Golden Gate Jumpers--WARNING--very unpleasant topic

[AmateurScientist]

The current issue of The New Yorker features a provocative piece about the darker side of the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco--its alarming history of attracting suicide jumpers. It presents several facts, profiles a few jumpers, including some rare survivors, and touches on the bridge's history, all in a matter of fact tone. Unquestionably, the author advocates for the erecting of a suicide barrier along the walkway on the bridge.

He notes that since its completion in 1937, more than 1200 persons are known to have killed themselves by jumping off the bridge 220 feet above the bay. Today, on average, someone jumps off about once every two weeks. It takes 4 seconds to hit the water, at about 75 miles per hour, with a force of 15,000 pounds per square inch. In short, hitting water at that speed is little different from hitting concrete. Only 26 persons are known to have survived the jump. Most suffer such severe internal injuries that they die immediately or within minutes. Some drown, as hitting feet first will usually plunge them so deeply into the 350 foot deep water that they haven't the chance to surface before drowning.

The barrier along the walkway is only 4 feet high, which allows most adults easy access to climbing over it and onto a 32" wide beam known as "the chord." From there it's a simple jump to oblivion. It seems reasonable to conclude that erecting some barrier to prevent persons from getting to the chord easily would greatly diminish the number of successful jumpers from the bridge.

Surprisingly, to a non-San Franciscan like me, the issue of a suicide barrier is highly controversial. It has met with so much resistance by the public and the board which oversees the bridge, that it has been shot down again and again. The most common objection is that it would mar the aesthetics of the beautiful bridge.

Any thoughts, especially from Bay-area people?

AS

[Mr Manifesto]

Suicide is a matter of personal choice. Why deny someone the right to decide when to end their life?

They have barriers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It isn't pleasant, but if nothing else, it's another deterrant to keep people from chucking rocks at the ships below.

[reprise]

As someone who lives in a country which has a number of bridges from which it's perfectly possible to jump to one's death, I think that someone who's determined to do so at a specific location will probably do so no matter how high you make the barriers. How high are the barriers on tall buildings in the US? I suspect that they're only high enough to prevent people being swept off by the wind or tumbling to their death if they trip.

[reprise]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
Suicide is a matter of personal choice. Why deny someone the right to decide when to end their life?

They have barriers on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It isn't pleasant, but if nothing else, it's another deterrant to keep people from chucking rocks at the ships below.

The dropping things on traffic passing underneath is also a good reason for railway and motorway bridges to have higher barriers.

[tim]

We are a bit more civilized over here. The favourite suicide jumping point is a cliff in the south coast called Beachy Head.
There's a pub nearby where potential suicides often stop to renew their courage. The landlord says he can often spot them - they're frequently alone and rather taciturn. He does what he can to alert the police and so on when that happens, but a lot slip by him. How he keeps going I don't know.

[reprise]

Sydneysiders seem to prefer a jump from The Gap (a cliff) onto the rocks below rather than a jump from the Harbour Bridge to the water below.

[Graham]

Originally posted by tim
We are a bit more civilized over here. The favourite suicide jumping point is a cliff in the south coast called Beachy Head.
There's a pub nearby where potential suicides often stop to renew their courage. The landlord says he can often spot them - they're frequently alone and rather taciturn. He does what he can to alert the police and so on when that happens, but a lot slip by him. How he keeps going I don't know.

There was an article about this in the Sunday Times a while back, an update on an original article about ten years, I think, before.

Researching for the original article, the reporter went out to the cliffs and there's this distraught-looking girl standing around. He called the police but I think he had to physically hold her back from the cliff's edge two or three times before they arrived.

She was still alive ten years later and much happier, though IIRC still on medcation and seeing a shrink.

If I was in his place, I would do the same, Mr Manifesto's precious rights aside, people do stupid things sometimes and for stupid reasons that they might regret later - if they get the chance.

Graham

[AmateurScientist]

Thanks for your replies. Actually, I'm more interested in views on the merits of building an effective barrier to prevent suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge. Making it very hard to get to the edge could greatly reduce or even eliminate suicides from the bridge.

I understand that an incidence of suicide in any large population is inevitable. Indeed, more people die at their own hand each year than at the hand of another.

The fact remains, however, than many suicides are the result of acute crises. When they can successfully ride out their crises, those who are momentarily inclined to kill themselves usually will not. Many suiciders succeed because an attractive means is readily available. Something about the Goldern Gate Bridge makes it the most attractive suicide spot in the world. It seems reasonable to try to take reasonable measures to stem the occurrence of such a grisly event.

What's wrong with trying to make a handy means less available? What's wrong with suicide prevention?

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
Suicide is a matter of personal choice. Why deny someone the right to decide when to end their life?


Although I'm rather appalled at such a crass remark, I think you do have a somewhat valid point.

I believe in personal autonomy, and I suppose inherent in that concept is the right to decide if and when to end one's own life.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of suicides are committed by persons suffering from the throes of depression. Depression is a terrible illness, and it causes its sufferers to have a distorted perception of their own problems and their own self-worth. It is highly treatable in most cases, and although it can be chronic, it is transitory in nature.

When not suffering from the effects of depression, very few people will actually try to kill themselves, those in extreme or chronic severe physical pain notwithstanding.

If depression is so treatable, and those suffering from it do not perceive their own problems rationally, it makes perfect sense to take reasonable measures to influence them not to end their lives while depressed. It's simply a manifestation of a gross misunderstanding of suicide and depression, or a gross callousness towards the sanctity of life, for someone to shrug one's shoulders at the issue and declare that it's their choice to kill themselves if they want to.

AS

[reprise]

I came across an article about half an hour ago about another bridge (I'll track it down again in a minute) at which 500 or so people had been talked out of jumping. Well over 400 of those people were still alive 10 years later, and I'm wondering if it was perhaps the human contact which made them change their minds rather than the just immediate thwarting of their intentions. I'm wondering whether suicide prevention barriers would simply lead to people committing suicide at a different location, where human intervention seems to a significant chance that they might not commit suicide at all.

FWIW, I think people who attempt to commit suicide at public locations probably need totally different types of intervention than those who privately attempt suicide.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by reprise
I came across an article about half an hour ago about another bridge (I'll track it down again in a minute) at which 500 or so people had been talked out of jumping. Well over 400 of those people were still alive 10 years later, and I'm wondering if it was perhaps the human contact which made them change their minds rather than the just immediate thwarting of their intentions. I'm wondering whether suicide prevention barriers would simply lead to people committing suicide at a different location, where human intervention seems to a significant chance that they might not commit suicide at all.

FWIW, I think people who attempt to commit suicide at public locations probably need totally different types of intervention than those who privately attempt suicide.

You may be onto something there. The article in The New Yorker mentions similar statistics and makes the same point about thwarted suiciders still being around many years later.

It also mentions the poignant tale of a man in his mid-thirties who jumped and left a note at his home saying, "If just one person smiles at me on the way to the bridge or at the bridge, then I won't do it," or words to that effect. The human connection does indeed seem to play a large role in preventing some crisis suicides. Perhaps the converse is also true: the absence of sufficient human connections to ground someone can lead some sufferers of depression to conclude that the best means of ending their suffering is death.

AS

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by reprise
Sydneysiders seem to prefer a jump from The Gap (a cliff) onto the rocks below rather than a jump from the Harbour Bridge to the water below.

Good place to dispose of recalcitrant models, too.

[Zep]

For what it's worth, here's a very recent picture I took while on the Sydney Harbour Bridge (while I was NOT jumping but going to the pub). The "jumper prevention" barrier is shown lower right, and it is quite significant as can be seen.

[Graham]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist

It also mentions the poignant tale of a man in his mid-thirties who jumped and left a note at his home saying, "If just one person smiles at me on the way to the bridge or at the bridge, then I won't do it," or words to that effect. The human connection does indeed seem to play a large role in preventing some crisis suicides. Perhaps the converse is also true: the absence of sufficient human connections to ground someone can lead some sufferers of depression to conclude that the best means of ending their suffering is death.

AS

It strikes me that even if a suicide barrier only had the effect of delaying the person while they climbed over it or of causing them to head off somewhere else to kill themselves then at least it would increase the available time for someone to smile at them, so to speak.

The Sydney Harbour arrangement is terribly ugly though - surely they could come up with something better than that?

Graham

[reprise]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto


Good place to dispose of recalcitrant models, too.

You just reminded me that the media seems to have lost interest in when René Rivkin will resume his weekend detention.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Graham


It strikes me that even if a suicide barrier only had the effect of delaying the person while they climbed over it or of causing them to head off somewhere else to kill themselves then at least it would increase the available time for someone to smile at them, so to speak.

The Sydney Harbour arrangement is terribly ugly though - surely they could come up with something better than that?

Graham

Good point. I like your approach to the topic.

The Sydney Harbor Bridge barrier may be ugly from the bridge, but I don't think it detracts significantly from the aesthetics of the bridge from afar. Maybe there is a more pleasant alternative. I'm not engineer, so I can't help there.

That is precisely the objection opponents of a Golden Gate Bridge barrier have. Doesn't it seem a tad crass considering how attractive and accessible the bridge is to jumpers?

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by tim
We are a bit more civilized over here. The favourite suicide jumping point is a cliff in the south coast called Beachy Head.
There's a pub nearby where potential suicides often stop to renew their courage. The landlord says he can often spot them - they're frequently alone and rather taciturn. He does what he can to alert the police and so on when that happens, but a lot slip by him. How he keeps going I don't know.

I'm with you, Tim. I don't know how the landlord keeps it up either. That would be awfully depressing to see such people come in over and over, having a strong suspicion what they are about to do.

AS

[Graham]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist


Good point. I like your approach to the topic.

The Sydney Harbor Bridge barrier may be ugly from the bridge, but I don't think it detracts significantly from the aesthetics of the bridge from afar. Maybe there is a more pleasant alternative. I'm not engineer, so I can't help there.

That is precisely the objection opponents of a Golden Gate Bridge barrier have. Doesn't it seem a tad crass considering how attractive and accessible the bridge is to jumpers?

AS

Thank-you, I'm trying to see both sides.

It seems likely that the sort of people who have nothing better to worry about than how a bridge looks are probably ill-equipped to empathise with an intently suicidal mind. It's a difference of perspectives that are simply worlds apart.

That said, it's a bit of a bugbear of mine that there seems to be a common acceptance that things have to be either beautiful or practical.

There has been something of a move away from this recently with the disguising of mobile 'phone masts as trees and church steeples. With modern manufacturing facilities it seems likely that we could make nice-looking things as easily and cheaply as ugly, so why not?

The same, IMO, applies to the suicide barriers - if they can be made no-so-ugly, then why make them ugly?

Graham

[reprise]

Originally posted by Graham


It strikes me that even if a suicide barrier only had the effect of delaying the person while they climbed over it or of causing them to head off somewhere else to kill themselves then at least it would increase the available time for someone to smile at them, so to speak.

The Sydney Harbour arrangement is terribly ugly though - surely they could come up with something better than that?

Graham

What's wrong with holding a competition (http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0303/ob/ob02_0303.html) for a new barrier design?

[schplurg]

This is pretty cool:

Virtual walk of the Golden Gate Bridge (http://www.goldengatebridge.org/photos/bridgewalk.html#)

You can "walk" on the bridge, climb up the towers, look down at the drop to the water, and side to side at the SF skyline. It is a neat bridge and if you've never been there, this provides a good close look at it. Make sure to scroll down in the little window as there are several images from each viewpoint.

I live in the SF bay area. I'd hate to see a fence there that would ruin the spectacular view. Most of us DO NOT jump. But it is one of the biggest attractions for jumpers in the world, which is disturbing. I wonder how many suicides it would actually deter. There are six other nearby bridges crossing the bay, some pretty damn high, though less "romantic". A new problem now is people that walk onto the railroad tracks and play chicken with an oncoming train. That is becoming a very popular way to go, according to some sites I just Googled.

I am pretty tired of our California government making a career out of helping out the idiots at the expense of everyone else. I think if I knew someone who jumped off the bridge I wouldn't blame it on the lack of a fence. A friend of mine who I hadn't seen in a few years shot himself a year ago, I'm not blaming Smith & Wesson. I know first-hand that suicide is a terrible thing, especially for the survivors. But do we have to "baby and dummy-proof" everything?

As for the above post, how do you make a suicide fence that is un-climbable, yet aesthetically pleasing? How do you keep it from ruining the view from the bridge for the huge amount of pedestrian traffic and sightseers? If that can be done, then I guess I'm all for it. Yes, witnessing a jumper wouldn't be pleasing (then again this IS America, where the Terminator is now CA's governor and where we love our violent movies), but most jumpers go at night I believe.

How about putting up gla$$ like in a hockey rink? I'd want that window washing contract! Then we'd have the great view, plus the added thrill of birds flying into it and killing THEMselves (which would anger the eco-freaks here, resulting in removal of the glass, nevermind).

By the way, what is so civilized about jumping off of a cliff? The existence of bridges is a testament of the "civilized man". Plus, many of the bodies are washed out of the bay and into the sea, rather than on a beach below. A suicider that leaves no mess behind...now THAT's civilized.

[Zep]

Point taken about the "beauty" angle, but please do remember that the image was taken looking ALONG the bridge. Here's another image showing the same barrier, taken looking directly at it (on the same walk as the last image, incidentally - I was after the sunset effect...). Not quite so ugly this time.

[Some Friggin Guy]

YOu know, another possibility is something I have seen with some bridges: Some kind of net-type catch-all undeneath. Not as "ugly" and more of a pain if some still tries to jump, but it might be a decent compromise.

[Denise]

Can society really stop people who want to kill themselves? If not the bridge then they may start their cars in their garage.

[LuxFerum]

Originally posted by Denise
Can society really stop people who want to kill themselves? If not the bridge then they may start their cars in their garage.
Just making it harder will help a lot.

[Zep]

Probably the BEST way is to find out WHY people want to kill themselves at all in the first place, and then try to tackle those issues somehow.

[reprise]

I thought the solution the winner of the competition I linked to in my above post came up with was extremely innovative.

[Graham]

Originally posted by reprise
I thought the solution the winner of the competition I linked to in my above post came up with was extremely innovative.

I liked it too. The funny thing is, by the looks of it, it was a no more complicated work of engineering than the Sydney barrier shown above - proving my point nicely, if I do say so myself ;) .

Graham

[LuxFerum]

Originally posted by Zep
Probably the BEST way is to find out WHY people want to kill themselves at all in the first place, and then try to tackle those issues somehow.
the fence is cheaper

[Cain]

I strongly favor these measures. With any luck would-be bridge jumpers will start leaping to their deaths from the beautiful Transamerican building. At nearly 900 feet the skyscraper allows far more people to witness the spectacle. On the bridge there's traffic and you'll never see around those over-sized SUVs. Then consider the bad angles, cross-traffic, and inaccessibility of the media, and it's just a poor venue. With a building in the business distrcit, people can gather around, talk, and finally see the person's face on a television screen. I think it brings together a greater sense of community.

Oh, and then there's the splat. Don't forget the splat. Can't forget the splat. We'd actually get to SEE the splat. So cool.

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by reprise


You just reminded me that the media seems to have lost interest in when René Rivkin will resume his weekend detention.

You can only flog a dead horse so much. Or, to put it another way, Rene will resume detention when Christopher Skase is brought to justice.

[shuize]

I remember a related issue coming up a year or two ago in Seattle on one of the more crowded bridges (I don't know which one, I don't live there I just heard the story on the radio). Apparently a young woman suffering from mental illness and relationship problems climbed up on the bridge threatening to jump. She didn't immediately do so though and it tied up traffic for several hours. The controversy all started when the police finally started letting a trickle of cars through and some of the people, angry about being stuck in their cars for hours, yelled at her to go ahead and jump already.

Naturally, lots of people who weren't stranded in their cars thought this was the just most insensitive thing they'd ever heard. But my question is, how much inconvenience must those of us who plan on sticking around for a while put up with for those who aren't quite sure if they're up to it or not? I don't blame the police for stopping traffic to try and talk her down. But I'm sure I'd be pretty pissed off if I had to sit in my car for several hours while the weak minded woman made up her mind.

In the same sense, how much uglier should we make the world in order to "suicide proof" it from people who can just as easily stick their heads in an oven?

[Kevin_Lowe]

I read a sci-fi novel where the people who ran a giant, self-sufficient building had installed a diving board on top of their building. Just for the jumpers.

(They also had a mechanical net that shot out and caught them if they jumped).

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by shuize
I remember a related issue coming up a year or two ago in Seattle on one of the more crowded bridges (I don't which one, I don't live there I just heard the story on the radio). Apparently a young woman suffering from mental illness and relationship problems climbed up on the bridge threatening to jump. She didn't immediately do so though and it tied up traffic for several hours. The controversy all started when the police finally started letting a trickle of cars through and some of the people, angry about being stuck in their cars for hours, yelled at her to go ahead and jump already.

Naturally, lots of people who weren't stranded in their cars thought this was the just most insensitive thing they'd ever heard. But my question is, how much inconvenience must those of us who plan on sticking around for a while put up with for those who aren't quite sure if they're up to it or not? I don't blame the police for stopping traffic to try and talk her down. But I'm sure I'd be pretty pissed off if I had to sit in my car for several hours while the weak minded woman made up her mind.

In the same sense, how much uglier should we make the world in order to "suicide proof" it from people who can just as easily stick their heads in an oven?

Funny you should mention this. We had an episode recently where a person with a shotgun was holed up in a van. He had the radio on, tuned in to one of our local (and dumber) shock-jocks. The shock-jock, contrary to calls from police, kept taking calls from callers who said that he should blow his brains out.

Ya gotta love what people will do for a dollar.

Source- Media Watch (http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s951203.htm) <--- interesting link, BTW. Read what some callers had to say! Feel the hate!

[Tony]

I agree with Mr. Manifesto.

[MoeFaux]

The Stratosphere in Las Vegas has made every effort to stop people from jumping. There's all sorts of security measures, from different fences to cameras to catch people who make it over them.
And people still manage to jump.
If I person is able bodied and has the will to do it, nothing is going to stop them. And why should we try and stop them anyway?

And least when someone is jumping off of a bridge, they're only harming themselves. When someone jumps off of a building, there's always the possibility that they will fall onto a person or car, killing someone else while killing themselves. In fact, I remember hearing something about this on the news recently where someone jumped off of an overpass and killed an innocent driver.

I'm against security measures. I am for suicide, and while we're on the topic, I'm for euthenasia as well.

[LuxFerum]

Originally posted by MoeFaux
And why should we try and stop them anyway?

Why shouldn't we?

[MoeFaux]

Originally posted by LuxFerum

Why shouldn't we?

It's not our business.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by Denise
Can society really stop people who want to kill themselves? If not the bridge then they may start their cars in their garage.

It costs less tax dollars to clean up a home suicide than a jumper. With a jumper from a bridge, you gotta get a boat, and some divers, tie up river traffic and stuff. Pain in the neck. Expensive.

Instead of a barrier, maybe they could place complimentary belts along the walkway with some balloons on them that inflate after the suicide has been submerged for 60 minutes so their body can be retrieved more easily.

Or some kind of wire reel hookup a suicide attaches to themselves. Person jumps. Cops arrive. Reel the body in.

The least a suicide can do is to do their civic duty and not make life harder for everyone else, too.

They should have to get a permit or something. Pay for the cleanup ahead of time. Cash, no checks or credit cards.
__________________

[LuxFerum]

Originally posted by MoeFaux


It's not our business.
I disagree.


Suicidal tendencies sometimes is only temporary, and the lack of security will only make a bad day turn in to disaster.

And when some dies, a lot of money will be spend in finding the body, investigation etc etc. So in the long run the security measures will be much cheaper and ethical.:)

[Graham]

Originally posted by MoeFaux


It's not our business.

Nice.

If someone is depressed enough to want to kill themselves then they have a mental illness, it's as simple as that.

Note that I'm only referring to depression here - people do kill themselves for other reasons as well but that's another story.

Anyway, if you saw a deaf & blind person about to walk out in front of traffic, would you run to stop him or would you juct say "Hey, it's not my business"?

It's the same thing, IMO - neither the deaf/blind person nor the depressed person is adequetly equipped to make a decision.

Graham

[LuxFerum]

dammit I took 10 minutes to post and someone else post what I would say in a much better way. that sucks:(

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Denise
Can society really stop people who want to kill themselves? If not the bridge then they may start their cars in their garage.

Well, the simple answer is no. The more complicated one, is sometimes yes. There is something of an "attractive nuisance" (to borrow a term from premises liability law) quality to this particular bridge. That is not to say that it induces healthy people to want to kill themselves. Rather, the bridge itself provides severely depressed persons a very romantic and convenient method for doing the irreversible.

Stories involving persons who were successfully talked out of jumping from the bridge and who lived decades after that would lend support to the notion that making it harder to jump may indeed save a significant number of lives. Contrary to what a person seriously contemplating suicide might believe, these lives are indeed worth saving. They are just are worthy of saving as the lives of those who died at the hands of terrorists during the 9-11 attacks. Persons who kill themselves due to depression aren't bad or weak persons. They are ill. They deserve our compassion and empathy just as much as anyone dying of cancer does.

Some of these suicides must be regarded as suicides of opportunity, as many petty thefts are indeed crimes of opportunity. Take away the opportunity and perhaps you prevent the suicide. To be sure, any severely depressed person who is utterly intent on death as the only solution left to his problems can be resourceful enough to come up with dozens of ways to kill himself successfully without jumping off a bridge. Not all suicides fit that profile, however.

Suicide is a very complicated issue. Despite the view of many that each of has a "right" to kill himself, suicide always profoundly affects others. Those who leave behind family or friends or co-workers inevitably leave behind indelible emotional scars as well, many of them as deep as any emotional scar can be. Even homeless persons with no known family or friends scar the police, rescue, and hospital or morgue workers who clean up the aftermath.

Despite our modern view of ourselves as enlightened regarding many social issues, suicide is very much a taboo topic for serious discussion in most settings. Partly as a result of its being taboo, suicide, especially its direct and indirect causes, is profoundly misunderstood by most persons. Merely advocating that everyone has a right to do it does nothing to address the fact that it does a tremendous amount of harm to its "survivors" and to society at large. It does nothing to address that in most cases suicide is highly preventable.

