Aspies For Freedom

Experts say - Never dare someone who is suicidal.

If ever there are suicide threat posts on AFF, they need to be encouraged to contact a local help line and if they are Aspies, to contact their local Autistic Society.

A suicide threat or "planning" a suicide always is a cry for help.

I attempted suicide when I was 21. I am glad today it didn't work and I'm alive

I think one of the problems, in my opinion, with psychiatric/psychological services is that I don't trust them.

There are times when I've felt overwhelmed and suicidal in my life, and the very last person I would trust with that information is my GP or psychologist.  I've admitted to depression, and I've been on antidepressants in the past, but I wouldn't admit to any medical professional who knew me (maybe I would feel differently about an anonymous support service, a bit like Samaritans but with psych-type people on the other end of the line).

At any time in my life when I've felt that things were really out of control, I felt that the last thing I needed was to inform someone like a doctor or psychologist, who had the power to have me sectioned against my will, and then things would really, really be out of my control.

Sometimes, when things get out of hand, and I'm finding it difficult to cope, I feel as though I want to opt out of responsibility (for looking after myself, taking care of day to day things that have become too overwhelming), but I still want to retain control.  The idea of being sectioned and doped against my will terrifies me.  Whether or not that would actually happen, I don't know, but I know that if the medical practitioners wanted to make it happen, they could, and there's hardly anything I could do about it.  Yes, I could appeal to one of those tribunals or whatever, but I've a strong feeling that once you get sucked into the institutional system, you're in and out of it for life.  Again, that terrifies me.

I had to do some frantic talking to stop myself being sectioned a couple of years ago...

In hindsight I probable needed it but the thought of being drugged with out my consent terrified me also. I can not imagine wanting to kill my self now but can remember all to well what it was like.

My sister is Bipolar and has been sectioned several times. I have visited her in two of these places which were not to bad. That was before she was 18 I do not know how the adult units compare.

I do not read wrongplanet usually but reading retrospectively willfreund1 posts did show some hope, I wish he had the help he needed. :cry:

Erm, what threats are you referring to M?  I haven't read any threats anywhere?  What are you going on about?

Oh, okay, thanks for clarifying that Amy, I was just a bit confused by the reference to threats, I thought it related to a specific threat, when you've made clear it was more hypothetical/general, thanks.

The internet has become overrun with trolls and attention seekers so it isn't a surprise to me that people thought he was a troll.
If anything ever happens like that again,try and get the person to give their home phone number or mobile phone numbers(if there's anyway of getting a home address from tracing it),if they are having doubts about killing themself they might oblige and give it,it can be passed onto 999/emergency services for them to trace,channel 4 did a doccumentary about suicidal forum/chatroom users not long ago,and some people who were threatening to kill themselves (on suicide forums none the less) were thought to be bluffing,by other users(and they then killed themselves,if I remember correctly),again,must be because people are so used to seeing trolls/attention seekers.

I don't know whether I would have spotted the suicidal part of his nature in his posts,but the fact he was completely obsessed with guns showed he really needed help.

They posted the chatlogs? :shock:  how is publically showing the chatlogs supposed to help the case? it's something authorities should have really,not general public,it's easy for people to make whole pre judged,rushed impressions of people via the little they post about themselves.

When someone is arrested, the police can seize their computer.  They can find out e-mails and forums that they use.  So possibly if a person had committed a violent crime and other people by internet/e-mail knew about it or helped plan the crime, they would share in the responsibility.  Could they considered accomplices?  That is why I think people continually post about suicide and murder/violent acts should be banned or deleted.  It is more to protect other people on the forum.  The person who is planning to committ the crime is more responisble for trying to get help for their problems.  

What do you think?

Nice idea, in theory.  However, I'd be concerned that maybe well-meaning advice might actually be unhelpful, or even inappropriate.

It's one thing for people to post in a general forum and raise queries or problems, or even to do so in a chatroom, it's appreciated that you're in a peer group.  Putting something out there as some kind of (semi)'official' support forum, or special place to go for, for 'expert' advice, when we're not trained or qualified to give it...  well, that just makes me uneasy really.  I'm certainly not saying even that the 'experts' have all the answers, because I don't think they do, and sometimes their attitudes can even be harmful.  I'd just be very worried that people might think it was something that it's not, that it would be perceived to be more authoritative than it actually would be.

