I don’t think they’re arguing that there’s anything wrong with suicidality itself, just that “assisted suicide” or psychiatric euthanasia is ethically ambiguous at best for numerous complex reasons. There’s nothing morally wrong, in my opinion, with having suicidal feelings yourself; the problem arises when other people offer to act on those feelings on your behalf. If this followed along the same lines as the rest of psychiatry, this would very quickly be misused and exploited, devolving into a eugenicist practice while still being heralded as “for the patients’ own good.” The ultimate step in the mental health industrial complex’s evolution into the prison industrial complex: the addition of the death penalty.
Since there is no such thing as so-called “bipolar disorder” as a real, discrete medical condition, I think citing those statistics is barking up the wrong tree. However, I do think there’s a place for non-carceral, autonomy-affirming suicidality support. Not pro-suicide, not anti-suicide, but suicide-neutral care. Spaces where people aren’t *encouraging* each other to kill themselves, but they’re also not afraid to say the word “suicide” out loud, for fear of either a) being locked up against their will or b) winding up responsible for someone’s death. These spaces do exist. I think you might wanna check out StrongerU Wellness, as well as warmlines such as Wildflower Alliance or THRIVE lifeline. Resources and communities like this are harder to find in person, depending on where you live, but they are growing, and it is possible to find one in your area (or create one).
I agree to some extent, but I think it’s important to bear in mind that not everybody has the luxury/privilege to just quit their job/find a new one, or take a break until they feel better. Ideally, everyone would have that option, but unfortunately in our current economic system, it’s gonna depend on other factors like a person’s financial stability.
I relate to what you said, and I, too, have questioned at times whether or not I am “autistic” or an “HSP” or both or neither. One key difference is that autism is in the DSM, while HSP is not. HSP is not considered an official “diagnosis” and it’s not necessarily seen or treated as a “disorder” (however, it may increase your likelihood of being diagnosed with *other* disorders because others may tend to see you as “too sensitive” and society may have a tendency to pathologize you for having a reasonable reaction to its cruelty, cold callousness, and injustice). The fact that autism is recognized by the DSM and HSP is not doesn’t necessarily make one more “real” than the other. It’s pretty arbitrary overall, what ends up in the DSM vs what doesn’t, but I’m sure there are probably complex sociocultural and historical contextual factors that determined the evolution of these labels and this distinction between them (just like any other labels in the DSM/psychiatry), however, I will not get into all that now. Basically, both are real, and neither are real, at the same time. The experiences/symptoms/traits are real, but the labels are made up. They’re just determined by clusters of symptoms/traits, which 1) largely overlap, 2) change depending on who you’re asking, and 3) it’s not required that you have all of them in order to meet the criteria for diagnosis/labeling. That second one is especially of interest here; autism is one of those diagnoses that really depends who you ask and seems to have especially morphed and evolved over the years (especially among the “late diagnosed” or self diagnosed) to basically just mean whatever people want it to mean. It’s interesting how in this article, the author cites her emotional bandwidth and ability to empathize as a symptom of her autism, however, the traditional conception of autism (as well as what’s in the DSM) includes an inability to empathize or relate to the emotions of others, and a narrow emotional bandwidth as hallmark symptoms of autism. It’s interesting how two completely opposite experiences can not only be included under the same label, but are both considered keystone “symptoms” (or “proof”) of it.
What is your point here? That it’s “on them”– the employees– for not being “healed enough” or “emotionally well” enough? How can you expect someone to heal when their conditions are constantly subjecting them to chronic stress? Healing isn’t an independent project; it doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It’s chicken and egg here: employees are supposed to change their own working conditions by just “setting better boundaries” which requires them to be emotionally “healed”/recovered from burnout enough to do so, but employees can’t emotionally heal/recover from burnout (and therefore have the ability to set better boundaries) until their conditions improve.
I especially loved those last three paragraphs! Beautiful!
