#suicide discussion

[its-sunny-somewhere-else]

Stay away from me I only have one eye left

[crash-bump-bring-the-whump]

Day 6 - (ALT PROMPT) Bloody Knuckles

I meant for this to be for day 4 of Whump Week but that other idea was too good, and then I didn't have the drive to finish it until now. More risen demon au stuff!

Ping list: @ailesswhumptober and @whumperofworlds

TWs: blood, discussion of suicide/suicide baiting, death mention

Mariano closed his eyes, feeling Dimitri's fingers combing through his feathers. They sat out in the little creek that ran through their domain, the quiet rustle of leaves and grass in the wind filling the comfortable silence. Cold, impossibly clean water meandered past, pulling the otherworldly black blood from Mariano's skin.

The last mission had been rough. Dimitri had insisted on helping him get clean again. Blood still oozed from cuts and scrapes, dark as the halo that hung near the tips of his tall horns. They'd bandage those once he was inside and dry again. Dimitri's claws scratched luxuriously against the skin of his wings, drawing little happy hums and sighs from Mariano as he finished washing his face.

"You're really pretty." Dimitri said with no warning.

"...What?" Mariano blinked. looking over his shoulder at Dimitri.

The blond demon just looked back at Mariano, still scratching through his feathers. "I said you're pretty. Turn around."

Mariano frowned as he did, black feathers ruffling before smoothing down as he shifted. The water felt amazing as it started to run against his lower back, his thin tail drifting along in the current. Dimitri took one of Mariano's hands in his, dipping it under the chilly water. His thumb started to brush over the broken, bleeding skin over Mariano's knuckles.

Mariano didn't wince, even as sparks of pain raced up his hand. "What makes you say that?" He asked, watching Dimitri's efforts gradually reveal raw, aching skin under the glowing black blood.

Dimitri frowned, tilting his head as he paused. "What do you mean, what makes me say that? I have eyes. You're pretty."

The water's temperature finally started to numb the sting of the bloody knuckles. "I thought you hated me." Mariano said as Dimitri let go of his now-clean hand to take his other one.

"Ah." Dimitri said, looking down at Mariano's hand again. His touch was somehow even more gentle, claws not even coming close to scraping against Mariano's knuckles. "I did, yes."

"You hated me the entire time we were alive. Before everything."

"I did." Dimitri said again, evenly. "I thought you were a brat, and a wimp, and spoiled. And stupid."

Mariano was quiet, letting Dimitri handle him more carefully than he'd ever done when he was alive. "When we all woke up here, you said I should've just killed myself instead of trying to whistle-blow." He said. "What changed?"

Dimitri's thumb passed over the knuckle of Mariano's ring finger, feather-light. "I'm not sure." He said. "You wanted to haunt Luis instead of just killing him, that helped. I liked that."

Dimitri's attention shifted to the knuckle of Mariano's pinky. "I think it was seeing your haunting." Dimitri's voice got softer. "I didn't like hearing you beg like that."

"Ah." It was Mariano's turn to speak quieter. "I'm sorry."

Dimitri shook his head. "No, no, it scared the shit out of Luis. He deserved it." Dimitri's fingers fell still. "He deserved to remember what he did to you."

They both fell quiet, the rustle of leaves and the murmur of water the only noises in their otherworldly paradise. Their feathers ruffled in the warm breeze. Dimitri let go of his hand to wipe at Mariano's cheek, thumb working at a stubborn streak of blood.

"Come." Dimitri said, his hand lingering where he cupped Mariano's face. "Let's get you bandaged up. Manuel's going to be upset if we stay out here too long and you catch a chill."

Dimitri stood, offering Mariano a hand up. He smiled, the briefest flicker of the expression flashing over his face as he accepted Dimitri's help. Dimitri didn't let go of Mariano's hand as they walked through the field of sweet-smelling flowers, up to the home they all shared.

[fearidescent]

I think Nimona's depiction of suicidal ideation is something we need more of in kids' movies. Obviously not all or even most of them, but some. Because, let's be real, there are more suicidal kids than we want there to be.

If I may use myself as an example, my first suicide attempt was when I was 12, and I found myself wishing for child euthanasia to be legal at a younger (not much younger, but younger still) age than that. And I don't think I'm some freaky exception.

I do think kids should watch these movies with parents present, or at least be able to safely discuss them with parents later. I do think that watching a movie with a suicidal protagonist when you're suicidal yourself but unable to safely discuss it with anyone may be too much.

