Entrapment in Pain: A Common Cause of Suicidal Urges

One of the main reasons why people with severe mental illness desire to die is because they are trapped in painful circumstances.

Unpleasant situations that we feel trapped into can be very uncomfortable and painful to each and every one of us. However, when we lack the means and knowledge to cope and escape those situations in times when they become very uncomfortable, painful, and unbearable for us, we will lose our rationale and feel compelled to leave the circumstance by any means necessary. We will become as irrational and as brutally necessary just so we can get out of that situation. And this can and will happen to anyone in such circumstances- ranging from the most mentally disturbed and frustrated to the most noble and mild tempered.

**********************************************************************************

This idea is what I call the Universal Phenomenon of Entrapment and Distress, which declares the following:

Any person in a very stressful situation will inevitable act irrationally, provided that there is no escape from the stressful situation.

Usually, there have to be 3 basic elements in a stressful situation for a person to undergo this phenomenon:

1)      A distress agent (person or circumstance that causes distress)

2)      A current distressful situation

3)    One or more alternatives to avoid the distressful situation which also cause(s) severe distress.

This phenomenon is also characterized by two basic psychological, sociological, and psycho-social factors:

1)      Distress 

2)      Entrapment (usually involuntary)

**********************************************************************************

Consider the cases of women who murder their controlling, physically and verbally abusive spouses out of frustration arising from two feasible scenarios: 1) continuation of taking recurrent mistreatment from the husband, or 2) leaving the abusive husband behind to live homeless, and no one to look after her nor assist her. Also consider the growing number of teenagers in school who are victims of bullying at their school who see no other exit to their distress than taking the bullying and holding in the resulting frustration (imploding), or murdering their own peers (exploding). The previous two scenarios are examples where the Phenomenon of Entrapment and Insanity can be seen in that none of the possible alternative scenarios provide relief from the elevated stress, hence entrapment. It is an ironic, and at the same time unjust fact of life, however, that the once victimized and innocent abused wife and bullied teen would then become the victimizers of their predators. And because they become victimizers out of severe desperation and stress, with little measure to their actions, it is they who become penalized by authorities and the law, and not the more cunning abusive husband or school bullies whose abuses come from a milder and more subtle malice that helps them to conceal their transgressions and go unpunished. Such was the case of a Center Grove High School freshman in the 2005-2006 school year. The freshman was so frustrated with being bullied by popular athletes in the school that he discussed ways to murder them with his peers at a school bus. A handful of tattletales, who knew how tormented this poor freshman was, turned him in. This, unfortunately, led the student to jail. He was tried as an adult, and his name and photograph was on newspapers. Unfortunately, nobody knew who his bullies were. All that their coach could do was to give his entire athletic team an anti-bullying speech. Furthermore, the tattletales who reported him also reported on Center Grove TV and the school’s newspaper that they knew how tormented he was and how badly he was bullied, and yet did nothing to help him. Coincidentally, the very same day that the freshman’s incident had shocked the entire school and the entire community, Fox 59 News Channel was supposed to come to Center Grove, as it did every year in the spring. It was going to feature Center Grove sports, athletes, and cheerleaders in its news channel. However, because they found out of the freshman arrest incident that swept Center Grove, Fox 59 did not go to the school at all, nor did it feature the sports and athletics that made the entire school so proud. And arrogant. Finally, some justice had been served! Of course, Center Grove students and teachers alike were angry at Fox 59, except me, of course. The “we don’t need Fox 59” slogan was spread in the school newspaper, Facebook groups, and the school TV news. But the bullied freshman who was arrested was only criticized, denigrated, and put into shame.

The above examples of women murdering abusive husbands and teenagers killing their peers are extreme examples of distress, of course. However, these are only distinguished from mundane, everyday situations of stress not only by their catastrophic end result, but by their level of intensity and by the entrapment factor. The bullied and arrested freshman from Center Grove, for example, probably became hostile not because he was flawed in character, nor because he was a bad person. He became hostile because he was entraped by a very stressful situation that he did not know how nor see how he could cope with effectively, especially at his young age. Obviously, his actions are not justifiable. Still, his lack of ability or means to escape or cope with the situation which  inevitably lead to his violent behavior.

