Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

Jokes about suicide in the office

77 replies

HuckleberryGin · 10/08/2016 09:18

Two colleagues this morning who sit next to me discussing the traffic getting home last night. A road had been closed/delayed due to a woman sitting on a bridge, police and ambulances in attendance, due to a possible suicide attempt. They were obviously annoyed at the delay, but were saying (loudly and laughing) "oh I just wanted to shout, just get on with it" and "if you wanna kill yourself, fine, but don't get in other people's way" amongst other things. They were chatting and laughing for a while agreeing that if you want to kill yourself you shouldn't hold other people up and get in the way. Or that she didn't really mean it and was just attention seeking.

I have Bipolar disorder. They know this, as does everyone in office as I have some reasonable adjustments and I am very open about it. I also suffered from post natal psychosis and was suicidal- including standing on a bridge with my daughter as a baby (not with her she was in pram). They also know this as I did some fundraising for the Mother and Baby unit recently.

I am very upset, I actually had to go outside as was tearful and a bit panicky with breathing. I'm not sure if I'm being over sensitive or unreasonable to expect people not to talk like this in the office or in front of me.

OP posts:

MackerelOfFact · 10/08/2016 10:10

YANBU at all, they were being insensitive and unthinking.

When you use trains every day though you do end up being delayed by suicides fairly regularly - and those delays can be several hours long and cause massive disruption. I think it's difficult to find empathy for every incident after a while - they are nameless, faceless victims and it would be emotionally exhausting to try and process the enormous circumstances and implications of each one fully.

It doesn't help that train operators use the completely clinical phrase 'person under a train' which completely removes any sense of humanity or agency in the event.

However there is no excuse for simply being flippant about it, especially within earshot of someone for whom it is not a flippant event.

cherryplumbanana · 10/08/2016 10:10

I don't know why people think their need to rush home or to work or wherever is more important than another person's life

because we live in a shit world if you are not very well off.

Because my nursery charges £25 per 15mn delay to collect your child after 6:30pm. Because some jobs will sack you if you are regularly late, even by 5mn, and not everybody can afford to leave with 1 hour to spare. Because some people around London commute around 4 hours a day, when they can't afford to buy near the office and they can't find a job closer from home. Because people have to put up with dangerously packed trains and tube and repeated delays on their commute. There's a train strike around London this week, for some people it's hell. Last week, there were signal problems, a sink hole, and endless problems.

It's not right, it's not fair, but some people have a shit life and no energy to have empathy for others when they are struggling. They make inappropriate jokes to cheer themselves up.

MackerelOfFact · 10/08/2016 10:11

enormous = horrendous

MarcelineTheVampire · 10/08/2016 10:17

PurpleA please get support if you are feeling suicidal...

logosthecat · 10/08/2016 10:18

I'm so sorry you had to sit through that. It was massively insensitive of them.

The thing is, those jokes aren't even funny. They are the bog standard, boringly predictable lines that stupid people with no originality trot out every time there is a delay for one of these reasons. So to the awfulness of bigotry, they add that of being simply tedious.

PurpleAquilegia · 10/08/2016 10:19

I wasn't trying to be nasty, Daisies - I have been suicidal, hence my own preparations for such an act. If I'd seen Kinky's post about her dad (cross posted), I wouldn't have written that. Sorry for your loss, Kinky.

Nevertheless, there are different methods with different rates of success and different levels of trauma for those involved/who have to pick up the pieces. Train suicides are horrific for everyone involved - the driver, the emergency services who deal with the aftermath. And no, it's not always effective.

KinkyAfro · 10/08/2016 10:20

I'm pissed off with PurplesA's post, I'm sure someone who commits suicide isn't in the right frame of mind to make those decisions

PurpleAquilegia · 10/08/2016 10:22

Marceline thank you, but I'm fine now. I planned it when I was suicidal - years ago now - and didn't do it. It's now my reserve plan for if I get a degenerative disease/dementia.

Benedikte2 · 10/08/2016 10:23

If people were thinking rationally and about how they might inconvenience others then they would would be unlikely to be attempting suicide. Just hope the jokers never get into a situation where they feel that desperate.
OP feel proud that you are being courageous in telling others about your MH history and are doing something positive to educate others/raise funds.
The jokers are adolescent idiots.
Good luck

KinkyAfro · 10/08/2016 10:25

People who commit suicide I'm guessing do it because they see there's no way out, nothing else they can do. It's not planned to be spectacular, dramatic, to disrupt others, in my dad's case I doubt it was planned at all and was probably a spur of the moment decision...but then I'll never know and that's the hardest part.

