Julia and I are usually in accord, though when we disagree, it tends to be that we take diametrically opposite sides to a situation. The one she discusses here is an example. I am one of those whom she dismisses as sanctimonious, I suspect.
Okay, having been massively inconvenienced on occasion by those who choose the railway to end their lives, I have been unsympathetic. Very unsympathetic. I recall one time standing alongside some mangled body parts cracking dark jokes with the police officer assigned to the situation. Stepping in front of a train is effectively appointing some hapless driver to act as executioner and I regard that as extremely selfish. And, when someone does something stupid and causes a massive hold-up on the motorway and I’m stuck for hours getting nowhere – again – I can be pretty caustic in my assessment of the irresponsible and downright stupid driving involved – because, frankly, that is why most accidents happen.
So, yeah, I can fully understand why those people on the M3 were annoyed. I can understand their frustration, for I have shared it. However, the person involved in this suicide attempt is mentally ill. She has subsequently been sectioned. So I have sympathy with the police officer’s caustic reaction to the motorists who were encouraging the would-be suicide to get on with it. She wasn’t engaging in morality policing, she was expressing an understandable irritation with what can only be described as boorish behaviour – even if it was, to a degree, understandable (I’d have thought it, even if I didn’t say it – I am human, after all). Behaving like an arsehole is still behaving like an arsehole no matter what the provocation and this was what was happening. I don’t go along with the “she was being authoritarian” arguments, either. She was reacting with disgust at bad behaviour. And it was bad behaviour, no matter how you spin it. Thing is, we all have these frustrations and we all – in similar situations – find ourselves reacting in a misanthropic manner.
But, as those who commented over at Tim’s point out, this individual is sick. So maybe a little empathy is in order. If you’ve never had suicidal thoughts, then maybe you have difficulty comprehending and exercising such empathy. Thing is; I have. Depression can be debilitating. It can create a sense of all-encompassing worthlessness. And when in those dark places, suicide seems like a way out; an end to the ongoing misery. I planned it a couple of times, but didn’t follow through. Not least, my basic sense of survival kicked in and having had to clear up the mess left by others in the past, I found myself thinking about those who would have to clear up mine. So I pulled back from the brink.
It didn’t stop the thoughts, though. From time to time, they come back and haunt me. So, I have that empathy. So, on balance, I’m with the usual suspects over at Tim’s on this one. Because I’ve been there. I understand – and in the darkness, the inconvenience to others trying to get to work tends not to be a factor. It doesn’t even register. If it does, you step back, which is what I did. Suicide may well be the ultimate in selfish acts, but when you are there, staring at the abyss, that doesn’t enter into the equation, so kindly refrain from judging those who are there, for if you have never experienced it, you are fortunate and be thankful for that good fortune.
Those who allowed their frustration to boil over in this case, displayed a basic lack of humanity. They behaved like arseholes and calling them that is perfectly reasonable – and accurate.
“They behaved like arseholes and calling them that is perfectly reasonable – and accurate.”
Concur. But being an arsehole is not an offence. We all do it, sometimes justified, sometimes not.
No one has said it was, though. That’s the point. The police officer may have used PC language, but she was simply calling them arseholes by any other name.
A suicide is a tragedy, end of, pray it never happens to one of your loved ones, no matter how much time goes by the pain ever ends.
The suicide at the time of going through with it cannot in any way be deemed to be thinking rationally, so no matter how much we are inconvenienced as passers by caught up in the event we have to just put up with it.
It’s almost as much of a tragedy for the poor innocent person(s) inadvertantly being involved at close quarters, eg the innocent train/lorry driver, their lives will never be quite the same again.
We are rational people, not contemplating killing ourselves, condemning those who have reached such a rock bottom in their lives that ending it all is their only way out, what do we know unless we’ve been there.
Well said. I would only demur at the notion that you understand because you’ve been there. That’s one of the common intellectual mistakes today. Anyone can understand right and wrong if they will just think. You do yourself injustice by following the same line that makes afternoon TV idiots who have experienced some misfortune think that they are suddenly experts and that the law should be changed at their behest to ensure “it never happens again”.
No, I mean that I empathise with suicides, because I’ve stood in their shoes. That’s different to intellectual understanding. I don’t want the law changed due to anything I’ve been through.
Genuine mental illness and depression are terrible things. It makes me very angry when people fake it to pull sickies.
As for suicides, the good thing is that they only do it once. It makes me laugh that suicide used to be an offence. One wonders how you would successfully prosecute the offender?
Well, they dug up Olly Cromwell, and hanged him – didn’t they? So with the mindset of the government drone, it is possible.
“However, the person involved in this suicide attempt is mentally ill. She has subsequently been sectioned. “
The fact that she’s been sectioned doesn’t actually prove that she intended to kill herself. She may well be one of those types who do this to gain attention.
I’d love to know the stats on how many people jump AFTER they’ve got all the blue flashing lights and sympathetic officers offering a shoulder to cry on.
I bet it ain’t many…
It tells us she was mentally is and therefore not in full control of her faculties. Hence her irrational behaviour. Whether she actually intended to go through with it is neither here nor there.
You say we are callous cold hearted people for being upset by a bridge jumper yet you laugh at someone who killed themselves – https://www.longrider.co.uk/blog/2015/07/05/youd-need-a-heart-of-stone-4/. I’m confused, which form of death is one supposed to laugh at and which be sensitive and caring about.
Wow, that’s a massive strawman there. I never said anything about being callous and cold hearted. I merely pointed out that the behaviour was bad- the police were trying to deal with a difficult situation, so shouting at them was, indeed, behaving like arseholes.
Dark humour in response to someone doing something incredibly stupid – after the event – isn’t the same thing at all.