Posted 9:13 AM by Blah blah

Suicide (Morbid)

Yeah! I'm finally meeting Sandy and her boyfriend Brent tomorrow! We're having dim sum with Bich Ngoc, who's visiting this week.

Talked to Sandy about suicide last night. I've luckily never ever felt suicidal, but I've had to deal with others who wanted to do it.

Everyone who has thought about suicide MUST read this nine-page article. "Written in 1983, this CoEvolution Quarterly article has helped people decide not to attempt suicide, by showing them what might, realistically, happen to them if they take the leap. 90% of the people who try don't actually pass away; instead, they lose control of their bodies, their health, their time, their rights, and even their depression."

How Not to Commit Suicide: "The information that people need to know is how not to commit suicide. They think if they take an overdose of sleeping pills they'll just go to sleep and never wake up. Instead they wake up choking on their own vomit, and there's the emergency room and stomach pumping and brain damage, and it's the opposite of relief for their suffering. People try all sorts of things that don't work, all horrible." The article is full of stupid things people do that don't work. Please send this article to all of your suicidal and depressed friends!

"Need a guide to suicide?

Don't overdose on aspirin, Tylenol, caustics such as lye or oven cleaner, psychiatric drugs such as Thorazine or Elavil, tranquilizers, or sleeping pills.
Don't slash your wrists.
Don't shoot yourself.
Don't jump from a not-very-high place or try to hang yourself.
(All these common techniques are unreliable and have often terrible effects on the survivor.)"

As a bonus, read ACTUAL suicide notes, taken from coroners' offices. Fascinating.
_______________________
The first time I had to deal with suicide online was when a pretty girl in Taiwan I had corresponded with killed herself two years ago. I told the story in more detail here. Theta (aka YunJu Tai) was a sophomore at National Taiwan University in Taipei, a brilliant physics student. To this day I'm still not sure why she did it.

The second time was when someone I know wrote on his website about how he would like to die, how people wouldn't notice him if he left the planet. I freaked out, completely stunned, when I stumbled upon those words on his site. I immediately took action, dealt with a super arrogant psychiatrist, and helped prevent him from taking the next step. I made sure people NOTICED him.

The third time was when a member of Rice Bowl Journals (a girl) wrote a blog entry about wanting to do it. I immediately sent Carlos a message. The two of us worked to convince her to cheer up. She removed her post and cheered up.

The fourth time was last October, when "Mr. Sparkle" threatened on Rice Bowl Journals to kill himself. He started a discussion thread about finding one reason not to commit suicide. A bunch of bloggers mainly in Malaysia, Corine, Frostee, Brandon, Ami, and Eugene, as well as Arnold, Carlos, and I, worked on getting Mr. Sparkle to back down. Corine had the most effect on him. She spent most of the day chatting with him, listening to his problems. She'd asked me for help as soon as I logged in that morning, and I exchanged messages with him too. I even filed a police report. (Yup, I take all suicide threats very seriously.) We happily succeeded, and now Mr. Sparkle is still cynical and sarcastic, but alive. The debate on RBJ turned nasty and pissed me off about some of the people who cynically told him to go ahead with it. That whole experience, as well as the nasty messages some people wrote about me and Corine, soured me on RBJ and made me leave the message board completely.

Other online-related suicides:

- Nicolai Rosen and Kevin Hogue both killed themselves within a month, in the same building at UC Berkeley, Evans Hall. Both had been Berkeley students. Both wrote blogs (which I link in my post). In Kevin Hogue's LiveJournal, some guy even told him to stop whining and go do it, never taking him seriously. Well he did.

- Brandon Vedas, a guy in Arizona, killed himself accidentally with an overdose of prescription drugs this January as "friends" watched live on his webcam. He was chatting with them on IRC and some even egged him on to take more drugs! Read the horrifying chat log. See what the world press said about this story. Watch the Internet video of his family and the guy "Smoke2k," who kept saying "Take more!" Click on the RealPlayer video of the "John Walsh Show."

I end with Archy's poem the lesson of the moth (1927):

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

archy