I'm hesitant to even start this topic, except I trust you guys not to turn this into a ... well, into that Metafilter thread. (Actually there are a lot of good posts there, but also some people who are just plain mean.)

I'm not even sure what my question is ... I guess I'm just asking you to share your thoughts, if you have any.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Answers

Actually I just thought of a way to phrase this so that we aren't so much jumping onto this one person's story, which seems a little cruel. How's this: in general, how do you feel when someone uses an online journal or other public forum to express a cry for help? Does it make you uncomfortable? Do you feel like you're witnessing fake drama? Are you affected more strongly than you would be if you just (for instance) read about it afterwards in the newspaper?

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

I think you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Successfuly commit suicide, and everyone is left wishing you had just told someone how bad it got for you. Tell people how bad it is getting for you, and be accused of being a drama queen, or looking for attention.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

In the online journal forum, many journals that have a person crying for help get labeled a train wreck. Then there are links and mean commentary not unlike the one you posted on your page.

Related question: Would the people posting these things be nearly as opinionated if they knew this girl in real life or there was a chance that this girl would meet him or her face to face? What about people hiding behind the anonymity of the web to say whatever they want without consequence? Sooner or later, this girl is going to come out of the hospital and she's probably going to see all this commentary through her referral logs if nothing else. Obviously, she's fragile and I can only imagine how upsetting it's going to be for her to read these things.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

"In the online journal forum, many journals that have a person crying for help get labeled a train wreck"

I kind of disagree. I think train wrecks are usually people who could help themselves, but don't bother, because their negative situation garners them attention - these are people who crave attention so badly that will even seek out negative attention. I don't think any of the great train wreck journals that I have read have ever been written by anyone in a place where they really can't help themselves. I also think train wrecks can be spotted by the number of times they cry wolf.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

"how do you feel when someone uses an online journal or other public forum to express a cry for help? Does it make you uncomfortable? Do you feel like you're witnessing fake drama? Are you affected more strongly than you would be if you just (for instance) read about it afterwards in the newspaper?"

I think journals are often used as a cry for help of some sort of another, this just happens to be something that has a built in discomfort factor attached. I'm with Kristen on the 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' - if EVER a person should be shouting it from the rafters, it's someone who has reached a point where they can't stand the idea of going on another minute and badly need help avoiding taking themselves out of the game. If it's 'fake drama' so be it - better fake (in terms of ending in a successful suicide) than real, right? In terms of being a cry for help, it's real - and it's just amazing to me that that is so often considered an accusation.

Someone not just journaling, but living under the eye of a webcam all the time is pretty centered on their 'audience' as their primary outlet for communication. When you're at your last straw, that's where you turn. I'm kind of surprised this hasn't happened more often.

As to how it affects me... to me it IS like reading/seeing it in the news, as I didn't follow her (and hate like the dickens to suddenly GET interested just because someone's had a bad patch in their life - high squick factor in that). If this were someone I'd been following, yes, it would affect me and that dink that wrote a page making fun of her and her readers for being responsive has wrapped his entire web-life around following webcam journals just to make fun of them, so phht..

Y'know, stuff like this has really caused me to reduce the number of journals I read - if I don't really LIKE the person and am interested in how they're doing (as opposed to 'curious about how the story will turn out'), I can't stand to read anymore. The longer I'm at this, the wronger it feels to read 'just' for entertainment. That's probably why I can't stand the so-called reality programming so popular right now either. REAL real-life tends to get messy, and I don't like myself when I think I'm being entertained by someone's pain.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Yet we all do it to a certain extent.

I mean, is it worse to do it for suicide or feelings of suicide than it is to do it for, say, bad patches through a marriage, or a bad marriage altogether, or complaining about a bad job or, in my case, trying to get through the loss of a son?

One of the best things about the journal is that I had an outlet to try to formulate my feelings through that worst of times. The very act of getting those feelings out there, and knowing someone was reading and often sympathizing, helped.

Like having a few hundred psychiatrists reading my feelings, instead of just one. It was cathartic. I don't know if I would have gotten past that time as well as I have without it.