But we should not hide suicidal ideation from kids. Otherwise they will feel even worse if they develop those feelings themselves.

[random-basil-lover]

Ironically Omori made me less suicidal?? Is this reserve psychology???

Idk, I just saw them kill themselves in the bad endings, saw the "stabbing" option in my playthrough, saw Basil's corpse all still and depressing and I was like "nah, this shit ain't worth it". I may be someone's comfort character.

[mogai-sunflowers]

suilexic!

suilexic-

a gender that is/is related to the word ‘suicide’! 

note: this gender is not about glorifying suicide and is a serious gender. as someone who has made attempts, i do take this very seriously, AND i still acknowledge how this part of life can impact one’s gender, which is why i’m making this term.

[Image ID: A flag with eleven equally-sized horizontal stripes. From top to bottom, the colors are navy blue, red, pastel red, pale red, pastel red, red, pastel red, pale red, pastel red, red, and navy blue. There is a red box with a vertical pole of the same color through its center in the middle. End ID.]

term and flag by me, requested by no one :)

[briarpatch-kids]

Hey so since apparently there's a VERY different story being told,

Uhhhh

Finch tried to kill himself in front of me by lighting himself on fire with a blowtorch, nearly burning my home down in the process, then sent me a 5 message rant over how I didn't help him at all in the 7 months he lived rent free in my house, then called me 5 times in a row until my husband called the hospital to make him stop, then tried calling AGAIN with a psychiatrist in tow, basically kept it up until we had to threaten a no contact order through the courts on recommendation from MY therapist.

The reason we were arguing in the first place was actually that he tried to blame cancelling a date over his anxiety on having to take care of me. He was talking about it was so unfair that the other roommates have a regularly scheduled Sunday game that was one of TWO nights a week he had to be home. Because I'm disabled and can't be home alone. On top of that he had 5 hours from the date time start until he had to be home and had an open invitation to bring the date here and hang out after. Things escalated when I told him that was ableist and he knew it. He wasn't "just trying to stay home with briar" he was trying to blame cancelling his date on Briar's disability and literally tried to light himself on fire when he couldn't.

Sorry for the continued drama, I really fucking want to be done with this but someone let me know that he was saying that bullshit and

[veresiine]

Vent post under the cut

Had the worst breakdown I've had in over a year today. Worst public loss of temper since I was a young teen.

I hate retail. I hate how corporate keeps pressuring us. Cutting hours. Increasing workloads WHILE cutting hours. Giving us 2-3% merit raises even at this level of inflation. DELAYING the merit raises, at that. And then 'reminding' us that our pay is meant to be kept 'confidential' (it's a labor violation. Most of us KNOW it's a labor violation. I took photo evidence but I can't do much else). Introducing new systems to track customers and get them to spend more money. I hate being a part of that.

I hate Those customers. You know the ones. Who insist that everything in the world is your fault and demand your name to report you to corporate, whether you had any hand in the incident or not. And all you can do is smile and nod and say 'I'm sorry for the inconvenience" and "I hope you have a nice day" until you get a chance to duck into the backroom and scream into the freezer.

But I love my coworkers. They had my back through the whole thing. One of them bought me a teddy bear from a nearby shop and brought it to me after she had punched out, and sent me a wonderfully supportive text message that I still need to fully read and reply to. I had no filter so I mentioned that my mask was full of snot from crying, and the store manager offered to get me a new one.

I hate how, despite that outpouring of support, my internal monologue was just a constant cycle of "I want to kill myself" immediately countered with "but I can't." And I'm not going to. I have mouths to feed and loved ones who've already been broken by others' suicides. But fighting the thoughts was exhausting to do on top of squeezing out 120% productivity as demanded by corporate.

(Do not worry about me. I am not going to kill myself. After I punched out for the day I wanted to die approximately 75% less. That remaining 25% is easily managed without external support.)

I love my friends. The friend who listened patiently, and also remembered my other chosen name from a discussion MONTHS ago (near the end of the day I got a rare and consequently unexpected burst of dysphoria. Also for the record, for tumblr purposes I am always still veresiine, veres, verk, or eres. It's just for irl purposes I have other names; this is irrelevant to those who do not know or acknowledge my legal name). The friend who sent me a bunch of cat pictures even though he was at work too. The friend who told me "if you're even asking [about taking mental health day tomorrow], you're far past due for it".

I'm just tired. Tired of being in pain (knee injury has healed but because I was favoring that leg for a while, my old foot/ankle injury has decided to make my life hell for the past ???). Tired of doing the same thing every week for years. Tired of knowing that the only reason I'm doing as well as I am (stable employment, not-terrible mental and physical health) is because I have support too many others are denied.

I need to sleep. I need all my strength for tomorrow at the lab.

[catsingbad]

vent

What would happen if I just killed myself right now?

It's not like anyone would care about a pathetic crying piece of shit like me.

I'm not smart. I'm fucking stupid.

I'm not contributing anything to society or my family so what's the fucking point?

Maybe I won't, maybe I will.

I will try to live for another month and if I hate it, I will do it.

[bpdrecovery101]

"help im splitting" post

Hi.

I'm tired of being sick.

I'm also tired of trying to research and being told nothing or "maybe you need to let your relationships go" (that sounds like giving up, honestly).

As of tonight, this moment, 11PM PST on August 12, 2023, I have split badly. I have relapsed and distressed those who are important to me, causing me to be more distressed. I can't live a life like this.

Consider this (hopefully) like a bit of a BPD survival guide. Essentially, it's a bit of a diary, too. As I recover, you can recover too.

We can do this. Intro below the cut. (tw for suicide discussion, ideation, splitting)

hi.

this is me with my dog (and my blurry cat in the top left corner).

this picture was taken about a few hours before id split really badly and almost attempted. i have attempted in the past. i would also split later that night and proceed to do things that would distress people that i would regret.

this is also me that day

got a new dog. i love her! except bpd kinda made me forget that, and kinda made it irrelevant. i just thought, in those splitting moments, that everybody hates me and im better off dead.

these things weren't true, of course. i thought that sharing a bit of my story may help. im going through it with you. sometimes it's fine, a lot of the time it isn't.

im kinda tired though of living like this. i dont want to live wondering when my next fit will be. it's exhausting, and it exhausts those around me too

so the name of the game here is recovery. diary posts are tagged as #diary so you can block them if you want to. otherwise, im sharing my experience and what is helping me recover.

we got this. it's hard but we can do it.

[raraeavesmoriendi]

follow up post I’m going to regret making in the morning but it has to be said

the patriarch, upon me having a full blown panic attack when he told me he’s just been eating one meal a day due to the state of our finances: “see, this is why I didn’t want to talk to you about this.”

me, trying to force air into my lungs and desperately trying not to cry too loudly: “but why did you make a big show of telling my brother everything was fine two days ago???”

my father: “because I’m waiting to have that conversation when he gets here.”

me: [flashback to almost a decade ago when he promised he’d tell my brother that my grandfather committed suicide when the time was right, meanwhile he told me without warning on the fifteen minute drive to our house so when I got home I had to put on an oscar-worthy performance of eating a salad like everything was Normal and I wasn’t suddenly crushed in massive amounts of re-grieving someone I’d just lost. which said brother still doesn’t know about.]

me: […having a much harder time getting air in my lungs than I was two minutes ago]

[cameoappearance]

[ image description: Twitter screenshot from Satan @s8n (who may or may not be the Tumblr user by that name) that reads "Suicide is never the answer. You gotta outlive your enemies." Timestamp: 11:43 pm 9/1/19. There is a reply from "tay | 5" @tayisnotokay (also may or may not be the same user) 18 hours before the screenshot was taken that reads "this is strangely motivational". ]

[pollsnatural]

Spin the wheel to get a spnblr discourse topic.

[astronicht]

Hi I hope this isn't presumptuous, but so, that post you made about Tolkien making the lads leave their weapons outside the hall and CS Lewis thinking the hall was gonna get burned down by a lady who also wanted to kill herself... what's the historical precedent for that? Is there a trope in medieval lit where people like... do that? I ask because uh. I am obsessed with Children of Hurin and there's a scene where that like, happens. And I'm obsessed with that scene, and would love to know if there's like, cultural/mythic context that would enrich my knowledge!

OH BOY, sorry I'm getting to this late, it's been uhhh a summer, but one, this is a very good question!! And two, yes there is absolutely precedent, particularly in early medieval literature, and high medieval literature set in the early medieval (circa 500-1100 AD) past. I'll let someone else debate how often people actually historically locked their enemies into a hall and burned them, but especially in Old Norse literature (and if Fellowship felt like it leaned a little more on Old English literature, Two Towers, where Eowyn appears, felt a little more Old Norse) this is common. Off the top of my head, you've got many Icelandic family feuds ending in burning the whole family in their hall, like Njal's Saga (Old Norse), Attila the Hun dramas (yeah he's a big guy in the burning halls circuit, but actually not in the way you might expect) like his cameos in Volsung Saga (Old Norse) and Nibelungelied (Middle High German), and my vague recollection of a few Irish and Welsh versions that no search engine is giving up for me right now.

