Why does anyone think a conversation solves anything???

[hurts2b]

All the anti suicide posts or online articles love to promise opportunities and "connections" will flock to you as long as you ask for it. Not true at all. The odd kind/intimate conversation doesn't solve a lifetime of stress and mistreatment (or economic issues).

It's also like. A lot of us have nobody to ask at all. A lot of us have bad experiences and reasons not to blindly trust. A lot of us don't feel human warmth at all.

. I just want people to stop promising what they can't deliver.

 

[xXSufferingXx]

"

Why does anyone think a conversation solves anything???

"
because they haven't ever had any real problems big enough to understand.
the only problems they might've had in life have been minimal, so they have no idea.

 

[charlavail]

it's the only thing they can think is helpful without it being actual effort or being too emotional

 

[Moniker]

In regards to economic issues, I think it thrusts the responsibility of stuff like poverty onto regular working people instead of the government. It's as if it's our responsibility to make people feel better about economic struggles instead of the government to address those issues in the first place.

Beyond that, I think the notion of telling others about suicide is a hollow aphorism. Most people are not equipped with the ability to make you feel better. In my experience, they hardly cared either and we never revisited the conversation.

 

[hurts2b]

In regards to economic issues, I think it thrusts the responsibility of stuff like poverty onto regular working people instead of the government. It's as if it's our responsibility to make people feel better about economic struggles instead of the government to address those issues in the first place.

Beyond that, I think the notion of telling others about suicide is a hollow aphorism. Most people are not equipped with the ability to make you feel better. In my experience, they hardly cared either and we never revisited the conversation.

Exactly this. I'm going to probably end it in 4-6 months because of these issues. People mean well but overestimate the amount of control the average worker has.

I think people care in the abstract but have no idea how to act when they're faced with the situation in reality.

 

[Pluto]

 

[eggsausagerice]

All the anti suicide posts or online articles love to promise opportunities and "connections" will flock to you as long as you ask for it. Not true at all. The odd kind/intimate conversation doesn't solve a lifetime of stress and mistreatment (or economic issues).

It's also like. A lot of us have nobody to ask at all. A lot of us have bad experiences and reasons not to blindly trust. A lot of us don't feel human warmth at all.

Beyond that, I think the notion of telling others about suicide is a hollow aphorism. Most people are not equipped with the ability to make you feel better. In my experience, they hardly cared either and we never revisited the conversation.

i feel really sad when people tell me to seek therapy or to talk to one of my friends. the reason i'm distant from my friends now is that i know if i'm honest about my suicidal thoughts or bring them up at all, it's only going to cause conflict, guilt, or problems. it never actually helps anything. it never makes me feel better. and i can't afford therapy and have only had bad experiences with therapists and counselors at school. no one actually knows how to talk about my issues with me, and i get emotionally overwhelmed when people see me venting as a reason to start talking about their problems.

it's such a non-answer to someone having suicidal thoughts. the hotline doesn't help and the people in your life definitely won't help, even if they're well meaning. it's easier to go through it on your own because no one has the capacity to deal with your problems. people have tried to look for reasons to tell me to not kill myself or came up with ways to make me live longer like trying to plan something months ahead, but i only felt irritated by it. i'm not going to talk about it with anyone anymore. it was just a mistake.

 

[Moniker]

it's such a non-answer to someone having suicidal thoughts. the hotline doesn't help and the people in your life definitely won't help, even if they're well meaning. it's easier to go through it on your own because no one has the capacity to deal with your problems.

Yeah, that's largely been my experience too. I used to be pretty upset by how lousy the response was to me talking about my SH and suicide plans, but these days I wonder if there was a right thing to say to me. I'm sure anything they could say would be things I've heard/read before. I just don't see the point in reaching out.

 

[Asya]

You need -1 more posts to view this content

 

[witchcraft]

Maybe talking works for certain cases where someone might be... a bit hysterical or dramatic. (And that's not meant to be an insult; I don't make a habit of invalidating my own thoughts and feelings, but for the sake of intellectual honesty I have to admit that there have been times I have overreacted to things because my life overall is such a disaster.)

Like, if someone suddenly finds themselves overwhelmed with a bunch of terrible news and bad luck. They're struggling to process it. I guess a conversation could help to get through those initial moments and reach a place where the situation can be more soberly confronted, orrr something.

The thing is, some people are really bad at said conversations. They're not good listeners. My mom is like this: she literally gets mad at me for feeling the way that I feel. My emotions are too much for her, my thoughts are too much for her—part of me loves my mom and understands she's a struggling human being with her own trauma but also intellectually, generationally, in terms of my lived experience as a guy and not a woman, she just doesn't get it, we are way too different. Not like it's any better with my dad. Ironically, I think the only time my mom was actually understanding is when my negative thoughts and feelings were about my dad, whether I was actually justified or not. They have been divorced for over 7 years now, and argued for most of my childhood and teenage years.

My mom and I have basically THE SAME fucking conversation-turned-argument every time. I tell her what's wrong, she tells me (paraphrasing) "oh you just gotta pull yourself up by the bootstraps there's jobs everywhere offering $15 an hour and you can work your way up" and I tell her how I tried that for years and it doesn't work that way and I don't want to work my way up at those places and I hate workplace politics and drama and working with the general public, I hate the concept of working, to which she then says (paraphrasing) "everybody has to do it" to which I would like to respond "that's one of several reasons why I wish I'd never been born" but I know how that makes her feel and I know she'd tell other family members about it because she's done it in the past, so I don't. It's like Groundhog's Day.