I urge everyone who hasn't already done so to toss aside the familiar platitudes about suicide and to make some effort to study the issue seriously. It is every bit as much a public health problem as teenage pregnancy or Alzheimer's. Being crass about it will not make it go away or lessen the unimaginable impact it has on tens of thousands of families every year.

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Graham


Nice.

If someone is depressed enough to want to kill themselves then they have a mental illness, it's as simple as that.

Note that I'm only referring to depression here - people do kill themselves for other reasons as well but that's another story.

Anyway, if you saw a deaf & blind person about to walk out in front of traffic, would you run to stop him or would you juct say "Hey, it's not my business"?

It's the same thing, IMO - neither the deaf/blind person nor the depressed person is adequetly equipped to make a decision.

Graham

Thanks Graham. It's good to see someone with some understanding of depression and suicide. It's also good to see someone with a compassionate view towards persons who are potential suiciders.

All of us are potentially vulnerable to depression. It is a terrible illness that wreaks havoc upon the concept of self. It distorts one's perceptions of one's own personal problems and transforms small, everyday obstacles into insurmountable barriers between normal life and the personal prison of a living hell. Sometimes, tragically, suicide becomes regarded by this now irrational mind as the only sensible alternative to living forever with insurmountable and horrifically painful problems.

Graham is spot on about his comparison to a deaf and blind person crossing the street in heavy traffic. Few would be so callous and uncaring as to dismiss the opportunity to prevent a tragedy in that circumstance. It's sad that so many persons so blithely dismiss suicide prevention measures.

AS

[Luke T.]

When I was suicidal, I considered two options: Gassing myself with the oven in my kitchen or jumping off the roof of one of the many hotels on the beachfront near where I live.

The gassing option seemed too risky. Might just end up brain damaged. Worse off. So the hotel roof option had the most drawing power.

Here I am today, seven years later, quite possibly the happiest, if not the luckiest, man alive.

Lots of things prevented me. All of them relating to the intervention of other people who gave a hoot about Luke T.

Including an anonymous waiter in a restaraunt one day who took one look at me and said to excuse him if he was stepping out of line but was I okay.

The articles people have referred to about people who were stopped from committing suicide who are alive and happy 10 years later don't have anything to do with barriers on bridges. Barriers don't keep a person alive. Other people do.

If I knew the hotel roofs had barriers on them, which they don't, I would have come up with another option. It is impossible to make the world suicide-proof.

I was not attracted to the hotel roofs on the oceanfront for their romanticism. I was attracted to the surety of success in my goal.

[MoeFaux]

Originally posted by Graham


Nice.

If someone is depressed enough to want to kill themselves then they have a mental illness, it's as simple as that.

Note that I'm only referring to depression here - people do kill themselves for other reasons as well but that's another story.

Anyway, if you saw a deaf & blind person about to walk out in front of traffic, would you run to stop him or would you juct say "Hey, it's not my business"?

It's the same thing, IMO - neither the deaf/blind person nor the depressed person is adequetly equipped to make a decision.

Graham


Bull. A deaf or blind person in the street is not making a concious decision to be there.
If a person wishes to commit suicide, it's something they've thought about and decided. And the idea that a person can't make this decision on their own? That's preposterous. Ideas like that are what's holding cancer-striken people in pain with no hope to live back from ending their life peacefully.
Have you ever been suicidal? Have you ever thought about it? It's a decision you make, just like any other. I equate it to deciding what to have for breakfast. Toast or eggs? Should I continue life or not? It's a personal decision.
While I agree that people should be able to do it in a way that's not as inconvenient as jumpers, which as pointed out, drain tax dollars, there's no way that's it's something people shouldnt' be doing.
Are you sure your views aren't still being influenced by religion, where it's thought of to be a sin? (I'm not asking in a rude way, I'm really curious)

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by MoeFaux



Bull. A deaf or blind person in the street is not making a concious decision to be there.
If a person wishes to commit suicide, it's something they've thought about and decided. And the idea that a person can't make this decision on their own? That's preposterous. Ideas like that are what's holding cancer-striken people in pain with no hope to live back from ending their life peacefully.
Have you ever been suicidal? Have you ever thought about it? It's a decision you make, just like any other. I equate it to deciding what to have for breakfast. Toast or eggs? Should I continue life or not? It's a personal decision.
While I agree that people should be able to do it in a way that's not as inconvenient as jumpers, which as pointed out, drain tax dollars, there's no way that's it's something people shouldnt' be doing.
Are you sure your views aren't still being influenced by religion, where it's thought of to be a sin? (I'm not asking in a rude way, I'm really curious)

I would have to say that my own decision to commit suicide was not made in a sane frame of mind. It was my constant obsession for months. I had flirted with the idea of suicide most of my life up to that point, but in 1996 there was no more flirting. It was the real deal.

Suicide is not a decision made in a rational state of mind. It is a solution way, way out of proportion to the problem. I believe every effort should be made to intervene and discourage a suicide.

I think you may be making the assumption that a suicide has weighed and exhausted all other options and there is no way out of their problem except death.

Depression is not an incurable disease like the cancer to which you compared it.

[LuxFerum]

Originally posted by MoeFaux

While I agree that people should be able to do it in a way that's not as inconvenient as jumpers, which as pointed out, drain tax dollars, there's no way that's it's something people shouldnt' be doing.

What about the people who cares about the suicidal? Isn't that a crime what he is doing to they?

[AmateurScientist]

Thanks, Luke, for your perspective. I agree completely that it is impossible to make the world suicide proof. That's not really the idea behind the barriers. It is possible to greatly reduce or even eliminate the incidence of suicides from jumpers from the bridge.

Your explanation of being resourceful in finding an effective means of ending it is applicable. Nevertheless, I do believe there are cases in which some depressed persons are seduced, for lack of a better word, by the romantic notion of a spectacular death. Jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge has a mythic quality to it and could be seductive under the right circumstances. Stemming such jumps could indeed lead to some persons, at least, not going through with it.

As you indicate, and as I noted above, those who are intent on killing themselves are not bound by any physical preventative measures taken by others. One's own imagination and the physical durability of the human body are the only restraints on the means of killing one's self. Human intervention is surely the most potent and effective prevention measure. Unfortunately, it is terribly hard to implement from a societal perspective, whereas reasonable physical measures such as bridge barriers are relatively easy to take. It's not an either-or proposition. One can make human intervention a priority and also take reasonable physical measures to prevent suicide.

AS

[gnome]

Originally posted by Tony
I agree with Mr. Manifesto.

I never thought I'd see this...! Now we're in for it... riots on the street, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

[Graham]

Originally posted by MoeFaux



Bull. A deaf or blind person in the street is not making a concious decision to be there.
If a person wishes to commit suicide, it's something they've thought about and decided. And the idea that a person can't make this decision on their own? That's preposterous. Ideas like that are what's holding cancer-striken people in pain with no hope to live back from ending their life peacefully.
Have you ever been suicidal? Have you ever thought about it? It's a decision you make, just like any other. I equate it to deciding what to have for breakfast. Toast or eggs? Should I continue life or not? It's a personal decision.
While I agree that people should be able to do it in a way that's not as inconvenient as jumpers, which as pointed out, drain tax dollars, there's no way that's it's something people shouldnt' be doing.
Are you sure your views aren't still being influenced by religion, where it's thought of to be a sin? (I'm not asking in a rude way, I'm really curious)

I fear you're not listening or maybe I'm just not explaining myself.

Depression is a mental illness. A person who is seriously depressed is mentally ill.

Like a blind person, they are disabled - their brains are not working properly and are not performing the function that they should, just as a blind person's eyes are not performing the function the they should.

In fact, you might say that the deaf/blind person has made a far more conscious decision to be there than the mentally ill person. A mentally ill person is not in a position to make reasonable decisions and could therefore be said to be less responsible for ending up in danger than a sane, rational, blind/person who should have known better than to try and cross the street by himself. By your reasoning, if anyone deserves to be let die it's the blind person.

I am not opposed to euthenasia nor am I opposed to suicide in other circumstances (terminal and painful illness, for instance). I am not opposed to rational, informed decisions about anyhting, generally speaking.

Religion is not a factor in this, for me. What I am basing my opinions on is simply my experience of depression in myself and others.

Graham

[Charlie Monoxide]

All sorts of nasty things happen on Golden Gate bridge. I proposed to my wife on the bridge, one day crossing over while we were stuck in traffic. About 3 or 4 months later we got married on the bridge. It was a small affair with about a dozen people. To bad we're now divorced. If I get suicidal I'll consider GG.

Charlie (life's too good to think about death) Monoxide

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist
Thanks, Luke, for your perspective. I agree completely that it is impossible to make the world suicide proof. That's not really the idea behind the barriers. It is possible to great reduce or even eliminate the incidence of suicides from jumpers from the bridge.

Your explanation of being resourceful in finding an effective means of ending it is applicable. Nevertheless, I do believe there are cases in which some depressed persons are seduced, for lack of a better word, by the romantic notion of a spectacular death. Jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge has a mythic quality to it and could be seductive under the right circumstances. Stemming such jumps could indeed lead to some persons, at least, not going through with it.

As you indicate, and as I noted above, those who are intent on killing themselves are not bound by any physical preventative measures taken by others. One's own imagination and the physical durability of the human body are the only restraints on the means of killing one's self. Human interventive is surely the most potent and effective prevention measure. Unfortunately, it is terribly hard to implement from a societal perspective, whereas reasonable physical measures such as bridge barriers are relatively easy to take. It's not an either-or proposition. One can make human intervention a priority and also take reasonable physical measures to prevent suicide.

AS

I think the reporting on the suicides on the Golden Gate bridge is influenced more by romanticism than the actual suicides themselves. Exactly what percentage of suicides in that city occur at the bridge? Is it really that big a deal?

These are things we must take into consideration.

I agree that some suicides at the bridge are probably drawn to the effect it makes. In the back of the mind of every suicide is probably the hope their death will cause a shock somewhere. But there are a lot of ways to cause a shock.

That wasn't the case for me. I just wanted it all to end. Didn't care how. Just wanted it to be fool-proof.

[Suezoled]

Have you ever been suicidal? Have you ever thought about it? It's a decision you make, just like any other. I equate it to deciding what to have for breakfast. Toast or eggs? Should I continue life or not? It's a personal decision.

It's a personal decision. However, bear in mind that (usually) when a person decides or tries to kill himself, it's because his capacity to cope with stresses (internal and external) has been flooded and outweighed by his emotional burden: pain, guilt, hopelessness, etc predominates.

Suicide is a sad decision and made even worse by people who are apathetic or angry. Since suicide is, in most societies, a social taboo, people recoil and even lash out at the suicidal person, unburdening their own fears and guilt onto the other person.

At least that's what I read.

http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

[TruthSeeker]

I live in Toronto where we recently spent several million dollars to erect a suicide barrier on one of our bridges (I'll see if I can find an image). I was part of the group who protested the barrier.

Why?

1) those millions of dollars could have been better spent on crisis intervention services such as those described by LukeT. In fact, it was found that installing pay phones at either end of the bridge with the numbers for crisis lines prominently displayed significantly reduced the incidence of suicides from that bridge. I know of several cases (having been a crisis worker in a previous life) of people calling the line while at the bridge and talking to the worker until help arrived. The city was not interested in expanding such services.

2) the barrier is a superficial preventative that merely assuages the city's sense of responsibility after a well known suicide from the bridge. There is nothing to stop people from walking about 5 minutes to the nearest subway and jumping, which in fact is far more common than people jumping off bridges here. Why wasn't a suicide barrier built on the subway?

3) It is ugly and ruins a beautiful view that I often used to enjoy during my morning walk to work.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by MoeFaux



Bull. A deaf or blind person in the street is not making a concious decision to be there.
If a person wishes to commit suicide, it's something they've thought about and decided. And the idea that a person can't make this decision on their own? That's preposterous. Ideas like that are what's holding cancer-striken people in pain with no hope to live back from ending their life peacefully.
Have you ever been suicidal? Have you ever thought about it? It's a decision you make, just like any other. I equate it to deciding what to have for breakfast. Toast or eggs? Should I continue life or not? It's a personal decision.
While I agree that people should be able to do it in a way that's not as inconvenient as jumpers, which as pointed out, drain tax dollars, there's no way that's it's something people shouldnt' be doing.
Are you sure your views aren't still being influenced by religion, where it's thought of to be a sin? (I'm not asking in a rude way, I'm really curious)

I agree with Luke's response to this post.

MoeFaux, I agree that suicide, even doctor-assisted suicide, by terminally ill persons of sound mind is something which should be available. Nevertheless, merely focusing on that class of persons ignores the huge class of persons, many of them teenagers and young adults, who are otherwise healthy except for the effects of depression. It can be an insidious illness, or it can haunt its sufferers for a lifetime.

The issue here has nothing to do with allowing terminally ill persons to end their suffering under their own dignified terms. This is about taking reasonable measures to prevent severely depressed persons, most of whom are very treatable and can recover to lead normal, healthy lives, from taking the irreversible step of leaping from a landmark to their gruesome deaths.

I would argue that no one has any "right" to do that. It does severely impact other persons.

Furthermore, as Luke aptly explained, deciding to kill one's self is hardly as routine or lightly made as the decision to have eggs and bacon for breakfast. It is a profound decision, sometimes made after years of contemplation, sometimes on the spur of the passionate moment. It is utterly irreversible and profoundly consequential, unlike one's breakfast choice for a day.

Furthermore, when suicide is chosen by someone without a terminal illness, it is nearly always chosen as an irrational alternative to living. The decision to kill one's self, if made by a depressed person, is one made by a mind which is ill, even if only momentarily.

These things are all true regardless of one's religious beliefs or lack thereof.

AS

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
I live in Toronto where we recently spent several million dollars to erect a suicide barrier on one of our bridges (I'll see if I can find an image). I was part of the group who protested the barrier.

I would be curious to see the numbers for suicide rates in your city before and after the barrier was installed.


1) those millions of dollars could have been better spent on crisis intervention services such as those described by LukeT. In fact, it was found that installing pay phones at either end of the bridge with the numbers for crisis lines prominently displayed significantly reduced the incidence of suicides from that bridge. I know of several cases (having been a crisis worker in a previous life) of people calling the line while at the bridge and talking to the worker until help arrived. The city was not interested in expanding such services.

I was just thinking this very thing. Phone numbers for crisis hot-lines posted on the bridge. Good idea.

[TruthSeeker]

Originally posted by Luke T.


I would be curious to see the numbers for suicide rates in your city before and after the barrier was installed.




I was just thinking this very thing. Phone numbers for crisis hot-lines posted on the bridge. Good idea.


Too soon for numbers. It's just been completed in the last few months although I heard anecdotally that there has already been one suicide despite the barrier.

[Luke T.]

If a suicide went down to the bridge to jump and found a barrier in the way, would that bum him out? ;)

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
I live in Toronto where we recently spent several million dollars to erect a suicide barrier on one of our bridges (I'll see if I can find an image). I was part of the group who protested the barrier.

Why?

1) those millions of dollars could have been better spent on crisis intervention services such as those described by LukeT. In fact, it was found that installing pay phones at either end of the bridge with the numbers for crisis lines prominently displayed significantly reduced the incidence of suicides from that bridge. I know of several cases (having been a crisis worker in a previous life) of people calling the line while at the bridge and talking to the worker until help arrived. The city was not interested in expanding such services.

2) the barrier is a superficial preventative that merely assuages the city's sense of responsibility after a well known suicide from the bridge. There is nothing to stop people from walking about 5 minutes to the nearest subway and jumping, which in fact is far more common than people jumping off bridges here. Why wasn't a suicide barrier built on the subway?

3) It is ugly and ruins a beautiful view that I often used to enjoy during my morning walk to work.

Finally, a rational and compassionate argument against the barriers. Thanks, Truthseeker. I hadn't thought of that as an alternative.

That's very thought provoking.

AS

[MoeFaux]

Originally posted by Luke T.


I would have to say that my own decision to commit suicide was not made in a sane frame of mind. It was my constant obsession for months. I had flirted with the idea of suicide most of my life up to that point, but in 1996 there was no more flirting. It was the real deal.

Suicide is not a decision made in a rational state of mind. It is a solution way, way out of proportion to the problem. I believe every effort should be made to intervene and discourage a suicide.

I think you may be making the assumption that a suicide has weighed and exhausted all other options and there is no way out of their problem except death.

Depression is not an incurable disease like the cancer to which you compared it.

First, let me say that I'm very glad you didn't do it.

Second, I'll say that I'm not making these statements without any idea of being suicidal is like. There have been two times in my life where I was very serious about it. The first, I was in a very bad situation with very bad parents, and there really was no hope. But I didn't do it, and I eventually got away.
The second time I decided to do it was very rash, I was very upset, but I was going to do it. A dear friend interviened, and in the morning, I was glad I hadn't done it.
All my statements are based on a world were people look out for one another. I would certainly hope a stranger would ask if someone was all right if they saw a very upset person. And that's what happened for you.
And I would hope that a suicidal person has examinied other options.
But what if there really isn't any hope? I'll argue until the cows come home for the right to death for medical cases.

In cases where it's just plain stupidity, youth, or rash thinking, I would assume that a family member or SOMEONE would say something.

But I still really, really want people who want to jump to be able to jump. I mean, can you see my point? I'm playing devils advocate, but there's a lot of what I believe behind it.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by MoeFaux

But I still really, really want people who want to jump to be able to jump. I mean, can you see my point? I'm playing devils advocate, but there's a lot of what I believe behind it.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a situation where death is the best solution to a problem outside of a terminal illness. I certainly can't think of anything where the facilitation of suicide is called for.

If someone has reached the point where there isn't another person who cares about them or willing to intervene on their behalf, I believe they didn't get to that point through no fault of their own. To become totally isolated from the world takes some real effort on the part of the isolated one. A suicide begins long before the death.

But no one is so far gone they are beyond salvage. A least one barricade, whether physical, emotional or spiritual, must be placed in their path before they jump. If necessary, they must be tackled to the ground. They must be rescued from themselves.

If we are obligated to help a person whose life is in jeopardy from another human being to the point of using force, then we are obligated to help a person whose life is in jeopardy from themselves.

[LuxFerum]

Originally posted by MoeFaux
But I still really, really want people who want to jump to be able to jump. I mean, can you see my point? I'm playing devils advocate, but there's a lot of what I believe behind it.
In that case I think that you are in favor of all kinds of drugs should be liberated.

I think that is counterproductive. We should have a safer environment. We should be able to make some mistakes and not die from it.

If we can make it safer why not do it? That is not taking his right to kill himself. He will just have to do it somewhere else.

[Graham]

Originally posted by MoeFaux


First, let me say that I'm very glad you didn't do it.

<snip>

But I still really, really want people who want to jump to be able to jump. I mean, can you see my point? I'm playing devils advocate, but there's a lot of what I believe behind it.

For what it's worth, I'm glad you didn't do it either.

To address your final point though, the common consensus here seems to be that if someone really, really wants to kill themselves then these barriers won't prevent them - they'll climb over, go somewhere else or whatever.

Insofar as they work at all then, the barriers only prevent those people from jumping who don't really want to jump anyway.

Therefore, the barriers cannot be said to be impinging on anyone's freedom. At worst, they are merely causing a degree of inconvenience to the determined suiciders - which seems a small price to pay to save the others.

Graham

[Girl 6]

Wow... I'd like to comment on this since I do live in the Bay Area and have many times walked or driven over the Golden Gate Bridge.

I cannot see any way to put up a barrier without affecting the spectacular views and thus imposing a "morality" on everyone else. This is the same kind of situation we are faced with on a daily basis when working with groups of people. Do you impose laws to restrict everyone's freedoms just to protect the one individual from themself? It's a hard question. In fact, we faced that here on this forum not so long ago with the imposition of rules, etc... But, I digress.

Also, there ARE phones on each end of the bridge. They are specifically marked as phones that people can use if they are contemplating suicide.

I hadn't considered the possibility that people who contemplate suicide are mentally ill. Is that generally true? If so, then, will the smile of any one individual REALLY make a difference?

On the bigger issue of suicide. If the people who committed the act are NOT mentally ill and are in fact in full possession of their faculties, then I consider them incredibly selfish more than anything. The destruction that such a person leaves when they commit suicide is not even quantifiable. No one is really truly alone in this world and to carry on as if you are the only one that matters in your sphere of influence is really quite selfish and reprehensible. The people that you leave behind can NEVER get over the event and more than likely, it will affect them in a negative way.

To offer an real life example... One of my ex-boyfriends decided that he wanted to commit suicide because I was leaving him. When I found out I rushed over to his car and did EVERYTHING in my power to prevent it. He even had the razors ready to go. I won't go into details, but he didn't go through with it. However, to this day, I cannot EVER wipe the feeling of helplessness, fear, and despair that come over me whenever I think about him. The whole incident has affected me for life and not necessarily for the positive.

As much disdain as I may have for such individuals, I wouldn't hesitate for one second to help them NOT commit suicide. First, I'd do everything I could to prevent it. Next, they would get to feel my wrath as I point out to them how selfish they've been NOT to consider the people that do love and care about them. No man is an island.

A bigger question is why don't people smile at each other? I smile at strangers all of the time. If that simple act is all that is needed, then we should all just strive to do it.

{sigh} I think I've been rambling here... Please ask me any questions for clarification.

G6

[MoeFaux]

Originally posted by LuxFerum

In that case I think that you are in favor of all kinds of drugs should be liberated.

I think that is counterproductive. We should have a safer environment. We should be able to make some mistakes and not die from it.

If we can make it safer why not do it? That is not taking his right to kill himself. He will just have to do it somewhere else.

Yes. While I have never used drugs, I am in favor of them being legalized.

A safer environment? I'm wary of anyone saying something should be made "safer". Thanks to a "safer environment", I can't greet my friends at the gate at the airport.
The only saftey measures I'm for one bridges are the ones that are already in place - structural integrity checks, railings so people don't fall off when just walking by, and so cars don't just drive off. But there will just be more and more money spent to keep people who want to jump from jumping. I don't know if it's worth it.
Perhaps, as suggested before, money would be better spent in suicide hotlines.

[roger]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist


Finally, a rational and compassionate argument against the barriers. Thanks, Truthseeker. I hadn't thought of that as an alternative.

That's very thought provoking.

AS
I second that sentiment.