It doesn‘t matter who you are, nor what religion you practice, nor the amount of kindness and conscientiousness that make up your character- if you experience negative stress with high levels of intensity and tight entrapment, your rationale and reputable character will suffer. You will do things that will embarass you or shock you, or that will embarass and shock others. You will forget about morals you‘ve learned in better times past, will step over those who surround you, and will cause havoc to many or all aspects of your life and your surroundings- only to reach and end of tranquility and peace of mind.

Mental illnesses and the serious medical, social, and psychological problems that they come with can be just as strenuous and distressful as having school bullies or abusive husbands chipping at your shoulder daily. In fact, these kinds of situations often overlap. And it is usually abused women or bullied school students with severe mental illness who lack the tools, knowledge, or self-control that are necessary to surmount the issues that lead to their crimes. It is indeed good news that pharmaceutical treatments and therapeutic methods and strategies have been designed to help people in with these behavioral, emotional, and mental struggles. However, world governments and clinicians often neglect and overlook the merely partial helpfulness of all psychiatric resources combined when they stand by their commitment to prevent suicide and maintain Dr. Assisted Suicide for the Mentally Ill outlawed. Most social worker visits, therapy sessions, and medication intake will be useless if, for example, a domestically abused woman has no exit from her troubled life other than the options of enduring domestic abuse at home, or facing hunger and loneliness in the streets. Psychiatric resources would be just as useless if the bullied high school student is still surrounded by classmates and peers who stubbornly choose to mistreat him, disrespect him, and devaluate him in every possible way. They would also be useless if such mistreatment at school led the student to seek shelter in homeschooling, only to replace the mistreatment with extreme social isolation that would intensify his depression and would further shatter his self-esteem.

It is a mental health resource consumer’s responsibility to use available resources to recover from mental illness or emotional/mental disturbances. It is also the responsibility of the people who surround the consumer, however, to create a supportive environment where he can be accepted, respected, embraced, and tolerated. Anti-suicide activists and people who oppose to Dr. Assisted Suicide often stress the previous responsibility outspokenly, but neglect the latter irresponsibly (as did Valerina Valerie in her premature and poorly meditated efforts to confront my suicidal urges in the past, as discussed in my previous post). If no effective escape or sound relief efforts are provided for seriously mentally ill people in dire circumstances, and if they lack the social support that they are not getting from selfish, ignorant people in their surroundings, then the mentally ill are in every right to choose to end their lives as a last resort. The current outlawing of this personal decision, however, will most likely increase the emotional distress that leads circumstantially-entrapped consumers to engage in crimes and violence as desperate measures of escape, and it is only the anti-suicide activists and policy makers who will be to blame for their ineffective, restrictive problem-solving mechanisms.

Which Has More Value: The Life of a Person, or the Actual Person in Question?

Unfortunately, I have found in every single suicide prevention attempt I have ever witnessed from personal experience that the life of a suicidal person is always considered more important than the actual person. I have always observed in times of personal crisis that my so called “friends,” “family,” and “medical providers” are always far more preoccupied with making sure that I don’t commit suicide, than they are about helping me resolve the personal and social conflicts that lead to those suicidal intents in the first place.

Back in 2010, for examples, I was expelled from a social work club in college because my mental illness symptoms became very disruptive to everyone in the organization, particularly to the thee women who held office in it. The latter consisted of three cowards, ironically- two of which claimed for the seven months that we spent as incompatible peers that they would always be loyal, that they would always care about me unconditionally, and that they would always be there for me despite my frequent bouts of depression, anxiety, and strong suicidal thinking of the time. But in March 1^st of 2010, those selfish, inconsiderate cowards got so tired of me that they felt compelled to expel me from their petty organization. They also put a restraining order on me both because they wanted no further contact with me, and because they were so fearful of any reaction or retaliation on my part that would make them feel further danger and discomfort. Of course, the three cowards were spineless to boot, so they did not look me in the eye and say they wanted nothing to do with me from that point on. Instead, they had the dean of students of the university, a brutally blunt, obese, voluminous trash bag of saturated trans fat call me to her office to tell me on the behalf of the cowards everything they all knew I wasn't going to be happy about. And yet, the cowards still had asked the dean beforehand to take all measures possible to prevent me from making a suicide attempt (which they predicted that I would, given their knowledge of my history with mental illness). Evidently, in these measures which the three cowardly, disgusting pigs and the voluminous trash bag of fat took to get their way in their dilemma with me, they applied the very same principle of life prioritization discussed above- me being kept alive and breathing was important. But everything else concerning me, was not. Also, that same night that I was expelled, those three pigs made it an out loud announcement in their club meeting that I had been expelled and had been put a restraining order on as well. Their own cowardice and manipulation must have been greatly influential and contagious. Everyone else in the organization (except two loyal subjects) stopped talking to me from that point on (even though they had acted as thought they had respect for me prior to this incident), and would look at me with a pathetic “I feel sorry for that guy” look on their cowardly faces every time they would see me cross their path, as though their acting this way would make my own predicament any easier.

