That is the name of my video response to Liz Spikol’s video.

The New York Times in their quest to make information freely available at all times wants me to register to view this article. I am not going to bother at this time so here is the link from Philip Dawdy’s post about the article in the New York Times

Liz asked people to weigh in on their opinions about whether or not suicide was indeed preventable. My answer in short, yes but no.

There are people who have a rough time during an otherwise ordinary or not-too-rough life.

They get depressed and have an impulse suicide. They jump off bridges or grab the nearest firearm and complete their suicide. Some do not and survive. Some of those survivors are grateful for their survival. Some of those grateful survivors will grandstand and wail on and on about how if society would have suicide proofed life for them by putting protective devices on every bridge and building and taking every handgun out of circulation then suicides due to impulse could be prevented. Wouldn’t that be a milestone of social engineering and humanitarian outreach?

Some statistics seem to point out that impulse proofing a popular jump spot cuts down in suicides, in that spot, shockingly enough.

On the topic of firearms? Although I am Californian these days at heart I am a Yankee due to my North East upbringing. I grew up with violence and I also learned how to use firearms safely and responsibly. I am no Annie Oakley but I can shoot a rifle or handgun with some degree of competence and I am not afraid of firearms.

Sure enough a Texan came into the comments section to offer his opinion and some statistics about the reality of suicide and gun control.

Psychetruth:

“ Hehe, gun control to prevent suicide? Did suicides occur before guns were invented? Um yea.

Great Britain has extreme gun control laws and private ownership of fire arms is almost non-existent. Their suicide rate for men is about 40% lower than it is in the US. Their suicide rate for women is about the same.

Japan has tight gun control laws and their suicide rate is TWICE as high as it is in the US. Few gun; high suicide.

Doing away with guns will not stop suicide”

To which I replied, I entirely agree.

There you go, from a Texan and a Yankee gun control will not stop suicide so forget about it and move on to something more productive.

I think I know or partly understand where people are coming from on the issue of impulse suicide prevention.

I remember being somewhat moved with empathy to the comments from one survivor of a Golden Gate Bridge jump.

With that scenario, a completed suicide would have been a tragedy sure I agree. To paraphrase a sentence from the article from over a month ago one jumper is thinking to himself seconds after he lets go of the rail, “What am I doing? What have I done?”. It is easy to think that perhaps he was just at the mercy of his disinterested chemical imbalances.

So fine, somebody makes a civic name for themselves by kid proofing a bridge or a building somewhere. It makes a dent in suicides there and so they pat themselves on the back for their humanitarian efforts and interventions. Brothers keeper and all that.

Don’t think for a second you understand suicide, suicidal motivation or the reasons people suicide.

Don’t think for a second that by passing laws or making safety railings that you can prevent suicide whatsoever.

Don’t even go into that level of hubris and ill deserved self congratulations.

There is a whole level, an entire class of suicide attempts and reasons and solutions that the New York Times does not go into.

Try to safety proof or offer me a social engineering solution to this (kindly sent to me by TJ! thank you!)

BBC documentary: ‘The Trap’ part 1, F*ck you buddy (contains the sub doc ‘The Thud Experiment’.)

The family games, Love as a form of manipulation. Families as a battle ground of controlling mind games. A breeding ground for mental illness followed closely by institutionalizations and intense struggle and failure.

All of it leading to this.

Go ahead and make railings and high fences and congratulate yourself. Just don’t kid yourself about your efforts at suicide prevention. You would have to change the entire fabric of society, family, culture and education to begin to make a real difference in suicidal motivation and attempts.

Unlike Liz I was not remotely grateful for my survival for a long time. Like Liz I survived several suicide attempts due to endless recurring clinical depression. The origins of which I went into in this post recently. Suffice it to say, handing in a crayola crayon drawing to my parents of me, dead, due to a self inflicted knife wound in my heart at the age of 7 was enough to start a decade of on again, off again psychotherapy which ultimately did nothing to do derail several botched ODs.

I had a spike in hits from her site a couple weeks back in response to my Beyond Recovery? post. I guess stating that she was not recovered made her feel defensive. That certainly was not my intent but I can’t apologize for it. Her entire shtick is based on not being recovered from depression and whatnot. Her column is called ‘The Trouble with Spikol’ not ‘The Troubles Spikol used to have’.

It was not too long ago that Philip had a post directing us to her site telling us that Ms Spikol was suffering depression again and might have to step back from blogging as a result. I very much stated that I did not think she was beyond a true and total recovery from depression unlike some of the other examples in my post about the topic. I just thought recovery was an unearned word at that time. I felt the psych term “highly functioning in mainstream despite the presence of illness” was a more honest and more realistic assessment than ‘recovered’.

It was Liz’s vlog that moved me to start my own channel. Her videos about ECT and the Just say yes videos made me so sad and I felt moved. She gave me the inspiration to begin talking about how I got over my own depression and a host of other mental illness as well.

Her candid discussions of clinical depressions and the revelations at the Psychetruth channel about chemical imbalance theory lies that I did not know about for 15 years motivated me to make my vlog and blog about how I got those chemicals balanced again. Glad to hear she has been doing better as of late and I am sure if we had that sit down over coffee she mentioned we would get a better sense of where each other are coming from.

It does not surprise me to find myself at odds with her again over a subject like firearms. During my suicidal times I would never have shot myself. I wanted to go quietly and gracefully and I was willing to stay my suicidal impulse to concoct a suicide kit and leave a note and do it my way. I went out of my way to choose overdose during my very first suicide attempt at age 14.

I chose pills despite the fact that I access to two handguns and several rifles while living in my grandparents house. It was my grandfather that taught me how to shoot and showed me where all the guns were stored in the house. All I had to do was take one of the guns and use it. I chose not to.