There is a danger associated with such a poll.
This book (http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Practice-Robert-B-Cialdini/d...), written by a psychology professor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini), reports that when a suicide is reported in the news, the number of lethal car accidents increase in the geographic region where the news were reported. Furthermore, if the person who committed the suicide was middle aged, then the people who die in the car accidents are more likely to be middle aged (or something like that).
The theory is that the people who are "on the edge" get the "courage" to execute their plan by hearing about someone who has done this, which is possibly also true about this poll.
The news about Dan has had this question kicking through my head for a day and night, primarily because I've never considered suicide, though I suspect I've been through a depressive bout when my life took an unexpected turn for much worse.
The primary consideration I've identified is that when both my professional personal lives suddenly fell apart, I had a young son to take care of. Hopping in a car and driving across the country wasn't an option, much less something more permanent. I had a serious, nontransferable responsibility that kept me grounded and kept things in perspective.
The destruction of my life was exacerbated by the fact that much of my sense of self, purpose, and self worth was tied up in the company I was working for. My days were there, my evenings often involved colleagues who'd grown into friends and my brain's idle cycles were spent working on making it successful.
I also had a responsibility to my company and the people that I worked with. It was clear to me that leaving -- in any sense -- could result in the majority of the talented technical staff leaving. And after that the company would collapse. The people had families, mortgages, kids in college. Leaving and causing them that unwarranted pain, stress and upheaval wasn't something I wanted on my conscience.
I ended up staying, finishing building and selling the product I'd started, and leaving just as it took off. Last year (several years after I left), it represented 70% of the revenues of the firm. I left with my head held high.
My conclusion is that having these ties to the individuals in the firm and to my kid allowed me to consider my life in a larger matrix: entwined and linked to others. The thought of ripping myself out of that matrix by ending my life was anathema.
I wonder if the focus of the startup world on young, unattached, "unencumbered" founders is a mistake. These people may be most susceptible to not being part of a larger matrix and most at risk because they don't have the perspective that time can provide.
Note that I'm not suggesting that the young/unencumbered/unattached may not be successful, just that they may not be the best equipped to handle some of the rigors of this life.
Beautifully put. Having dependents (family/work/etc.) gives one a moral reason to stick around. Eventually, as time goes, (hopefully) one starts looking at brighter aspects of life.
I've contemplated contemplating it. If you look at suicides many aren't brought on by a specific event or even a long period of obvious depression. They are clearly unplanned and seem to have been executed at the spur of the moment.
Given that it seems clear to me that some overwhelming feeling of dread comes over people in that one instant that has such a profound impact on them that they desperately need to stop it by any means necessary. Faced with that reality you'd be a fool not to wonder if the same thing could happen to you. Since you can't really answer that it makes sense to try to prepare yourself for the eventuality while you're in a rational state of mind.
Can we please stop the 'thematic' posts ? I understand there is a sudden interest in the subject and the related subject of depression, but I find two posts in 10 minutes on the subject of suicide a bit much.
On the other hand I wouldn't mind that black band being there for a bit longer and maybe a permanent link at the bottom of HN, two days and five*width pixels, then back to business as usual seems somehow too little. Something a bit more permanent would feel right.
I struggled with whether to post this. But I think it's a simple way to gauge a common thread. I've known enough college students to know how often the thought and act of suicide comes up. Ultimately I decided that leaving it unspoken is worse than a poll that can fade into the ether if you disagree.
Ultimately I decided that leaving it unspoken is worse than a poll that can fade into the ether if you disagree.
Yes. I was startled that just a few days after a poll on HN members feeling depressed with most responses (hundreds) saying that participants often felt depressed
about a young hacker who seemed to have much going for him dying of suicide. The comments in the previous thread nay-saying the idea of taking depression seriously as a life-threatening problem sound especially stark in light of the later thread.
Lifetime incidence of at least one period of depressed mood is fairly high across humankind, but that's over the course of a whole lifetime. It is UNUSUAL for young people to have prolonged (days-long) episodes of depressed mood if they haven't had a parent die or something like that. That's an issue that should be looked into. Untreated depression is a huge cause of mortality among young people. Young people in developed countries don't die of much else besides traffic accidents (and at least some deaths of young people that are reported as traffic accidents may be misreported suicides).
There is also the issue of subsequent degradation of a person's quality of life if depression is not treated when the person is young. Most twenty-somethings are resilient enough to get through quite a few episodes of depression and to stay employed and to stay in romantic relationships, but each depressive episode tends to cost a patient work productivity, intimacy with significant others, and other sources of personal reserves for the next episode. Physicians have taken care in multiple research projects to develop diagnostic screening tools that standardize how much by way of depressive symptoms is enough to be of concern. If you have a concern, get the opinion of someone with clinical experience and see if you can go through life without repeated episodes of feeling worse (and doing worse) than you need to. If a young person is depressed for days at a time a few times a year, that young person has a clinical case of depression and is well advised to seek medical advice about what to do about. Both medicine and cognitive talk therapy can be helpful, often most helpful as a both-and combination.
In my younger, single days I used go out to buy something expensive and complicated. Pouring over the manual and getting into the forums kept my mind turning. By the time I had it figured out I moved onto something else shiny. Or I enjoyed tinkering with it long enough to continue on.
My shopping list includes:
Abit BP6 and x2 celerons
PS2, hacked to all hell
XBox, hacked 3 ways from sunday.
Tivo Gen 1 + Gen 2 hacking.
I don't consider myself clinically depressed but whenever I was in a funk it was followed by a great deal of creative activity.
Well, we discovered that there is no immortal here, since nobody attempted multiple times and answered the pool.
Men! Why suicide? It can always get better, is just a matter of try, multiple times, one day you will have success and thinks how dumb you was thinking in take your life.
The theory is that the people who are "on the edge" get the "courage" to execute their plan by hearing about someone who has done this, which is possibly also true about this poll.