There have been plenty of times I've read a journallers' thoughts, and wanted to shake them and tell them to get out of an obviously unhappy situation.

Yet, if I do, which I would only do with a very few I consider friends...they'll invariably tell me that it's "not that bad", that they were just venting.

They were cries for help, in a sense. But sometimes, the best help--- is just knowing that someone is listening.

Knowing that what you said is not--ignored, but read and considered.

Al of NOVA NOTES.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

"One of the best things about the journal is that I had an outlet to try to formulate my feelings through that worst of times. The very act of getting those feelings out there, and knowing someone was reading and often sympathizing, helped."

Perhaps you misunderstood what I said about ONLY reading in cases were I genuinely care as opposed to reading for the thrill value of witnessing someone's bad time - if I don't care about the journaler, I no longer want to participate in watching their life.

Because in spite of your 'all publicity is good publicity' I don't think you'd be enamored of the notion that someone were reading about Jamie's death and aftermath and thinking "Oh he's overdramatizing and just looking for attention for himself" or "Well, he sure is being boring when everything's going okay - hope one of the kids breaks their neck soon and stirs things up or I'm going to lose interest."

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Sometimes I hesitate to write when I am very upset/angry/sick etc. simply because I don't want an entry or notify list posting to appear like a cry for help. Often after writing this sort of entry in the past I have gotten a bunch of email from people trying to "help me". In a lot of cases, by the time the entry went up, I was over it - but I had a mailbox full of advice on the subject.

Or, I had a mailbox full of people who had gone/were going through a similar situation and wanted to tell me all about it. Sort of the email-to-journaler-as-substitute-for-own-online-journal thing, if anyone knows what I'm talking about.

That prompted me to write an entry about how I can't always respond to that sort of email, because often I've said everything I'm going to on the subject and have no desire to discuss it any longer, and how they shouldn't take it personally etc. Naturally, the volume of email plummeted because now I think people think I want no email, which is the other extreme, but that's okay too. If I am specifically seeking advice on a subject now, I say so in the entry.

(Hopefully someone is following this ramble.)

I guess my point is - how do you know when it's a cry for help and when it's just venting or catharsis? Do you try to figure it out, or do you ignore it completely? Do you jot off a one-line "are you okay?" email? And if you do, does the person have any responsibility to write back?

This can easily flow into the whole "responsibility between readers and writers" debate.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Actually, on the specific attempt, it's ameliorated if you realize that (a) she's done this before, in almost exactly the same way, manipulating the livejournal community and others into 'saving' her, and (b) there's more going on here. Check out http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?itemid=6681506 for more details and the ongoing discussion of rights, wrongs, and what one should do if one of your friends is really this messed up.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

I don't think that "ameliorates" anything. As I gather from reading her friend's posts at her livejournal, she's been in ICU since Tuesday. That's not good. Your link there also suggests that she went to the trouble of setting up the cam, but her friends have said she had cams all over the house and it was already there. (Okay, a cam on the litterbox? Perhaps that one is farfetched.) But the idea that she was never in any danger is nonsense.

Still, though, I don't know what you want. If she'd turned off the cams and posted nothing in her livejournal and just gone and offed herself, she'd be dead now. Instead she's going to get some help.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Great art comes from despair. I haven't read the girl's journal, maybe she is no word artist, but conceptually, it would be quite moving to read the story inside of a person's head when you know that the tales of pain are not fake because the ending is not fiction. Is there anything more dramatic than seeing the questions we all have about life played out in a way that many of us contemplate but few of us will ever attempt?

Obvioulsly I approach this girl's story with a certain unintended callousness since I have no personal knowledge of her, I have no contact with her and my interest about her go only as deep as the same feelings I have when I hear about anyone comitting suicide or for that matter, when I hear about human tragedy and suffering in some far away place. It all stings a little bit.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Stacy is a good friend of mine. You can see some of my posts in that thread Eloise referred to, where I sound pretty pissed off. I was angry at Stacy and I still am. When she did the same thing a year ago, we called her and wrote her letters and sent her giant stuffed animals and told her we loved her every day. I'm angry that it wasn't enough. I'm angry that her bipolar depression keeps her from believing how much we all care about her. It's totally irrational for me to be angry, but that's my reaction.