Here in DC we have some high bridges w/ no guard. We do have "suicide" phones - free phones that connect you directly with a crisis hotline.

Me, I'm a fan for liberty and lack of intrusion from the government, despite the costs. I hope that I am not derailing the thread, but a few years ago I was at an outdoor concert on the georgetown canal, which is on federal land. I was leaning against one of the fence posts that line the canal, my entire body at least a foot from the canal. A ranger came by and made everyone who was doing it to move. I really, really don't want the government "looking after" me like that.

The suicide barrier is somewhat different, in that it is trying to stop someone from deliberately hurting themselves, whereas my anecdote is about the government trying to stop someone from accidentally hurting themselves (lets be honest - trying to protect themselves from a lawsuit).

I have sympathy for trying to stop the jumpers - I've done my own walk to a high bridge that was intended to be one way, but I don't want to live in a world (don't take literally) where we destroy the beauty, and otherwise impose onerous restrictions on the majority. Especially when there are better ways to spend the money to achieve a longer term solution (crisis phones, pamplets, whatever).

[MoeFaux]

Originally posted by Graham



Insofar as they work at all then, the barriers only prevent those people from jumping who don't really want to jump anyway.



Graham

Yes, that may be true. But I think I'm still against them.

[Girl 6]

Originally posted by MoeFaux


Yes. While I have never used drugs, I am in favor of them being legalized.

A safer environment? I'm wary of anyone saying something should be made "safer". Thanks to a "safer environment", I can't greet my friends at the gate at the airport.
The only saftey measures I'm for one bridges are the ones that are already in place - structural integrity checks, railings so people don't fall off when just walking by, and so cars don't just drive off. But there will just be more and more money spent to keep people who want to jump from jumping. I don't know if it's worth it.
Perhaps, as suggested before, money would be better spent in suicide hotlines.

I have to agree. These things tend to start escalating and before you know it, you won't be able to see a thing when you walk across a bridge.

The best prevention starts with all of us.

G6

[MoeFaux]

I also want to say that I disagree with the idea that only mentally ill people commit suicide. There's also people who have no hope.

I'll tell you, I was in an awful situation as a child. There was no one to help me, no counselor or school official could make my life better. I'm on file only twice with CPS, they couln't help me either. There was NO hope. The only hint of relief was thinking that in 4 years I'd be away from my parents, but that didn't make everyday life any easier.
I was not sexually abused. I wasn't even really physically abused, not enough for me to be put in foster care. But my life was a living hell. It had nothing to do with my mental state, it was just being in a very bad situation.
What about people worse off than I was? There's horrible injustice done in the world, and families doing awful things to each other. Sometimes there's just no hope. It's not mental illness, just no where else to turn.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by MoeFaux


Yes, that may be true. But I think I'm still against them.

This is one of those situations where two people can be in agreement on an issue, but for different reasons.

I gather you are against barriers because you feel suicidal people should be free to kill themselves. I am against barriers because I am not convinced they affect the rate of suicide in any way and therefore a waste of money that could be better spent.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Girl 6

Also, there ARE phones on each end of the bridge. They are specifically marked as phones that people can use if they are contemplating suicide.


Thanks, G6, for kindly responding and for this tidbit of information. It is good to know phones already exist there. Apparently, they do not prevent all suicides on the bridge, although it is comforting to know that perhaps they deter some. It would be helpful to have statistics on usage of the phones by those contemplating jumping (I'm not asking you to find them; I'm just thinking aloud).



I hadn't considered the possibility that people who contemplate suicide are mentally ill. Is that generally true? If so, then, will the smile of any one individual REALLY make a difference?


You are not alone. I suspect most people do not understand how anyone could be driven to take his own life.

Depression is a very common mental illness. Being depressed doesn't necessarily mean one is "crazy" or irrational in general. Depression does cause one to have an exaggerated and irrational view of one's own problems, however.

Here's a link to a page on NAMI's website about a documentary film shown on HBO about suicide. I saw it some time ago and it was heartbreaking and riveting at the same time. The link provides a capsule version of some helpful facts, and also allow anyone interested to peruse the NAMI site about the topic, or other topics. There is a lot of information available for anyone willing to look for it.


NAMI link (http://www.nami.org/Content/ContentGroups/Press_Room1/20011/March_2001/NAMI_Partners_with_HBO_for_Suicide_Education_and_P revention.htm)

People who kill themselves do not deserve contempt or disdain. They are almost always in unbearable emotional pain when they decide to kill themselves. They are worthy of compassion and empathy. Of course, their actions usually cause others much pain as well, but that is rarely the intent. The intent is almost always to bring an end to unbearable pain and suffering. On some level, it is selfish to dwell too much on the pain they cause others without considering how much pain persons who commit suicide were in at their deaths.

AS

[MoeFaux]

Originally posted by Luke T.


This is one of those situations where two people can be in agreement on an issue, but for different reasons.

I gather you are against barriers because you feel suicidal people should be free to kill themselves. I am against barriers because I am not convinced they affect the rate of suicide in any way and therefore a waste of money that could be better spent.

I agree with that statement as well.

[Girl 6]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist
People who kill themselves do not deserve contempt or disdain. They are almost always in unbearable emotional pain when they decide to kill themselves. They are worthy of compassion and empathy. Of course, their actions usually cause others much pain as well, but that is rarely the intent. The intent is almost always to bring an end to unbearable pain and suffering. On some level, it is selfish to dwell too much on the pain they cause others without considering how much pain persons who commit suicide were in at their deaths.

AS

Of course, you're right, AmateurScientist. However, having been at the receiving end of such events, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I wouldn't be incredibly angry and disdainful towards those individuals.

My first reponse is always to have compassion, empathy, and concern. But, after that first response, let's just say that anger settles in. I will always be glad when someone I care for decides against suicide.

G6

[Luke T.]

I have to side with Girl6 on the selfishness of suicidal people. And that includes myself at the time of my suicidal period. Depression/suicide is the ultimate form of ego, in my opinion. And when ego is out of control, we really can't say that person is in full control of their sanity.

I would not pity a suicidal person, but that does not exclude compassion. Sometimes people don't know the difference.

[edited to add:] Many people who commit suicide have a particular "target" in mind. They want someone to be hurt by their actions. Girl6, or any other "target" are fully justified in their anger. But that anger is not healthy. Just know it isn't your fault.

[VicDaring]

Wow. Fascinating discussion.

Caught my eye, since I just got my first up-close-and-personal look at the GGB about a month ago.

My thoughts, for what they're worth:

The idea of building anti-suicide barriers on one specific bridge seems to me to just be a "suicide shifting" policy. It's saying, "We're not doing anything to decrease the overall suicide rate, you just can't do it in this one specific location." So more people will just jump off the Bay Bridge.

It's similar to the tax shifting practiced by state and federal government, where they reduce taxes as a popular political decision, but mandate programs and services without providing funding, forcing local governments to raise taxes.

You're still paying more taxes, you're just paying them here instead of over there.

People are still jumping off bridges, they're just doing it over there instead of here.

That make any sense?

As for suicide itself...Well, my guess is that nearly everyone has at least had the thought dance through their mind. I've always said I could never do the deed, just because maybe tomorrow is the day it all turns around. Would kinda suck to miss that, wouldn't it?

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by MoeFaux
I also want to say that I disagree with the idea that only mentally ill people commit suicide. There's also people who have no hope.

I'll tell you, I was in an awful situation as a child. There was no one to help me, no counselor or school official could make my life better. I'm on file only twice with CPS, they couln't help me either. There was NO hope. The only hint of relief was thinking that in 4 years I'd be away from my parents, but that didn't make everyday life any easier.
I was not sexually abused. I wasn't even really physically abused, not enough for me to be put in foster care. But my life was a living hell. It had nothing to do with my mental state, it was just being in a very bad situation.
What about people worse off than I was? There's horrible injustice done in the world, and families doing awful things to each other. Sometimes there's just no hope. It's not mental illness, just no where else to turn.

It had nothing to do with your mental state? Don't you agree that your mental state can be influenced by your circumstances?

The feelings you describe are symptoms of depression. Feeling hopeless is one of its hallmarks.

Suicide is not a rational choice made by healthy persons. You don't have to call those making it "mentally ill" if you don't like that label. Regardless of how you label them, however, those choosing it are not well. They are not completely lucid and rational about their own predicaments.

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Luke T.
I have to side with Girl6 on the selfishness of suicidal people. And that includes myself at the time of my suicidal period. Depression/suicide is the ultimate form of ego, in my opinion. And when ego is out of control, we really can't say that person is in full control of their sanity.

I would not pity a suicidal person, but that does not exclude compassion. Sometimes people don't know the difference.

[edited to add:] Many people who commit suicide have a particular "target" in mind. They want someone to be hurt by their actions. Girl6, or any other "target" are fully justified in their anger. But that anger is not healthy. Just know it isn't your fault.


I just don't think that's fair, Luke. You don't blame persons with cancer for their disease, do you? Suicidal ideations are nearly always the products of brains which are sick, even if only momentarily. Calling suicide selfish is due to a lack of understanding of the effects of depression on one's thought processes. I don't care if you have personal experience with it or not; your thoughts on the matter reflect a lack of understanding of the illness.

As to certain persons sometimes targeting others for the pain their suicides will cause, I think that is relatively rare. I don't doubt it happens. Suicide for spite, one might call it. I think you overestimate its importance or place, however. The vast majority of persons who kill themselves deliberately do it to stop their own pain and suffering, not to cause others to experience it. The literature and widely accepted studies tend to support this notion.

Although it's probably a natural and very common reaction to the suicide of a loved one to feel some guilt about it, no one else's actions are the proximate cause of a suicide victim's death. Feelings of despair and hopelessness are the cause. Those feelings are most often caused by depression, whether acute or chronic.

AS

[MoeFaux]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist


It had nothing to do with your mental state? Don't you agree that your mental state can be influenced by your circumstances?

The feelings you describe are symptoms of depression. Feeling hopeless is one of its hallmarks.

Suicide is not a rational choice made by healthy persons. You don't have to call those making it "mentally ill" if you don't like that label. Regardless of how you label them, however, those choosing it are not well. They are not completely lucid and rational about their own predicaments.

AS

Oh yes, I'm sure there is situational depression, and I was most likely afflicted with it at the time.
But, I look back on the situation I was in, and there really was no hope. Even now, as a happy, healthy adult, it's a wonder to me that I ever made it through.
What I'm arguing is that maybe there isn't another choice for some people. Maybe the circumstances are so bad that the only way to escape is suicide. I think you ought to think of that before you say to someone "cheer up! you have so much to live for" while the IRS reposes their house or their dad is raping them.

[Luke T.]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist


I just don't think that's fair, Luke. You don't blame persons with cancer for their disease, do you? Suicidal ideations are nearly always the products of brains which are sick, even if only momentarily. Calling suicide selfish is due to a lack of understanding of the effects of depression on one's thought processes. I don't care if you have personal experience with it or not; your thoughts on the matter reflect a lack of understanding of the illness.

I don't think it is unfair. Whether or not it is their fault, it is still an ego problem.

I certainly agree that some people may have a "chemical imbalance" which can be alleviated through a trial and error process of drugs. But they are only a beginning. Drugs don't help a person solve their problems or find ways to cope.

By "ego problem," I mean that a person is so self-centered they are incapable of seeing their problems in proper perspective. They are trapped in the belief their problems are special or somehow different from everyone else's or are unsolvable. Whether they came to that belief through their own conscious effort or through a chemical imbalance does not negate that truth.

We have talked about this before in the context of addicts/alcoholics and self-medication. Having worked with scores of addicts/alcoholics, I have more than my own personal experience with suicidal ideations to draw upon.

The best description to the solution for suicidal people I ever heard was in a federal prison from an inmate who had struggled with depression his entire life and had run the gamut of antidepressants. He said, "I finally realized I needed a spiritual solution and not a chemical one."

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by MoeFaux


Oh yes, I'm sure there is situational depression, and I was most likely afflicted with it at the time.


That is very likely.


But, I look back on the situation I was in, and there really was no hope. Even now, as a happy, healthy adult, it's a wonder to me that I ever made it through.


Probably a common reaction to later reflections upon very difficult times. I don't think that necessarily means that there was no hope, as in no way to overcome your circumstances. Evidently, you did overcome them, or you wouldn't be here today.



What I'm arguing is that maybe there isn't another choice for some people. Maybe the circumstances are so bad that the only way to escape is suicide. I think you ought to think of that before you say to someone "cheer up! you have so much to live for" while the IRS reposes their house or their dad is raping them.

I would never be so insensitive as to tell a severely depressed person to "cheer up," as if they could simply will themselves out of it or that they heard never thought of that. Among other things, depression attacks one's will. Apathy and a profound lack of interest in or enthusiasm for what should be enjoyable or pleasurable activities is also one of its effects, and one of the symptoms knowledgeable doctors look for in making the appropriate clinical diagnosis. Severely depressed persons need understanding and comfort, not platitudes.

I cannot imagine many circumstances as dire or severe as those faced by the survivors of the 1972 plane crash in the Andes mountain in Chile that were the subjects of the book and movie entitled "Alive." Not only did those young soccer players have to face the dead bodies of their colleagues and fellow travelers, but they also faced the high likelihood of freezing or starving to death, and they ultimately cannibalized their dead to prevent it. Under those circumstances, wouldn't it be reasonable to conclude that the situation was utterly hopeless? In fact, it wasn't, improbable as a few of them making it to civilization to guide rescuers to the wreckage was.

Now, contrast that with a troubled teen with difficult and painful circumstances at home who sees no way out. Most likely, the failure to appreciate that there are indeed ways out is due to imperfect information and/or irrational thinking.

My point is that usually those concluding their circumstances are hopeless are reaching such a conclusion due to distorted perceptions about themselves and their circumstances. Despite their inability to see it at the time, there is always another way out besides suicide for otherwise healthy young persons. Life is challenging for nearly all of us, in various ways and in varying degrees. It can seem overwhelming at times, and under certain circumstances, especially to those suffering from depression. Indeed, overwhelming circumstances can lead one to conclude that life's challenges are insurmountable. Of course, when examined rationally, they aren't. Billions of years of evolution of life on earth are ample proof of that.

I don't agree that suicide for otherwise healthy persons is sometimes the only option. It just seems that way sometimes. Depression is horrible that way; it clouds one's judgment and reasoning abilities.

What's needed is not advocacy of rights for committing suicide. What's needed is a much better understanding and awareness of depression, its causes and effects, treatments available for it, and its relation to suicide.

AS

[MoeFaux]

I fold.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Luke T.


I don't think it is unfair. Whether or not it is their fault, it is still an ego problem.



Hmmm. That's an interesting perspective. Personally, I believe it's not an inflation of the ego problem, as you seem to be implying. I think it's the opposite. Most severely depressed persons engage in self-doubt and self-loathing. They do not elevate their problems above the problems of others. Depressives often feel they are not worthy of the attention of others. Their problems do not warrant the intervention of others. They often feel that others will be better off without them. That's a genuine feeling and belief; it's not an attention ploy or instance of self-pity.



I certainly agree that some people may have a "chemical imbalance" which can be alleviated through a trial and error process of drugs. But they are only a beginning. Drugs don't help a person solve their problems or find ways to cope.


Again, I don't think it's fair to ridicule the chemical imbalance theory for causing a lot of the depression in certain persons. There is plenty of empirical evidence to indicate that the chemical basis is very real.

I agree that drugs alone are often not a complete solution. Nevertheless, the success rate of pharmacological treatments in allowing depressed persons to get out of their ruts is very impressive.

I think you ignore that so often the depressed person's problems are caused by the depression, not the other way around. In those cases, treating the depression is in fact treating the attendant problems.

Depression is tightly bound with stress, at both ends of cause and effect. One of its effects is to reduce the sufferer's ability to cope with stress. Thus, effectively treating the depression almost always means providing the sufferer with a greater ability to handle stress. That's another way of saying it gives one the means to cope with one's problems.


By "ego problem," I mean that a person is so self-centered they are incapable of seeing their problems in proper perspective. They are trapped in the belief their problems are special or somehow different from everyone else's or are unsolvable. Whether they came to that belief through their own conscious effort or through a chemical imbalance does not negate that truth.


Self-centered is a loaded term here. I don't think it's an appropriate term to use with clinically depressed persons. They typically aren't ego maniacs. Quite the contrary; they tend to put themselves down and genuinely mean it. They don't elevate their problems above those of others. They usually believe there is something fundamentally wrong with them. They often engage in self-loathing. Those feelings are caused by the depression itself. Blaming them or assigning moral responsibility to them for those feelings is no different from blaming a cancer patient for feeling tired or weak. How you can get from there to "self-centered" is beyond me.


We have talked about this before in the context of addicts/alcoholics and self-medication. Having worked with scores of addicts/alcoholics, I have more than my own personal experience with suicidal ideations to draw upon.


Yes, I recall. I don't mean to discount your own experiences or insight. Perhaps your experience with alcoholics gives you some undesirable bias in this context.

Aren't alcoholics in recovery usually taught that they must accept responsibility for their actions with regard to alcohol? Aren't they taught to apologize to others for the harm they have caused them in the past?

I'm not questioning the validity of that approach in treating alcohol or drug addiction. I don't think it's appropriate to apply it to depression, however. Depressives already experience a tremendous amount of guilt, most of it unwarranted and misplaced. Placing additional moral guilt upon them only compounds their problems and fails to account for some of the insidious effects of the illness.

Depressives need to be helped to build themselves up, not to tear themselves down. They are already there at the bottom.


The best description to the solution for suicidal people I ever heard was in a federal prison from an inmate who had struggled with depression his entire life and had run the gamut of antidepressants. He said, "I finally realized I needed a spiritual solution and not a chemical one."

If this were true, it would imply that highly rational, non-spiritual persons are doomed to failure in treating their depression. Of course, you know that is simply not true.

No one needs God or any supernatural force to overcome depression. Science, not spirituality, has provided the best and most effective breakthroughs in the effective treatment of depression. The most effective treatments to date for most types of depression have been chemical.

Spiritual treatments alone, in this context, can be properly regarded as woo-woo treatments. I think relying on them alone is very dangerous.

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by MoeFaux
I fold.

I don't get it. Did I say something which offended you? If I did, I didn't mean to. I apologize if I have offended or hurt you.

AS

[MoeFaux]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist


I don't get it. Did I say something which offended you? If I did, I didn't mean to. I apologize if I have offended or hurt you.

AS

The effort it would take to succesfully debate this out would be too emotionally involved for me, and therefore I quit.

[Graham]

Originally posted by MoeFaux
I also want to say that I disagree with the idea that only mentally ill people commit suicide. There's also people who have no hope.

I should point out (just in case anyone was confused!) that I'm not a psychologist or any kind of mental health professional - my opinions are quite amateur and should be given only as much credit as they make sense to anyone!

That said, to my mind, being depressed enough to want to kill yourself makes you (or me) mentally ill. Just like lung cancer can be caused by smoking, however, and heart disease by eating fatty foods, the mental illness that is hard-core depression can be caused by, amongst other things, realy, really crappy situations like Moe's childhood. However, in the same way that you can seperate the cancer from the cigarette, you can seperate the depression from the situation.

Having no hope may cause depression, but that doesn't mean that the depression is nothing more than having no hope - I'm not sure if this is making sense but bear with me.

You take issue with my terminology, with the phrase "mental illness". This, IMO, is a common problem in society. If I describe depression as "a mental illness" people immediately think: mental - mental hospital - lunatics - strait jackets - padded cells and so on. That's not right, IMO. By my definition, anything that moves control of your mind out of your hands, so to speak; be it depression, rage, envy, whatever; constitutes a mental illness. The moment you lose control, you're mentally ill and society should behave appropriately towards you.

Like any illness, there are degrees of mental illness. You can have chest pains from indigestion, worse pains from angina or you can fall over dead from a major motcardial infarction (or whatever the medi-speak is) - the three are different but all are illnesses.

Likewise, you can feel a bit crummy, you can be so "down" that you find it hard to get out of bed and hard to eat or you can feel so down that you want to throw yourself off a bridge - the three are different but all mental illnesses, IMO.

So as far as that goes, depression to the point of suicide is a mental illness.

Graham

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by MoeFaux


The effort it would take to succesfully debate this out would be too emotionally involved for me, and therefore I quit.

Oh. That's cool.

I wasn't trying to wear you or anyone else out. I just happen to be very interested in the subject. Forgive me for being too persistent.

AS

[Graham]

Originally posted by Girl 6
I cannot see any way to put up a barrier without affecting the spectacular views and thus imposing a "morality" on everyone else. This is the same kind of situation we are faced with on a daily basis when working with groups of people. Do you impose laws to restrict everyone's freedoms just to protect the one individual from themself? G6 Snipped at both ends!

Not to start an entirely different argument but this seems like a very American sentiment to me. If you can work the word "freedoms" into your argument it's like a free pass or something. Or maybe it's late or I've just had a little too much Bushmills . . .aaaaaanyway . . .

Perhaps if you want a view of the bay, you should buy a house by the coast? A bridge is public property and should be managed in the interests of the entire community, not just that portion of it that likes a nice view for their morning walk. If you accept that sometimes, some people need protection from themselves (whether it's kids talking to strangers, blind men crossing the road or depresssed people jumping off bridges) then you have to ask yourself - which is more important (1) that x number of people get to enjoy the view or (2) that y number of people are prevented (or delayed and indirectly prevented) from killing themselves and wasting the only life they'll ever have?

Fortunately, it's not an either/or choice. As Reprise (I think) showed with the bridge in Toronto (http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0303/ob/ob02_0303.html) views and barriers are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Graham

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Graham


You take issue with my terminology, with the phrase "mental illness". This, IMO, is a common problem in society. If I describe depression as "a mental illness" people immediately think: mental - mental hospital - lunatics - strait jackets - padded cells and so on. That's not right, IMO. By my definition, anything that moves control of your mind out of your hands, so to speak; be it depression, rage, envy, whatever; constitutes a mental illness. The moment you lose control, you're mentally ill and society should behave appropriately towards you.

Like any illness, there are degrees of mental illness. You can have chest pains from indigestion, worse pains from angina or you can fall over dead from a major motcardial infarction (or whatever the medi-speak is) - the three are different but all are illnesses.

Likewise, you can feel a bit crummy, you can be so "down" that you find it hard to get out of bed and hard to eat or you can feel so down that you want to throw yourself off a bridge - the three are different but all mental illnesses, IMO.

So as far as that goes, depression to the point of suicide is a mental illness.

Graham

Good points. I'm certainly no mental health professional either. I am not completely unversed in the subject, however.

Technically, the psychiatric and psychological professionals in the U.S. refer to depression as a "mood disorder." They refer to the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, better known as the DSM-IV, for the clinical descriptions of the illness in its various recognized forms. The DSM-IV recognizes five types of depression: 1) Major Depression; 2) Bipolar I; 3) Bipolar II; 4) Dysthymic Disorder; and 5) Cyclothymic Disorder.


At the end of the day, depression and how it affects any particular individual at any given time is highly variable.


I'm comfortable referring to depression as a mental illness. I agree with you that unfortunately that label tends to connote images of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and straight jackets and padded cells. More awareness of the illness is desperately needed. A lot of suffering from it could be prevented or alleviated.

AS

[American]

San Fran-sissy-co would rather save a view over saving a life every 2 weeks. These are the same queers who blocked supplies to our troops a few months ago.

You guys are unreal out there. I keep hoping that big earthquake will hit and take care of that region. "Arizona Bay" sounds like a great vacation spot to me.

[Luke T.]

AS, I think you may be misunderstanding my use of terms. I don't mean "ego" in the regular colloquial use. I don't think a head doctor would disagree with my use of the word to describe a depressive's problem.

And you may be misunderstanding my use of "spiritual" as well. That doesn't necessarily mean God or magic crystals, although it does for some. The God aspect does raise an interesting question, though. Is it better for a suicidal person to commit suicide rather than be a happy God-believer? ;)

One of the principle concepts behind the success of A.A. is that no drunk can stay sober alone. He must ask for help and get help from other people. We are told whenever we are about to make a decision about something to check with two other people first to see if it makes sense.

A suicidal person begins to isolate. So does a drunk who is about to relapse. This trait is so common among recovering alcoholics that it has become proverbial. "I stopped going to meetings." "I began to isolate." These are routinely given out as signs of an impending relapse.

I believe a suicidal person believes that no one can help him. "I can't solve my problem, so no one else can either." That is ego.
Ego kills.

[Luke T.]

AS, as for suicidal people having a low view of themselves, another common expression around A.A. is "a drunk is an egomaniac with low self-esteem." That is more accurate than you know.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Luke T.
AS, I think you may be misunderstanding my use of terms. I don't mean "ego" in the regular colloquial use. I don't think a head doctor would disagree with my use of the word to describe a depressive's problem.

And you may be misunderstanding my use of "spiritual" as well. That doesn't necessarily mean God or magic crystals, although it does for some. The God aspect does raise an interesting question, though. Is it better for a suicidal person to commit suicide rather than be a happy God-believer? ;)

One of the principle concepts behind the success of A.A. is that no drunk can stay sober alone. He must ask for help and get help from other people. We are told whenever we are about to make a decision about something to check with two other people first to see if it makes sense.

A suicidal person begins to isolate. So does a drunk who is about to relapse. This trait is so common among recovering alcoholics that it has become proverbial. "I stopped going to meetings." "I began to isolate." These are routinely given out as signs of an impending relapse.

I believe a suicidal person believes that no one can help him. "I can't solve my problem, so no one else can either." That is ego.
Ego kills.

OK. Thanks for the insight and explanation.

[Tmy]

Im sick of trying to babyproof the world. The bridges around here all have signs with suicide hotline info.

[Graham]

Originally posted by Tmy
Im sick of trying to babyproof the world. The bridges around here all have signs with suicide hotline info.


You trivialise the problem. Kudos to you for never having seriously considered suicide.

Imagine your life took a turn for the worse though . . . imagine everything you know an love turned to crap (it happens easier than you'd think, trust me). Imagine it seemed to you as though there was nothing left but swift, painless death.

Imagine it as though it was real. So real that you want to walk out the door and off the nearest ledge.

Imagine it so that it's real, as far as you are concerned. Now remember that you are imagining and you understand a little better than you did a moment ago.

Now imagine yourself in that state and think - if a barrier that obscures the view of some passers-by prevents you from killing yourself long enough to divert your permanently, would it be worthwhile?

Answer me that, babyproof-boy . . .

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by American
San Fran-sissy-co would rather save a view over saving a life every 2 weeks. These are the same queers who blocked supplies to our troops a few months ago.

You guys are unreal out there. I keep hoping that big earthquake will hit and take care of that region. "Arizona Bay" sounds like a great vacation spot to me.


But just think. If your parents only jumped when they got the ultrasound results, instead of 'trying to give you the most out of life despite your handicap', we wouldn't have to put up with your crap now.

[roger]

Originally posted by Graham


You trivialise the problem. Kudos to you for never having seriously considered suicide.
[snip] Answer me that, babyproof-boy . . .


No need to be snippy. I've been there, walked the bridge with no barrier. And I still don't want barriers. Not because I want the opportunity, but because I don't agree that society needs to, or even has the right to, try to prevent everything bad that can happen in one's life.

You disagree with that position, and that's fine, but can't we reasonably differ on matters of social policy w/o being called names?

[AmateurScientist]

Hey hey, now. This isn't a flaming thread. Take it somewhere else, guys.

AS

[tim]

I need to register an interest on this.
For seven years and more I was a member of an organisation here called the Samaritans. Our purpose is to listen to people who are suicidal and desperate, 24/7.
Try it. Suicidal people are just like you and just like me, only they have reached the end of their tether and death is preferable to living. Sometimes all that's left is a hand holding out to pull them back from the brink. So don't complain at the signs on the bridge. Don't complain at barriers. Sometimes all it takes to call someone back is a little gentle persuasion.
Please accept this from someone who has tried to do that and failed. And talked to someone on the telephone as they slipped into unconsiousness and not been able to do anything about it. And seen the press reports of a suicide a few weeks later.Try doing that.
Then argue about how unsightly barriers are.

[AmateurScientist]

Thanks, Tim. We should all take heed from your words.

AS

[Graham]

Originally posted by roger

No need to be snippy. I've been there, walked the bridge with no barrier. And I still don't want barriers. Not because I want the opportunity, but because I don't agree that society needs to, or even has the right to, try to prevent everything bad that can happen in one's life.

You disagree with that position, and that's fine, but can't we reasonably differ on matters of social policy w/o being called names?



I did not intend to be snippy, sorry. I am (in all honesty) drunk and perhaps less delicate in speech than might otherwise be the case. I am, however, in something of a conundrum, and trying to work my way out of it.

There is no way, IMO, to prevent everything bad that can happen in one's life. My argument from the beginning of this thread, however, has been that if it is possible for things to to be both practical and beautiful. Practical in this sense meaning "have a function that prevent or at least delays suicide" and beautiful meaning "not blocking hte view of too many people to the extent that the loss of said view causes any actual loss in their lives" .

We can disagree in any number of positions, and that is fine with me. If I called you "a name", however, I apologise for it unreservedly.

Graham

[Mr Manifesto]

Originally posted by tim
I need to register an interest on this.
For seven years and more I was a member of an organisation here called the Samaritans. Our purpose is to listen to people who are suicidal and desperate, 24/7.
Try it. Suicidal people are just like you and just like me, only they have reached the end of their tether and death is preferable to living. Sometimes all that's left is a hand holding out to pull them back from the brink. So don't complain at the signs on the bridge. Don't complain at barriers. Sometimes all it takes to call someone back is a little gentle persuasion.
Please accept this from someone who has tried to do that and failed. And talked to someone on the telephone as they slipped into unconsiousness and not been able to do anything about it. And seen the press reports of a suicide a few weeks later.Try doing that.
Then argue about how unsightly barriers are.

Argumentum ad misericordiam.

Suicide is still the person's choice. If they call a suicide hotline to be talked out of it, good, talk them out of it: that's clearly what they want. If they die anyway, there's no point in scourging yourself about it. They made their bed, they have to lie in it.

[tim]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto


Argumentum ad misericordiam.

Suicide is still the person's choice. If they call a suicide hotline to be talked out of it, good, talk them out of it: that's clearly what they want. If they die anyway, there's no point in scourging yourself about it. They made their bed, they have to lie in it.

It doesn't work like that, Mr M.
Samaritans listen. we're not there to "talk them out of it". We're there to listen, because sometimes people need to talk to help them make up their own mind what to do. Sometimes they decide death is what they want. We don't hang up when that happens. We stay with them. As I said - try it. See if you don't think every suicide is a tragedy - especially when you talk to someone as they die.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto

Suicide is still the person's choice. If they call a suicide hotline to be talked out of it, good, talk them out of it: that's clearly what they want. If they die anyway, there's no point in scourging yourself about it. They made their bed, they have to lie in it.

I agree that it's never the fault of the suicide prevention worker or volunteer. It is quite common and natural to feel some guilt that perhaps something else could have been done or said that may have prevented the final outcome. It's not entirely rational to feel that way, but it's perfectly human.

The "they made their bed" comment seems awfully cold to me. I hope you never experience severe depression and never have suicidal ideations. I wouldn't want you to have to eat your words.

AS

[Graham]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto


Argumentum ad misericordiam.

Suicide is still the person's choice. If they call a suicide hotline to be talked out of it, good, talk them out of it: that's clearly what they want. If they die anyway, there's no point in scourging yourself about it. They made their bed, they have to lie in it.

You fail to appreciate the true complexity to the humnan mind, IMO.

Further, your lack of compassion is . . . well, typical, I am sorry to say.

I have known people who were truely suicidal; that is to say they would, IMO, most certainly have killed themselves, had the next card out of the pack been other than it was. They were not "talked out of it" insomuch as they were delayed for the one minute or ten it took them to come out of that state and into another where, as for every "normal" human being suicide was a ridiculous overstatment. and certainly not "the answer"

A bed was made for them and they had a hand in it, right enough, but we all do foolish things in our lives but we shouldn't have to die for it, IMO, if it's at all avoidable.

Graham

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by Suezoled


It's a personal decision. However, bear in mind that (usually) when a person decides or tries to kill himself, it's because his capacity to cope with stresses (internal and external) has been flooded and outweighed by his emotional burden: pain, guilt, hopelessness, etc predominates.

Suicide is a sad decision and made even worse by people who are apathetic or angry. Since suicide is, in most societies, a social taboo, people recoil and even lash out at the suicidal person, unburdening their own fears and guilt onto the other person.

At least that's what I read.

http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

I'm sorry I overlooked this earlier. Great response. Thanks.

Also, that's a terrific website you linked to. I like the approach of the author. It's very knowledgeable and non-judgmental, which is exactly what the suicidal person needs.

Thanks again.

AS

[American]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
But just think. If your parents only jumped when they got the ultrasound results, instead of 'trying to give you the most out of life despite your handicap', we wouldn't have to put up with your crap now.


Too bad for you, Red-diaper-doper-baby, y'all have to put up with my encouraging the city to prevent suicide. That is a lot of crap from me to put up with, I know. I'm fighting a one-man battle against your view that jumping off a bridge is a choice that we need to respect and my parents should have done it!

[shuize]

All credit to suicide counselors and the police who try and talk the jumpers down.

But my feelings on this are similar to the way I feel when people make the argument: "Nevermind the cost, if it saves even one life it's worth it."

That argument comes up in all sorts of spending rationalizations and I disagree.

I think it's fair to ask "Just how much money is it going to cost?" "How inconvenient is the proposed solution going to be?" "How much uglier are we going to make the world to 'suicide proof' it from those who don't want to stick around to enjoy it anyway?"

It's a slippery slope. If, for example, we can make it a little harder to jump from one particular bridge for $50 million, shouldn't we be willing to pay $250 million to make it a lot harder to jump from that same bridge? After all, if it saves even on life, it's worth it.

And if we can make it a lot harder to jump from one bridge, shouldn't we be willing to pay even more to make all the bridges in San Francisco safer? After the bridges, we can start on all the ovens. If you don't agree you must be really callous to value money more than human life ...

The money may have better uses, as noted by the poster above who suggested using the funds for suicide hotlines instead. But even if the money is not put to that specific use, I think there comes a point when people are not heartless for saying they don't want to put up with the added inconvenience or the debasing of a beautiful landmark like the Golden Gate Bridge.

[peptoabysmal]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist

What's wrong with trying to make a handy means less available? What's wrong with suicide prevention?
AS

Nothing wrong with suicide prevention from the mental health aspect of trying to help people who feel like they want to kill themselves.. I.e; Remove the cause of wanting to commit suicide, if possible. What do you think you can do to prevent it? Put a wire mesh over every gas oven, make sure people only have knives dull enough that they can't slit their wrists? I'm a believer in euthanasia, anyway. If they spend money to add barriers that reduce the bridges aesthetics, people will find another bridge. Heck, do it in the right spot on the bay bridge and you could get added trajectory from a semi and get flung way out into the bay.

I live near enough to SF that I go visit whenever I can. I have a sister who lives there. The Golden Gate is just one of those Calif. landmarks that shouldn't be changed.

Actually there is a bridge in the foothills above Auburn that is so freaking high and there is nothing down below except rocks and a little stream, that you could build up enough velocity to create quite an interesting splat pattern. If I were going to jump, that would be the one I'd pick.

You can't wrap the entire state in foam rubber just to protect some depresssed individuals from killing themselves.

[American]

Originally posted by peptoabysmal
What do you think you can do to prevent it? Put a wire mesh over every gas oven, make sure people only have knives dull enough that they can't slit their wrists?


A 4-foot barrier is too easy. It's downright inviting, almost. I'm not one to child-proof the world, but a suicide happening in one spot every 2 weeks is a glaring problem that could easily be corrected. So take a picture between the bars. Build viewing platforms at the sides of the bridge, having almost the same view. What's a view compared to that many lives?

That whole city is a sick, sick place.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by American



A 4-foot barrier is too easy. It's downright inviting, almost. I'm not one to child-proof the world, but a suicide happening in one spot every 2 weeks is a glaring problem that could easily be corrected. So take a picture between the bars. Build viewing platforms at the sides of the bridge, having almost the same view. What's a view compared to that many lives?


I have to agree with this.

I don't think it's always a matter of if a jumper is prevented from taking his life here, then he will simply move his efforts to kill himself elsewhere. This is not a matter of rational economics. Suicide involves an irrational choice. Sometimes the choice to carry it out is made while in the throes of passion or despair. These intense feelings are transitory.

Anyway, even if the analysis is as Peptoabysmal presents it, then moving suicides from a gruesome public arena to some other venue is probably a good thing for SF's society at large.

There is a simple, cost-effective way to make suicide from the bridge much harder to accomplish, thereby deterring a significant number of suicides which take place there. Brushing that fact aside is crass. It makes very good sense to take a simple, reasonable measure to deter suicides from the world's most popular bridge for jumping to one's death.

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by peptoabysmal


You can't wrap the entire state in foam rubber just to protect some depresssed individuals from killing themselves.

No one in this thread is advocating doing that.

Straw man.

The issue here is whether or not a simple, relatively cheap method of deterring suicides at the GGB should be employed. Yes or no.

AS

[tim]

I think AS is about right on this.
Suicidal feelings are very often transitory IMHO. I have lost count of the times I have spoken to people later, after the despair has eased, who have said that things change, and the position they were in did not seem so unendurable in the light of day.
Yes, if you put the barrier up they may well go somewhere else to kill themselves. But for a significant number that delay will give them time to reconsider.
There is always the point that such places as the GGB and Beachy Head act as magnets for suicides. In some ways they are making a statement by jumping from high places, or killing themselves in a spectacular way. I cite as evidence the fact that the Menai suspension bridge in Wales has a direct line at each end of the bridge to the Samaritans. And it gets used. Prevention doesn't always work (leaving aside the right of any individual to terminate their own life), but it works often enough to be worthwhile.

[Zep]

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
I live in Toronto where we recently spent several million dollars to erect a suicide barrier on one of our bridges (I'll see if I can find an image). I was part of the group who protested the barrier.

Why?

1) those millions of dollars could have been better spent on crisis intervention services such as those described by LukeT. In fact, it was found that installing pay phones at either end of the bridge with the numbers for crisis lines prominently displayed significantly reduced the incidence of suicides from that bridge. I know of several cases (having been a crisis worker in a previous life) of people calling the line while at the bridge and talking to the worker until help arrived. The city was not interested in expanding such services.

2) the barrier is a superficial preventative that merely assuages the city's sense of responsibility after a well known suicide from the bridge. There is nothing to stop people from walking about 5 minutes to the nearest subway and jumping, which in fact is far more common than people jumping off bridges here. Why wasn't a suicide barrier built on the subway?

3) It is ugly and ruins a beautiful view that I often used to enjoy during my morning walk to work. If it's of any interest, despite the (possibly unaesthetic) barriers, there are still some people today who ARE determined enough to jump off the Sydney Harbour Bridge to their deaths and who, sadly, succeed. It's rare...but not rare enough.

[shuize]

Originally posted by Zep
If it's of any interest, despite the (possibly unaesthetic) barriers, there are still some people today who ARE determined enough to jump off the Sydney Harbour Bridge to their deaths and who, sadly, succeed. It's rare...but not rare enough.

Then by the logic of those who would have us live our lives around the unstable among us who can't decide if they want to stay or go, Sydney is obviously not spending enough money on safety precautions.

I respectfully disagree with AS' post above. At some point it does become a matter of rational economics, or at least rational thinking, to ask: How much do we have to give up in terms of money, convenience, or aesthetics to suicide proof the world for people who can just as easily find another method?

I don't doubt that if the Golden Gate Bridge were redesigned to prevent suicides, the suicide rate there would go down. But once enough money is spent to make it really "safe" (or safer than the Zep's account of the Sydney Harbor Bridge) and word gets out that jumpers can't make a spectacular final dive from there, people will just go somewhere else from the beginning. Politicians meanwhile can pat themselves on the back and tell each other that "even if it saved one life, it's worth the cost."

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by shuize

I respectfully disagree with AS' post above. At some point it does become a matter of rational economics, or at least rational thinking, to ask: How much do we have to give up in terms of money, convenience, or aesthetics to suicide proof the world for people who can just as easily find another method?


By "rational economics" in my post above I did not mean from the perspective of those decision makers who might choose to take preventative measures to suicide-proof the bridge. I was referring to the thought process of anyone seriously contemplating an imminent suicide. Those doing so are not being rational. They are not engaging in a rational cost-benefit analysis.

I fully recognize that in any endeavor which is intended to be a safety precaution the concept of reasonableness must be considered. I have been consistent throughout this thread in advocating or at least considering the possibility of taking reasonable measures on bridges. Few would argue seriously for spending $7 trillion to suicide proof a $250 million bridge, for instance.

The author of the article in The New Yorker mentions several ongoing proposals the board which runs the GGB is considering implementing in the name of safety, such as a barrier along the bridge's centerline to prevent head on collisions, and one to prevent bicyclists from being hit by cars, depite the fact that no cyclist has been known to have been killed by a motorist on the bridge, among many others. Several such proposals, including those two, would cost more than erecting a reasonable, but effective, barrier along the walkways to prevent easy jumping from the bridge. Those proposals do not seem to inspire the same kind of indignation against them that suicide prevention measures do. Why?

I find your second, rhetorical sentence above to be laced with a certain degree of hostility or contempt towards persons who seriously consider suicide. Again, you are probably in the majority on that count. Such an attitude is a sad reflection of the profound lack of understanding even our modern society has about depression and suicide. It is truly appalling that so many persons apparently harbor resentment or contempt towards persons who are so despairing and hopeless that they can see no alternative to ending their own lives.

I sincerely hope that you and others like you will look into the matter more closely. You might discover that persons who kill themselves are not necessarily weak or bad or defective and thus not worth our time or money. They are your relatives, your neighbors, your leaders, your bosses, your coworkers, and your children. Asking how much money we have to spend to possibly save them from death is terribly cold and merciless. One might just as easily ask how much money we have to spend to save cancer patients, or AIDS patients, or premature babies. What's the point, right?


I don't doubt that if the Golden Gate Bridge were redesigned to prevent suicides, the suicide rate there would go down. But once enough money is spent to make it really "safe" (or safer than the Zep's account of the Sydney Harbor Bridge) and word gets out that jumpers can't make a spectacular final dive from there, people will just go somewhere else from the beginning. Politicians meanwhile can pat themselves on the back and tell each other that "even if it saved one life, it's worth the cost."

It's not about politicians patting themselves on the back. Indeed, it's primarily politicians (the board members) who have blocked the implementation of the many calls for such barriers dating back decades. The reason is that most people don't want them. They block the view or spoil the aesthetic qualities of the bridge.

Also, it hardly requires a redesigning of the bridge. What is needed is a simple, but effective way to prevent persons from climbing or leaping over the 4-foot high barrier that has been the only protection from falling or jumping off since the bridge was built in 1937.

Some speculate that the barrier was made so low (it was originally intended to be 5 1/2 feet high) because the chief engineer who oversaw the construction of the bridge, Joseph Strauss, was only 5 feet tall. Perhaps he made the barrier so low so that he could easily peer over the side.

I have already made the point several times in this thread, but I think your remarks about simply redirecting the suicides somewhere else ignore two things. One, from a society at large standpoint, that is probably a good thing. Surely having jumpers from the bridge detracts from others' use and enjoyment of the bridge and its surrounding environs, not to mention the manhours spent and emotional cost of fishing out the dead bodies from the bay below. Two, the bridge tends to attract jumpers. Surely some of those who jump might not kill themselves if such an attractive means of doing it were no longer available.

AS

[shuize]

AS,

I respect your opinion on most things and I think you are a really fine writer. Your response above probably deserves a language award nomination.

Nevertheless, I still disagree. I'm sorry if you think I'm showing contempt for the deceased or their families when I ask how much we will have to give up in terms of money, convenience or aesthetics to protect people who are determined to destroy themselves. I think it is a fair question. If we had an infinite amount of time, treasure and beauty, I would not ask.

To counter your impression that I am "cold and merciless" I will pass on that in past experience with a juvenile court I had contact with two young men who later killed themselves. We managed to convince the court to extend considerable resources to both of them. One hanged himself in detention and the other put a shotgun in his mouth at home. Nowhere near a bridge in either case. Those who are determined to destroy themselves will find a way.

[AmateurScientist]

Shuize,

Thank you for the kind words. I do not think you are cold and merciless. I said that asking the question is. There is a distinction between words and actions and the persons saying and making them.

Yours is apparently a very common viewpoint on this topic. I think it probably stems from a lack of appreciation for how painful and troubling a mood disorder can be, rather than from an utter lack of compassion in general.

Try to imagine what it must be like to have no control over your moods, and to sometimes feel profoundly empty and dejected for no apparent reason. Now try to imagine that your prevailing mood causes you to see overwhelming stress and crisis in your life constantly, with no way out of it. Finally, imagine that you are constantly plagued with a lack of control of your mood for months or even years on end, and nothing you or anyone else does seems to affect it. You are empty and devoid of joy or pleasure all the time, despite your many genuine efforts to "pull out of it" and to do things which should bring you joy but don't. That's a tiny glimpse into how it can feel and how it can overwhelm someone--anyone.

Contrary to popular belief, depression isn't brought on by being a mope. It isn't merely feeling blue or down. It is a horrible mood disorder which can completely wreck anyone's life, although some apparently are blessed with a very strong resistance to it. Humans are not the only animals which get depressed. Depression among laboratory and other captive social animals who are isolated or bored is quite common.

I agree that even severely depressed persons can be very resourceful and determined to end their misery. Cancer can be a very determined killer and ravager of the human body as well. Few would argue we should abandon cancer research or treatment. Why, then, do so many of those same persons who see value in cancer research turn such a cold shoulder to measures to prevent suicide?

I think it's largely because of the socialization and enormous stigma culture attachs to ending one's own life. It stirs such powerful feelings of revulsion in most of us. The result is contempt towards anyone so devoid of reverence for life as to want to end his own.

This is a flawed view. Very few persons who commit suicide hate life or want to die. I repeat, most do not want to die. Instead, they want to end their pain. Most are terribly conflicted in their struggle to end it. Suicide is not a cop out. It is a last resort chosen only when no other option appears to be viable. Notice I said "appears." That is because depression and despair can severely cloud one's judgement and perspective.

Suicide is the desperate choice of someone who is not behaving or thinking rationally. That doesn't mean it is deserving of the utter contempt it seems to stir in so many persons.

Romantic love is a terribly irrational emotion. It makes no sense when analyzed carefully. Few doubt its compelling nature, however, when they have been subjected to its influence.

The urge to end one's own suffering can be just as compelling and consuming as love can be. Ironically, it can also be just as compelling and consuming as the will to survive. Suicide is not a moral choice. It is an overwhelming urge that sometimes is not overcome by reason, love, influence, outreach, or force. Too often, that overwhelming urge claims the lives of persons whose only crime is enduring too much emotional pain.

It is just wrong to judge a person in unbearable pain for succumbing to the overwhelming urge to put an end to that pain. I hold that that is what your comments suggest you have been doing, although I could be wrong. I believe also that many others have been doing the same, as suggested by some other comments in this thread and by those I have observed in society at large.

I lament that judgment and the lack of understanding which fuels it. My hope is for a better understanding of the illness which sometimes compels persons to end their own lives tragically. Perhaps a better understanding could lead to greater intervention and greater prevention of suicide.

Helping identify persons who are feeling overwhelmed and desperate and assisting them to restore the balance between stress and coping mechanisms is a positive, rational measure to take. So is taking reasonable measures to keep them from hurting themselves, just as we restrain young toddlers with gates to keep them from falling down stairs. On the other hand, turning a cold shoulder to those around us suffering with emotional pain from depression is no less callous than dismissing persons suffering from more tangible physical ills like MD or AIDS.

Surely you can understand that. Thanks again for your comments and your participation in this thread. I do appreciate your interest.

AS

[billydkid]

I think they should hire armed guards at the bridge to shoot people attempting to commit suicide. Furthermore, I think attempted suicide should be a capitol offense. We need a stronger deterent to people committing these kind of criminal offenses.

[corplinx]

Instead of putting a barrier, charge jumpers a fee. That ought to deter them.

[Luciana]

<<<--- the artist who drew my avatar has committed suicide a few months ago. He threw himself off his window. According to the newspaper, the reasons for his death were unkown. I came to know the real reason through the journalist who covered the case.

According to her, it's a rule in respectable newspaper to never publicize a suicide unless absolutely necessary. I was about to ask why, but then I knew it.

It is well established that advertizing suicides significantly increases the number of suicides, that wouldn't have happened if not for this knowledge. That is, there's an uncommon peak of suicides following that of a famous case, and this peak, very curiously, will happen from 3 to 4 days after the suicide. Not only that, but people will also emulate the means and will most likely resemble the victim in the first place - age, sex, ethinicity.

(I have the references for these studies in a book, which I don't have it available now, but I can't look it up if anyone is interested).

It's a very interesting frame of mind, indeed. If a person is depressed and contemplating suicide, hearing of someone who summoned the courage and did it, seems to be a trigger by itself.

An anecdote now: in Rio there's an 8-mile-long bridge with no barrier whatsoever. Suicides have always been common there, and the only preventive measure were cameras. In this bridge, only cars are allowed. So, if a car stops, the administration will immediately send help. But if you want to die, you have to be fast: open your car's door and throw yourself into the bay's waters. Very easy and accessible to anyone.

I don't remember having ever read about a suicide there, although it seemed quite obvious (another case of the media hiding it?). A few years ago, we had a few more insights in the situation when a 9-year-old boy, not wearing a seat belt, was thrown into the water after a car accident. He survived and swam to an island.

That case was very famous. A boy! Survived that fall! Later, the newspaper ran a piece of news about the "characters of the year". Hugging him, was the administrator of the bridge. He said "he's a hero in more ways than one. There wasn't a single suicide attempt in the last 9 months." I was amazed. None!

As Luke said earlier - survivability is a factor. If a boy survived, then it's not guaranteed, right?

Maybe the suicide rates are not so high at the Golden Gate? Maybe if only there was a way of ending this "mystique" regarding killing yourself in that bridge? I don't know if it's pragmatic, though.

[Skeptic]

If I person is able bodied and has the will to do it, nothing is going to stop them.

Not true, and, perhaps, the biggest myth about suicide there is. Suicide is usually (although, of course, not always) a momentary impulse, which will pass if one has no means of suicide available.

And why should we try and stop them anyway?

For this reason. Did you never have any moment of despair in your life, when you wish you were dead? I'll bet yu did. Had there been an easily-available, painless way of dying, you would have taken it? I'll bet you would have.

What happened to that impulse to die? It passed. What got you through it? Many reasons, usually, but the fact that you COULDN'T easily kill yourself no doubt played a role. Are you sorry you didn't kill yourself then? Almost certainly not.

It is a civic responsiblity to make it hard for people to commit suicide from public places, for the same reason it is a civic responsiblity to make it hard for people to hurt themselves in pubic places in other ways.

And least when someone is jumping off of a bridge, they're only harming themselves.

Not true, as anybody who had a son, a sister, or a parent who committed suicide would instantly tell you. Being "pro-suicide" is like being "pro-drug-overdose" or "pro-alcoholism". Just because you're "only hurting yourself" is hardly a reason to support something, let alone the fact that it almost never is "only hurting yourself".

As for euthenasia, that's a whole other kettle of fish... but let's put it this way: who do you think will get the "voluntary and fully consensual" death-by-doctor? The guy who can pay... or the poor man whose continual existence is costing the HMO money? And if he still insists he doesn't want to die yet, that's no problem: "missing" his anti-pain medication will work wonders to "convince" him his life is worthless.

[Girl 6]

Okay, I'd like to offer some more insights from San Francisco. :)

I'm quite certain that the suicides that happen on the Golden Gate Bridge occur at night. That's because during the day, there are hordes of people walking across the span. This leads me to think that at some level, most people contemplating suicide are seeking some kind of isolation.

If it is true that human contact will reverse suicidal tendencies, why don't we see these people trying to commit suicide in broad daylight with lots of people looking on? I think this supports Luke's contention that isolation is at the heart of this.

There were a couple of interesting side points pertaining to how much the life of one person is worth. As heartless as this may be to say, I think that this has a direct bearing on the cost of preventative measures regarding suicide. When this is weighed against other social programs that would prevent suicides at an earlier stage, I think that people would not favor funding the barriers.

As for American's remarks concerning San Francisco. It's quite obvious to me that he has no clue about the character of the city nor of the people that inhabit it. Sadly, though, it probably would be one of the few places that would tolerate him. ;)

With all else aside, I'm quite sure that one of the main factors that draws suicidal people to the bridge are the spectacular views and the easy access. Perhaps these people have some notion of the romantic nature of their death. I don't know. All I know is that it is sad and we do need to have some compassion in order to help these people.

G6

[Suezoled]

I've been sipping a little wine. I'm a little floaty now.

So, maybe this is why I'm going to share this story. And it's not pleasant.

There was darkeness in my vision, though I could see the sun. There was hell in my heart even though I smiled. My limbs were heavy even though I could run a few miles a day, easily. Food was nothing. Touching other people was nothing. They were as cold as I felt. The reasons for my internal ache don't matter; it was pain and leave it that is was sufficient. I slept. I dreamed. I was never rested. I skipped classes. I skipped meals. I was bent double, I hurt so much. I couldn't see anything except the handfuls of pills I downed. They were bitter and sour and reminded me I was alive. I slashed my lower limbs with a German razor; flesh parted and I could see the muscles, the visceral layers, the yellow fat. I cracked and screamed. And still felt disjointed, as if I were looking out of a stranger's eyes. The college campus Resident Assistants found me. I hadn't thought of them. I hadn't thought of my friends. Or my family. I had left a note asking to please take care of Stanley and Celaeno, my hedgehogs. I hadn't thought... about moving beyond my pain.

The doctor at the hospital was yelling at me, asking me why I was so stupid. I felt so calm, and so cold, and so detached. I calmly told her she was a stupid mean b*tch and to leave me alone.
The hospital put a tube down my throat. I don't remember much beyond that.
I woke in the hospital. I have no memory of being there beyond the first 24 hours. I don't need any organ transplants. My leg was stapled shut.
I went home from college for a year.

I am depressed. I've been depressed since I was a child. I struggle to get out of bed in the morning. I struggle sometimes not to cut myself open to deal with stress. I've been doing so much better, though, since then. Someday, I would like to know what happiness is.

Why would you want to help a suicidal person? If you have the opportunity to save someone, you would pass it up? You would turn your back? Would you ridicule the person who is in pain? Would you hide your own discomforts and insecurities about death and emotional distress by blaming the suicidal person?

Then, how very sad, to give up so easily yourself.

[Badger]

Suezoled, my heart goes out to you. Thanks for sharing that.

I was driving down the hwy one day, and saw a guy standing on the pedestrian bridge, over it. I could tell he was going to jump, because I knew the look. I'd had that same look myself, years ago.

So I cut across traffic, and pulled over, and by the time I got stopped and out of the car, he wasn't on the bridge anymore. But there were tires screeching, and vehicles swerving. I got back in my car and drove on home, in shock. I heard on the radio that "traffic was backed up because a pedestrian had been hit". The next day, I read about him in the paper.

I often wonder what would have happened if I'd been 5 minutes earlier. I think a person's got to at least try to help.

[Eos of the Eons]

On the topic of depression...

Bang your knee against something hard. You get a bruise. It heals. Bang your knee against something hard for months...non-stop...it will become so damaged that it cannot ever heal on its own without medical attention.

This is what happens to your brain under constant stress or strain...constant anxiety, constant fear as well. The longer the duration of bad horrible stress, the worse off your brain will be.

Do this with drugs and alcohol as well. Sooner or later you will cause permanent damage.

Depression, severe depression, is a result of the 'damage' your brain has sustained over months or years of horrible stress. You can't just snap out of it.

Why do drugs help? Because it allows the brain chemicals to return to a normal pre-damaged state of balance. This allows for a person to start the healing process. You have to stop banging your knee against the wall before it can heal. The drugs allow this damage to cease long enough so that it can heal.

There are other ways to stop the damage. Intense therapy or extreme relaxation. Drugs help when the depression has lasted for years. It's best then to add in therapy as well so that you learn to manage stress and your life in a way that it won't damage you again.

You have to stop banging your knee against the hard object, and stop what lead up to banging your knee against the hard object.

The banging is the effect of the cause. You have to fix the cause in order to make sure to stop the effect.

I know this because I was depressed from age 8-severely. I had reasons, and you can't hardly expect a child to know how to deal with unmanageable stress and horrific situations. Thus I also had low self esteem and had to do everything for myself once I left home. I had noone to live with so that I could go to high school and save money for college. I had to spend that money on living expenses. So I got into major debt trying to go to college. Mix that with working three jobs and raising a child on your own. At no point in my life was a relief from horrendous stress.

It was just constant extreme stress. You can't believe how it is not living with depression when you've been depressed for so long. It's weird, but I'm getting used to it. I am now grateful for medication when I used to be the sort to even reject aspirin.

Once I was on the medication I could finally see what I could do about the stress-with help through therapy and other things.

I may never be able to stop taking the medication. I don't care. For once I don't wish I was dead.

[American]

Originally posted by Girl 6

As for American's remarks concerning San Francisco. It's quite obvious to me that he has no clue about the character of the city nor of the people that inhabit it. Sadly, though, it probably would be one of the few places that would tolerate him.


Maybe. I had a roommate from S.F., and he was real a jerk. If everyone out there was like him, then I'd say the city is OK. But from watching "Crazy Like a Fox" and assorted gay-phenomenon documentaries on PBS, I have to say they don't live up to my standards of bitter meanness and self-punishment.


"Arizona Bay." Thanks Bill Hicks, I'm a comedian too!

[AmateurScientist]

Thanks so much, Suezold, for your painful story. You very vividly and accurately describe how horrible and overwhelming depression can feel.

Thanks also to Badger for your kind understanding and compassion. You are a good man with a kind heart.

Also, Eos, your explanation of the need to stop the banging on your knee is a good, apt analogy. I know exactly what you mean about coming out of a long depression and feeling weird about it. It is disorienting to feel "normal" after knowing only stress and despair and depression for years on end. As bizarre as it sounds, one almost longs for the familiar feelings, or lack thereof, because having some sense of normalcy can leave one with doubt and uncertainty as to what to do next. It's sort of like the dog who catches the car he's been chasing. Now what?

I hope others can read what the three of you have written above and walk away with a little more humility and empathy.

We could all use more of those.

AS

[Julia]

A few years ago, a neighbor of mine was a man who was one of the survivors who had jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge.
It happened in the early 1970's when he was in his early 20's. He had grown up in S.F. and was going to college there.

I don't believe that the phones exsisted on the bridge back then, but from listening to him, he wouldn't have used one anyway. He had left his flat - which wasn't far from the bridge - that morning with purpose and determination. He wanted to die, and decided on a way that he felt was a sure-thing.

Waking up in the hospital, he said he was angry. It hadn't gone the way he had planned. I'm not sure what all had transpired by the time I met him. He was married, had a child, a job that he loved, and many friends. He said that every day he was grateful that things had turned out the way they had.

It makes me wonder. How many of the hopeless, if given another chance like Bob had, would be grateful. Of course not all. Some, like my cousin, would keep trying until she "got it right". Which she finally did at age 33.

I too worked on a suicide hotline. There were those that called, so in need of human contact, to reach out, to hear a voice of someone who would listen. Those I felt good about, felt I had made a difference. Some would call back, days or weeks later to say thank you. Then there were those, who called and said they had the gun already pointed at their head, and mine was the last voice they heard.

Of course if I knew that someone was suicidal I would do what I could to try to help. But I'm not sure, on a social level, just how far we should go to place barriers to try to save someone. It's just one more thing I don't have an answer for. But I am inclined to think that before we spend a lot of money trying to save people by building higher bridges, that money would be better spent making programs more available that offer emotion support, and affordable medication for the seriously depressed.

[shuize]

AS,

I'm not sure I'm in the majority on this. On each occasion when the young men killed themselves, the instinctive reaction among court workers was that we should have done more for them. Having a connection to both cases I was sorry that the services provided were not enough help. But I also understood that they were not operating on an unlimited budget.

Every year the court ran out of discretionary funds well before the end of the year. That's where I think the "if it saves even one life" argument leads to irrational results. The court could have spent its entire discretionary budget on those two young men and maybe it would have made a difference, maybe not. It's impossible to know. We do know, however, that if the court had spent all of its funds on them it would have run out of money even sooner and there would have been hundreds or even thousands of others that would have to do without any services.

In such a situation it is neither cold nor merciless to consider how much suicide prevention will cost. It is fair to ask how much anything will cost, including your example of medical treatment above (which society naturally expects patients to bear some of their own expenses). Understanding that we do not have unlimited resources is a necessary first step in deciding how we ration among possible equally valid alternative uses. Thomas Sowell made this point much better than I can in his work Basic Economics. He also pointed out how the "if it saves even one life" argument is often a clever emotional dodge to avoid having to answer this difficult rationing question.

Even during the short time I worked around the juvenile court, I heard literally thousands of juveniles threaten to kill themselves. I'm glad that I only knew two who actually did. The young man who shot himself at home had made previous threats. He came from a very wealthy family who, in addition to services provided by the juvenile court, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on treatment. The other young man in detention never made any sort of threat (the court was trying services other than suicide counseling). He just went back to his cell one day and hanged himself. Sometimes treatment works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you know who try to help. Sometimes you don't. In the cases of these two young men, they were both determined to destroy themselves.

I don't believe I have "contempt" for those who suffer from mental illness as you suggest (But as Carl Sagan often noted, I could be wrong). I stated above that I give all credit to the police and hotline counselors who try and talk potential suicides out of it. However, I do think there comes a point when reasonable people can fairly say the are not interested in having to live their lives around others (who for whatever reason don't want to live theirs) without being made to feel guilty for lack of compassion. Asking "How much will it cost to 'suicide proof' every bridge in San Francisco?" is a fair question. Asking "How long will I have to wait in traffic?" when stuck on a bridge waiting for someone to decide whether their life is worth living is a fair question. And asking "How much uglier are safety advocates planing on making the Golden Gate Bridge?" is also a fair question. As I mentioned above, if we lived in a world with unlimited treasure, time and beauty, such questions would not be necessary.

[AmateurScientist]

OK, if you must ask the question "How much would it cost," then the author of the article I cited gave his estimate. I don't have the article in front of me at the moment, and I don't know where he got his information, but my recollection is that he wrote it was about $2.5 million for the GGB. He noted in the article that the board had on its table proposals it was considering implementing to install a divider in the road to prevent head on collisions (about $5 million), and a bicycle safety barrier (about $3 million, I think).

He also notes that the annual budget was well in excess of $250 million or so.

Does that provide some perspective?

Consider that the police and rescue services to recover 26 bodies a year from the bay, not to mention the many more jumpers who are talked down by police, has to cost a great deal of money that is already being spent. Don't you think that redirecting those resources into a simple, effective barrier for prevention might be a reasonable measure to take?

For Ed's sake, it's not like anyone's proposing spending inordinate amounts of money here. Our society already spends untold amounts on safety measures to prevent tragic accidents. Are you calling into question safety measures altogether? I doubt it.

Why then, are reasonable suicide prevention measures so fundamentally different? That's the impression I get from your comments.

I simply do not understand your apparent casual dismissal of the feasibility or desirability of an anti-jumper barrier. I say "casual" fully appreciating that you have had some previous involvement with troubled juveniles. Your comments lead me to conclude that you disdain persons who seriously contemplate or commit suicide. Again, I insist that you do not understand depression, else you wouldn't use phrases like "who for whatever reason don't want to live theirs."

AS

[Eos of the Eons]

It's definitely not the bridges or building or guns that need to be sucide proofed.

An understanding of depression to everyone would be the best prevention. Knowing what kind of help a person needs, even if the suicidal person doesn't even know, would go along way.

What does a suicidal/depressed person need? To know for sure that things will get better and WHY.

You have to look at where they are at in their lives and teach them how to deal with stress and the anxiety of facing the world every day. They need to know they don't have to do everything themselves, or be perfect, or whatever they are most worried about (each case is different). Then talk to them about where they want to go, and point them to some resources.

This would be most helpful.

Some people are hopeless for various reasons, and for whatever reason they will surely accomplish their goal of dying.

Just look at how painful life can be...and then people talk about this 'heaven' and 'peace' after death. Sounds so very tempting. I tell my kids that they have only one life to live and it is a gift. Death holds nothing for them.

At sixteen I tried to change my outlook on life...think that it couldn't get worse, and to think of it as an adventure. Sad thing is that it did get worse because I didn't know how to make it better. I had no idea where to get help. I felt alone and drowning in a sea of giving my all and getting nothing back.

I felt horrible about myself and wondered why I couldn't be more happy go lucky and outgoing. I did beat myself up about that among other things.

It wasn't until I was told I was just as good of a person as an introvert and how what gifts I had would be lost if I was what I thought I 'should' be. Learning our individual strengths and how to appreciate and use them goes a long way to helping someone in the healing process.

Homosexuals have the highest rate of suicide because they feel they aren't accepted, and they are told there is something wrong with them, that they are even evil. Even if they are very gifted at something, their families or society ostrasize them. It makes it difficult to get a job or make friends. The stress piles up. The same goes for folks who are more introverted and not the 'life of the party'. Or people whose parents are pushing them to be someone or do something they can't be or do.

I had to find out that being who I am was not so bad. And I finally learned to manage stress, but it had to be taught to me.

What do you do when you're fired? What do you do when you lose a loved one. Those are all stresses that have to be managed. How do you look forward and deal with losses? Some people never learn how to go on, and they don't.


Everyone also has a different threshold for stress. Mine is lower than average because, like the damaged knee, there is some permanent damage there. The saying 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' isn't quite true. It will hopefully always make you wiser though.

These people need help, and don't even know what kind. I now know, and I will teach my kids.

[peptoabysmal]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist


No one in this thread is advocating doing that.

Straw man.

The issue here is whether or not a simple, relatively cheap method of deterring suicides at the GGB should be employed. Yes or no.

AS

How about the issue of whether or not this method will actually reduce suicides? Any stats on the effect of barriers in reducing suicide rates?

I haven't been able to find any good stats on this myself, or I'd post them. I have, however found that the impetus for these kind of barriers is due to civil law suits filed to recover damages for loss of life in these cases.