This, predictably, got long and slightly off topic.

Disclaimer: As usual, I should say I come from an Old English-centric background, and Old English literature is actually notable among all its neighbors for not burning down too many halls. Second disclaimer, all links are not proper citations, they just go to wiki.

Hall-burning in literature is, to my understanding, part of the concerns of a few early medieval cultures in which revenge is not only expected but in many cases legally reinforced and codified, and one in which conflicts could spiral to engulf -- figuratively, or literally and in flames -- entire families. Many medieval Icelandic sagas are focused on this exact type of destruction of whole families or friendship/community units. Most relevant of these to Eowyn, Two Towers, and the vibes of Edoras (since alas I am only partway into RotK and can't speak to Children of Hurin yet!) is Volsung Saga, which is set on the Continent, not Iceland, and actually has to do with Attila the Hun. As mentioned before, an incredible amount of stuff turns out to have to do with Attila. We will come back to him!

So, on the particular post you're talking about, a few people iirc have replied pointing out that the hall in TT is clearly supposed to be based on a hall from Old English literature, namely the hall in Beowulf, which famously did not actually get burnt down. And that's all true! I was not posting with much nuance; I was mostly having a joke at the expense of CS Lewis. However, I was also referencing a very very common trope in Old Norse/early medieval stories, and I personally think JRR was as well (AND I think Beowulf was also very consciously referencing the exact same motif anyway) (no one has to agree with me, a tumblr blog, on any of these points).

The thing about the hall when our heroes approach is that the scariest damn thing in that hall is Eowyn. Certainly not every hall-burning story requires a woman with no other recourse to set the fire (in fact, the "warrior band approaches unknown hall which might have a grudge against them" is a trope that can get you killed in a pretty homosocial environment, as I guess Aragorn at least was aware, being a big reader). Still, the presence of a woman who is swiftly running out of options does fit what I'd consider one of the or perhaps The best known version of the early medieval burning hall trope: Gudrun, who shows up in at least a dozen different texts in both the Scandinavian and the German language traditions, including Volsung Saga, a text which itself often gets paraded around as the basis of lotr (which I'm sure it is, in that JRR appears to have simply and very fairly based lotr on every piece of early medieval vernacular literature I can think of).

In a portion of Gudrun's story (which of course changes a bit in each retelling), after her first marriage she is unhappily married to Atli, who is none other than our main man Attila the Hun. After Attila kills her brothers for reasons (in one version, her father), seeing no other way to take the necessary revenge and no other way out, she kills the two sons she had by him, serves them to Attila for dinner, has Attila killed, and then sets fire to the hall with everyone in it. After this, she attempts to drown herself.

The self-destruction of this act is a really important beat, and has only gotten more-so as a comparison to Eowyn the further I've read into RotK (currently, I'm at the houses of healing after merry and eowyn take on the witch king). It's a lot clearer in the book than the films, for me, that Eowyn going off to battle was not so a straightforward empowering and/or freeing move, despite allowing her some agency, but more the one path she saw as available to her with which to die with honor (which was pretty much exactly what Gudrun was facing as well). Like Gudrun, whose first husband was a great hero but has died, Eowyn's romantic choice is a hero who is presumed dead (sorry Aragorn they did Not believe in your ghost skills). In fact, in some versions Gudrun does put on armor and fight with her brothers before they're killed. She kills Attila with her own hand, with the help of another man who needs to avenge a blood feud against Attila.

So while Eowyn didn't get forced into marriage to Attila Wormtongue (with apologies to both historical Attila and that one historical skald also called Wormtongue who was reportedly hot) and burn the whole place down, she's still trapped, and like Gudrun chooses destruction alongside her household.

Reading her arc feels so much like watching Tolkien write a fix-it for Gudrun. What if she got this one little chance, and this one other little chance, and this one more -- tiny little shifts in the narrative that allow her to get out, and not through fire, and not through death.

