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Comment by strken | Hacker News Reader

I have the impression you could be confusing suicidality with the little voice that says "what if I stuck my finger in the candle wax?" or "what if I forgot to put on clothes before going to work?" and only mentions tall buildings once or twice a year.

I'm pretty sure the latter is really common. I've always thought it was my brain generating failure cases for risk assessment. We think "What if I dropped this bottle of water on my lap while driving and crashed?" and then we take more care not to drop it.

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GP mentions concurrent extreme stress and multiple variations of suicidal ideation, along with a prediction of the relief that would bring. Also, that the thoughts stopped once the stress did.

Not sure how they could describe suicidality more clearly. Speaking as someone who has also experienced it due to chronic health conditions that had gotten particularly bad for a while.

Thank you. Indeed, what I was suggesting, and the reason I posted my comment is to see if others have had similar experiences (which I assume could be true since there is a universality to how our brains respond to stress).

While mine were not health-related they (the stressors) were equally as bad and ran on for years; I am naturally an optimistic person and have no addictions, and I live healthily; even so, the only reason I didn't take my life was because my religion expressly forbids it (doomed to Eternity if).

Yes, and I'm saying that is clearly suicidality, but I think TFA is talking about something else.

How do you draw the line between the two?

It might start off with self-sabotage and end up in suicidal thoughts-- but also, maybe self-sabotage is yet another way to cope with extreme stress?

Given that Poe had chronic stressors (financial, for one), maybe his drinking and self-sabotage were the kind of responses his brain would generate. Even though he himself calls them "perversity", it doesn't negate the fact that he was experiencing severe brain damage due to the constant stress.

The TFA also elevates Freud into the discussion, but most if not all of Freudian ideas have been empirically refuted (thanks to the new advances).

These are called intrusive thoughts. I have learned about these through a family member with ADHD. With ADHD, you can have the dual problem of both the wandering, intrusive thoughts, with sometimes the lack of impulse control. It can be really dangerous for some.

What the poster is talking about is different, something that occurs in a deep depression where your mind is struggling to find a way out of the situation. Sometimes the will gives out completely and you're just a zombie to the world, only slogging forward out of habit and maybe guilt.

There's another term for the certain-death variety which I prefer - the "call of the void". I think that captures it nicely.

I know that the poster is talking about something that occurs in deep depression, but I don't think Edgar Allan Poe was and I don't think TFA was either.

No, I don't think that's the case. I have ADHD and 'risk-assessment' thoughts which are nothing but impulses, frequently occur in my mind. Such impulses are never about ending your life-- and mostly about 'what happens if I do X or Y' a sort of intense curiosity.

The more serious thoughts I mentioned earlier began surfacing after 15 years of extreme loneliness, which considerably weakened my mind, then on top of it, another five years of constant struggle against the most vicious stresses one can imagine (no way out, no matter what, but must find a way out). Towards the end of the fifth year of such chronic stress, these suicidal thoughts began occurring.

However, I must also mention that a few years before these thoughts, I also had a serious concussion (unable to walk for months, unable to read, personality change). I'm not sure whether these were due to concussion after-effects but the probability seems low, since there was gap of 3 years between the suicidal thoughts and my concussion.

Yes, intrusive thoughts are common, and are fairly independent from actual self-destructiveness. You can have intrusive thoughts without being especially self-destructive, and you can be self-destructive without thinking much.

I'm glad it's not just me. I go to a bar sometimes with a mezzanine and I've often wondered what would happen if someone threw glasses or bottles off that balcony into the bar area below. It would probably end up killing someone. It is not possible to jump over that barrier but easy to throw anything over.

I'm glad that (most) people are too civilised to do so.

This is "call of the void". Note that other replies simply call it "intrusive thoughts", but I think that's an overgeneralization, because call of the void is a specific response to keep you wary of hazards, not generic random background noise or self-harmful impulses or anything that "intrusive thoughts" traditionally implies.

What if it is one and the same ? The anticipate danger background thread getting a concious foreground role due to the danger/stress beeing "lower" on the attack then the foreground threads relentless predation.

What if suicide is a predator scratchpost response?

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