I'll throw out the claim that the only real reason these barriers are put up is to protect property owners (the state included) from law suits. They are not really put up to protect people from themselves.

One man's metaphor is another's Straw Man. I never said anyone was advocating coating California in foam rubber, that would be silly. So if we use colorful speech to describe a condition, it is now reduced to being percieved as creating a fallicious argument for the purpose of shooting it down?

The argument that we 'should' protect people from themselves is an Argumentum ad Populum. In other words, it's a popular view; therefore it must be correct.

[shuize]

I'll agree with the protection from lawsuits angle.

Personal responsibility is dead.

Spill a cup of hot coffee on yourself? Not your fault. Sue McDonalds for millions.

Can't take life in the fast lane and jump off a bridge? Not your fault. If you survive, sue the city for not building the barriers high enough. Leave instructions for your family to do so, in case you don't.

"Suicide proofing" the Golden Gate is just feel good legislation that would not likely address the underlying problem. But hey, spend three million dollars, or however much it costs to move jumpers to the next nearest bridge. Or to the nearby cliffs. Or to the running car in the garage. Or the pill cabnet. Or the oven. If that's what it costs to make people feel better about "doing something," knock yourselves out.

I'm not sure how many rotations of this earth I have left. However many, I'm sure it won't be enough. If someone else wants to check out early, I think the first thing we should do is call for help. Try and get them in counseling. If you care, tell them. Put them on medication. Hell, even lock them in a mental hospital if possible.

But after they're released they still want to punch the E-ticket off the bridge on their way out, I say: let them. I'd only ask two things of them:

1) Do it right. Nobody wants to take care of a vegetable.
2) Have enough courtesy not to hit anyone else on the way down.

Personally, I think that most people who jump change their minds half way down -- thus explaining the flailing of arms and legs.

[AmateurScientist]

Now I get it. It's all the fault of lawyers. Thanks for illuminating me.

AS

[billydkid]

Originally posted by shuize
I'll agree with the protection from lawsuits angle.

Personal responsibility is dead.

Spill a cup of hot coffee on yourself? Not your fault. Sue McDonalds for millions.



I agree about attitudes toward personal responsibility, but there is more to the McDonalds story than one might be lead to believe - as is often the case with anecdotes intended to illicit outrage.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by peptoabysmal


I haven't been able to find any good stats on this myself, or I'd post them. I have, however found that the impetus for these kind of barriers is due to civil law suits filed to recover damages for loss of life in these cases.



Nope. The few suits that are actually filed claiming such a thing are always (that means 100% of the time) dismissed on motion to dismiss or on motion for summary judgment. They never make it to trial, as there is simply no basis in law for recovery in any jurisdiction. Sorry, but thanks for trotting out that old canard.

The impetus for these things often comes from the police and rescue workers who see the horrific aftermath and who witness the jumpings themselves.

Contrary to what others have asserted here, many jumping do occur in broad daylight. The story in The New Yorker recounts some of them.


The argument that we 'should' protect people from themselves is an Argumentum ad Populum. In other words, it's a popular view; therefore it must be correct.

Nope again. Quite the opposite. The popular view is the foolish one being championed on this board. The idiots can kill themselves if they want. Just don't inconvenience me.

Very nice.

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by peptoabysmal


How about the issue of whether or not this method will actually reduce suicides? Any stats on the effect of barriers in reducing suicide rates?


There are two distinct issues here. One, will an effective barrier reduce the suicides committed by jumping of the GGB? Unquestionably yes, given both the purpose of the barriers themselves and the already available wealth of data from countless other bridges with such barriers.

Two, will it reduce suicides overall? Maybe, maybe not. I find this question to be relevant on one hand, and irrelevant on the other.

Consider this. It is at least preferable that the city and its residents do not have jumpers from the bridge than to have them, even if those same potential jumpers go somewhere else to kill themselves.

I do not accept the notion that 100% of twarted potentional jumpers will eventually kill themselves using another means. Your argument seems to be premised upon this as a true assumption of fact.

AS

[hammegk]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist

If this were true, it would imply that highly rational, non-spiritual persons are doomed to failure in treating their depression. Of course, you know that is simply not true.
I know that? How?


No one needs God or any supernatural force to overcome depression. Science, not spirituality, has provided the best and most effective breakthroughs in the effective treatment of depression. The most effective treatments to date for most types of depression have been chemical.
Certainly drug companies continue to make money selling chemical treatments. But "suicides prevented", "drug-dependencies cured"; do you have some stats?


Spiritual treatments alone, in this context, can be properly regarded as woo-woo treatments. I think relying on them alone is very dangerous.

So do drug companies & doctors. ;)

Let's not even think of the class-action lawsuits yet to be manufactured & filed.


As to worry about suicides on GGB, I agree with billydkid. Shoot 'em if they look like they might jump -- death penalty for survivors.

[Eos of the Eons]

Drug dependence is not a bad thing for many people
-schizophrenics
-tourettes syndrome patients
-anti-rejection drugs after transplants

and yes, even those who have suffered severe depression. Look to my previous post to see why.

I didn't need any spiritual mumbo jumbo to help me. In fact, it made me feel a hell of a lot worse. My therapist simply taught me some life skills in dealing with stress and not being so hard on myself.

I'm on meds, but I shouldn't be made to feel that gods are better than meds and then go to some stupid church and go off my meds and get suicidal again.

Meds/drugs aren't something that should be stigmantized-so stop it.

Paying for the medication enables them to make more. It's a service that is vital. Just like having a water treatment plant to clean our water before we drink it. I'm quite happy to pay my water bill.

[Suezoled]

However, I do think there comes a point when reasonable people can fairly say the are not interested in having to live their lives around others (who for whatever reason don't want to live theirs) without being made to feel guilty for lack of compassion

We can preserve the beauty of the bridge by sticking little "Suicide Booths" on either end of the bridge. People can park in the Suicide Lot, and walk to the booth. They go in, and some machine/ device/ chemical kills them. At the end of the day, the Suicide Cleanup crew can pick up the bodies and cart them away. There. That would fix everything.


"to feel guilty for lack of compassion..."

Do you require empathy for feeling the way you do?
I don't hold it against you, feeling what you do. I get tired too. I would do everything in my power to help someone if I could. But they are the ones who must work to better lives; there is no magic wand to wave to make things better. It is, however, harder, to work for better, because they're already down, and it takes so much effort to feel normal, and do normal things, and deal with normal feelings. And then to go beyond normal, or even to achieve normal, or rather, "healthy" would be a better term, takes more effort. Akin it to swimming as opposed to swimming with shoes on. They were swimming with shoes on for a long time, struggling to make the same progress but with a greater impediment.
Well, if you don't care, don't duck their head under water, okay?

And if you really do feel guilty for lack of compassion, that is something else that no one else but yourself can work on.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by shuize

But after they're released they still want to punch the E-ticket off the bridge on their way out, I say: let them. I'd only ask two things of them:

1) Do it right. Nobody wants to take care of a vegetable.
2) Have enough courtesy not to hit anyone else on the way down.

Personally, I think that most people who jump change their minds half way down -- thus explaining the flailing of arms and legs.

I'm not a guilt monger. I hate guilt as an emotion or manipulative tool. It's nothing but a destruction emotion.

Guilt is not the same as crassness or lack of compassion or empathy. Your attitude smacks of the latter.

I've lost all patience with you in this thread. I think you're being an ignorant jerk in your last couple of posts in this thread. You are in need of education or re-education about this issue as much as any severely depressed person is in need of immediate medical attention.

AS

[shuize]

AS,

After I complemented your writing skills ...

Oh well. As I stated earlier, I'm sorry if you think I have any "contempt" for the jumpers or their families. I don't.

In fact, as you'll see from my last post, I recommend massive intervention if possible. (I wish you had quoted that portion when calling me an "ignorant jerk") But at the end of the day, if someone is so determined to destroy themselves, a higher barrier at the Golden Gate Bridge will not solve the problem. Feel-good legislation usually doesn't. But it does give politicians and other do-gooders the opportunity to pat themselves on the back and congratulate themselves for "doing something." After all, as they say, "if it saves even one life, it's worth it." Nevermind that all they've really done is move the jumpers to the next nearest bridge. Or the nearby cliffs. Or their garage. Or their kitchen. Surely one would have to be an "ignorant jerk" to point that out...

After spending the three million dollars to modify the Golden Gate, you would certainly agree that all the bridges in San Francisco should be similarly equipped at similar costs -- and then the surrounding cliffs as well. Nevermind that this too, as you've agreed above, may or may not have any effect on the overall suicide rate. But at least we're "doing something," right?

I stand by my earlier post. If you really wants to do something when worried about a potential suicide, first call for help. Put them in counseling. Tell them you care. Get them on medication. Lock them in a mental hospital.

But I guess those suggestions weren't enough. The missing element is that I should also feel guilty about not caring more. So be it. I'm crass. I lack compassion and empathy because I think if someone still trys to kill themselves after all the intervention possible we should recognize that it's not our fault. I'm crass because I think those of us who want to tough it out for a few more revolutions shouldn't have to live their lives around those who don't. Oh, and heaven forbid, joke about it.

In the very final equation, we're all going to the same place as the jumpers. Albeit, not quite as quickly. If we can't joke about it, what the hell's the point?

P.S. My parenthetical above that you took issue with about people "who for whatever reason don't want to live theirs" was not a slap at anyone contemplating suicide. It was a recognition that there is more than one reason people kill themselves. That statement, at least, was not meant to give offense.

[Eos of the Eons]

The missing element is that I should also feel guilty about not caring more. So be it. I'm crass. I lack compassion and empathy because I think if someone still trys to kill themselves after all the intervention possible we should recognize that it's not our fault. I'm crass because I think those of us who want to tough it out for a few more revolutions shouldn't have to live their lives around those who don't.

I certainly have to agree with that. A person can only do so much for another.

It's also the suicidal person's responsibility to get help and not just feel someone else has to fix them. Noone can fix them, just give them the tools.

Some are lost before they get the tools, some are lost even when they have been handed the tools.

Never blame yourself for another person's death, unless you murdered them. Noone pushes those jumpers off the bridge.

[tim]

Originally posted by Eos of the Eons


I certainly have to agree with that. A person can only do so much for another.

It's also the suicidal person's responsibility to get help and not just feel someone else has to fix them. Noone can fix them, just give them the tools.

Some are lost before they get the tools, some are lost even when they have been handed the tools.

Never blame yourself for another person's death, unless you murdered them. Noone pushes those jumpers off the bridge.

I understand exactly what you mean. It is their own decision. I just doesn't seem that way when you've been talking to them for many hours (my longest call has been six and a half hours) reaching out a hand to them - but they slip from your grasp.
Then you start with the "what if I'd said that?"

[calladus]

Originally posted by Julia
But I am inclined to think that before we spend a lot of money trying to save people by building higher bridges, that money would be better spent making programs more available that offer emotion support, and affordable medication for the seriously depressed.

Here here!

If we thought of everyone as potentially suicidal, how much better would we treat them?

Would we pay more attention to signs of anguish? Of need of human contact? Would we smile? Say hello? Listen to a problem?

A barrier on the bridge may increase their anguish, and make them 'get smart' and actually plan their suicide. That sort of determination would be hard to stop.

But a smile and a gesture of kindness may be what they need to start turning their life around. Maybe the attention of a kind person will lead to the realization that more needs to be done to help.

[peptoabysmal]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist


There are two distinct issues here. One, will an effective barrier reduce the suicides committed by jumping of the GGB? Unquestionably yes, given both the purpose of the barriers themselves and the already available wealth of data from countless other bridges with such barriers.

Two, will it reduce suicides overall? Maybe, maybe not. I find this question to be relevant on one hand, and irrelevant on the other.

Consider this. It is at least preferable that the city and its residents do not have jumpers from the bridge than to have them, even if those same potential jumpers go somewhere else to kill themselves.

I do not accept the notion that 100% of twarted potentional jumpers will eventually kill themselves using another means. Your argument seems to be premised upon this as a true assumption of fact.

AS

Where did I say that 100% of the potential jumpers will find some other way?

What I am trying to get at is that these barriers probably do very little to reduce overall suicide. The main purpose of the barriers seems to be to keep the property owners from having civil law suits brought against them if someone does jump, not some great humanitarian cause.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by hammegk

I know that? How?



hammegk,

*You* don't actually *know* anything, do you?

AS

[hammegk]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist


*You* don't actually *know* anything, do you?

AS

I know that you wish you could provide facts to demonstrate the correctness of your position here. Or, if you can, why not do so?

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by tim


I understand exactly what you mean. It is their own decision. I just doesn't seem that way when you've been talking to them for many hours (my longest call has been six and a half hours) reaching out a hand to them - but they slip from your grasp.
Then you start with the "what if I'd said that?"

Yeah it sucks. Always keep in mind that there may be an underlying drug or alcohol problem, or another mental illness. My brother in law was manic depressive and an alcoholic. No matter what anyone did, he finally hung himself. He had been taken to the psych ward, he had a psychiatrist, etc. He refused meds and was racist about 'the packie psychiatrist'. The psychiatrist wasn't a packie, he was egyptian.


THe night he hung himself His friend had stayed with him until he thought my brother in law would sleep. He hung himself shortly after his friend left.


Never beat yourself up too much. You have your own sanity to worry about. It's too hard to tell the whole story about strangers over the phone.

[Luke T.]

I really don't think putting a barrier on the GGB will lower the suicide rate in that city one iota. Guess our friend in Toronto will have to let us know in a year or so if the new barrier on their bridge affected the suicide rate in his city.

Doubt it.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by Skeptic

Originally posted by MoeFaux
If I person is able bodied and has the will to do it, nothing is going to stop them.
Not true, and, perhaps, the biggest myth about suicide there is. Suicide is usually (although, of course, not always) a momentary impulse, which will pass if one has no means of suicide available.

Not true (and MoeFaux's point is not a myth); whilst there are "impulsive" suicides, there are "planners" who've though about and planned their death for weeks, if not months, and who will try and keep trying until they succeed or until there in such a state of medication that they can't. One of the things about "impulsive" suicides is that they typically use means which are immediately available to them; they're usually not going to bother with looking for a high place to jump off. Another aspect is that it's males who typically (but not exclusively) commit suicide out of the home.

Short of issuing everybody with compulsory cotton wool straitjackets, focussing resources on stopping people when they're about to commit the act strikes me as problematic; sure, barriers will stop people from using certain locations, but that is not the end of the problem. I don't see how that can be disentangled from the larger issue of suicide prevention/reduction without taking a particularly cynical nimby attitude. Unfortunately I suspect that really getting to grips with the issue is going to take a critical examination of contemporary values of individualism and consumerism, and somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

[shuize]

Originally posted by BillyTK
Not true (and MoeFaux's point is not a myth); whilst there are "impulsive" suicides, there are "planners" who've though about and planned their death for weeks, if not months, and who will try and keep trying until they succeed or until there in such a state of medication that they can't. One of the things about "impulsive" suicides is that they typically use means which are immediately available to them; they're usually not going to bother with looking for a high place to jump off. Another aspect is that it's males who typically (but not exclusively) commit suicide out of the home.

Short of issuing everybody with compulsory cotton wool straitjackets, focussing resources on stopping people when they're about to commit the act strikes me as problematic; sure, barriers will stop people from using certain locations, but that is not the end of the problem. I don't see how that can be disentangled from the larger issue of suicide prevention/reduction without taking a particularly cynical nimby attitude. Unfortunately I suspect that really getting to grips with the issue is going to take a critical examination of contemporary values of individualism and consumerism, and somehow I don't think that's going to happen.


I was with you right up until the last sentence. What, pray tell, do individualism and, even more so, consumerism have to do with suicide prevention?

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by BillyTK
Not true (and MoeFaux's point is not a myth); whilst there are "impulsive" suicides, there are "planners" who've though about and planned their death for weeks, if not months, and who will try and keep trying until they succeed or until there in such a state of medication that they can't. One of the things about "impulsive" suicides is that they typically use means which are immediately available to them; they're usually not going to bother with looking for a high place to jump off.From the article in question in The New Yorker:A familiar argument against [constructing] a [suicide] barrier [on the Golden Gate Bridge] is that thwarted jumpers will simply go elsewhere. ... Although this belief makes intuitive sense, it is demonstrably untrue. Dr. [Richard] Seiden's study, "Where Are They Now?," published in 1978, followed up on five hundred and fifteen people who were prevented from attempting suicide at the bridge between 1937 and 1971. After, on average, more than twenty-six years, ninety-four percent of the would-be suicides were either still alive or had died of natural causes. "The findings confirm previous observations that suicidal behavior is crisis-oriented and acute in nature," Seiden concluded; if you can get a suicidal person through his crisis - Seiden put the high-risk period at ninety days - chances are extremely good that he won't kill himself later.

[Luke T.]

Look. It is very simple. Talking someone out of jumping off a bridge may help to keep them alive for many more years until they die a natural death. Fine. I totally can buy that.

But if a person knows a priori there is a barrier on a bridge, then the bridge does not even enter into their calculations of what way to kill themselves. Therefore, there is no chance of them being talked into not jumping off it and surviving for another fifty years. Get it?

I just don't buy that barriers save lives.

What do you think? A guy wants to kill himself, and is sitting in his living room thinking, "Well, if I can't jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, it just ain't worth doing. Nothing but the best for me!"

No. He's thinking, "I want to end this pain. What will work?"

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by shuize



I was with you right up until the last sentence. What, pray tell, do individualism and, even more so, consumerism have to do with suicide prevention?

I was posting on my lunch break (I'm now on my coffee break ;) ) and didn't really have time to expand on that. Basically, the problem with individualism is that independence and self-reliance are useful values but become destructive when people are unable to express their needs and when others are unwilling to pay attention to this. Fundamentally we're social creatures, and anything which alienates us from that is going to cause problems.

As for consumerism, imo people are more important than consumer goods, and defining people by their ownership of goods is a very weak measure. Relationships (and the quality of those relationships) are a better measure. I've nothing against owning stuff (w-e-l-l, I have, but that's a different kettle of philosophy), but it's a means to an end, not the end in itself that consumerism posits.

Edited to add
Keynotes version

Basically, we do have obligations and responsibilities for each other outside of the economic sphere. Unfortunately it seems that economic values have displaced this.

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by Luke T.
What do you think? A guy wants to kill himself, and is sitting in his living room thinking, "Well, if I can't jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, it just ain't worth doing. Nothing but the best for me!"Surprisingly enough, something not unlike this does seem to form part of the mentality of at least some Golden Gate jumpers. Again, from the article:There is a fatal grandeur to the place. ... [Some suicides from the East Bay] have crossed the Bay Bridge to jump from the Golden Gate; there is no record of anyone traversing the Golden Gate to leap from its unlovely sister bridge. Dr. Richard Seiden, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Public Health and the leading researcher on suicide at the bridge, has written that studies reveal "a commonly held attitude that romanticizes suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge in such terms as aesthetically pleasing and beautiful, while regarding a Bay Bridge suicide as tacky."

[AmateurScientist]

ceo-esq,

Thanks for picking up the banner for me. I appreciate your advocating the same position and being smart enough actually to quote from the article itself, as I was too foolish to do.

I will retire from this debate, as you seem to have it well in hand.

Good luck.

AS

[ArmchairPhysicist]

If an equal amount of money was put into the law enforcement budget, would an extra patrolman be affordable? Would the presence of one extra patrolman on the streets be enough to deter one major crime every two weeks?

Considering the impressive success rate of jumpers, I'd say that it's a safe bet that the people who jump are pretty serious about getting it right. In other words, they weren't just people out for a midnight stroll and suddenly thought "Hey, the view looks beautiful from here. I wonder how it would look if I were traveling very fast in a downward direction." Nope, they went to the bridge specifically to die. If the bridge were removed from their list of options, how many of those success stories would have found another method? I'd say a few, at the very least.

Now, reconsider the money spent... One extra patrolman vs removing one particular method from the list of suicide possibilities. The former has a good chance of doing some good for society as a whole, while the latter doesn't seem to have much to offer the general public.

Except as an eyesore and a reminder that bridges don't kill people, guns do. ;)

Just some thoughts.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by ArmchairPhysicist

Now, reconsider the money spent... One extra patrolman vs removing one particular method from the list of suicide possibilities. The former has a good chance of doing some good for society as a whole, while the latter doesn't seem to have much to offer the general public.



OK, I said I would retire from the debate, but Jesus H. Christ! The former has a chance of doing good for society, whereas possibly even one thwarted suicide doesn't do any good for the "general public?"

That's certainly the inference I draw from your remarks.

You, like so many others in this thread and elsewhere in real life, seem to imply that anyone who might seriously consider killing themselves has little value to society anyway, so why not just let them die?

How have we gotten so callous? It's the vestigial Christian notion of taking one's own life being a mortal sin, isn't it?

I guess some of us can write it until our hands are cramped, but others will not get it. Potential suicides are ill. They need medical attention and compassion. Are their lives less valuable to us and less worthy of attention from us than those with cancer or heart disease? The attitudes displayed here certainly give one that impression.

AS

[Eos of the Eons]

AmateurScientist, you're a genuine, thank you.

As for others, they will never understand how it is to be so stressed for so long. There is a stigma attached to depression, which only makes it harder for a depressed person to think they can ever 'rejoin society'. They only feel more so that something is 'abnormal' about them.


When I was in a hospital at 16 I had this lady come in to 'talk' to me. She was supposed to be a therapist or something. She tells me I should be ashamed of myself for trying to get attention that way.

Sh*t, attention was the last thing I wanted. There was no one around I wanted attention from. I wanted people to f*ck off and leave me alone. Isn't wanting to be dead the opposite of wanting attention? I sure as hell didn't want to be around, especially a stupid hospital, getting attention.

Thing was that I was on my own, working, putting myself through High school, and parents didn't want their kids around me because I had no parents at home. I was being ostracized for surviving and being responsible. I didn't smoke, didn't do drugs, didn't miss a day of classes, didn't miss a day of work, didn't miss paying a bill, and paid all my car insurance/gas/food, etc. All by myself. Yet, I still wasn't good enough for people to want around their kids. I was punished at home, and not at home. Life was tough, do all good and getting nothing for it. Plus I felt like crap from being put down all my life at school and home. Plus...etc. etc.