Stacy is an incredible artist and a wickedly funny and cool person. She invented an imaginary white trash roller derby queen and made a journal for her. She once sent me a collection of the worst TV movies ever. She's an art professor, dyes her hair pink, and loves her cats. I don't know why I'm telling you all of this...maybe I just don't want her to be known as "the girl who tried to off herself on cam."

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Great art comes from despair.

You know what? On some days I'm wildly talented. On some days, I'm frighteningly depressed.

Those are never the same days.

I have a hard time buying into the despairing artist thing. It's too easy a dismissal/explanation of many complex ideas.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

I tend to agree with Nita. I think some people can more easily tap into their creativity during times of emotional crisis, but those people are the exception. And emotional crisis isn't the same thing as depression, of course.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Attempting suicide shouldn't be interpreted as validating someone's pain, just as failure to do so doesn't indicate an absence of pain. One of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder is attempting suicide in order to get attention.

(I should add, though, that I don't know anything about this woman, and I have no idea what her motives were. But suicide attempts shouldn't be used in and of themselves as a gauge of someone's suffering.)

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Agreed, Jen. But an attempt at getting attention should not be perceived as negatively as it is (not saying that you did, just people have been in general, especially on her site.) This girl is very, very ill. Just like with cancer, mental illness is a -real-, tangible illness, whose physiological effects can be viewed by an EEG, or a Brain Scan tracing blood flow.

I agree that her attempt is probably more of an indication of a personality disorder vs. major, clinical depression, due to the factors leading up to her attempt: boyfriend broke up with her, past unsuccessful attempts.... suicide attempts spawned from clinical depression tend to come with absolutely no "triggers" or any outward expression of inner-turmoil.

But, that having been said, I take great offense to the people on her threads that posted the pictures (in the guise of the Visa commercial) or who have posted plain ol' mean statements accusing her of selfishness. Be it a personality disorder or major depression, it's still a mental illness... a disorder that was most likely a genetically inherited predisposition, that -may or may not- have been exacerbated by environmental elements, like abuse, neglect or drug/alcohol dependency.

That is to say, that she isn't to be regarded as some little attention starved, selfish person who "doesn't care about the people she may leave behind." It's a fucking illness, people!!!

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

I agree with Kirstin - you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I read such things and sometimes roll my eyes and think "what a drama queen." Yet people who do commit suicide commonly talk about it before they do it - it's a myth that people who talk about it aren't going to actually do it.

Reading about it online gives it a feeling of unreality, I guess.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

I agree with what most of you are saying. But I think I also agree, in this instance and in others, with something that a few of the "mean" people on other threads are saying: that the type of attention she's getting now isn't necessarily the type she needs. And that goes for anyone who is mentally ill and attempts suicide, but especially for someone who does it publicly like this.

I went back and read the original thread from her suicide attempt in June of 2000, and the thing that struck me the most was the way that a few entries later, she was out of the hospital and just going on with life, with the same people reading and interacting like it hadn't happened. I hope that doesn't happen this time.

Let's face it, there is something weird about living your life on a cam or in a journal or with a chat line jacked in like an IV, and I think it's very bad for some people. I'm not saying this is true for everyone who goes through a crisis online, but haven't you seen some people who use their online audiences as a substitute for actual therapy, medication, or just dealing with their issues? These people may need help and attention, but I don't think the cam life is helping Stacy, just like the online journal life seems to trap some people in a cycle of drama and depression. It doesn't cause the illness, but I think the net keeps some people from getting real help.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Morpheus, just to clarify, I've never read this woman's journal, so I have no idea if her suicide attempt was an act of desperation or a cry for attention. Also, I certainly don't condone viewing mental illness as a personal weakness (although contrary to your claim, most mental illness can not be visualized with imaging techniques, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a physiological basis).

My post was in response to Rudeboy's comment that "you know that the tales of pain are not fake because the ending is not fiction."

