Bringing Up Suicidal Thoughts with NTs?

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This is just my perception, and I keep on getting told that I don't see other people's perceptions on things.

Suicidal thoughts. What I find valuable about this forum is that there are people here who are open about when they have them.
I feel really sad for them, and want to offer some comfort. I can also see why they're thinking it, and can relate to some of their thoughts. If someone else replies on that thread, I try to find some comfort if it's offered, and try to make sense of what they're saying, on why not to do it, or how to get out of those thoughts.

So all in all, it's very open, and we seem to be trying to get each other out of the pit as best we can.


I've also joined another forum where there are people who have lost spouses to suicide. They seem nice enough, decent people. But they seem to not talk a lot other than to say that they're sad. A couple of times, someone's said that they have suicidal thoughts. And that's it. Everyone sends them private messages, that I can't read, and it all seems very hushed up. And they tell each other to keep breathing, which actually just makes me think more of suicide.


My NT friend who has seen a lot of life, wars and death, has pointed out apparently, NTs are aware that just bringing up the subject of suicide can make someone else go and do it.
Huh?

I don't get it. NTs can't be that vulnerable, can they? Surely it's more healthy to talk about it, and talk it through? Are NTs REALLY that different?

What I know suggests that most mental health people consider talking about ending it all to be a possible sign that a person is considering ending it all.

There are reasons why a person who is not considering ending it all might mention suicide. I knew a man years ago who once found a dead person who had commited suicide, he once told me the story of how he found the dead man. But I do not think that he was thinking of killing himself.

That pit scares the hell out of NTs, they can't seem to face it head on.
Or at all sometimes.
Something there within it (within themselves?) they can't, or don't want to, accept.


Agreed, on the "Huh?"
This business of "makes" them go do it is total B.S. - they made the decision to do so themselves - no one else is controlling their mind and body.
(unless the paranoid schizophrenics are correct after all)


Is it vulnerable or is it weak?


Sounds reasonable to me.
How you gonna deal with something you can't bring out to the light of day to examine?


Apparently so.
Never been an NT so can't detail the differences from firsthand experience.
Beyond that, don't know what to say.

They have a strict separation of "personal" issues and "general" talk.
Personal issues are not discussed with just anyone, IF with anyone at all.
It's generally preferred to either do this with a stranger (like, anonymously) OR, with a very close friend.

I don't think it's all that weird.
I wouldn't enjoy talking about suicidal thoughts with people I know, or might get to know.
Although come to think of it, that's not because I wouldn't want to. It's because I'm afraid of what they'll think.
Personally I'd have no problem with talking about issues like these as long as the other person has no problem with it either.

I found that I cant talk to any of my NT friends about my suicidal thoughts no matter how depressed how I am. They just send me a bland response when we're chatting online like "dont do it" and then say they gotta go. It's awkward and not so comforting to me when they just say something like that and leave it like that.

They just dont like discussion of suicide in general. When someone does commit suicide they usually get mad instead of sad. I've read news stories about people committing suicide because of something terrible that was done to them by the society and most of the comments insist that it's still the victim's fault regardless. Suicide groups and hotlines are considered a joke.

Alot of people say that suicide is a selfish thing. I dont believe that this is the case in all situations. NTs expect people to get over themselves cause they dont want to deal with the seriousness of certain problems.

So I would agree with the OP that NTs can be vulnerable and they way they cower out of certain taboos such as suicide suggest this. They just hide it better.

I think the whole attitude of Western culture towards suicide is a bit bizarre, to say the least. It seems to be a mixture of sentimentally clinging to life (or, rather, the concept of "life") and an almost fascist tendency to decide what someone else ought or ought not to do with their lives. That's why it's important to look at other cultures, just to put things in perspective. In Japan, for instance, it used to be quite respectable to commit seppuku (a ritual form of suicide) for a warrior who had lost his honor. Similar things apply to ancient Rome and Greece. These cultures understood equally well that sometimes quality of life is far more important than quantity. Or, as Seneca the Roman Stoic philosopher put it, "The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live." Then came the Christians, who said, "No, life in itself is a sacred gift from God, and to take it is a major sin, even if it's your own." This more or less cemented the West's negative perspective (apart from the enlightened few, such as Hume and Schopenhauer), and presumably the reason why it's such a taboo nowadays. Basically, my idea is, everyone is free and the owner of one's life, and one may do with it as one pleases. So, if someone really wants to commit suicide, we should accept it, as hard as it may seem. This is just basic fairness: if you really and honestly wanted to escape life's thralldom, wouldn't you appreciate it if your loved ones would let you go?

I'm not saying, however, that suicide is always the wisest solution. In fact, it quite often isn't. If I were confronted with someone who wished to end it all, I'd ask him or her to reconsider it for maybe a few weeks, and if they still wanted it, then they would have my blessing. Suicide on impulse is almost never a good idea. But I maintain that carefully premeditated and rationally motivated suicide is a natural right of man, as complementary to the right to life.