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Comment by grandalf | Hacker News Reader

This is TechCrunch playing the role of Jerry Springer.

In spite of the way many interest groups are trying to make Aaron's suicide into a symbol, the fact is that suicide is simply a symptom of mental illness, and nothing else.

Unless we have reason to believe otherwise, most of us assume that those whose actions/views we discuss on HN are of normal (average) mental health.

So while Aaron's death is jarring, it's the mental illness that is jarring and not the nuanced view expressed by edw519.

TC must be hurting for clicks/readership these days. I think that story (sadly the current top story on HN) is a new low.

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> the fact is that suicide is simply a symptom of mental illness, and nothing else.

This is simplistic and wrong.

Mental illness is a factor in some attempted or completed suicides.

But is mental ill health the only factor? No. There are many things that contribute to someone attempting suicide. Significant factors include debt, relationship breakdown, recent release from a MH hospital, previous attempts at suicide, a relative who completed suicide, etc.

Many people have mental ill health, and not all of them kill themselves. The difference between the people who try suicide and those who don't is not severity of illness, but severity of other pressures.

grandalf's comment is inaccurate, but it's also a sort of understatement to say that mental illness "is a factor in some attempted suicides or completed suicides". It's by far the biggest factor.

> More than 90 percent of people who die by suicide have [depression and other mental disorders, or a substance-abuse disorder (often in combination with other mental disorders)]

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-u...

Exactly, I didn't mean to generalize to claim that mental illness is the only cause, but I would say that mental illness is the common thread in 99%+ of suicides.

I attempted suicide at age 17. I am very clear it was due to social and physical factors, not mental illness. I blogged about that yesterday. I doubt you care, but this accusation of "he was merely mentally ill, the way he was being treated by people doesn't matter" is something I think is pure evil and merely an excuse to say "not my problem" and cover your ass.

Not merely mentally ill. Mental health in general should be taken more seriously. Many of our institutional systems (schools, prisons, etc.) are not conducive to habits that promote good mental health. Please be assured I am not dismissive of the importance of it.

Also, people can have lapses in their mental health and then recover.

There are also most certainly lots of factors that can push people to their limits. I do note that you were not successful in committing suicide, and in the name of discussion I might ask (if it weren't inappropriate to do so) why you were not successful in committing suicide. I have done a few thought experiments about suicide and it seems that some methods routinely fail while others never do.

Thanks for sharing your story, and I apologize if my comment came off as insensitive or as an attempt to washy my hands of the key issues. I'm strongly opposed to the kind of stuff that was being done to Aaron fwiw.

I have a genetic disorder. At the time I attempted suicide, I was undiagnosed. In part for that reason, I ended up with severe low blood sugar while also under severe social duress. The short version is that relatives who knew the man I was arguing with had molested me as a child were telling me to "behave" instead of telling him to stfu. The severe low blood sugar interfered with my plans to slash my wrists. Had I been clearer-headed, I likely would have succeeded. I had a scar from an old accident marking exactly where to cut myself to successfully bleed out. Instead, I ended up with a really insignificant flesh wound. You can read the blog post if you want more details.

I still find your remarks objectionable. Severe duress often cannot be clearly distinguished from "mental illness". I have seen too many stories where someone was dismissed as paranoid, a drama queen, mentally ill, making shit up, etc where it later turned out their "dramatics" were 100% true.

I'm really sorry to hear about your struggles, and I sincerely hope you are doing better now.

I did want to mention that the new DSM (and even the current one) does cover situations such as yours. I understand the reluctance to call duress (whether that be social, emotional, etc) "mental illness" and surely an argument can be made that it is not, however in some ways it is.

I think the real point here is that there are forms of therapies that can help someone through these tough times. Of course that takes finding the right psychologist; which takes effort.

Anyways, the main reason I commented was just to say that "mental illness" doesn't necessarily mean you are crazy or have a chemical imbalance. It is a much broader term. The opening paragraph on the wiki page for mental illness describes it well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorder

If being susceptible to social pressure / duress is a mental illness, then we are almost all mentally ill.