Anyway, this got away from me. I hope it added some context to the Children of Hurin arson case! Thanks for the ask

[metanarrates]

ugh anthy is so good. nearly every single other story I've seen about a Mysterious and Tragic teenage girl has failed in some way either because the writer forgot to give the character complexity and an internal life, or because the tragic things in her life were far too aestheticized to have real teeth. anthy succeeds as a character largely because the whole story is dedicated to deconstructing an aestheticized view of her & her suffering, and also showing how that aestheticized view dehumanizes her and denies her agency. she is not a harmless victim or a beautifully agonized one - she is a teenage girl who is reacting in realistic, complex ways to a lifetime of crushing systemic abuses. and similarly, every teenage girl around her is also reacting in complex ways to their own suffering under patriarchy.

depiction of sad teenage girls often posit their pain as a natural phenomenon, something that is just intrinsic to girlhood. adding a layer of mystique onto them just further serves to obfuscate the sources of teen girl suffering. instead, teenage girl pain becomes palatable. consumable, even. #aesthetic. these depictions are unthreatening because, by their nature, they cannot depict societal issues in a way that would demand a restructuring of society. we can posit a familial tragedy but not a tragedy of the family structure. we can lament a beautifully mentally ill sufferer but not the systems of wellness and community that failed her. et cetera. nothing can ever hold up an uncomfortable mirror, only a flattering one.

revolutionary girl utena directly says that that idea is bullshit and that its teenage girls are suffering as a direct result of entrenched systematic oppression. and in that uncomfortable honesty, it's able to be WAY more authentically hopeful with its sad teenage girls. anthy is able to finally walk out of the society that trapped her and live freely of the image that was constructed around her! she can be a flawed human girl who is still going to be happy with her girlfriend! her victimhood is not eternal and does not mean she can never find happiness! A TEEN GIRL DOES NOT HAVE TO STAY IN A COFFIN IN ORDER TO DESERVE COMPASSION!!!!

[shouting-epicenities-at-you]

I'm very glad that suicidal ideation was addressed in this post. Often enough, even in circles consisting of antipsych/neurodiversity proponents, there is little discussion of it outside of "Just don't do it, ok?"

I think everyone needs to stop treating any non-condemning discussion of suicidal ideation as though the possibility that someone might want to kill themself is nothing more than a hyper-compelling infohazard pushing otherwise Smart, Healthy, Sane, etc. people to do the same.

As someone who's struggled with wanting to escape my life in such a way, the revelations that "cured" me had absolutely nothing to do with the platitudes people used to try and convince me not to do it. In fact, most people's arguments for me to not kill myself made me feel even more as though there was no other option. These people got the reasons why someone might have suicidal thoughts narrowed down to something so specifically inapplicable to my situation that I felt even more isolated than I probably would have if I never confided in them that I was having such thoughts.

the logic of pathologizing specific desires claims to stop moralization, but all it does is qualify them using absurdly circular logic.

"people who do drugs/kill themselves/hurt themselves have Done Something Wrong. but thinking that they are Bad People is cruel [true!], so they must have had a disease that made them do a Bad Thing even though they're Not Bad." or, more broadly "Healthy People want to do Good Things + Stay Healthy while Unhealthy People want to do Bad Things + Stay Sick. therefore, someone is who wants to do Bad Things is sick with a disorder that is tricking them into thinking they want to do Bad Things instead of the Good Things that their Real Self (which is being obscured by disease) wants."

do you see how this classifies anyone who desires something "unhealthy" as diseased + denies them full personhood until they embrace an identity composed of only "healthy" desires (with all "unhealthy" desires being an invasive Other)? why do we see this as this necessary? would someone become a Bad Person if the desire to do drugs or kill themselves was coming from Them + not a disease? why, if you genuinely believe that these things are not immoral? or do you believe they are ONLY morally acceptable because they come from a disease (so the person "can't help it")? if you feel like you need this model to understand your own experience, why? do you feel like it relieves a shame or guilt surrounding your experiences? why?

i need everyone to understand that, regardless of whatever personal attachment you feel to this model, the circular concept of "people who are too sick to know what's good for them (which is obvious because they are making choices which only sick ppl make)" is part of a logic that justifies all manner of degrading, violent + carceral responses to mad ppl/drug users/unhoused ppl. for every "recovered" person who embraces this model, there is a "disordered" person who resents it + that person will forever be denied the resources + social absolution "recovery" offers until they embrace it

[imposterogers]

batman canon: canonically cursed gotham, pseudoscience, creatures in the sewers, freeze guns, twenty rogues running rampant, the most absurd villains imaginable including kiteman condiment man & eggman, campy/eccentric outfits & personalities, superpowers used for evil

batman live action (excluding adam west, michael keaton, and gotham 2014): ok but what if we make gotham a normal ultra realistic city…………with normal levels of crime……………with one villain per year…………..how about that