Conclusion: Prevention and lack of suicide attempts on my part was very important to everyone directly or indirectly involved in that ordeal. However, the subsequent damage to my reputation in that club and in that school following my expulsion, the natural resulting embarrassment, my prophesied feelings of severe anger and betrayal, and the added difficulty in coping with my own mental illness, all of which were very likely to trigger a suicide attempt, were important to no one.

Just this week, I e-mailed the head of a poorly established, informal Borderline Personality Disorder “support” group, stating that I would no longer be attending it. I told her that I was upset about the last meeting I had with them, when had a discussion (on a very personal matter) in which I was feeling very uncomfortable. My arguments in that discussion were invalidated time and time again, and everyone else in the group seemed completely oblivious of it. The conversation ended when someone in the group made a passive-aggressive remark made at me that was also, in my opinion, short-sighted. I also e-mailed the group “leader” my resentment toward her and everyone in the group for showing utter indifference for my having left the meeting unexpectedly at the sight of everyone else’s recurrent ignorance and impertinence towards my discomfort. I decided to leave the support-lacking group early that day while the junkie leader of it and her friends surrounded themselves in laughter and conversation rather carelessly.

Her reply to my e-mail, shamelessly, showed just as much indifference, and yet she stated at another meeting we had that, in the event that I make a suicide attempt (as I had stated in the meeting a great desire to accomplish), she would be very upset, very angry at me, and very shattered. Another member of the dysfunctional BPD group also stated that she was worried about me committing suicide because doing so would “land me in Hell, her idea of a lake of fire, and blah, blah, blah…”

Conclusion: Lack of suicide attempts on my part and my not landing in hell was very important to everyone in the group. However, their knowledge of the emotional pain and struggle associated with my loss and evident lack of support for coping with a condition as serious as Borderline Personality Disorder which they failed to provide, all of which easily lead to suicide attempts, matters nothing to them.

The above are only a few examples of crisis situations when my life preservation was critical, but my lack of emotional and psychological development was not. Unfortunately, the Mental Health System in the United States is also another agent of prejudice and powerhouse of ignorance that perpetuates the idea that suicidal people are less meaningful than their own life. Consider the fact that the US Police can and will intrude into the house of someone known to be an acute suicidal subject, abduct her into an ambulance, and lock her up in a hospital for a $2000 plus stay with the poor practitioners that usually work in acute units -all against the will of the suicidal subject on grounds that she is “a danger to herself or others,” when the reality of the situation is quite the opposite: the suicidal subject probably intended to commit suicide to keep herself safe from a life of excruciating emotional and psychological pain while seeing her loved ones turn their back on her because of her intense symptoms. If the police’s intent would have been exclusively to prevent a failed attempt at suicide that would have brought irreversible physical damage, their actions would have been justifiable. However, if the intent of the police was to only prevent the suicidal subject from actually dying to a life of torment (as is usually the case), then it is they who have taken her safety away, and have thus become the danger to her. And it is always the latter motive which misdirects anti-suicide activists, as well as the police, into believing that it is ethical to prevent a person’s desired suicide at the expense and damage of other very important aspects of that person’s life.

