Welcome message from your Suicide Guide

Welcome All,

If you have stumbled upon this blog by accident, please have a look around. You might pick up a bit of perspective from your favorite suicidal friend or loved one. You almost certainly know someone who is suicidal whether you know it/accept it or not. We are every where! But, some of us are in hiding–in the closet, as you might say–so you may need to look a little deeper into people’s jokes about killing themselves or depressed or hopeless moods. This is not an advice column, but rather a discussion about the humanistic needs and issues suicidal patients and their loved ones care about.

If you have come here on purpose, you likely have some very serious thoughts and observations you would like to share and I welcome you to do just that. To get things rolling, I thought you could use the “comments” feature of blogger to list the topics you would be most interested in discussing. Though I have no idea where this blog may go, I have some guidelines that should help clarify my vision for this blog:

1. Absolutely, positively, no judgment! This rule will be strictly enforced. The last thing we patients need is more guilt or shame. Also note that this blog may reach international audiences, so we cannot assume Judeo-Christian morality. In some cultures, suicide is a perfectly acceptable, and sometimes even honorable, way to die. And, like it or not, we patients have thought about committing suicide and may have a few failed attempts under our belt, so we have considered it the right thing to do at some point in our lives, if only in a relativistic or pragmatic way.

2. No advice! This rule will also be strictly enforced as there really is a lot of lousy, even dangerous, advice out there. I don’t want to be responsible for someone’s following bad advice from my blog to their detriment. There are many good sites dedicated to advice and survival strategies. (There are also a lot of bad dedicated sites out there, so be careful. Stick with folks you know and make sure they aren’t operating on 1950’s theories of the mind.)

3. Nothing medical unless it supports a point you want to make. If you do use medical information, try to give a reference. Remember your audience before posting factual information here. B.s. will rooted out as best as possible, but I can’t do thorough fact checking by myself. If any readers feel they have read some b.s., please post your cited references with the correct information or send it to me if you want to remain anonymous.

4. For the purposes of this blog, “suicide” shall mean “an actual death perpetrated by the deceased,” “victim” is strictly to be used for the friends and family of the deceased, the suicidal person shall be referred to as “the patient” or “the deceased” depending on the results of the attempt, thinking about suicide is “suicidal ideation,” an attempted suicide is either “aborted,” “failed,” or “stopped” depending on the circumstances of the fortunate patient (“stopped” here is for patient-resisted intervention; if someone intervenes and the patient gives in, that is an aborted attempt). To summarize, there is suicidal ideation, suicidal attempts, and suicides–three distinct phases or actions.

5. This is not a democracy. If you don’t like something someone says, debate them respectfully or start your own blog. I won’t generally decide unilaterally to strike a comment unless it is in violation of rules 1 or 2 (and 3 if I know for sure the information is b.s.).

6. Try to be thoughtful. This is a serious subject and I want to have a serious dialogue about the issues seldomly discussed in hospitals and living rooms around the world. Jokes, flames, and other juvenile comments will be heavily scrutinized for possible removal. Having said that, I am a firm believer in jokes regarding suicidality, as long as they are in good taste (see rule 5). We must remember to keep those healthy people engaged, while attending to the fragile recovery some of us may be in.

Off we go then…. (see, that was a joke that I hope no one will find offensive (if I’m wrong, please send me a note))