Hacker News Reader

Comment by MichaelCrawford | Hacker News Reader

(I haven't read the article yet.)

I once volunteered for the Suicide Prevention Service of Santa Cruz Count, in California.

I never lost anybody.

All I ever required to convince someone to disarm the implement of their own destruction, get a good night's sleep then consult a mental health professional the very next day was an hour or so of "Active Listening".

I quickly came to the conclusion that most suicidal people get that way because they feel no one ever listens to them.

Active listening is very helpful in many other situations, for example when someone is violently angry active listening can lead them to be happy and friendly.

View on HN

First, thank you for volunteering. It's important work.

That said, all due respect, but:

>I never lost anybody.

... That's because you were lucky.

"Active Listening" is really great and all and yes, it's helpful in many situations, and you clearly did very good work -- but it's dangerous to assume that it's always that simple, or that a little "active listening" is all that stands between suicidal people in general and recovery.

My wife worked as a therapist for a long time with a lot of severely distressed folks, many of whom suffered from suicidal tendencies of various kinds, and we got to know a lot of psych people. The one thing that all who had practiced for a while agreed on was this: work with suicidal people long enough, and some are going to die. You can't "save" every one, no matter what.

I don't want to come across as too critical (here or in my lower, now-pending comment re BPD) because I am truly glad you were volunteering and helping at all, but the notion that suicidality is this easy to deal with is dangerous, and I want to try to talk you and other readers out of it.

"I quickly came to the conclusion that most suicidal people get that way because they feel no one ever listens to them."

At least, most suicidal people who call a Suicide Prevention Service.

Thank you for your efforts volunteering, incidentally!

Thank you for your kind words.

Unfortunately it is quite common for people to commit suicide without mentioning their plans to anyone, without anyone even suspecting. For example during our training we were told of a college student who committed suicide in his dorm room. No one missed him until the smell of his decaying corpse disturbed the other students on his hall.

It's also commonly asserted that suicidal people attempt suicide to manipulate others, for example to win sympathy or to send a message. In my experience that is not the case. I've met lots of suicidal people; a former employer of mine, Chris Schefler - a cofounder of the world's first web hosting service - actually did commit suicide. In my whole life I've only met one person who attempted for reasons of sending a message.

"Self injury" is a different thing from suicide attempt. That's commonly practiced by people with Borderline Personality Disorder. A psychiatrist explained to our training class that people with BPD do not experience feelings, so they cut themselves in hopes of feeling something.

Just to chime in here on BPD as well (for source, see comment above - I spent a couple of years fairly immersed in BPD literature as my wife was studying it pretty intensely for school/work, and I also had a personal interest as a result of some family members who had been diagnosed):

fiatchamp's right: that description of people with BPD is waaaay off the mark, and for what it's worth is a prime example of the stigma against BPD sufferers within the psych community. The best research on BPD (see generally the work of Marsha Linehan and subsequent) indicates that far from being "without feelings", people with BPD suffer from an over-intensity of feeling.

It's often compared to being without emotional skin -- just as a person who just had their skin badly damaged will experience extreme sensitivity there, people with BPD are abnormally sensitive to emotional pain -- and end up engaging in self-harm not, generally, as a way to seek attention or manipulate others, but rather to distract themselves from the inner turmoil.

It's a rough disease, made worse by pervasive condemnation from most of society, including many in psych. Thanks again for your work on the suicide line -- and if still you're interested in the topic, please read up on the post-1990s research on BPD. It will be worth it.

That assessment of BPD is incorrect. It is not that people with BPD do not experience feelings, in fact they experience them more intensely than normal (if you look at fmri of amygdala). Sometimes, they will become 'numb' because they get so overwhelmed by their feelings that they try not to confront them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com