• YarrMatey@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    15 days ago

    And what happens when your mental health crisis has lasted for several years, decades even? It is possible to not be terminally ill or old and still rationally decide you want to die due to chronic illness or other issues, even if your issue is purely mental illness. You should be able to die with dignity, peacefully - not after forking over a pretty sum over sketchy websites hoping to get the right peaceful pill that every government has banned or a poison + medication combo so that you’ll die puking your guts out but hopefully you won’t puke the poison out and successfully die.

    There is no help for so many people wanting to die, they’ve exhausted their options. Some are so desperate they buy what they think is a peaceful pill but is instead rat poison. Mental hospitals do not help these type of people, if these places help at all.

    • cynar@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      I know, first hand, how strong the illusion is, that depression causes. It’s like having a mountain poised to avalanche down on you. You just want to escape, even if it’s via extreme means.

      The key is that it is still an illusion. It’s a paper tiger, once you get a handle to fight it, it dissolves like mist. Most people who attempt suicide, due to mental health, are not dealing with a steady chronic condition. They are at a crisis point. If they receive appropriate help, clawing their way back is perfectly possible for most.

      There are exceptions, but they are quite rare. I would bundle them with terminal illness, though proving that is a lot harder. It’s also a balancing act between being OK with dying, and being of sound mind to make that decision.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      There is no help for so many people wanting to die, they’ve exhausted their options

      They feel like there is no help, no options, no possibilities. They feel like they’ve exhausted their options.

      To state absolutely there is no help to be had in any possible situation is just plain wrong. It does feel like that, yes, and that’s the horrible bit. Because the brain absolutely can’t not come up with anything and every option you have agency over you feel like you’ve exhausted. But also, it is a slight exaggeration to say with absolute certainty there is no help.

      And I am speaking from experience.

      But no, it’s not discounted that assisted suicide for mental illness should be completely off the table. However because of the nature of mental illness, there should definitely be checks and balances for it, otherwise half the population would kill themselves over their first heartbreak.

      • YarrMatey@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        15 days ago

        I’ve read their stories and have my own, there is no help. Therapy, medication, mental ward visits, physical therapy, etc. don’t help. Some issues are definitely caused by society, but it is not realistically possible to change society radically enough and soon enough to help. They feel there is no help because there is indeed no help, I also hold this view for myself.

        I am not talking about someone going through a breakup reacting on impulse, I mean people who have been mentally ill for years. People with chronic conditions. People who are in pain.

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          I am not talking about someone going through a breakup reacting on impulse, I mean people who have been mentally ill for years. People with chronic conditions. People who are in pain.

          And very politely assumed I’m not one of those people, not presumptuous at all.

          I’ve been tossed out of an ER after I told the psychiatrist I was afraid I might hurt myself or others. Literally, verbatim (albeit in Finnish.) He said, “don’t try to make that my responsibility”. Like, fuck, that’s literally in his job description. He got a guard to escort me out. I rang a crisis holine. They hang up on me, saying I didn’t have a crisis. All this after I had waited in an empty room without food for 7 hours, waiting for that pick of a psychiatrist on call to laze back to work. And they didn’t even tell me “he won’t be in for hours”, when they knew perfectly well.

          Then another time I was denied my prescription medication while in police custody. I was kept in a cell for three days without them telling me what’s going on, how long, why, and even fucking cutting off my water at one point. A literal crime against humanity. Ate my finger open and wrote >300 words in my own blood on the walls. I got a picture of the cell somewhere. They accused me of vandalising the cell. I tried getting the video material from my time in the cell to prove their gross negligence. They “lost it”.

          My family doesn’t even contact me. Haven’t worked in several years. Had to move from school to school as a kid because of my mom, never had time to form long term relationships even though I make friends rather easily.

          A few years ago, I would’ve definitely agreed with you. I’m a stubborn person, and it FELT like I had exhausted all my options and no-one was willing to help. That’s an exaggeration of course, as is your absolute. And true, the doctors didn’t help shit, family and friends nonexistent, the one friend who I had who could’ve helped lost a daughter, so can’t really blame him for not being able to help others.

          I was genuinely considering suicide everyday, and had there been an easy way to do it, I probably would’ve. If not for nothing else, then to make every single fuck of those “not my problem” fucks feel at least a little guilty for not doing more. Like my mom. I would’ve loved to see her face when she heard I killed myself. Might sound uncaring, because you don’t understand how uncaring my mother is, and that lack of care is what I’ve been talking to her about and she just represses and outright ignores it. So having screamed about suicidal ideation to her probably would’ve made her feel at least a little bit guilty for not simply calling me to prevent me from killing myself.

          But I don’t feel like that now. Because I’m a stubborn as fuck person and didn’t kill myself out of spite, because I wouldn’t get to see what happens. So after years of being convinced my illness has a physical basis, I found one. A rather small thing, non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

          But it’s not well understood, and has weird connections to behaviour.

          All I know is while I used to laugh at all the “gluten free is a fad” jokes, I now don’t find them funny after understanding just how much influence a simple fucking protein in my diet can have on the functioning of my nervous system. That being the system that houses this consciousness that’s writing to you and not wishing that badly to kill themselves amymore.

          Like did I get help from the systems and people who were supposed to care and help? No. Did they actively act against my best interests by ignoring my pleas for help? Yes they did. Did that make me want to kill myself even more? Yes, it did.

          But did it mean there was no help to be had, anywhere, as an absolute? Seeing how I now feel less like killing myself, seems it doesn’t follow that no help was available. I just had to find it myself, on accident, after literally several decades of complaining about that issue.

          I also chose a therapist who’s not Finnish on purpose, so they understand how the entire culture is affecting me, and I feel validated by them. So while it hasn’t been a huge help, it’s definitely a help going there weekly.

          But perhaps I still don’t belong to those “people in pain” who you speak about who FEEL like there is no help.

            • Dasus@lemmy.world
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              15 days ago

              I haven’t actually worked through anything. My life is equally as shit as it was when I was wanting to kill myself. But I don’t feel like killing myself. I still have the issues, they just… don’t affect me as negatively. I’m not as sensitive to them as I was. My nervous system is clearly stronger, fortified. So I have to deduce there was something wrong with it, as I always suspected (and had evidence of as well.)

              Now I won’t get too into anything and understand opinions differ, so please keep that in mind as I might assert some of my opinions and I do realise they’re opinions, but I want to share mine. Not asserting any facts or suggesting any behaviours (even when I suggest things), as it will just be my opinion, and I offer it because I understand that even if I suggest something, you’ll still reflect on it yourself before doing it. I’m just saying this for a disclaimer because I usually come off as a dick (it’s not just your interpretation, it’s a problem I have, being sort of too neutral which often comes of as straight up aggressive or offensive.)

              So, first off, I’m not a healthcare professional, let’s acknowledge that. These are opinions I hold, even when some are arguably on facts, these are still my opinions from those facts. I am however trained as a supply core non-commissioned officer by the Finnish army. This essentially means we’re trained to uphold the fighters capability to fight, outside of medical problems. Ie water, food, supplies. Well, nutrition is a big big part of this. Basically, I am expected to know how a person who doesn’t have any medical problems should be able to keep up their physical capability for a fight that lasts two weeks, with a final escalation of a big fight that lasts 72 hours (during which rest is extremely limited.). Anyway, I don’t think people realise how big of a deal nutrition is. Have you been to a nutrition therapist? Like an actual, proper one, not someone just calling themselves a therapist for Facebook. When you tried gluten-free, did you keep it up for at least 2-3 months? And if you did, I would then suggest doing either GFCF or low FODMAPS if the former doesn’t work. It takes patience, and money, but it can help. Not everyone, obviously, I’m not saying you don’t have something like lupus, what do I know, but at least from what you write, your body is running on reserves, ie on a deficiency, which is why you’re losing weight. Now unless you’re an expert in nutrition (which I’m not either, but I do have some idea) it’s highly unlikely you’re getting all the required vitamins you need from your restricted diet. And even if you are, running on reserves makes the body go into a “powersaving” mode, which also limits pleasure, because the brain is highly energy intensive. Your brain isn’t getting enough energy to feel good, so… you won’t. I really wouldn’t worry about being overweight as much as being extremely depressed. It’s not like even if you had an objectively perfect body you’d do anything with it with major depression, right? So might as well have a little less perfect body, which actually is preferred by most people, by the way, unlike the culture would have you understand. Average-looking people honestly fuck more than very good looking people, who get into their heads, or who average looking people don’t hit on, because “they’re probably out of my class anyway.”

              Anyway, everything I’m saying is on the assumption that you don’t have some underlying disease none of this would help with. But I would point out that lupus is an autoimmune disease. And relating to autoimmune symptoms was something I had as well. What I did was to pretty much exclude everything, just in case. So I ate rice and gluten free fish sticks, had a vegan gluten free protein drink and some gluten free candy. The candy because the brain needs energy to function. I always had this weird desperate need for candy when I woke up. I tried describing it several times to doctors, but they never listened or took me seriously. Since I was a kid. Now since I did the exclusion diet, I’ve not really had it, unless I’ve exposed myself to gluten, after a few days of which it feels like my body just can not absorb nutrients properly. I understand we are very different and I’m not trying to say you have the same thing or would be aided by the same thing. But I’m saying I was so desperate as well that I just went full exclusion diet, because I felt it was an autoimmune issue, and I felt strongly it was related to diet, or at least my sugar metabolism, (with the hankering in the mornings and other such things), so I excluded tomatoes, anything with allium (onion, garlic, leek, etc), gluten, dairy, and even beef and other meat proteins at one point, even when a beef protein allergy is very unlikely.

              After weeks of that shitty simple diet, but definitely giving my body more than enough as calories and making sure I also get a good variety of vitamins with either supplements or drinks like the protein (which have added vitamins), getting all the vital macros and micros, but making sure to avoid pretty much anything that could be an allergen, I started feeling better. I never knew you’re actually supposed to want to eat three times a day. I didn’t know you’re not supposed to be able to burp three hours after eating a meal to still taste the meal.

              Anyway, your problem does sound different, but if it’s something to do with autoimmune or nutrition, it might help to try that. When our dog had allergies, the vets just went “rice, potatoes, chicken and fish, that’s all you’ll give him, he should be fine”. The point being it’s so hard to chase after an allergen that it’s easier to give a simple exclusion diet. For dogs it’s obviously easier as they don’t spice their food or whatnot, but can you say you’ve ever went even a few days of avoiding the allergens I just listed? It’s essentially the low FODMAPS diet for IBS. Here’s some quickly googled John Hopkins article on it.

              From my very objective and masculine solution focused emotion ignoring Finnish moronical mechanical point of view, I would say that you do that diet for a few weeks and have a caloric surplus (yes you might gain weight, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make) but I don’t excpect that you to make you necessarily feel better at all. I expect it to prime your body to be able to feel better. If you do that, and then the next thing, and you don’t feel good, I would be surprised. I’m not saying I don’t think it could happen, but I would put money against it. So what is the next thing? During that few weeks, or a few weeks following the first one, whatever you feel like, if you can, light exercise. If you can’t, it’s fine.

              But then, a serotonergic substance, but with set&setting in mind. It’s a complex issue, because doing ecstasy at home doesn’t necessarily feel good, and you’re not probably ready to go to a rave or anything. So maybe… LSD and movies? That would be my suggestion. If you want even more introspection, mushrooms. But if you’ve never done any serotonergic substances, I would go with LSD, as I feel like it’s much… “easier”… than mushrooms. Mushrooms feels like conversing with a deity older and larger than the galaxy, whereas taking LSD is sort of like being visited by a mischievous demigod.