There's also the legal implications to think of.  Sorry to point this out, but if, say, that chap had come into a special part of the forums for advice about his situation, and then he carried out his acts, I'm sure, given the litigious nature of US society, and increasingly ours in the UK, his parents or his victims families might want to bring a legal action for compensation.  It's one thing for a bulletin board to be a bulletin board, and for people to raise concerns about a poster or to dismiss him as a troll, but I think it would be another thing entirely if something was specifically 'advertised' or labelled as a support service.

There's already a helpline over here, run by the NAS, although it's not 24 hours and it's not a kind of emergency or emotional support, it's more to do with practical matters, I think.  But there's also the Samaritans, which does specialise in offering a 24-hour crisis line, but they don't specialise in auties or aspies.

Maybe there's a case for the NAS or CAN or whoever, to help fund training to create awareness for those organisations who do specialise in offering telephone support lines, so that they are more aware of the problems auties and aspies face, they can recognise them better, and they can deal with the callers appropriately, taking into account their special needs and talk to them or refer them as needs be?

Given that an organisation like the Samaritans already has an existing infrastructure of call centres and drop in centres and trained volunteers, I think it would probably be more cost effective, practical, and feasible to go along that route.

I'm not sure that it would be possible to set up a brand new call centre infrastructure and fund it, I mean even Childline has had major funding problems and might be restricting opening times of its phone lines or cutting back on provision.  If a major national organisation like that has problems...

Problem is, pharmaceutical companies have massive resources when it comes to fighting legal battles.  Most newspapers would hesitate to make allegations about side effects, unless they knew they could back up their assertions with science.  And since most journalists have at best only a hazy understanding of the science, for legal reasons they'll sometimes skirt around such issues.

I'm sure you're right.

I was prescribed some antidepressants and I started wetting the bed at night (a bit embarrassing for a 30-something).  I just thought maybe it was because I was in quite a stressful situation, and hesitated and almost didn't mention it to my GP, because it was so embarrassing.  I kind of blurted it out by accident though, and sure enough, 'frequency of micturition' or something like that was listed as one of the possible side-effects of this particular drug (can't remember which one it was now).

But as it obviously doesn't have that effect on *all* people who take it, but affects *some* people who take it, and given that maybe a good proportion of people suffering from clinical depression will be Aspies/somewhere on the spectrum, because clinical depression is a common co-morbidity, it does make me wonder whether those who experienced this particular side effect are Aspies/on the spectrum, so maybe it affects Aspies/ASDs differently to how it acts on NTs.

I think it's very possible that lots of different drugs used for psychiatric/neurological purposes will have a different effect on us than they would on NTs, and most drugs are probably tested on NTs, people with clean bills of health, so they can see what the side effects are.

May I point out that I started a thread at http://www.thehighroad.org with the title, "Prevalence of Asperger's Syndrome Among Gun Nuts"?

   That was on January 3rd, 2005, and I think the URL for that thread is http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.ph...perger%27s

I'm Orthonym at The High Road, BTW.

For the record:

I don't think I would ever kill myself, no matter how bad I feel; just not one of those suicide-prone folks, I reckon.  Besides, that would result in my being dead, and that doesn't seem like much fun.  

  As to killing other folks, that's something I'm right squeamish about, too. I mean, if you do that, you have to talk to policemen (ugh!) go to court, go to jail, get hanged (if your country still has proper justice) feel bad about it afterwards, and all. No thanks. Not for me.

I hate to say it, but it really comes down to the way society treats us. It seems like while 99.99% of us either suffer and deal with it, curl up in a dark room, or just suffer life's beating, there's always that rare person who's taken that much and has been though enough to where they'll do something like this. IMO our community is online, almost completely nonexistant IRL, there's no safezone from the NT world, and as long as society is the way it is we can always expect to read about more Will Freunds (and as we know, society seems to feel this is a small price to pay in preserving the right to be apathetic and intolerant).

I have comes across a lot of people like that in yahoo chat. And it sickens me and also makes me disappointed in some of humanity.  Makes me wish I could just thrash/throttle them even though I know thats not the answer. :neutral: