Sunday, October 16, 2011

Suicide Hotline lessons, Second report

It's a double day today, cramming in study for learning the actual model we'll be using. We didn't get too much in depth on it today, mostly establishing framework on things.

For how in depth we got last time, it was a lot less so this time around, I suspect because they said multiple times they were saving the worst of it for today's lesson. we'll have to see.

There was a lot more fun discussion though. Though again, the most fun could have been avoided when during discussion about permissible suicide in euthanasia circumstances. There seemed to be universal agreement with such being fine. Maybe I'm a masochist but discussion on such is fun, to me, and easy agreement is boring.

The most interesting thing has to be though, during a part of it, we had a roleplay where we were to confront a case we had been studying. The typical bullied student situation, that's now about to have them commit suicide. A most facinating part of it is that there's a demand to say the words "Are you planning on killing yourself" (Or committing suicide, something to the same effect) as part of it, and for how easy it is to think that, there's a surprising amount of mental barriers that attempts to get in the way of actually putting that into words in time of a crisis.

Its massively important and actually being able to say that is a requirement of the course, though, and with good reason. Due to the way society tends to avoid talking about such, in the case of people actually giving killing themselves actively will find saying such a very large relief, and become far more willing to talk. This was apparently a large difference between older models other groups use and the one we're using. There was a massive effort to tip toe around actually mentioning suicide, due to worries of enabling people to do it, giving them permission or adding excuses to it. When actually in the circumstances

I'm not a fan of such crappy emotional barriers affecting my behavior, I've always preferred to behave a bit more objective, so I have high hopes for trying to tear down that mental barrier in myself, and look foreward to continuing today when I leave for the second half in a few hours.

Unfortunately, I also feel kind of like crap, and think I'm coming down with something. Half the day was spent trying to ignore a bad headache and now my throat's gone to crap. I'm gonna have to power through today and enjoy being sick during the week, I suspect. Ah well.

3 comments:

  1. Nothing gets me fired up like a good debate, that sounds like a fun course. Hope you start feeling better soon.

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  2. Strange in that asking about such things makes them far more likely about it when they're calling the suicide hotline.

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  3. @Badscribbler
    It makes sense, when you think about it. There's such a taboo about suicide and talking about it, so actually bringing it up to someone in that desperate state will find a lot of relief and someone they can actually talk to about their thoughts.

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