PurpleAquilegia · 10/08/2016 10:25

I apologise for upsetting you, Kinky. I did say that most people understand that someone in that kind of acute mental distress can't necessarily consider others.

PurpleDaisies · 10/08/2016 10:25

My best friend jumped in front of a train five years ago. It was certainly a successful suicide method for her.

She was not thinking about the driver, the passengers or anyone else. She wanted the pain to end and it took over her life and ended up with her dying. She was ill and in no way capable of being responsible for her actions.

I'm sorry you've felt suicidal purpleA. You can't extrapolate your experience to everyone else that wants to take their own life.

witsender · 10/08/2016 10:25

Horrible. I would have felt the same, regardless of mental health. Some people are arseholes

HerOtherHalf · 10/08/2016 10:27

There are ways to kill oneself that have minimal impact on others

Absolute nonsense. I have lost two friends to suicide and the impact it has on their family and friends is horrific and heartbreaking. In both cases, those closest had no idea how troubled the victim actually was and their suicide came completely out of the blue. Over and above the pain of loving a loved one is the added emotional trauma of wondering if there was anything that could have been done to prevent it.

witsender · 10/08/2016 10:29

Posted too soon. My best friend killed herself at 18, jumping off a multi storey carpark. She tried numerous other, less invasive methods...overdoses etc but they didn't work. So she did what she had to.

KittyandTeal · 10/08/2016 10:30

I think an 'are you fucking kidding me?' With an icy stare should shut them up.

Seriously, I'm sorry you've had such a rough time. I have bpd and have made adjustments to my life to allow a decent quality of life. It's utterly shit hearing people joke and piss take about mental health.

PurpleAquilegia · 10/08/2016 10:32

I don't think I was extrapolating my experience to everyone suicidal, was I? I'm sorry about your friend.

PurpleAquilegia · 10/08/2016 10:34

Her I wasn't referring to the loved ones of the suicide - of course it's going to have an impact on them!

CraftyPenguin · 10/08/2016 10:36

People are so bloody insensitive and have short memories sometimes.

I lost someone close to me due to suicide, so I'm a bit emotional about the topic as a whole. I also had a family member who ended up with severe depression from hitting a suicidal person with the train he was driving, so I do agree, that kind of suicide is really tough for everyone involved. My family member couldn't go back to work (he tried but had a breakdown) his relationship fell apart..It was all just so sad. It's still not something to joke about though!

Can you speak to your line manager, op?

PurpleDaisies · 10/08/2016 10:45

purpleA what I meant by extrapolating your experience to others was that you seem to be assuming that because you were able to think rationally about the impact on other people, everyone else can do that too.

Anyway, I don't want to derail the thread so I'll just leave it there. Maybe next time think before you post about how selfish people who commit suicide in certain ways are on a thread where people are upset about people they know who've died like that?

Chikara · 10/08/2016 10:48

Black humour is everywhere. Yes insensitive and no not appropriate in a professional environment but it has been around since the dawn of society.

They are not nasty people.
cherryplumbanana is right. It is so easy to be self-righteous when you don't know others' circumestances and shows a similar lack of understanding.

Just a personal comment on that. I was driving to see my Dad in hosptial - we had been told he was not likely to survive the day. Some idiot driving too fast on the M25 caused an accident. I sat in traffic with two young children in the back for four hours. My dad died before I could get there. So yeah - sometimes getting somewhere matters.

Also, in London, sadly, suicides or "person under a train, happens at least monthly if not weekly. That leads to being blase.

Oliversmumsarmy · 10/08/2016 10:50

I met a tube driver who hit someone who jumped infront of his train and it was still affecting him years later. He had nightmares on a regular basis. His own mental health had not been the same since.
Suicide is killing yourself jumping infront of a moving vehicle is getting someone else to kill you.

MrsDeVere · 10/08/2016 10:56

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PurpleDaisies · 10/08/2016 10:57

Suicide is killing yourself jumping infront of a moving vehicle is getting someone else to kill you.

Do you think that will make a difference to someone who is so in the depths of despair that they think jumping in front of a train is a way out?

It must be awful for train drivers that this happens to. I still don't think the person who dies should be vilified for their actions.

whattodowiththepoo · 10/08/2016 10:57

Try to remember that it isn't a personal attack or insult on you and they don't really mean it.

Flip

1 2 3 4