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I don’t think they’re arguing that there’s anything wrong with suicidality itself, just that “assisted suicide” or psychiatric euthanasia is ethically ambiguous at best for numerous complex reasons. There’s nothing morally wrong, in my opinion, with having suicidal feelings yourself; the problem arises when other people offer to act on those feelings on your behalf. If this followed along the same lines as the rest of psychiatry, this would very quickly be misused and exploited, devolving into a eugenicist practice while still being heralded as “for the patients’ own good.” The ultimate step in the mental health industrial complex’s evolution into the prison industrial complex: the addition of the death penalty.
Since there is no such thing as so-called “bipolar disorder” as a real, discrete medical condition, I think citing those statistics is barking up the wrong tree. However, I do think there’s a place for non-carceral, autonomy-affirming suicidality support. Not pro-suicide, not anti-suicide, but suicide-neutral care. Spaces where people aren’t *encouraging* each other to kill themselves, but they’re also not afraid to say the word “suicide” out loud, for fear of either a) being locked up against their will or b) winding up responsible for someone’s death. These spaces do exist. I think you might wanna check out StrongerU Wellness, as well as warmlines such as Wildflower Alliance or THRIVE lifeline. Resources and communities like this are harder to find in person, depending on where you live, but they are growing, and it is possible to find one in your area (or create one).
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Well said.
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I agree to some extent, but I think it’s important to bear in mind that not everybody has the luxury/privilege to just quit their job/find a new one, or take a break until they feel better. Ideally, everyone would have that option, but unfortunately in our current economic system, it’s gonna depend on other factors like a person’s financial stability.
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I relate to what you said, and I, too, have questioned at times whether or not I am “autistic” or an “HSP” or both or neither. One key difference is that autism is in the DSM, while HSP is not. HSP is not considered an official “diagnosis” and it’s not necessarily seen or treated as a “disorder” (however, it may increase your likelihood of being diagnosed with *other* disorders because others may tend to see you as “too sensitive” and society may have a tendency to pathologize you for having a reasonable reaction to its cruelty, cold callousness, and injustice). The fact that autism is recognized by the DSM and HSP is not doesn’t necessarily make one more “real” than the other. It’s pretty arbitrary overall, what ends up in the DSM vs what doesn’t, but I’m sure there are probably complex sociocultural and historical contextual factors that determined the evolution of these labels and this distinction between them (just like any other labels in the DSM/psychiatry), however, I will not get into all that now. Basically, both are real, and neither are real, at the same time. The experiences/symptoms/traits are real, but the labels are made up. They’re just determined by clusters of symptoms/traits, which 1) largely overlap, 2) change depending on who you’re asking, and 3) it’s not required that you have all of them in order to meet the criteria for diagnosis/labeling. That second one is especially of interest here; autism is one of those diagnoses that really depends who you ask and seems to have especially morphed and evolved over the years (especially among the “late diagnosed” or self diagnosed) to basically just mean whatever people want it to mean. It’s interesting how in this article, the author cites her emotional bandwidth and ability to empathize as a symptom of her autism, however, the traditional conception of autism (as well as what’s in the DSM) includes an inability to empathize or relate to the emotions of others, and a narrow emotional bandwidth as hallmark symptoms of autism. It’s interesting how two completely opposite experiences can not only be included under the same label, but are both considered keystone “symptoms” (or “proof”) of it.
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Ugh, same. I’ve come to hate the word “resilience,” along with so many others.
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What is your point here? That it’s “on them”– the employees– for not being “healed enough” or “emotionally well” enough? How can you expect someone to heal when their conditions are constantly subjecting them to chronic stress? Healing isn’t an independent project; it doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It’s chicken and egg here: employees are supposed to change their own working conditions by just “setting better boundaries” which requires them to be emotionally “healed”/recovered from burnout enough to do so, but employees can’t emotionally heal/recover from burnout (and therefore have the ability to set better boundaries) until their conditions improve.
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