Open thread! As always: No trolls, no MRAs.
This is a general open thread; for more personal stuff, go here.
Oh,and the pic above is from a hilarious new website called Manfeels Park, which mashes up whiny MRA complaints with … Jane Austen.
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And yet when David sent the Mounties to marinrachel’s house, they helped rather than harming her.
I’m really not down with seeing Leum getting yelled at for trying to save a friend’s life.
@Fruitloopsie
That’s what I think too. :/ That maybe calling the cops solves a temporary problem, but all in all (speaking if someone did to me, cna’t speak for everyone else) it just kind of proves (to me) not to tell your friends, that you can’t trust your friends, that your friends are more invested in solving it quickly than actually caring for you.
Obviously everyone who’s suicidal has different thoguhts on it, but those are mine.
Free internet hugs from me, if you want.
@piratejennie
Thank you for the offer. I don’t think I need to talk right now privately, but I do appreciate it.
I feel I’ve calmed down a little since earlier.
@Ally
Basically seconding everything you said but especially
This. I cannot stand it when people use the fact that suicidal people are suicidal as an excuse to ignore our autonomy.
@cassandra
yeah, because god forbid those of us who have been forcibly instanutionalized be fucking skeeved out that Leum’s risking that happening to zir friend.
I don’t see how Leum could have done anything differently, given the situation, and I don’t see how the reaction that was finally chosen is ultimately wrong.
There are a lot of better ways to handle the situation;
But they only work if there is actually the ability to visit, and other such things. In some cases, calling the police is and remains the only viable cause of action.
I don’t think that shits on people’s autonomy, nor somehow makes depressed or suicidal people into some kind of “problem” that needs to be “fixed quickly”. I think it’s a crisis response to a terrible situation that is difficult to manage in many respects.
So yeah, shit, Leum, that fucking sucks, and I hope your friend turns out to be just fine!
Yep, clearly you’re the only person whose opinion matters, Marie, and this situation was exactly like your situation. Context, what’s that? I guess David should apologize to marinerachel for sending the Mounties to her house too.
@Cassandra
what. the. fuck.
Given what she was saying prior to the intervention, I think that she actually wanted to have the Mounties called on her.
And we don’t know that Leum’s friend didn’t want help too. I’m not going to bother rephrasing Fibinachi’s comment, but it’s worth reading.
I read the situation as an emergency where there wasn’t much Leum could do but contact emergency services. There’s a difference between suicidal ideation and being on the brink of actually acting on it.
I’m sorry this conversation has been upsetting but it’s clear that Leum was only trying to do whatever zie could to help zir friend. The friend is still alive so it seems like a positive outcome. Traumatized is better than dead.
This topic is becoming highly triggering to me, so I’m going to bow out. (It’s no one’s fault, it’s just that I am feeling especially awful because I’m about to meet my dad again and this topic is also bringing up some very distressing memories.)
But we don’t know what leum’s friend was saying/typing prior to leum calling the police. I am willing to trust Leum’s judgment on this instead of people who were not there.
So I got sent here to ask you guys whether you know who user ButterPudding is on Reddit. They claim to be one of us (and if they are, that’s awesome, and welcome!). However, we’re not actually sure if this is legit or whether it’s actually a MRA trolling us/being a mole.
This all sounds a bit odd to me. But that might be the differences in different countries about how things are handled.
Here, when we call the emergency number, 000, we are asked what service we want. In a case like this, I’d say ambulance and police. Why? Because ambos don’t have the authority to break in to houses to get to people who need help, only the cops can do that. If the caller asks for ambulance the responder asks for details of the problem – for priority setting – and if they said someone was at home and had taken an overdose, they’d ask if the ambos could get in. If the answer is no or don’t know, they’d send the cops anyway.
As for autonomy. If someone’s already in serious physical danger, we don’t wait until they’re unconscious or in a coma or cardiac arrest to do what’s necessary. (Someone who’s taken drugs intending to kill themselves and is already slurring their words is in serious danger of death.) Bodily autonomy doesn’t come into it once CPR is needed – it’s a full-scale, no holds barred, massive physical assault on an unconscious person which will break several ribs if it’s done properly. But we do it if we have to. Same thing goes for administering oxygen and inserting IV lines and injecting drugs and applying bandages/ tourniquets.
