An article on "bullycide"

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Sorry- it's just offensive and irrational to me to say suicidal people can have their pain "explained" or "helped" away.
It implies they're stupid and/or the causes of their pain are superficial or transient.
I have a friend who's had chemical depression off and on for his entire life, is on medication, et cetera, for it.

What "option" does he have, other than to subsist in pain, exactly?
How might I, with a straight face, say
"John, it ain't so bad. Oh, look, a butterfly!"
and what would he say in response?
"By jove, you're right! Why couldn't I see the magical beauty of the world?!"


I genuinely want to know.

On that note, I'm not sure why verbal taunting and "non-physical" bullying is dismissed as "trivial."

If a parent told there child everyday for 12 years that they were a worthless ret*d who had sex with animals, punctuated by rubbed pre-chewed food in their hair and throwing rocks at them, is this not serious abuse?

Granted, I was never raped or beaten within an inch of my life, but seriously, I get tired of people assuming "name-calling" is something that can be easily ignored.

Words hurt, often immensely.
I don't know why people prefer to pretend otherwise.

Just yesterday someone in the online game I play laughed at me and called me an idiot. Even that still hurt but I can just get over it unlike when I was in school and was forced to go to school and be around all those cruel little brats every day. At least now I can easily avoid people like that and I'm old enough to know they are just jerks so I can get over it faster, plus in the game I can just turn public chat off if people get too mean.

I never said any of that. All I said was that a depressed person's life could get better. I never said it was easy or simple, only that the hard work was worth it, only that the ability to recognize and overcome the (almost always false) sense of hopelessness and helplessness are essential, and that others can help with that. Also, I've certainly said it enough, so why is it you keep ignoring that what I'm talking about is helping people before they become suicidal or (preferably) before they become depressed at all.

You, on the other hand, seem to believe that depression cannot be prevented and that once a person becomes depressed there is no hope of ever getting better. There are millions upon millions of people out there whose experience proves you wrong, but whatever.

If you want to disagree with what I actually say, great. If you're that incapable of hearing what I say without reading ridiculous overly simplified meanings into it, then there's no point in continuing to discuss this with you.

I mean seriously, I say "pain is worth overcoming and life is worth living" and you hear "oh, look, a butterfly."



I never said it was. People just kept assuming that I didn't know that bullying went beyond that, which was bothering me.

Attention seekers don't commit suicide. If they are dead, they aren't going to be there to see all the attention they are getting.


Our schools have become bully sympathizers and making the victim out to be a victim again when they turn the other cheek.
Then some of these victims are taken to psychiatrists only to be medicated on anti-depressants which then can make things worse with even more suicidal thinking which can turn into suicide/homicide.

The fact that they blame the victims of bullying shows perhaps there is just too much coddling of bullies and look at how self defense is treated now.

The goal of any "help" given should be to do everything possible to alleviate the pain, not merely prevent them from committing suicide.

mds_02

What is offensive is the belief that 99.9% of the time people's desire to commit suicide is due to faulty thinking, and then using the word "stupid". These are very subjective things you are presenting dressed up as objective fact. Pointing out specific cases of faulty thinking to depressed people can be helpful. General platitudes like "suicide is irrational because 99.9% of the time there's a possibility that things can get better" aren't helpful to a lot of people because they are subjective rather than objective.

Optimism and the ability to withstand horrific circumstances is a big part of "Survival of the fittest".

We can and do wish you all the best, try to extend love and compassion and hope you can stand through the storms of life, but we can't make you live it. I know we have more than our share of storms. I know...I am not trying to minimize your pain or invalidate your feelings or especially say that you are stupid. Despite suffering through horrid things myself, I am still not any of you and can not actually feel your exact feeling. I can only empathize from my own perspective and imagining.... and tell you that after enduring what to me was unbelievable torment, I am glad that I am still here, I am glad that I waited it out. You can't blame me for having hope for you too.

I wish you all the best, whatever your perception of the best is.

Agreed.

No, I just don't believe in seeking to invalidate their feelings by declaring them "wrong", "false", or somehow "incorrect", as you continue to do.
That's really what I see as offensive.

Absolutely.

If someone were to tell me "I want to kill myself" I wouldn't tell them "you're wrong, you don't want to kill yourself", that would be extremely presumptious and arrogant of me to try and condescend to them and pretend to know what they do and don't feel.

However, if someone were to say to me "I can never feel happy again" or "No one cares about me at all" I could tell them that they are wrong, because without trying every option to cause themselves to feel happy, they do not know that they cannot. The chances may be slim that they could feel happy again or they may be great. As for someone caring about them, there is always someone, somewhere who cares or would care if they knew you, the person just hasn't met them yet. I believe for everyones situation, there is one happy unicorn farts and rainbow pollyanna do-gooder out there who would bend over backwards in the name of <insert cause, belief, religion, philosophy, etc> to help them. It's just a matter of finding them, and then putting up with them when you do find them.