I do let her try to do other things to cheer me up, because I know it also makes her feel better. It's very temporary for me. But I know it would really hurt her if I just started refusing every single offer to do anything or go anywhere with her. But it's driving me fucking mental. I am a fucking loser. I am nearing 30 and live with my mom. I am a burden on my mom, her imperfections aside. Supposed to be a source of joy, a son, I might as well be a fucking parasite and cause for constant worry and financial strain. How does "talking" fix literally any of that??

tl;dr "just talking about it" works best between mostly neurotypical people, and to a lesser extent between those of us here who tend to be able to actually relate and *usually* have *some* idea of how to validate one another from our similar experiences. There are limits to what "just talking about it" can do, and these limits are rarely if ever acknowledged, particularly by the person saying "just talk about it." I've tried years of talk therapy and it was a complete and total waste of fucking time and money in most cases, because most of my issues cannot be resolved by talking. Just to be clear, I only really had one *bad* therapist. It's a limitation of the system, not them as individual people.

Oddly enough, if you want a great depiction of what it feels like (to me) talking to a therapist, it's like a certain scene from 1984 where *spoiler*

Spoiler: book spoiler

Winston is being tortured by O'Brien. It turns into an existential, metaphysical argument, an unbridgeable chasm between antithetical lived experiences, and the only solution is basically an utter surrender to their worldview no matter how unfounded it may seem to you—assisted ego death, or I might describe it as ego homicide in which you are the victim. If you're not willing to throw out all your past experiences, memories, traumas, which all have informed your present logic / thinking, you are made out to be the problem.

I've felt more comforted and understood by fucking mommy / girlfriend ASMR or writing annoyingly long-winded comments like this one on the abyss of the internet than most face-to-face conversations with another person.

 

[eggsausagerice]

I've felt more comforted and understood by fucking mommy / girlfriend ASMR or writing annoyingly long-winded comments like this one on the abyss of the internet than most face-to-face conversations with another person.

never heard a bigger truth than this before. i've also fought with my parents and other people about how i think that i shouldn't have been born if i was born wrong or worse than everyone else for not being able to function properly. i think my parents should honestly feel guilty that they gave birth to someone completely dysfunctional. there's no one in my life that i think is capable of understanding me anymore, so i just feel more alone talking about problems no one even relates to. if i can't be understood then it really is better to cope with fake girlfriend asmr or streamers/youtubers. anything that makes me feel like someone's talking to me.

 

[SoLowHollow48]

That's kinda meta ngl. I mean, you're having a 3-way, 5-way conversation with others on this site now and sure, it doesn't solve your problems--I don't know why anyone would think that just talking can solve shit but it doesn't. It's a long process that you gotta do on your own. Talking is just a crutch. It's how people show support. It's how you ackowledge that others are like you too or not like you at all.

I mean, if you don't hold a conversation, you'll never know how to use SN. You'll never know how to suspend from the ceiling.

On the other hand, you'll never know that these things aren't needed, us "pathetic losers" are literal losers for giving up, and that there are other ways to get around your trauma, heal gradually, and find the goodness in life.

 

[Unsure and Useless]

All the anti suicide posts or online articles love to promise opportunities and "connections" will flock to you as long as you ask for it. Not true at all. The odd kind/intimate conversation doesn't solve a lifetime of stress and mistreatment (or economic issues).

Personally, I agree with what SoLowHollow48 said here:

That's kinda meta ngl. I mean, you're having a 3-way, 5-way conversation with others on this site now and sure, it doesn't solve your problems--I don't know why anyone would think that just talking can solve shit but it doesn't. It's a long process that you gotta do on your own. Talking is just a crutch. It's how people show support. It's how you ackowledge that others are like you too or not like you at all.

I mean, if you don't hold a conversation, you'll never know how to use SN. You'll never know how to suspend from the ceiling.

On the other hand, you'll never know that these things aren't needed, us "pathetic losers" are literal losers for giving up, and that there are other ways to get around your trauma, heal gradually, and find the goodness in life.

A conversation alone won't help economic issues because they aren't meant to. The intent is to help you feel not alone since, for some, a good amount of the psychological torment is the belief that you, alone, are going through this, making you "wrong" in some way. It's sort of the belief that one person who experiences a problem is "on them" whereas a problem experienced by a non-negligible amount of people is a problem of the system; it allows you to offset misplaced responsibility and potentially make you feel somewhat better, even if it doesn't actually solve anything

However, I'll admit that this approach not for everyone. Some people just want the root of their problems fixed without the whole "kumbayah" aspect; others just want a community to share their emotional woes with so that they don't feel alone. Different types of folks require different methods of comfort. No one's really "wrong" for not responding well/at all to a form of comfort

Also, aside from that, I think that it's a sort of watered down version of what's supposed to happen. Had more societies been less individualistic, there would be more than just community based counseling. Afterwards, there'd be a system, or systems, that would elevate those who are in a rough spot of their life, and the community counseling is there to basically smooth out the process of actually fixing the problem. Yet, since those systems aren't really put in place, you're only left with the counseling

As such, counselors basically have to cope and be overly positive to make up for this absence. Overcorrecting like this doesn't solve the problem, obviously, but it's the only thing they've got

Tl;dr counseling is meant to be deployed in tandem with systems that serve to lift up those in need, and people are mega coping with the fact that they can't just go to counseling like that'll fix everything