Emergency situations require emergency response.
And as for cultural differences, police here are able to manage initial emergency first aid, like CPR, if ambulances are delayed. Is that true everywhere?
@ Alice
Sorry, no idea who that is. Someone did tell us what their Reddit nym was recently but I don’t remember who it was or what the Reddit nym was, hopefully someone else will.
What are we, some part of an international conspiracy now, Sanguinaria?
No, I don’t know Agent ButterPudding, and Google doesn’t tell me what kind of butter it might be. I have no affiliation with ButterPudding, nor has it and I ever worked together on a plan to infiltrate the misandric mines of Mansplain in order to demolish them and help the male race prosper—-
WAIT SHIT NO. NO.
Uhm.
I don’t know who ButterPudding is! Sorry. Probably just a reader who hasn’t commented.
Sorry if this is a naive question, but why would you send the cops after a suicidal person in the first place? They’re not trained to deal with medical emergencies in general, and they tend to be aggressive towards mentally ill people, to the point where they’d shoot someone they perceive as threatening rather than trying to deescalate the situation. Why not call an ambulance? Or is that not an option with suicidal people?
That is also how I read the situation.
My understanding is that she was a Facebook friend who Leum did not have immediate physical access to and strongly felt was in imminent danger of self harm, which is why I voiced my support for intervention despite my own personal experiences with the police & forced institutionalization.
I realize this does not make me an authority and I respect the experiences of commenters who feel otherwise.
Ally s
Sorry, it’s fine do whatever you have to do.
Marie
“Free internet hugs from me, if you want.”
Thank you
“it just kind of proves (to me) not to tell your friends, that you can’t trust your friends, that your friends are more invested in solving it quickly than actually caring for you.”
I’m sorry that you feel that way, again another one of my personal opinions, I think when someone is very scared they don’t know what to do and sometimes they make the wrong choice or seem like its a bad idea. They do whatever it takes to help someone.
I’m sure they don’t mean to make you feel like they don’t care about you I mean if they really don’t care about you they would just walk away. Again just my opinion.
as someone who has had the cops called on me suicidal thoughts, they are zero help. all they do is restrain you and treat you like an animal (maybe it’s slightly better if you’re an adult and not a kid? They really treat kids like crap)
But seriously, the amount of people who think that it’s okay to violate people’s autonomy because you don’t know what to do have made this place turn creepy really really fast.
It’s just, I am on a talking relationship w/ the people who put me there but we will never be able to trust each other the same way again.
Is this serious? If an outside person threatens you, police come and take them away. If YOU are a threat to you, police come and take YOU away. It’s that your put in a dangerous situation in which you have no control of what happens to you *right after* huge mental distress. It’s just piling on shitty situations and mental distress to someone who is already incredibly stressed out. And it’s supposed to somehow be the same as taking *away* a stressor (i.e. the person harming you).
If Leum hadn’t cared zie would have done nothing, not been scrambling around trying to figure out who zie could call who might be able to immediately intervene.
Again, my objection here is to the way that Leum is being framed as an uncaring person when zie was actually trying to help her friend. It should be possible to say “maybe that wasn’t the best way to approach things” without implying that zie didn’t care about the other person.
@Cassandra
fuck. My first comment I was not saying Leum was uncaring. I was not saying leum was uncaring. When I said:
I clarified multiple times I was just talking about me and my presonal experiences. I was not talking about leum. Fuck.
the first comment I had was just I felt very uncomftorable with tcalling the police.
People can care 100% and still hurt people.
when you try to take away someone’s autonomy and ability to make decisions for themselves, it doesn’t matter how much you care. All that matters is that it’s gone.
Can you maybe stop for a second and recognize that Leum clearly has feelings associated with this situation too, and that it’s not unreasonable for us to care as much about hir feelings as we do about yours?
It’s pretty hard to maintain autonomy if you’re dead.
I am done with this conversation, other than to say that Leum, I hope that you aren’t feeling too piled on, and that your friend is OK.
Even if the alternative is that they’re dead?