I've been suicidal when I've been in the midst of major depression. The right combination of meds got me out of it. I tried many different ones before we hit on those. So, I would have to say that if a person hasn't tried many different medical options to feel better, then they cannot say with any certainty that they will never feel happy, so therefore they are wrong. If they say "Without trying anything else, which I am not willing to try, I will never feel happy" then I would have to agree with them.

I also think that people can withstand an awful lot if they know that it will end soon. That's why women can go through labor with nothing for pain - we know it will end soon, it's not for the rest of our lives. Thats why people get through the horrors of boot camp - they know it's only six weeks. If there is something, even a glimmer of hope, in the future, a person can look to that and hold on to it. Without that, many people would give up. For some, pure meanness keeps them going. Holding on to watch those who hurt them "get theirs". I have nothing against that. A reason to live is a reason to live.

I think we're talking about people who have no such thing, no "light at the end of the tunnel".

I didn't read the entire thread, but I have to say that the article is a disgusting example of victim blaming. The idea that victims encourage bullies with their behavior is exactly the same as "she shouldn't have been wearing a short skirt, your honor" and "what does she expect when she passes out drunk at a frat party". It's disturbing that people like the author work as school psychologists, and very upsetting that Psychology Today would publish this kind of abuse apologist drivel.

Yes, that is a fair comparison. Bullying is abuse, plain and simple. It might not be abuse on the same level as rape, but if it happens on a daily basis over the course of years or decades, it can have similarly devastating effects. I should know, I'm a shut-in. Bullying has been found to cause PTSD, and it can be so life-destroying that it drives people into suicide. Not only teenagers who are struggling with puberty and confusing emotions on top of peer abuse, but people of all ages. Because it doesn't "get better" for the weakest of us who are unable to defend ourselves. Bullying happens in all kinds of environments, including adult environments like the workplace. "It gets better" is also somewhat offensive, imho. Try and tell a rape victim "it gets better after a while, the trauma is not quite as bad after the second time, and when you're old and ugly the rapists will eventually leave you alone".

But what Mr. Kalman does it worse than telling victims to hang in there. It is classic victim blaming -- by a white male, big surprise there -- that mimics rape culture narratives. What kind of psychologist doesn't understand that abuse is never the victim's fault? The fault lies always and entirely with the abuser, and a civilized society won't tolerate any kind of abuse. Kalman's decrying of suicide victims has to be the ultimate act of victim blaming. That's just vile and ghoulish. This man even has the gall to publish a photo of Amanda Cummings along with his drivel! I wonder how her grieving parents feel about that? And how must they feel about Mr. Kalman calling the suicide of her daughter "a fad, the cool thing to do" and comparing it to body piercing, of all things? This is utterly indefensible.

People like Mr. Kalman are in fact defending, justifying and normalizing the abusive behavior of bullies. And to a lesser degree, so do people who say things like "it gets better" or "toughen up and don't let it get to you". Bullying is simply accepted as a fact of life, as something natural and unavoidable. But it is not a force of nature, it is an act committed by people. Just like theft, murder and rape, which have always been a problem too, and there will probably always be drunk drivers who run over children. So should we just sit back and watch it happen, or should we try to prevent and combat it by all means possible? We don't excuse any other kind of harmful abuse in this way, so how come we let bullies get away with inflicting irreversible psychological damage on others? The only explanation I have is that we are afraid to admit society's complicity in the torment, oppression and exploitation of its weakest members.

And we are afraid to change the system. Actively combating bullying threatens the social order. In a capitalist system where success is based on ruthless competitiveness and where unscrupulous corporations screw both laborers and consumers, the biggest and most sociopathic bullies rise to the top. Both CEO positions and political offices are filled with power-hungry sociopaths and narcissists who would sell their own grandmother to achieve their goals, and have no compassion for their fellow human whatsoever. The saddest thing is that it's often the former victims and survivors who are the first to defend this system. "I've lived through worse and so can you. I had to work a job as a kid, I walked ten miles to school through rain and snow, and I was bullied a lot. It builds character. It teaches you how to survive in a dog-eat-dog world. Man up or die trying, kiddo". There are too many kids that die trying. Let's fix this disgusting dog-eat-dog world instead of making excuses for harmful antisocial behavior.

Here's a selection of quotes from my earlier posts:



















So, how many more times do I need to say that I am not talking about trying to talk any given person out of suicide, but rather changing attitudes toward it before people get there in the first place. Instilling the belief in, and the willingness to look for, better solutions before suicide starts looking like a good idea.



"We" aren't. You're so focused on the very small minority who really can't get better that you are ignoring the majority who are dying despite the fact that they could.

Last edited by mds_02 on 18 Jan 2012, 8:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.