more than just paper-pushing though...
Bro wtf?
some people here think anyone who ever works for the military is a person who is awful and deserves death or worse.
they are idiots and awful people themselves, but they feel they are good people for being so hateful and horrible to 'worse people than them'.
like your typical lemmy poster who fantasizes about murdering billionaires, would somehow magically solve their own life circumstances they are so upset by.
I'm just a karmic justice enjoyer
Unfortunately, the people that most deserve it are the ones that have zero issues.
The ones who tried to survive in something that turned out much different than what they thought or what they were sold are the ones who get fucked up by it.
I guarantee you the people behind Abu Ghraib are sleeping well and believe they did the right thing. As did the people who manned the Gulag watchtowers, the Nazi gas chambers or whatever.
Unfortunately, the people that most deserve it are the ones that have zero issues.
yeah they run for congress
The ones who tried to survive in something that turned out much different than what they thought or what they were sold are the ones who get fucked up by it.
so they didn't know they would be killing people? That the war was unjust? Have they paid attention to any war the US was in before signing up for the least moral army in the world?
I guarantee you the people behind Abu Ghraib are sleeping well and believe they did the right thing. As did the people who manned the Gulag watchtowers, the Nazi gas chambers or whatever.
They raped kids in front of their moms, they do not "believe they did the right thing" they're just cruel because they're taking cues from the dirlewanger brigade.
The people who manned the gas chambers famously weren't ok after, but a complete mess. I don't know what you mean by the people manning the gulag towers, no abuse similar to abu ghraib or the concentration camps is known to me.
so they didn’t know they would be killing people? That the war was unjust? Have they paid attention to any war the US was in before signing up for the least moral army in the world?
Exactly my point. Propaganda and group pressure are strong factors. Army recruiters don't exactly go around showing you videos of war crimes. This does not absolve anyone from making their own decisions, of course. And once you are in, getting out is hard, and you are actively pressured against it.
yeah they run for congress
they do not “believe they did the right thing”
Aren't those two statements contradicting each other? The guy you quote seems to believe he was doing nothing wrong.
My statements may be a bit generalising, but I would bet a surprisingly large chunk of people who are part of war crimes and abuse do not believe they were in the wrong. Now, why they do this is a good question, maybe it is the mind trying to protect itself, maybe they are really the kind of psychopaths that are usually kept in check by society.
the gas chambers famously weren’t ok after, but a complete mess
I would love to see some sources for that, because from all the anecdotes I have heard, many people who were actively involved in the Nazi genocides were mostly concerned about persecution.
no abuse similar to abu ghraib or the concentration camps is known to me
A statement I would have expected more from a .ml user.