In the fall of 2012, I made the regrettable mistake of befriending a rather unprofessional, short-sighted, and uninsightful suicide prevention advocate through Facebook. She goes by the pathetic pseudonym of “Valerina Valerie.” I wrongfully judged her as intelligent and well-educated when I read comments she made in Facebook suicide prevention forums where she advocated for suicidal people in replies to comments from other users who criticized them of being “selfish,” and so on. In her comments, she seemed so understanding and knowledgeable about helping and caring for suicidal subjects in such delicate situations that I thought she would be a good person to reach out to when I was in crisis. Unfortunately, it was then when I realized how wrong I was. The day I confessed to her how suicidal I was, she took my suicidal gestures to heart; and instead of genuinely helping to lead me out of the stressful situation I was in and educating me on effective ways to deal with it, she went psychotic on me and spun out of control. It was then that I had learned how much of an impudent, ignorant, intellectually and emotionally immature cunt she really is. She forwarded my messages to many of her contacts, and inexplicably got a hold of a girl I met in high school (with whom I had had very little contact since 2006) to tell her about our ordeal. When I snapped at her for her poor and premature handling of the situation, she bashed me back! She spouted all her reproaches on what she perceived as “faults” on my part for naturally seeking attention under so much distress while I pointed at her evident immaturity and incompetence as a “suicide prevention advocate.” As Valerina’s rambling left no more room for agreement, I blocked her on Facebook altogether. And, as it turns out, it is because of Valerina’s mother’s own suicide that she became obsessed with suicide prevention in her own sick way (so as to appease her failure to prevent her mother’s suicide, that is). She doesn't actually care for mentally ill people in deep emotional pain to begin with.

The end result of that situation was even worse. As the police found out about the situation, they intruded abruptly into my house two days later, informed my mother about the situation, and then sought me at work (not intrusively nor hastily as they did at home, thankfully) to interrogate me with as much shamelessness and as much impertinence so as to cloud their thinking into believing that they were doing the right thing by meddling into a personal affair of mine which was none of their business. Later, as I got picked up from work, my so called “mother” yelled at me because she, too, thought that I was entirely guilty for the entire situation.

Conclusion 1: Suicidal people are usually devaluated by everyone surrounding them, including friends, family, clinicians, or authorities who try to prevent them from committing suicide, especially if it is against their will. No one in their surroundings really cares about how bad or helpless they feel, as long as they are successfully kept alive.

Conclusion 2: In most attempts that anybody makes to keep someone from committing suicide, the life of the suicidal person is overvalued. Likewise, the actual person wanting to commit suicide and the painful problems and struggles which lead them to desire to end their lives are undervalued.

Conclusion 3: Because of the social overvaluation of a suicidal person’s life, the measures that are taken to prevent a suicidal person from ending their own life are usually drastic, forceful, and punitive as in the example mentioned above. Therefore, they are traumatic, and they therefore intensify suicidal feelings and fail to prevent them.

Conclusion 4: Because a suicidal person's life is more valued than they as individuals are, anti-suicide activists, suicide preventing law enforcement and providers believe that they are in every right to torment and forcefully attack, damage, or destroy any or all aspects of the suicidal person's life, as long as their intent is to keep the target consumer from committing suicide. Suicide preventing agents believe, therefore, that suicide prevention is a good excuse for using intrusive, oppressive, unorthodox, and brutal measures towards the suicidal, even if their own life circumstances are already causing them the emotional and psychiatric distress that they are suicidal about. 

General Conclusion: The overvalue that is given to a suicidal person's life is damaging to them and to their recovery process as well. It is the actual person who should be valued in order for true recovery to take place. When nobody surrounding a suicidal person can truly value that person, the suicidal person should be allowed to choose between living on with their strenuous emotional pain, alone, or rest in peace from a world and a life that torments them.

First Log

As a mental health resource consumer, I feel enraged to see that there is a stubborn, recurrent attitude of taboo and aversion in the mental health community in the United States (among many other places) towards the idea of letting a person with severe mental illness choose the time of his own death while struggling to cope with it under great strenuous pain, little social support, and for long periods of time.

I’m also surprised to see, even among fellow consumers, that I am, at this point, the only person I know who is in full support of the legalization of Dr. Assisted suicide for the mentally ill.

Why is it that so many consumers who have felt the long-lasting, unbearable emotional and psychological pain associated with mental illness refuse to support the idea of other fellow consumers choosing the time of their own death? There are many reasons that help explain this, and each depends on each individual person. I know that some consumers simply fear death as a chaotic outcome, and fear hurting their loved ones as well. Other consumers have family and conjugal support that help them reinforce their self-worth and strengthen their self-confidence. Others also have well-rounded support systems with the support of therapists, psychiatrists, insurance, and sound medication combinations that also help them overcome their mental illness. Lastly, I know that plenty of consumers are Christian, or otherwise religious, and their religious figure or faith are strictly opposed to the idea of Dr. Assisted Suicide, deeming it as a form or murder. Religious inclinations can also be a source of hope and spiritual healing to help these consumers make sense of their struggles, and give them faith in a better future. No matter how abundant and diverse these causes may be, they all have one thing in common- a strong attachment to a solid ground of support. This solid ground of support can be many things- it can be love for family, devotion to a god, undying faith in a better end, or the longing for life experiences that foster spiritual growth. This main factor usually drives many mental health consumers and providers alike to oppose to Dr. assisted suicide for the mentally ill.