Which makes it a useless definition, in my book.

I am 47. I did two rounds of therapy, in my teens and twenties. My primary stressors these days are financial. Still working on that.

Have a great day/evening/whatever.

I can definitely understand the financial stressors. That can be hard to nail down.

Great to hear you are doing well otherwise.

Severe duress often cannot be clearly distinguished from "mental illness"

I 100% agree with this in terms of its accuracy in describing the symptoms. And I do not think mental illness should be stigmatized any more than other illnesses should be (which is not at all).

The key though is that once mental illness occurs, rationality goes out the window. To a large extent causality goes out the window. You can't persuade a clinically depressed person to cheer up using a rational argument, the brain chemistry is going to overrule your rationality.

So my intent in my initial comment was to draw a distinction between Aaron's explainable behavior (that which was derived from his rational process) and his unexplainable behavior (that which was derived from his brain chemistry getting out of whack and his conclusion that taking his own life was a good decision).

I realize my sentiment ignores the possibility that the suicide was a direct and rational response to the prosecutors' tactics.

> The key though is that once mental illness occurs, rationality goes out the window.

A minor nitpick: In UK law we have the Mental Capacity Act. People must not be seen as lacking capacity to make decisions just because they have a mental health illness. Even someone detained against their will under section of the Mental Health Act can make decisions about their care.

But your point - "People with major depression and suicidal thinking probably lack capacity to make a rational decision about suicide" is true.

That's an important distinction. Certainly suffering from a degree of mental illness does not hinder many of the kinds of decisions needed to maintain personal freedom and dignity, etc.

Among other things, I think you are seriously underestimating the chronic stress that a "prodigy" typically lives with. I walked away from a national merit scholarship and homeschooled my very gifted but also learning disabled sons. Issues like OCD are incredibly common at very high IQs. So are serious social issues. For an introvert, being a social outcast for being too smart may be merely annoying. For an extrovert, it may amount to torture. I think it unlikely you can convince me personally that his depression was entirely due to wonky brain chemistry. What little I know about his life suggests huge confounding factors, well before he was charged with a crime.

Peace. And have an upvote.

I'd define having an extremely high IQ has having abnormal brain chemistry :) Surely living among people who are cognitively dissimilar would be very stressful, and living in stressful conditions can be bad for a person's mental health (mental health viewed as something that is fluid and that can change over time and in response to environmental changes).

Unfortunately, you are treading extremely close to saying "high IQ = mental illness". I don't think it has to be that way or should be that way. If I live another fifty years, hopefully I can make some headway on changing that general status quo (edit: I mean the very common view of "there is a fine line between genius and insanity" and the high social stress so many intelligent people routinely endure, yes, at a cost to their mental health).

I don't think I'm treading that line. Having an IQ that is a few standards of deviation higher than average makes a person quite different from average people... just as a person with average IQ would feel out of place among a group consisting mostly of people with IQs a few standards of deviation below average.

However stress is stress. People of any IQ feel stress from a variety of factors. One purpose of the human emotional system is to deal with stress and to respond appropriately... sometimes this means flight, sometimes fight, sometimes take a deep breath, etc. Healthy emotional development is separate from IQ and very dependent on genetics and environment.

Pretty much anyone who isn't completely average in all respects is going to find some kinds of interactions with other humans stressful. So I think that it's tough to make the case that certain traits like high IQ are inherently more stressful or make a person more likely to display mentally unhealthy behavior.

Which is why I think there is a general quality of mental health, which can get better or worse in the same person over time (and can change quickly and slowly)... which is an accurate descriptor of the meta factors that contribute to the proper functioning of the person's cognitive and emotional systems to respond to the inevitable stresses of daily life.

>This is TechCrunch playing the role of Jerry Springer.

And who are the screaming people making asses of themselves on the show?

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