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Beth... absolutely. She, in my mind, is using her site for validation; a need in common with the rest of society. Unfortunately, she needs the structured relationship of therapy, not a bunch of trippy-ass mo-fo's that agree that her boyfriend should be shot, and that she just needs to go to Chippendale's club and get blasted to get on with her life.

Of course it doesn't make sense... she needs help! I strongly resent the earlier "drama queen" statement, though, which is indicative of the responses seen at her site, and the site manager's. A sane society's best response is one of sympathy, yes, but more importantly recognition of the fact that she is sick, and any important person (i.e. non-web aquaintance)in her life should provide accountability to her with regards to seeking out profession therapy.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

"although contrary to your claim, most mental illness can not be visualized with imaging techniques"

Jen, I never claimed that most "mental illness" can be visualized.

"mental illness is a -real-, tangible illness, whose physiological effects can be viewed by an EEG, or a Brain Scan tracing blood flow. "

My quote was in direct reference to clinically diagnosed depression, which I -will- claim to be visually traceable.

http://www.axom.com/r9700334/brain2dep.html http://www.musc.edu/psychiatry/fnrd/petdep.htm

and not just depression!

"Remarkable advances in the last decade in structural and functional brain imaging have now been applied to the study of mood disorders. Although there are many reports of ventricular enlargement in patients with schizophrenia, the literature also contains many CT and MRI studies reporting increased ventricle size in patients with unipolar and bipolar disorders" -asman: Psychiatry, 1st ed., pp269-272

Since Berkeley probably has the same on-line resources as we do, I highly recommend searches on MDconsult.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Beth said:

"I went back and read the original thread from her suicide attempt in June of 2000, and the thing that struck me the most was the way that a few entries later, she was out of the hospital and just going on with life, with the same people reading and interacting like it hadn't happened. I hope that doesn't happen this time."

Beth, as one of those who was around and interacting with Stacy last year when this happened, I'm wondering what you would have done differently? I'm not being confrontational, I'd genuinely like to know. How do you treat someone who survives a suicide attempt? Do you treat them with kid gloves and avoid any unpleasant subjects? Do you try to act as though everything is normal to avoid embarassing them? Do you confront them and tell them off for scaring you and making you sad? What should Stacy's friends (not including the many livejournal curiosity seekers, I'm talking about those of us who interact with her regularly) do differently this time around?

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Morpheus, this is off topic, so I'll make this short, but imaging is not considered a definitive diagnostic technique for depression. I've read the relevant literature and many patients who are treated for clinical depression do not show these changes. There's no doubt that psychiatric illness has a basis in physiology--the problem is that psychiatric illnesses (like depression) are multifactorial, and different patients have different physiologic bases for their illness.

(I'm also at UCSF, not Berkeley).

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

I don't pretend to know anything about Stacy except what she has posted about herself, kaela, but I think that if you're her friend, you can't just let her go back to "normal," because her "normal" has put her in the hospital twice. I will agree with another point some of the mean folks made -- suicide (or attempted suicide) is a terribly cruel thing to do to the people who love you, and even though we cut people a lot of slack because of their mental illnesses, I don't think friends and loved ones have to be held hostage. I think at some point you have to exercise some tough love and emphasize to her that she HAS to take her illness seriously and get some real help, because you can't help her anymore unless she does.

I know people don't want to do that -- they don't want to say, "I can't be here for you anymore if you don't get some professional help." They feel like they're abandoning a friend. But you know what? It sounds like her friends have "been there" for her. And it didn't work, because she's back in the hospital.

The rules of friendship do not require you to have a degree in clinical psychology. I think they do require you to tell a suicidal friend, very honestly, that she needs help that you can't provide, and that it's not fair to ask you to watch her continue to hurt herself unless she makes an honest effort to get that help.