Respectively, there is also a large group of consumers who do not, in fact, have any attachment to any solid, effective ground of support amid a distressful mental illness. Many lack grounds of support for their mental illness to begin with, and thus have lost attachment to the prospect of being alive, and have very reduced fear of any consequence resulting from their death.

Because of their lack of faith in life, in the mental health system, and in the people around them, these consumers may be considered to be the nihilist type. It is usually their long-lived lack of effective and stable grounds of support and social ties which lead them to detach themselves from family, their life, their self-worth, and their motivation to pursue rewarding goals.

Nihilist consumers could, for example, lack the peer, conjugal, and family relationships that could help them grow spiritually and believe that they, and not just their life, do have value to others; Nihilists may also be subject to neglectful treatment at public mental-health institutions (as is often the case due to lack of funding) which fail to provide them professional attention from adequately-educated providers, or to connect them to community resources as well; lastly, Nihilists seldom have a religion, faith, or deity that they look up to for meaning in their lives. They can either be agnostic or atheist, hence lack a spiritual point of reference. Or they might believe in a god, and yet detest him because of his utter neglect and lack of helpfulness towards them in their recurrent, pain-stricken circumstances.

In conclusion, what separates us nihilist consumers from non-nihilist ones is the fact that, unlike them, us nihilists have no attachment to any possible grounds of support or source of strength that is strong enough to give us any desire and motivation to trust and believe in life.

I, a nihilist consumer, have decided to begin this blog to inspire a Movement for the Legalization of Dr. Assisted Suicide for the Mentally Ill. I want to speak for all other nihilist consumers who feel the same way about their own life, and who would like to see the legalization of Dr. Assisted Suicide as an alternative for the ending of their own ongoing psychological pain. I believe that all humans whose lives are in ruins because of their serious mental illnesses, among other reasons, should be given the legal right to end their life to end all pain and suffering associated with their illness. No mental health consumer should be forced to stay alive against their will, nor should they be subject to traumatic, coercive methods of treatment by force. No code of ethics justifies the previous, specially at the expense of a mentally ill person's unalienable right to be loved and respected, nor their choice to dignity and inner peace.

Disclaimer

The main intent of this blog is to expose the experience of living with mental illness from the angle of a fraction of the mental health resource consumer population which wishes to see Dr. Assisted Suicide (Euthanasia) become a legal means of ending the emotional instability and psycho-social turmoil associated with their recurrent mental illness. We, the nihilist consumers and their supporters, believe that Dr. Assisted Suicide for the Mentally Ill should be legalized in the US and abroad, and that the mentally ill should be granted the legal right to choose between living despite the severe challenges they face, or ending a life of torment to which they wish to die. We want to raise awareness of the nihilist fraction of the consumer population which is dissatisfied with a life of remission they do not wish to live, and which they live by regulatory force and oppression from mental health facilities, law enforcement, and government legislators in many parts of the world. 

This blog is not intended to be used as a channel to engage in illegal activity of any kind. This blog is not designed to give advice in handling suicide methods and affairs, nor in encouraging suicidal subjects to end their life on their own efforts or through illegal means. All mental health or other safety concerns are always encouraged to be brought forth to a certified mental health institution. This blog is solely intended to bring awareness to the issues mentioned above, and to help anti-suicide policymakers and activists understand that suicide prevention programs and measures which are provided by force, and not consent, are unfair measures of oppression and stranglehold whose coercive nature can not only traumatize their target patients, but may often times fail to perform any lasting, helpful, and therapeutic function in the long run.

In order to maintain the legal standing of this blog as a channel of opinion in support of the Legalization of Assisted Suicide for the Mentally Ill, all messages or posts soliciting the above or other illegal activity will be deleted.

I, the creator of this blog, am not responsible for any choices that its readers make, legal or not, as a result of reading the content of this blog. Everyone who reads this blog, or writes for it, acknowledges this disclaimer to its entirety.