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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to be shocked and disgusted at this?

97 replies

AlgebraKnocksItUpANotchBAM · 05/10/2010 19:11

somebody committed suicide in my local mall today, by jumping off a balcony. he was only 27 :(

while that is obviously awful and shocking and sad, that's not what I'm posting about.

apparently the event was posted on FB within less than five minutes.

and the security guards who obviously rushed to the scene straight away couldn't get to the man. because of the crowds of people filming it on their mobiles.

we were in town a few hours later and people were still milling around taking photos of where he jumped.

FFS. :(

why would people do that?!

OP posts:

monkeyfacegrace · 06/10/2010 21:55

This is going to go down like a lead balloon, but Im sorry, suicide is fucking selfish. What if I had been walking in that mall with my two toddlers, what do you say to them? What if he had landed and paralised someone?

GOML, I was stuck in the traffic when the lad jumped off Parton Rd couple of weeks ago, and was late for a very important meeting.

If you are going to kill yourself, do it somewhere that isnt going to traumatise others/kids/cost tax payers money/ waste emergency services time etc.

No sympathy.

And that comes from someone who has lost two people to suicide over the last 3 years, and who has been suicidal myself.

fairycake123 · 06/10/2010 22:47

Someone on my Facebook friends list updated his status yesterday to say "I just saw a little kid die outside my apartment - hit by a car. It seriously fucked up my day."

FOR FUCK'S SAKE. WHO DOES THAT?

Original poster

AlgebraKnocksItUpANotchBAM · 06/10/2010 22:53

OMG that's horrible.

I was in town again today and I'm still feeling quite freaked out by what happened TBH - didn't see anything thank goodness, but the idea of it. I don't know how somebody would get over seeing something like that, especially a child. do they offer counselling I wonder?

I think the extra reason I'm upset by it is that in the last year (since having DS) I've had a few very bad, memorable dreams about bad things happening to my DD, because of my failing to stop them. in one of them my DD had climbed onto one of the barriers in the same mall, and fell down before I could get there :(

sorry for self indulgent post, but I've kept that dream to myself (apart from DH) and it's a relief to share it.

OP posts:

DirtyMartini · 06/10/2010 22:59

This is a deeply disturbing thread.

Fairycake, I would be tempted to post a reprimand ... 'i can't believe you've posted this, how crass and heartless' ... and then defriend.

Skyrg · 06/10/2010 23:06

Algebra - Poor you :( I think the dreams are quite normal (but obviously horrible!), my mum has told me about a dream she had when I was little where I was going away (riding a trike I think) and she couldn't stop me, couldn't reach me and didn't know what was ahead.

As for fairycake's friend, I have some sympathy with them actually... what an awful thing to witness! They're probably in shock and you do get selfish at those times. I expect they needed to share it.
I was totally freaked out when I saw someone go under a train (they were ok in the end but we didn't know that at the time). I actually cried out of pure shock. I couldn't get the image out of my head and it actually helped to talk about it...

Glitterknickaz · 06/10/2010 23:09

He was a friend of a friend, and yes it was definitely suicide.

galletti · 06/10/2010 23:22

Actually, I don't see your point Skryg - By using the word 'chose' you may be suggesting that this was an option for a rational mind when in fact choice was probably not an option for this poor young man - I doubt if he was thinking whether it was a public place or not.

And, to the OP YADNBU, and it makes me so sad to think we can be side to side with people who think it's ok to behave like they did.

Skyrg · 06/10/2010 23:28

Was that in response to the post earlier on? I did later say 'Do they even consciously choose, or are their minds just totally somewhere else?', if you read everything I've written.

I know what you mean, and I think in many cases you're right. However, I do think that in some cases (probably the minority), it is a conscious choice, for whatever reason.

Never having been in that state myself, I can't say. However, monkeyfacegrace's post is interesting, since she has had experience of it.

MaMoTTaT · 06/10/2010 23:39

I took an OD 2yrs ago. I'd put the DS's to bed, and then sat down with my bottle of brandy and 60 odd paracetomal.

I don't remember any of my "rationale" behind it - but I know that just before I was discharged from hospital 2 days later (having been on a drip for 2 days) I was asked who would have found me.

It hit me then, and still freaks me now thinking back on it that my children would have been the ones to find me in the morning.

I can honestly say that it had not crossed my mind at all before that question was asked. I think my thought process went as far as "children are in bed out of the way and won't see noW" - certainly not as far as what they could have potentially seen later.

Original poster

AlgebraKnocksItUpANotchBAM · 06/10/2010 23:45

that's so scary MaMoTTaT. thank goodness you survived. are you ok now?

OP posts:

MaMoTTaT · 06/10/2010 23:51

yes I'm fine now - I'm not sure what happened, really - I know my BF turned up barging through the door at one poitn and called an ambulance.

Don't know if I tried to ring her, or she rang me about something - I was too groggy with brandy and pills. Was lucky I didn't fuck up my liver really.

Maybe I was selfish at the time for potentially dying where my boys would have found me - but quite honestly that wasn't a thought that my mind processed. I processed as far as the then as now - not the after - the after didn't matter - I wasn't going to be there. But it certainly wasn't a well thought through act of selfishness

Had a "blip" earlier this year - but back up and running again.

hmc · 06/10/2010 23:58

I dare say someone will ridicule me, but I strongly believe that movies like Hostel and Saw I-IV, together with certain video games desensitize and brutalise people and partially account for this kind of reaction

Skyrg · 06/10/2010 23:58

Glad you're ok MaMoTTaT.
Thank you for posting, I know some people go to great lengths to hide suicide attempts, which I think contributes to the fact there's a lot of ignorance about the subject.

Mental illness and depression can have very strange effects on the mind, and I can understand someone just becoming so focussed on 'ending it' that nothing else is important.

I think what strikes me about public attempts is that they seems more planned. It's possible to have fatal drugs around the house, so it could be a sudden 'decision' (not sure that word applies).
Going to a public place, especially well known bridges and tall buildings seems to suggest planning. Just my thoughts.

hmc · 07/10/2010 00:00

fairycake - are you sure that person meant it with levity? - rather than genuinely?

Original poster

AlgebraKnocksItUpANotchBAM · 07/10/2010 00:02

even if that comment was meant as a joke, it's really not funny :(

I agree about the films hmc. even the news desensitizes people to some extent, IMO

OP posts:

Original poster

AlgebraKnocksItUpANotchBAM · 07/10/2010 00:03

my friend nearly jumped off a bridge soon after she was attacked. she said she was just in a daze as she was walking there. thankfully she met a friend on the way.

OP posts:

MaMoTTaT · 07/10/2010 00:07

I think was some planning in mine - I wouldn't generally have had 60 odd paracetamol in the house. I'd been feeling that way for a while, and had considered doing it before, and had brought more in for the purpose. I didn't know that I was actually going to get to the stage of feeling that that was it, and that I should actually do it, but I did - and the previous thoughts about doing it and buying extras in meant it was there.

I think (trying to remember back - most of that time is pretty hazy - I was in quite a mess really) that the first time I felt suicidal "OD" was the way that I thought of doing it.

I suppose for someone else that's suicidal and thinks "jumping from high place" - well generally there aren't many houses with bits high enough to jump from iykwim. I knew an few hours before that I was going to take that OD a few hours later - it was there in my head. I suppose someone that wanted to end it by jumping would have thought process and "planning" to walk out of their house and walk to whichever high place they thought of/had seen while depression and had suicidal thoughts around.

Not sure if any of that makes sense??

MaMoTTaT · 07/10/2010 00:10

Algebra - that's it a daze - you're not thinking rationally, your normal "thought process" goes out of the window, it's like there's some subconcious mind guiding you

I have no recollection of many of the things that happened during the period when I was most depressed. Thankfully I had a state of mind well enough to take photos of DS3 pulling himself up on the sofa and walking - but I don't actually remember him doing it. I was in a permanent daze I guess.

SolidGoldBrass · 07/10/2010 00:21

People have always wanted to look, though. And record, depict and to an extent, bear witness. That there is now technology that enables people to do so more efficiently hasn't actually made any difference to what goes on in people's heads. Some will always want a good look. Some will think it's wrong (or indeed 'common') to look, but many of those will still want to. People have always gossipped about deaths and injuries, it's just these days you can gossip in full colour and with moving pictures.
And the bloke who posted on his FB status that seeing an accident 'fucked up his day' might well have meant that it upset him, not that it inconvenienced him BTW.

MaMoTTaT · 07/10/2010 00:23

agree with all of SGB's post

(now that's a rare occurrence - I'd better mark it in my diary )

MarineIguana · 07/10/2010 00:23

It's true, some people have always been like this, gone to watch executions etc., and enjoyed them. Joined in with public stonings. A proportion of people are cruel, sadistic and heartless and always have been. The phone filming thing is vile but I don't think the technology has changed people.

Whenever I have witnessed an accident or someone hurt there have always, every single time, been lots of people stopping to help - as I have - and that reassures me that there are many, many good people too.

Heracles · 07/10/2010 02:26

Bleh. People used to hold gossip like this as a badge of glory. Now you have to post it first to show you're not peddling second-class news.

It's an ancient story: if you're a gossip you're a leech, technology or no...

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