To be perfectly blunt, I think that's the only way a friend can help someone who is suicidal or seriously mentally ill. Otherwise, the most well-meaning efforts can just turn into a type of enabling. Plus, I can think of few situations more soul-sucking than feeling helpless while someone you love continues to hurt herself despite your best efforts. You deserve more than that.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Isn't UCSF just Berkeley Annex South? =P (just kidding since -our-merger just crapped out)

Since this -is- off topic, I'll quickly respond in kind, as I have been doing so, feeling as thought I am either being genuinely misunderstood, or misquoted.

"imaging is not considered a definitive diagnostic technique for depression"

Uh, ok. I never said it was the definitive, nor did I say that it was being used in the course of deciding a diagnosis. (No way Blue Cross will ever start reimbursing for MRI's or scans as part of the assessment when we just "treat and street" with the wonderful assortment of drugs now available, with lower costs for the company.)

Now that my original point (which, btw was in agreement with you) has been watered down, I'll summarily reimphasize: "Just like with cancer, mental illness is a -real-, tangible illness, whose physiological effects can be viewed..."

My point, was to help to visualize the nature of depression, which is that of an illness. My point in doing that, was to emphasize that this unfortunate person was, in my opinion, not acting out in some gradiose "give-me-some-sympathy" as she has been accused, but rather simply exhibiting symptoms of what could be an illness.

You know, this is why journal submission reviews take so damn long.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

I see my views are in the monority.

Great art does come from despair. Novels, paintings, music... I'm not saying that happiness cannot also inspire the same, just that depression, despair, misery - these are the elements of tortured souls lost in the underground abysses of despair trying to claw their way to some type of rational upside. You can make the argument that an abundance of any emotion, from melancholy to nirvana, has the ability to incubate deep or insightful work. But that's beside the point.

I'm not sure that the girl is genius in her application, but I do know that as an outside recipient, her actions prompt me into thoughts that may never have existed without her. I prefer to deal with her life and the attempt at self extinction as art rather than delve into the technical aspects of her individual needs. She represents more than what she is.

Like the rest of us, her life is like a painting or a great story. She is the breathing embodiment of art. And, she gathered us all to be a part of her work. From the first attempt at suicide. To the warmth and love that was poured onto her. Through the denial, indifference and forgetting. To the last cry for help and the equal parts of understanding, scorn and doubt it raises.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Jen "who will never marry me no matter how many times I ask" Wade said: Attempting suicide shouldn't be interpreted as validating someone's pain, just as failure to do so doesn't indicate an absence of pain. One of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder is attempting suicide in order to get attention.

That doesn't make any sense to me. People with borderline personality disorder aren't in pain? What could be more painful?

Attempting suicide shouldn't be interpreted as validating someone's pain... Should it be interpreted as being a happy shiny person? It's true that people who fail to attempt suicide also have pain, but what do we say about someone who goes to such lengths to get the attention she needs? Are you saying that it is feasible for a person to attempt suicide, be in no emotional pain and rest the sole blame on their borderline personality?

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Are you saying that it is feasible for a person to attempt suicide, be in no emotional pain and rest the sole blame on their borderline personality?

Yes.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

Dude!!!!! I knew right after I posted that you were going to write that exactly. Geez. If that ain't evidence of the bond of luv we share I don't know what is. Or maybe it's just cuz it's freaky Friday.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

The hardest thing in the world is loving someone who has a mental illness. But, at some point, if that person does not seek help, you have to walk away - and I don't necessarily mean this literally, but rather the emotional disconnection required for you to survive. Everyone is responsible for saving their own lives (and before you go, "But", I'm not talking about not helping people trapped in buildings, etc.) - no one can fix anyone else. Suicide is not something I ever want to be trapped in the aftermath of and I'm not about to go out and yell, "Yay, suicide!", but I honestly feel that it's a valid choice - if someone has chosen to end their life, then leave it be. I don't feel that it's morally superior to save that person because you feel it's the right thing to do, or you're afraid to lose them. These are selfish reasons that have nothing to do with the individual's reality. I understand that there are people who live lives, even with modern medications, that are so subpar in terms of quality that it's completely unbearable for them.

Most of them, however, do not go through these things on a webcam.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001

L'affaire Stacy Pershall gets a few column inches in the Guardian's On line section today.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001