All I ever got was negative attention, so why the hell would I want attention? Especially from some B*tch who was judging me yet again. Death looks so damn inviting after nothing but hell on earth, let me tell you. I was already ashamed, and then being told that I should be. That kind of affirmation hardly leads one to heal.

I didn't get real help until 10 years later. If someone had actually understood me at 16, then maybe I wouldn't have to be on meds for the rest of my life to help reverse the damage.

One out of 5 people will experience clinical depression some time in their lives. Don't ever think you are immune, or that someone you know is worthless because they get depression sometime.

Have you read "a child called it"...that guy was depressed for a good damn reason, and he wasn't a druggie, or a con, or any other stereotype one might think of as the 'suicidal type'.

[tim]

Originally posted by ArmchairPhysicist
If an equal amount of money was put into the law enforcement budget, would an extra patrolman be affordable? Would the presence of one extra patrolman on the streets be enough to deter one major crime every two weeks?

Considering the impressive success rate of jumpers, I'd say that it's a safe bet that the people who jump are pretty serious about getting it right. In other words, they weren't just people out for a midnight stroll and suddenly thought "Hey, the view looks beautiful from here. I wonder how it would look if I were traveling very fast in a downward direction." Nope, they went to the bridge specifically to die. If the bridge were removed from their list of options, how many of those success stories would have found another method? I'd say a few, at the very least.

Now, reconsider the money spent... One extra patrolman vs removing one particular method from the list of suicide possibilities. The former has a good chance of doing some good for society as a whole, while the latter doesn't seem to have much to offer the general public.

Except as an eyesore and a reminder that bridges don't kill people, guns do. ;)

Just some thoughts.

I echo AS' sentiment here. Jesus H. Christ.
I end up quoting this again.
READ IT ARMCHAIRPHYSICIST - AND THEN THINK ABOUT IT CAREFULLY...........

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Sometimes I despair of humanity.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by ceo_esq
Surprisingly enough, something not unlike this does seem to form part of the mentality of at least some Golden Gate jumpers. Again, from the article:
But all this tells us is why people will choose one location over another; it would be illogical to conclude if this location wasn't available then another location wouldn't be substituted and become equally romanticised.

Like I said in my opening post, if people are solely concerned with preventing others from jumping off this particular bridge, then fine–string the nets up. If people are concerned with the issue of suicide, then we have to bear in mind that this is not the only location/manner of suicide that people will attempt.

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by tim
I echo AS' sentiment here. Jesus H. Christ.
I end up quoting this again.
READ IT ARMCHAIRPHYSICIST - AND THEN THINK ABOUT IT CAREFULLY...........

This is a really odd thing; I'm not picking up on the misanthropy in ArmchairPhysicist's post that you and AmateurScientist are; I am getting a form of black humour, but to me that implies one person's choice of manner of handling a particularly intense subject. The condemnation this post (and others) has received suggest that there is a normative viewpoint to this thread, which is faintly disturbing for a skeptical forum, and unhelpful to any discussion of the issue of suicide—if that is the actual topic for discussion; if the topic is solely the prevention of the commission of acts of suicidal from the Golden Gate bridge, then my apologies for this post and I will withdraw from this thread.

[michaellee]

The top 3 reasons NOT to kill one's self by jumping off of a bridge:

1. Water very cold

2. It really hurts

3. Extremely hot down here

:o

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by BillyTK
But all this tells us is why people will choose one location over another; it would be illogical to conclude if this location wasn't available then another location wouldn't be substituted and become equally romanticised.I come from a place with no shortage of high places from which to jump, and occasionally people do. However, to my knowledge, none of these sites has yet acquired a reputation as a suicide magnet, much less anything approaching the near-mythic status that the Golden Gate holds for potential suicides. The evidence suggests that the bridge's attraction for the suicidal is largely a function of its unique history, prominence, location and construction - some of the same reasons, in fact, for which it is a popular tourist attraction. There's no reason to believe that barring tourists from the Golden Gate Bridge would result in, say, the Bay Bridge becoming equally popular, so why would one expect that blocking jumpers there would result in another site becoming equally romanticized by the suicidal?
Originally posted by BillyTK
Like I said in my opening post, if people are solely concerned with preventing others from jumping off this particular bridge, then fine - string the nets up. If people are concerned with the issue of suicide, then we have to bear in mind that this is not the only location/manner of suicide that people will attempt. One of the points of the psychiatrists and suicide experts interviewed for the article is that the Golden Gate is perceived by potential suicides as a romantic, quick, certain and available means of killing oneself. The combination of these factors, they argue, makes the bridge something akin to an "attractive nuisance" for people in a suicidal frame of mind - that is, studies suggest that it is so unusually inviting to them that (as one expert put it) "It's like having a loaded gun on your kitchen table."

Everyone realizes that not leaving a loaded gun on the kitchen table won't necessarily prevent a suicidally depressed person from doing away with himself. Yet given a choice between leaving the gun there and rendering it unusable or inaccessible, wouldn't most people concerned for the welfare of the depressed individual opt for the the latter?

[BillyTK]

Originally posted by ceo_esq
I come from a place with no shortage of high places from which to jump, and occasionally people do. However, to my knowledge, none of these sites has yet acquired a reputation as a suicide magnet, much less anything approaching the near-mythic status that the Golden Gate holds for potential suicides. The evidence suggests that the bridge's attraction for the suicidal is largely a function of its unique history, prominence, location and construction - some of the same reasons, in fact, for which it is a popular tourist attraction. There's no reason to believe that barring tourists from the Golden Gate Bridge would result in, say, the Bay Bridge becoming equally popular, so why would one expect that blocking jumpers there would result in another site becoming equally romanticized by the suicidal?
I think you answer that one yourself:
One of the points of the psychiatrists and suicide experts interviewed for the article is that the Golden Gate is perceived by potential suicides as a romantic, quick, certain and available means of killing oneself. The combination of these factors, they argue, makes the bridge something akin to an "attractive nuisance" for people in a suicidal frame of mind - that is, studies suggest that it is so unusually inviting to them that (as one expert put it) "It's like having a loaded gun on your kitchen table."
The points made in the article identify why the Golden Gate is attractive place to potential suicides; this does not implicate the location in the potential suicide's decision to commit suicide per se. Removing the Golden Gate as one means of suicide would not prevent people finding other locations, or for these locations to attact a reputation as a place for committing suicide and becoming equally romanticised. The point I've been making is that so far focus has been on this particular opportunity for suicide and addressing this in a particularly institutional way; putting up barriers on the Golden Gate Bridge will only stop people using the Golden Gate Bridge as a means of suicide. As a form of intervention it's too little, too late.
Everyone realizes that not leaving a loaded gun on the kitchen table won't necessarily prevent a suicidally depressed person from doing away with himself. Yet given a choice between leaving the gun there and rendering it unusable or inaccessible, wouldn't most people concerned for the welfare of the depressed individual opt for the the latter?
Firearms accounts for 57% of suicides in the US (source: NIMH (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/suifact.cfm)), and the mere presence of guns in the home has been identified as a significant risk in adolescent suicide:
CONCLUSIONS--The availability of guns in the home, independent of firearms type or method of storage, appears to increase the risk for suicide among adolescents. Physicians should make a clear and firm recommendation that firearms be removed from the homes of adolescents judged to be at suicidal risk.
(Source (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1820470&dopt=Abstract))

But this presents a number of operational problems; firstly, not all people who have depression will also have suicidal thoughts; of those who do, not all will necessarily be identified as such—if I recall correctly, people with depression are at most risk when they're starting to recover, or when their symptoms have abated, and they actually have the will to carry out their intent to die—and won't necessarily give any indication.

It's also worth bearing in mind that depression is not so much a distinct "psychiatric disorder" as a continuum which ranges from common everyday unhappiness through to complete despair (the psychiatric classification is based on symptoms rather than cause). As such, we're all at risk of depression and we're only a few steps from the circumstances which will lead us to the edge of the abyss. We can (and should) focus on those who are at risk; we can (and should) identify reasonable ways of minimising their risk. But risk in and of itself is not the entirety of the issue, and a more fundamental approach needs to be taken.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by BillyTK
The points made in the article identify why the Golden Gate is attractive place to potential suicides; this does not implicate the location in the potential suicide's decision to commit suicide per se. Removing the Golden Gate as one means of suicide would not prevent people finding other locations, or for these locations to attact a reputation as a place for committing suicide and becoming equally romanticised. The point I've been making is that so far focus has been on this particular opportunity for suicide and addressing this in a particularly institutional way; putting up barriers on the Golden Gate Bridge will only stop people using the Golden Gate Bridge as a means of suicide. As a form of intervention it's too little, too late.


Perhaps too little, too late in a sense, but also for those who would jump from there, precisely the last means of intervention which could be at least momentarily--and that may indeed be enough in some cases--effective in preventing the suicide.


Firearms accounts for 57% of suicides in the US (source: NIMH (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/suifact.cfm)), and the mere presence of guns in the home has been identified as a significant risk in adolescent suicide:


Doesn't this seem to parallel the argument that the GGB is a type of attractive nuisance similar to a loaded firearm for those who might contemplate suicide? If so, then doesn't it make just as much sense to erect effective barriers to jumping as it does to refrain from leaving loaded firearms within easy reach?


But this presents a number of operational problems; firstly, not all people who have depression will also have suicidal thoughts; of those who do, not all will necessarily be identified as such—if I recall correctly, people with depression are at most risk when they're starting to recover, or when their symptoms have abated, and they actually have the will to carry out their intent to die—and won't necessarily give any indication.


Yes, everything reliable which I have read or heard supports your remarks here.


It's also worth bearing in mind that depression is not so much a distinct "psychiatric disorder" as a continuum which ranges from common everyday unhappiness through to complete despair (the psychiatric classification is based on symptoms rather than cause). As such, we're all at risk of depression and we're only a few steps from the circumstances which will lead us to the edge of the abyss. We can (and should) focus on those who are at risk; we can (and should) identify reasonable ways of minimising their risk. But risk in and of itself is not the entirety of the issue, and a more fundamental approach needs to be taken.

I think you are right on the money on this. I'm glad you have a healthy conception of depression as something to which all of us are vulnerable, and not as something which only affects people who are seriously messed up.

I agree entirely that a more fundamental approach needs to be taken. I disagree that we should simply shrug our shoulders about the ease with which so many have taken their lives at the GGB and conclude that they could easily do it elsewhere if not at the GGB. Perhaps that is at least part of the point. Surely some of them do it at all because of the ease with which one can kill himself at the GGB, and the gloriousness and spectacularness of the method of death it offers.

Anyway, thanks for your insightful and thoughtful comments on the issue.

AS

[waitew]

I'd much rather end it all by jumping off of Glacier point in Yosemite than the golden gate bridge.Do you think a wall should be built around the rim of Yosemite valley?Grand canyon etc,etc?

People who are determined to kill themselves will find a way & a place to do so.I'd rather have a pretty bridge that people occasionally jump off of than an ughly bridge with a suiside barrier.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by waitew
I'd much rather end it all by jumping off of Glacier point in Yosemite than the golden gate bridge.Do you think a wall should be built around the rim of Yosemite valley?Grand canyon etc,etc?

People who are determined to kill themselves will find a way & a place to do so.I'd rather have a pretty bridge that people occasionally jump off of than an ughly bridge with a suiside barrier.

Hmmmm.. Read the article or the first post, did you?

You're missing the point about the Golden Gate Bridge. It's the most popular place in the world to jump to one's death. It's also probably the one that would be easiest to change that circumstance due to its walkway with a low barrier.

Nobody, nobody is advocating erecting barriers everywhere one might jump to one's death. That is what we call a strawman. Of course, I suppose it's a cheap way to avoid actually tackling the issue itself.

AS

[ArmchairPhysicist]

OK, I said I would retire from the debate, but Jesus H. Christ! The former has a chance of doing good for society, whereas possibly even one thwarted suicide doesn't do any good for the "general public?"

That's certainly the inference I draw from your remarks.

I'm talking by comparison. Compare the number of deaths that could be averted by spending the money on the bridge to the number of serious crimes that could be averted by spending the money on law enforcement. Or, find some other areas where life is at risk, and see how many deaths could be averted by spending the money there.

I am expressing absolutely no opinion whatsoever regarding the suicides; I am very specifically addressing where the money would do the most good. Would more lives be saved by childproofing the bridge, or could more lives be saved by putting a slightly stronger law-enforcement presence in troubled areas on the street.

We have a pattern; roughly one suicide every two weeks. Suicide-proofing the bridge will hopefully stop one person every two weeks from jumping off the bridge. Note that it won't stop one suicide every two weeks; it will only stop the bridge from being used as the catalyst. Even estimating the actual number of lives saved is pretty well impossible without getting Sylvia to ask the previous jumpers to answer the question "Would you have killed yourself if you couldn't have jumped from the bridge?". So, we can only say that less than one death per two weeks would be prevented.

For the same amount of money, how many murders/rapes/serious assaults could be prevented by one or even two extra patrolmen maintaining a presence in troubled areas. One per two weeks?

How does clinical depression even factor into this? So, someone is sick and needs help; does this make his life any more valuable than some subway murder victim with no previously diagnosed mental illness?

Seriously, people, this is a ridiculously simple concept. Spend X to save Y lives, or spend X to save >Y lives. What does this have to do with being callous?

[waitew]

Actually,I believe a person has a right to take their own life if they want.No money should be spent trying to stop them.It's basically none of our business.

[Eos of the Eons]

How does clinical depression even factor into this? So, someone is sick and needs help; does this make his life any more valuable than some subway murder victim with no previously diagnosed mental illness?


Unless you are suggesting that any type of suicide prevention (including therapy) takes money away from fighting crime (thus increasing murders), then this inference is ridiculous.

In no way has anyone suggested taking away from one place to designate more to a 'more important' place.

Suicidal and/or depressed folks are just as deserving of help as the person suffering diabetes, or heart problems, or cancer. It's a medical thing, not a prevention vs increased murder scenario.

This is a physical problem in the brain that can be fixed, just like a broken leg can be (just harder to balance the brain than re-align bones).

The more that people realize this, the less prone they will be to just jumping off a bridge, and the more prone they will be at seeking effective help.

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by waitew
Actually,I believe a person has a right to take their own life if they want.No money should be spent trying to stop them.It's basically none of our business.

:rolleyes:

Then I guess the guy next door having a heart attack is none of my business.

Prevention people. Getting them help and showing them how (what resources) before they head off to a damn bridge.

I can't stress how much a very simple understanding of depression by the depressed and non-depressed goes a long way in prevention and leads to recovered health.

You can treat hives with poison ivy, or get an antihistamine.

[ArmchairPhysicist]

Unless you are suggesting that any type of suicide prevention (including therapy) takes money away from fighting crime (thus increasing murders), then this inference is ridiculous.

Are you suggesting that putting a fence on the bridge is actually a form of therapy?

A fence prevents people from jumping off the bridge. It doesn't offer counciling, it doesn't help them sort out their troubles, and it doesn't make them decide that they want to live. It doesn't help repair chemical imbalances, it doesn't make their problems go away, and it doesn't change their lives.

It simply prevents them from jumping off the bridge.

The issue is the decision to spend the money to put up a fence. I am looking at whether the action will have the desired consequences, and whether it is cost effective to do so. If the desired result is the prevention of death, is this the best way to spend the money? If the desired result is to treat the illnesses of a certain group of persons, is this the best way to spend the money?

Where is the confusion?

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by ArmchairPhysicist


Are you suggesting that putting a fence on the bridge is actually a form of therapy?

A fence prevents people from jumping off the bridge. It doesn't offer counciling, it doesn't help them sort out their troubles, and it doesn't make them decide that they want to live. It doesn't help repair chemical imbalances, it doesn't make their problems go away, and it doesn't change their lives.

It simply prevents them from jumping off the bridge.

The issue is the decision to spend the money to put up a fence. I am looking at whether the action will have the desired consequences, and whether it is cost effective to do so. If the desired result is the prevention of death, is this the best way to spend the money? If the desired result is to treat the illnesses of a certain group of persons, is this the best way to spend the money?

Where is the confusion?

You present a false dichotomy here. There is no reason at all to suppose that there is a binary choice here: Spend "the" money on the GGB bridge barrier or spend that same money on law enforcement. Which should we choose?

That's simply not an accurate reflection of reality at all, and not an honest approach to the issue.

Government budgets are allocated to departments and for special uses. The GGB board has an allocated budget. If it spends it on one thing and not another, that will have no effect whatsoever on how the police department spends its budget allocated to personnel or to anything else. They are apples and oranges.

Your argument implies that for every suicide thwarted, someone is knifed or robbed or raped. It also implies that with an unlimited law enforcement budget available there would be no violent or serious crime on the streets. Both implications are seriously flawed, as I'm sure you can easily see.

As an aside, law enforcement does little to prevent violent crimes in trouble areas, or elsewhere for that matter. Mostly, it is limited to cleaning up after the fact, gathering information, arresting and interrogating suspects, and assisting in prosecuting them. Therefore, increasing personnel would do little in the way of prevention.

AS

[evildave]

If they arrive and discover they can't throw themselves off, they'll only jump under the wheels of oncomming traffic.

So add another fence.

So then they'll clamber OVER the fences and get out anyway.

So hoop it over.

So then they'll go on top of the hoop, walk out on that, and jump from there.

So ban all pedestrians.

... and so on.

So what? There's always another way to kill yourself.

Changing the fence would cost millions, and have no net effect on the number of total suicides at all. All someone committed to self destruction would really need is a $30 pair of quality wire snips that can manage fence wire to use the bridge for this purpose.

All you can say at the end of the day is "At least they don't jump off this bridge as often." Plenty of overpasses and other bridges and such to jump off in the Bay Area. Just stop the car on any of the other bridges, climb out, clamber over the car rail and jump. Better start building higher fences for all of these as well, once you've made the "pretty" one "suicide proof".

[shuize]

Careful, evildave. With logic like that you're in danger of being labeled an "ignorant jerk," like me.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by shuize
Careful, evildave. With logic like that you're in danger of being labeled an "ignorant jerk," like me.

I did restrict the label to your last couple of posts up to that point. It had nothing to do with your "logic" and everything to do with the attitude your posts displayed. Need I remind you of your words?


But after they're released they still want to punch the E-ticket off the bridge on their way out, I say: let them. I'd only ask two things of them:

1) Do it right. Nobody wants to take care of a vegetable.
2) Have enough courtesy not to hit anyone else on the way down.


If the shoe fits...

AS

[evildave]

Start with http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/default.htm

Work with real numbers for suicides, after all.

29,350 killed themselves in the U.S. in 2000.

607 chose to fall to their deaths somehow.

Of that, FAR fewer jumped off this particular bridge.

Firearm, soffocation and poisoning are the overwhelming top choices for self destruction. Banning guns, ropes, bags and drugs or chemicals would do the most overall good if you want to keep people from killing themselves. It's actually quite rare, relatively speaking, for someone to decide to kill themselves by falling.

http://www.tf.org/tf/injuries/suic.html

The Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge, which connects San Francisco to Marin County, is the number-one location for suicides in the United States.* The San Francisco side of the bridge is longer than the Marin County side, so more attempts are made from the San Francisco portion of the bridge. Jumps are almost always fatal. Records show that, of the more than 1,000 confirmed falls from the Golden Gate Bridge, only 13 people have been known to survive a jump since the bridge opened in May of 1937. Jurisdiction for the Golden Gate Bridge is shared between San Francisco and Marin County, so statistics regarding jumpers are gathered by the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and by the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District.

According to an Officer of the Golden Gate Bridge Authority, bridge jumpers over the past ten years tend to be younger, and are more likely to be male, more likely to have AIDS and more likely to suffer from long-term chemical dependency than in prior years.

According to the CHP, there were 86 cases of "bridge jumpers" in 1996, 36 confirmed deaths and 50 others. "Bridge jumpers" include confirmed deaths, meaning that a body was recovered; it also includes others prevented from jumping, people who were reported missing and whose car and/or wallet was found at the bridge, or people witnesses claimed to have seen jump but whose body was never recovered. The data from 1992-1997 are as follows:

Year Deaths Other
1992 16 26
1993 21 46
1994 39 74
1995 45 68
1996 36 50
1997 23 18

The "other" cases each year are likely to include some of the same individuals more than once. According to the CHP Public Affairs Officer, it is almost impossible to ultimately prevent someone from jumping if s/he is determined to do so. It is not unusual for someone who is prevented from jumping one week to successfully jump to his or her death a week or two later. Therefore, someone who was counted as a prevented case one week may be counted again a week later as a confirmed death.


Where should that money be spent?

Try to decide whether it would make a signifigant dent in the statistics to eliminate ALL Golden Gate jumpers.

Far cheaper and more effective than fence would be to have a couple of cops patrol the bridge all night to deter jumpers. The sight of a police officer on foot, on the scene would turn away most jumpers. Work out how much it would cost to properly fence the whole bridge and maintain that fence in damp, salty air, and compare that for rotating in a few entry level beat cops every night. Maybe a few extra around the holidays. Like Christmas, Valentine's day, etc. At need, call them off to serve elsewhere. Cheaper and probably more effective to have a human there virtually all the time. At least the cops can actively detect and intervene.

Then slightly more people will just kill themselves elsewhere or at home instead of off the bridge. No real net difference, except frequently the body is swept out to sea from the bridge jumps afterwards. Rope, bag, drugs, etc. Easy to get, does the job. Slightly more horrible for a very few more friends or family who discover the bodies.

[shuize]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist
I did restrict the label to your last couple of posts up to that point. It had nothing to do with your "logic" and everything to do with the attitude your posts displayed. Need I remind you of your words?



If the shoe fits...

AS

Ah, yes. In the same post in which I called for massive intervention for those threatening suicide. Don't bother to post that part. I'm still an "ignorant jerk" because I point out:

1) Not everyone who attempts suicide succeeds -- (shhh ... don't mention that those who don't sometimes end up worse off), and

2) People who launch themselves off tall bridges and buildings achieve really high speeds (before suddenly decelerating) and could hurt others who actually care if they live or die.

Is that the attitude that made you think I'm an ignorant jerk? Or is it because I just don't care enough ... like you? Or is it because you don't like people joking about such an "unpleasant" topic?

At the very least, I'm glad we can at least agree that it wasn't my logic about wasting money just to move jumpers to a different bridge that you found offensive.