              Anyway, that’s because despite fixing your body to be able to feel good, you also need to prompt it to feel good, and that’s just something a depressed person might literally be incapable of doing. You know how memory is contextual? Like how a certain smell can just… unlock a memory you know you knew you had, but you just didn’t sort of have… access to? Well, memory is contextual not just in regards to external stimuli, but also internal stimuli. In a certain mood, we more easily recall other times when we were in that mood, and it’s harder to remember things which you experienced in a wildly different mood. This can get so bad that you’re essentially depressed for so long that the default setting gets so far from happy that you literally can not access happy memories anymore, so you don’t experience happiness, and because you don’t, you can’t, ad infinitum.

              That’s why the importance of the serotonergic substances. SSRI’s work with the same assumption; “increasing serotonin levels should help”. But serotonin isn’t happiness. Happiness is very much just the other side of the coin from anxiety. So SSRI’s just don’t work, because the idea behind them is flawed. They never get you to unlock those happy memories. Which is why ecstasy, LSD, shrooms, anything serotonergic (ie working on the serotonin system) taken at a sufficient dose will crank up your brain to a very anxious/happy (sometimes it’s hard to differentiate which, which is where the “bad trip” ‘myth’ comes from. not exactly a myth, but it’s not a “bad trip” as much as it’s “too big of a dose for that specific person in that setting causing too intense an experience they don’t have the experience to handle”), which then unlocks all the memories of times when you experienced happy (and possibly also anxious) states of mind.

              Once that intense experience of a night or a night and day is over, then you’ll have the capability to remember those things, which is assumed to be the reason why shroom therapy can yield benefits of warding off depression in the terminally ill for up to months.

              https://broadview.org/magic-mushrooms-are-helping-terminally-ill-patients-go-out-on-a-high/

              And the benefits are that if you do actually still want to kill yourself, you’ll basically have peace of mind over it, and if you really did come out of a trip explaining how you’ve just seen it all and don’t need to exist anymore, I’d be way more likely to believe you than now when I know you have a caloric deficienc

            • Dasus@lemmy.world
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              15 days ago

              caloric deficiency.

              Guess I found the limit of a lemmy comment, huh? ~10k chars. Kk.

              Anyway, to sum it up, it’s just my opinion based on what I know and believe, but I do believe you should try and exclusion diet for a few weeks with some light exercise if you’re capable, then do LSD, ecstasy or shrooms and then look at this again. You’ve clearly tried the more traditional cares, which are usually pretty ineffective. If you try those as well and still want to kill yourself, well, then I can’t help you further. But I still refuse to straight out assert that no help is possible. Because it’s hard to assert something is NOT possible. Things might be extraordinarily unlikely, but not… impossible.

              That’s what kept me alive at least.

              As a kid I got help from a few times at a raves or a few times slightly tripping at home with friends or solo. A few times a year, at the most. Found it quite helpful at times. But it didn’t take away my body’s feeling of sort of being “overclocked”. That went away with my exclusion diet mostly. I don’t assume it will work for you, but it definitely wouldn’t harm you.

              I mean, what have you to lose by trying? I mean I know I had to lose was just being annoyed at doing something I didn’t find that pleasurable. But that’s why I got the candy. And chicken. And anything remotely pleasurable, while still remaining within the limits of the low fodmaps. It took a few weeks, but I started feeling better. Now I do still get symptoms if I expose myself to gluten or whatnot, but not like bad, not instantly. A few hours in I might notice some tiny symptoms, but nothing clinically significant. But several days in and then I start noticing the same things again.

              One major thing I always notice is this weird feeling of like mouth feeling different. It’s weird never really knew how to explain it. Different ph in the mouth? Idk. It’s just like… slightly off.

              I’m still depressed and in a shit life situation, but I had developed pretty significant coping strategies throughout my years, and now all of those are just… so much more effective.

              But also you did mention being around “the age where schizophrenia is the worst” and I think you’re talking about 27 and yeah I had my worst years then as well. I’m still reeling and it’s been almost a decade.

              Anyway, you do what you think is right, but that’s my 20000000000000000000000000000 cents.