some guy at my work killed himself a few years ago. he was well liked and successful, by all accounts very intelligent. we supposedly have good mental health support and healthcare services through our work insurance. he had been feeling depressed and upon considering suicide, he accessed those services via the ER. he spent a few hours in the ER speaking with some in-network provider, answered whatever questions the counselor asked to give the impression that he was fine, actually. then he went home and killed himself.
it freaked everyone out, but it became a taboo subject to find out why our supposedly great services didn't actually do shit for someone in distress.
as much as i fully support widespread, integrated healthcare being made available to everyone... it is not enough. it's like a village on the edge of a river, where drowning people keep floating by. the village develops emergency response protocols over time to get people out of the river and resuscitate them. as increasing numbers of drowning people keep appearing in the river, the village develops complex, adaptive infrastructure and support system to pull out larger and larger volumes of drowning people and resuscitate them.
and it's too taboo to investigate what the fuck is going on upstream.
as much as i fully support widespread, integrated healthcare being made available to everyone... it is not enough. it's like a village on the edge of a river, where drowning people keep floating by. the village develops emergency response protocols over time to get people out of the river and resuscitate them. as increasing numbers of drowning people keep appearing in the river, the village develops complex, adaptive infrastructure and support system to pull out larger and larger volumes of drowning people and resuscitate them.
yeah exactly, suicide isn't an individual problem and trying to address it through individual actions like therapy or whatever isn't all that helpful. a lot of people's lives just suck. people are more lonely and isolated than ever, they have no sense of community, their material conditions keep deteriorating, and so on.
A friend of mine once worked in an ER as a clinical social worker. She was fired after a few months. The problem was she would spend "too much" time talking with each patient. Her employer wanted them each churned out in fifteen minutes to maximize billings.
(CW: suicide)
some guy at my work killed himself a few years ago. he was well liked and successful, by all accounts very intelligent. we supposedly have good mental health support and healthcare services through our work insurance. he had been feeling depressed and upon considering suicide, he accessed those services via the ER. he spent a few hours in the ER speaking with some in-network provider, answered whatever questions the counselor asked to give the impression that he was fine, actually. then he went home and killed himself.
it freaked everyone out, but it became a taboo subject to find out why our supposedly great services didn't actually do shit for someone in distress.
as much as i fully support widespread, integrated healthcare being made available to everyone... it is not enough. it's like a village on the edge of a river, where drowning people keep floating by. the village develops emergency response protocols over time to get people out of the river and resuscitate them. as increasing numbers of drowning people keep appearing in the river, the village develops complex, adaptive infrastructure and support system to pull out larger and larger volumes of drowning people and resuscitate them.
and it's too taboo to investigate what the fuck is going on upstream.
yeah exactly, suicide isn't an individual problem and trying to address it through individual actions like therapy or whatever isn't all that helpful. a lot of people's lives just suck. people are more lonely and isolated than ever, they have no sense of community, their material conditions keep deteriorating, and so on.
A friend of mine once worked in an ER as a clinical social worker. She was fired after a few months. The problem was she would spend "too much" time talking with each patient. Her employer wanted them each churned out in fifteen minutes to maximize billings.