[Tesserat]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist
Shuize,

...I think it's largely because of the socialization and enormous stigma culture attachs to ending one's own life. It stirs such powerful feelings of revulsion in most of us. The result is contempt towards anyone so devoid of reverence for life as to want to end his own....

...It is just wrong to judge a person in unbearable pain for succumbing to the overwhelming urge to put an end to that pain. I hold that that is what your comments suggest you have been doing, although I could be wrong. I believe also that many others have been doing the same, as suggested by some other comments in this thread and by those I have observed in society at large....

...I lament that judgment and the lack of understanding which fuels it. My hope is for a better understanding of the illness which sometimes compels persons to end their own lives tragically. Perhaps a better understanding could lead to greater intervention and greater prevention of suicide....


I've often wondered if a revulsion to suicide is an evolutionary trait. Plus I've always heard a lot of resentment in people discussing suicides, because the suicide "took the easy way out".
While the rest of us have to continue slogging along. In a twisted way, it's kinda like winning the lottery. Suddenly, no more problems.

There's also anger at the results of suicide. The jumping off a bridge kind is hard, the murder/suicide is much harder. I think a lot of the anger at suicide is because there is so many different circumstances for different suicides.

My sister's roommate deliberately OD'd on prescription drugs, and the night she did, she asked my sister what she was doing that night. My sister said she was going out with friends, and asked her roommate if she was alright. Her roommate said, "I think so".

When my sister got back home, she found her roommate dead, turned quite blue. But Nettie gave her mouth to mouth resusitation for twenty minutes until the ambulance got there and said it was too late. Then I held her while she cried for two hours.

When I think of my sister trying to breathe life back into a corpse, Yeah, I do feel sad for the suicide. But I feel much sadder for my sister. And yes, I do feel anger towards her roommate.

Depression is a serious mental illness. It can cause people to suicide. It can also cause people to commit murder.

In BC, a guy was convicted of murder recently. He killed his four kids, then burned his house down. THen he went and picked up his wife, drove her back to their burning house, then tried to committ suicide by slashing his throat. He pleaded not guilty due to mental illness. I don't feel sorry for him, I feel sorry for his victims.

For the GGB question, I think the suicide rate is linked to the mystique of the bridge. Put McDonalds adds on it everywhere, and people will think it's tacky, and go somewhere else.

Or on a more serious note, put signs on the bridge, giving the suicide statistics, will a hotline phone beside it. -find some way to kill the mystique.


I'm enjoying this thread, there's a lot of important ideas here. Thanks.

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by shuize
Ah, yes. In the same post in which I called for massive intervention for those threatening suicide. Don't bother to post that part. I'm still an "ignorant jerk" because I point out:

1) Not everyone who attempts suicide succeeds -- (shhh ... don't mention that those who don't sometimes end up worse off), and

2) People who launch themselves off tall bridges and buildings achieve really high speeds (before suddenly decelerating) and could hurt others who actually care if they live or die.

Is that the attitude that made you think I'm an ignorant jerk? Or is it because I just don't care enough ... like you? Or is it because you don't like people joking about such an "unpleasant" topic?

At the very least, I'm glad we can at least agree that it wasn't my logic about wasting money just to move jumpers to a different bridge that you found offensive.


Jeez, if it makes you feel any better, I don't think you are an ignorant jerk. I tried to tell you that in the last couple of posts preceding that remark that you were being an ignorant jerk in those posts. Of course, now that I am having to respond repeatedly and now that I am aware that you have been stewing about it, I am sorry I ever said it or even responded to your posts.

I don't mind irreverent joking. I don't mind irreverent joking about suicide. I didn't just look at those posts and reach conclusions about your attitude. I put them into the context of what I had gathered from our earlier exchanges and concluded that you were closed minded about the matter and had not made any serious effort to understand the issue and were not willing to make any effort.

If I was correct about those conclusions, then I would stand by my assessment that your response was "jerky." That doesn't mean that I think you as a person are a jerk. I've been a jerk in my behavior many, many times in my life, but on the whole I do not think I am a jerk.

Anyway I don't care if you joke or disagree. That's fine. Being closed minded about the issue and casually tossing aside any serious efforts to discuss a difficult issue isn't really the best example of how to debate a serious topic in P&CE, in my opinion. So be it.

I'm willing to forget our exchange and move on. Sorry, man. I hope you can forgive my "ignorant jerk" remarks.

AS

[AmateurScientist]

Originally posted by evildave
Start with http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/default.htm

Try to decide whether it would make a signifigant dent in the statistics to eliminate ALL Golden Gate jumpers.

Far cheaper and more effective than fence would be to have a couple of cops patrol the bridge all night to deter jumpers. The sight of a police officer on foot, on the scene would turn away most jumpers. Work out how much it would cost to properly fence the whole bridge and maintain that fence in damp, salty air, and compare that for rotating in a few entry level beat cops every night. Maybe a few extra around the holidays. Like Christmas, Valentine's day, etc. At need, call them off to serve elsewhere. Cheaper and probably more effective to have a human there virtually all the time. At least the cops can actively detect and intervene.

Then slightly more people will just kill themselves elsewhere or at home instead of off the bridge. No real net difference, except frequently the body is swept out to sea from the bridge jumps afterwards. Rope, bag, drugs, etc. Easy to get, does the job. Slightly more horrible for a very few more friends or family who discover the bodies.

Dave,

I like your methodical, statistical approach to analyzing the cost vs. benefits of a bridge jump barrier. You have a good point about the incidence being statistically insignificant compared to suicides in the U.S. as a whole. Nevertheless, those kinds of cold, statistical analyses can be awfully dodgy when transposed to other types of tragedies and reasonable preventative measures for them. It seems inconsistent to apply it just to suicides.

How about crack babies, for instance? Why should we take extraordinary measures to provide intensive neonatal care in hospitals on the chance that we can save them, and if so, that they will live for years thereafter? Even if we save them, what sort of chance for a reasonable quality of life do they have? Why not just let preemies, especially crack babies, die? Wouldn't we as a society be much better off using those medical resources elsewhere, where they stand a much better chance of making a real difference?

The answer, I suppose, is that we justify taking such measures because not taking them seems like cruel and callous indifference. It may not be entirely rational, but it's an entirely human response. The same may be said about taking what I believe is not a terribly extraordinary measure--extending the existing barrier or supplanting it with an effective one--to prevent easy jumping from the GGB.

Without having the initiative or interest to research the issue in depth, I would wager our country spends far more on neonatal care for infants with little chance of living a healthy, "normal" life than it might cost to extend the fence on the GGB high enough to prevent pedestrians from easily leaping over it. I never intended this thread or topic to be generalized into a call to action to suicide proof every place or activity, as some have erroneously extrapolated. This is actually a pretty narrow issue.

I also want to address your point about putting a couple of cops on the bridge as a deterrent. Based on my understanding of the layout of the bridge, this would probably accomplish nothing. Pedestrians are allowed, perhaps even encouraged, to use the walkway of the bridge now. The bridge is so long that there is no way two or three or any reasonable number of officers could stop anyone from jumping. A pedestrian contemplating suicide by jumping from the bridge surely would not be deterred by the possibility of arrest. How would officers present prevent a jumper when it is so easy to leap over the 4-foot high barrier?

The answer, if there is one to be had at all, is to make the barrier higher or more effective. As it exists today, it isn't effective at all.

AS

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by ArmchairPhysicist


Are you suggesting that putting a fence on the bridge is actually a form of therapy?

A fence prevents people from jumping off the bridge. It doesn't offer counciling, it doesn't help them sort out their troubles, and it doesn't make them decide that they want to live. It doesn't help repair chemical imbalances, it doesn't make their problems go away, and it doesn't change their lives.

It simply prevents them from jumping off the bridge.

The issue is the decision to spend the money to put up a fence. I am looking at whether the action will have the desired consequences, and whether it is cost effective to do so. If the desired result is the prevention of death, is this the best way to spend the money? If the desired result is to treat the illnesses of a certain group of persons, is this the best way to spend the money?

Where is the confusion?

What kind of warped logic did you get from reading my post?

I said:

It does not take money from crime fighting to fund suicide prevention. To suggest it does is ridiculous.

I did not say a fence is like some kind of therapy. Where did you get that whack idea from?

[evildave]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist


Dave,

I like your methodical, statistical approach to analyzing the cost vs. benefits of a bridge jump barrier. You have a good point about the incidence being statistically insignificant compared to suicides in the U.S. as a whole. Nevertheless, those kinds of cold, statistical analyses can be awfully dodgy when transposed to other types of tragedies and reasonable preventative measures for them. It seems inconsistent to apply it just to suicides.

How about crack babies, for instance? Why should we take extraordinary measures to provide intensive neonatal care in hospitals on the chance that we can save them, and if so, that they will live for years thereafter? Even if we save them, what sort of chance for a reasonable quality of life do they have? Why not just let preemies, especially crack babies, die? Wouldn't we as a society be much better off using those medical resources elsewhere, where they stand a much better chance of making a real difference?

The answer, I suppose, is that we justify taking such measures because not taking them seems like cruel and callous indifference. It may not be entirely rational, but it's an entirely human response. The same may be said about taking what I believe is not a terribly extraordinary measure--extending the existing barrier or supplanting it with an effective one--to prevent easy jumping from the GGB.

Without having the initiative or interest to research the issue in depth, I would wager our country spends far more on neonatal care for infants with little chance of living a healthy, "normal" life than it might cost to extend the fence on the GGB high enough to prevent pedestrians from easily leaping over it. I never intended this thread or topic to be generalized into a call to action to suicide proof every place or activity, as some have erroneously extrapolated. This is actually a pretty narrow issue.

I also want to address your point about putting a couple of cops on the bridge as a deterrent. Based on my understanding of the layout of the bridge, this would probably accomplish nothing. Pedestrians are allowed, perhaps even encouraged, to use the walkway of the bridge now. The bridge is so long that there is no way two or three or any reasonable number of officers could stop anyone from jumping. A pedestrian contemplating suicide by jumping from the bridge surely would not be deterred by the possibility of arrest. How would officers present prevent a jumper when it is so easy to leap over the 4-foot high barrier?

The answer, if there is one to be had at all, is to make the barrier higher or more effective. As it exists today, it isn't effective at all.

AS

We're not talking about infants. We're talking about suicidal people.

Do not underestimate the psychological power of a cop's simple presence. It makes cars slow down like "magic". It makes people who are considering a crime go elsewhere. Once you know there are cops, you never know when they'll just turn up.

Sure, it's impossible for two cops to stop all suicide jumpers. It's also impossible for a million cops to stop murders or track down every murderer. It's the idea that you CAN be caught which has the desired deterrent effect for most people, not the actual 100% effectiveness of the police in catching people.

If a multi-million dollar fence installation can not be 100% effective to prevent suicides, why make it mandatory for a couple of cops to? It's enough that they can catch a few and deter most.

[ArmchairPhysicist]

Government budgets are allocated to departments and for special uses. The GGB board has an allocated budget. If it spends it on one thing and not another, that will have no effect whatsoever on how the police department spends its budget allocated to personnel or to anything else. They are apples and oranges.

You are correct. When thinking of alternative ideas, I forgot that the money was already part of the GGB budget and not still part of the municipal budget. My bad.

The idea of law enforcement is not the actual enforcement part, but the presence part. No, extra cops might not personally thwart tons of crimes, but their presence definately deters people from being naughty. Evildave covers much better what I was unsuccessfully trying to get at, so I'll just drop out from here.

[renata]

An update

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/25/golden.gate.ap/index.html


Suicide barrier for Golden Gate?
Officials hear from relatives of some who jumped
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Golden Gate Bridge officials Thursday moved closer to building a barrier to prevent people from jumping off the famous suspension bridge, where about 1,300 people have killed themselves since the landmark opened in 1937.

Officials voted to develop a plan and explore funding for the suicide barrier after hearing emotional testimony from friends and family of people who jumped off the iconic bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County.

The decision by a committee of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District still must be approved by the district's board of directors when it meets March 11.

All the nearly 20 people who testified Thursday urged committee members to erect the barrier.

"I don't want one more family member to go through this pain," said Terry Oxford of San Jose, whose 26-year-old daughter, Jennifer, jumped to her death last week. "She chose this bridge because it was accessible."

An average of 20 people a year commit suicide by pitching themselves over the bridge's 41/2-foot-high rail. Four have already done so this year.

"This is the place where the most preventable suicides occur," said Eve Meyer, executive director of San Francisco Suicide Prevention. "These are the most impulsive, least planned and least strategized suicides."

Building a suicide barrier on the bridge has been suggested for decades, but the idea gained momentum earlier this year when bridge officials learned that a filmmaker had filmed 19 people jumping off the bridge. Eric Steel told the bridge district he had intended to "capture the grandeur" of the bridge but ended up making a movie about its history of suicides.

Earlier this week, district staff members said it would take about two years and $2 million to develop a plan for the barrier and another two years to build it. The cost of the barrier depends on the design.




Thanks to LuxFerum who unlocked this thread.

[shuize]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist
I'm willing to forget our exchange and move on. Sorry, man. I hope you can forgive my "ignorant jerk" remarks.

AS
Okay, AS. It took some time, but I've finally decided to forgive you. If you're still around that is.

Ha, ha. Just kidding. When I reread this thread, I remembered what an interesting a discussion it turned out to be. I still disagree with the plans to deface the Golden Gate. But I also think there's not much that can stand in the way of "feel good" legislation.

[easycruise]

Originally posted by AmateurScientist
Some drown, as hitting feet first will usually plunge them so deeply into the 350 foot deep water that they haven't the chance to surface before drowning.


AS

I am always interested in physics and I have to dispute this part of the article. I have read that a bullet can only travel about 6-10 feet underwater. I seriously doubt that you will go down too far in the water to come back up for a breath.

[DRBUZZ0]

If I were the city of San Fransisco, I'd build the barrier. It's just a matter of time before the family of a jumper sues the city saying that they would still be alive had the barrier prevented them from jumping and given them time to rethink things or get help. Or, in the unlikely event that somebody manages to survive but is paralized, then they sue. (yep...claiming it's not their fault).

Of course, they could also get sued overr a barrier not being sufficient to stop someone. But at least a barrier would give them some defense.

-Steve

[SlippyToad]

Actually,I believe a person has a right to take their own life if they want.No money should be spent trying to stop them.It's basically none of our business.Wow. I mean wow. About five years ago now, I went to the funeral of my aunt, who chose at a particularly low point in her life to shoot herself to death. We don't really know what the full reason was. We knew she was sick, and her illness while not particularly debilitating or life-threatening was making her existence miserable anyway. We also knew that she'd been the victim of abuse in her childhood, as was my mother. Following that fun-filled family reunion in which we all morbidly commented that we'd not seen each other in 20 years and at least could thank my aunt for bringing us all back together, my mother (who had also been the victim of child abuse by her now-dead father) tried to take her life as well, using the car-in-garage trick.

Putting aside your casual callusness, suicide is a highly irrational act. The reason I know this is (dirty secret) I once myself flirted with it, after a very bad relationship very early in my life. What I did couldn't really be described as an attempt -- it was more of a way to get under someone's skin and get their attention. Boy did it ever. But I remember the following morning walking along the sunshine-filled path and wondering why in the HELL I would have ever wanted to miss out on THAT just because of my b!tch girlfriend. I've never even considered it again since.

But the low railing on the Golden Gate (which was put there apparently because the designer was a short guy) is theorized by some as the reason why it's such a suicide magnet. Similarly, I feel that guns in the home are also a major suicide risk and the reason is because they make it easy. If you think about the various ways in which you can kill yourself, you have to realize that once you start these things some unpleasantness is going to happen. For building jumpers, there's a splat at the end. I think bridge jumpers may think it easier because they think it will be a splash instead of a hard splat.

Imagine the other ways: razor blades to the wrist involve cutting yourself. It's not comfortable and takes some time. It's painful. Drinking poison may also be painful, and taste terrible. Drano certainly doesn't seem like an easy way to go. Pills are hit-or-miss. I once had a very unpleasant conversation with a doctor about a girl who he said swallowed something like 60 Tylenol. He said it didn't kill her right away. Instead she wasted away on the ICU for six weeks while her liver turned to goo. Then she died. Not a lot of fun. But a gun -- a gun can make it quick and nobody really knows for sure if it hurts or not. The assumption is you're gone and quick. So I think a lot of people sitting there with a gun in their house will just suddenly take the plunge, as it were, and do it as fast as possible. And the same is true for the Golden Gate.

Having said that, I read an article awhile back about this movie (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-me-bridge28apr28,0,6867738.story?coll=la-home-headlines), which discussed some of the thoughts of the survivors. It's not in the article I've linked, and I don't know if I can find it again, but I was struck by the comment of one of them, upon vaulting the rail and crossing out over the water, read roughly: "I realized that everything that was wrong with my life could be fixed, except for the fact that I had just jumped."

It mirrored my own feelings of some two decades before when I awoke the morning after my not-very-enthusiastic attempt and realized that there was nothing I needed so badly that I had to kill myself for it.

So pardon me for labeling your comment as well, sociopathic. People commit suicide mostly because of social reasons. I feel, as a contributing member of society, we should put more than a modicum of effort into making people feel comfortable in society.

My mother is alive and well today, by the way. But I'm sure glad you weren't the one who caught her in the act of piping exhaust into her own car.

[SlippyToad]

I am always interested in physics and I have to dispute this part of the article. I have read that a bullet can only travel about 6-10 feet underwater. I seriously doubt that you will go down too far in the water to come back up for a breath.Well, a bullet's profile is far wider in relation to its weight than a person's. Mass scales up pretty rapidly. Also, the reason bullets stopped in the water, according to the mythbusters experiment I saw, was largely because they broke up under the stress. Their impact with the water, at a far greater velocity than their natural terminal velocity, would have exaggerated the resistance the water presented to them.

[WildCat]

Well, a bullet's profile is far wider in relation to its weight than a person's. Mass scales up pretty rapidly. Also, the reason bullets stopped in the water, according to the mythbusters experiment I saw, was largely because they broke up under the stress. Their impact with the water, at a far greater velocity than their natural terminal velocity, would have exaggerated the resistance the water presented to them.
Mythbusters did this. A low velocity handgun bullet traveled further in water than a high-powered rifle bullet, because the rifle bullet broke up upon impact w/ the water.

[Antiquehunter]

For a slightly alternate POV...

My mother attempted suicide twice in the five years prior to her death. Both times her attempts were overdoses of heavy-duty pills, involved intensive care, ambulance / emergency visits, slow recoverys, risk of permanent damage etc... Ironically, she fought her cancer to the bitter end - and never attempted suicide once diagnosed with inoperable, terminal cancer, nor did she wish to terminate her life even after she became disabled from the cancer. Her attempts were in my opinion, caused by a downswing in her bi-polar disorder, triggered by traumatic events in her life.

This said - I am a major proponent (particularly now after watching her suffer and die) for assisted suicide. We do it for our pets, I would've definitely considered it for my mother in her final week, and hope its an option for me to consider, should the situation ever arise.

On the OP, the question was essentially should we put up a barrier to make suicidal people work harder to end their life (or words to this effect.)

In general, I would say yes - because I would assume that the vast majority of suicide attempts are cries for help from people who need psychiatric care.

However, it is possible that a number of these suicides (tough to measure) are from people who have made a conscious and well-informed decision to end their life, and simply have no other mechanism available to them. (Too scared to use a gun, other options seem too painful or risk of survival in an incapacitated state, require help from someone else to accomplish because of physical disability etc...) Example - had my mother been informed that once she lost the use of her lower trunk she would survive a mere three weeks, the last ten days thereof essentially completely incapacitated and semi-comatose, a humane and dignified way to end her life was arguably justified.

So - if we're considering making it more difficult for people to use a favored life-ending location, with a view to saving ill-advised suicide attempts, I think we should equally consider a humane option for people who have logically and clearly decided it is time to go.

-AH.

And - out of sheer curiosity, what is the highest 'safe' diving into water height? Cliff divers etc... regularly go 40+ feet - at what point does the physics make high-diving dangerous?

[Hamradioguy]

Does the threat of an alternative form of death deter suicide? A long time ago I remember a visit to Seattle's Space Needle. And I was rather astonished to observe just a few feet out from the barrier on the observation deck a low wire running around the perimeter of the deck. Every few feet it ran through a ceramic insulator and near each insulator was a small printed sign sayig, "Danger High Voltage". Being an electronics buff I followed the wire around the deck and eventually found the start/stop point which was an oil burner transformer! As I recall, one of the leads wasn't even connected. But so what? Lots of volts at very low current wouldn't be lethal.
So- fear of being electrocuted is a deterrent to a would-be jumper? Or would the screams from receiving a non-lethal shock bring security folks running? Given that the wire was low enough to simply step over, the whole setup seemed bizarre to say the least.

Will we now see something similar on the GGB?

[schplurg]

One of the points of the psychiatrists and suicide experts interviewed for the article is that the Golden Gate is perceived by potential suicides as a romantic, quick, certain and available means of killing oneself.I like the "jump off the bridge idea"...almost certain death, no mess to clean up afterwards, often no body at all. The odds of landing on somebody else and killing them or damaging property (unlike when jumping from a building or other on-land locale) is very slim unless one lands on a boat.

I think more people should use the bridge for their suicidal needs. I don't see a problem with it at all. I am not arguing that suicide is good, just that if people are going to kill themselves, I can't think of a cleaner, cheaper, or more effective alternative.

[Lithrael]

The posters who suggested it first seem to have put the rest of the thread off with their attitudes, but I completely agree that having people there to help has got to be more effective, dollar for dollar, than a barrier. Cops for the 'presence' effect, sure, but why not counsellors too, offering the same sort of help as the hotline phones only with a real human face? The thread gave me the impression most jumpers go at night, presumably when there are less people around, and at least theoretically some of the more clearly stressed out people could be spotted walking on past a stationed official. Or would someone considering it just feel persecuted by the possibility of that attention anyway?

Failing that, there's got to be a way to make a barrier or deterrent that's simply not so ugly. They have a couple million dollars to work with, after all.

And please give a break to those of us who don't understand economics and can't help sitting there wishing the money could be spent 'more wisely.' It does *feel* like a couple million dollars could help an awful lot of people, instead of only helping a few.

[Lithrael]

Double post, whoops.