I have a similar relationship with album "The '59 Sound" by The Gaslight Anthem and especially with the title track. My younger sister took her own life on Memorial Day weekend of 2014. If you've never had the misfortune of losing a loved one to suicide, everyone around you will speak about it in a way that erases their agency as much as possible ("they were sick, they weren't perceiving reality," etc). And this is helpful, to avoid blaming oneself, and also in a wider, civic-duty sense, to help people view suicidal ideation as a syndrome that responds to treatment, since it so often does.
This did not help me grieve her, though, since the young woman I lost was not demented, as my grandparents were before they passed, but sensitive and insightful. Fallon's lyrics (written in response to the passing of a loved one of his own) are so respectful of the deceased, expressing only his hope that the moment of death was peaceful and not regretful, contextualized through their shared experience. I really needed this perspective at the time, and six years later listening to the song without crying my eyes out is still touch-and-go for me.
There are a lot of problems with how we discuss suicide. It's a tough subject and it's often not done well. It's something I sometimes comment on because I have attempted suicide and I still wrestle with suicidal ideation at times and I'm pretty dissatisfied with the way the subject is typically handled.
> There are a lot of problems with how we discuss suicide
I used to be heavily suicidal, and occasionally have bouts of suicidal ideation to this day. I found that most of the time when I spoke to other people about how I was feeling, I was treated like I was some kind of fragile human being who needed wrapping in cotton wool. It really didn't help at all, it was demeaning, I felt like I was broken goods. I've never experienced that kind of treatment or feeling when talking about other mental health issues like ADHD or anxiety.
The worst was when people told me "things will get better", as things progressively got worse. It wasn't until I realised that it might not get better and accepted it that I was able to move forward.
I guess it's hard if you've never felt suicidal to empathise, and people get worried that something they say or do might push you over the edge, nobody wants to be responsible for someone killing themselves.
I generally don't talk to people about suicide these days, I don't think anything good comes from it, I try to talk about what I think it causing my negative emotions instead. I think it's borderline emotionally abusive to tell someone you're thinking of killing yourself, it makes people feel responsible for you and your actions. I had a former friend try to kill herself because of me, and it's the most narcissistic, emotionally abusive thing I've ever been subjected to, luckily I was in a state of mind at the time that I understood it wasn't at all my fault and that I wasn't responsible for her actions.
I do think it's something that we should be able to talk to our friends about, but education and awareness surrounding suicide is fucking lacking for most people. I find that it's only useful to talk to mental health practitioner and within support groups (I attend a general mens' mental health group). The message seems to be "you're a selfish bastard if you kill yourself", which really doesn't help. It just invalidated my emotions, I wanted to kill myself and now I felt guilty about it too. Something like 75% of men who kill themselves never seek help and I completely understand why.
I'm so sorry you experienced this. I have had the same reactions from people, and the actions you mentioned people take in the first paragraph has been especially hurtful. In addition to whatever you're trying to heal yourself of, you get start to feel broken, as you said. This discourages people even more from seeking help, and people in this mental state need to ask for help, because mental health conditions limit your brain from really thinking straight on how to get the best help.
In regards to your comment about men's suicide rate--this is horrible and believed to be the result of men socially being discouraged by other men from discussing suicide or deep emotional issues (not to blame other men--their response, even though they need to take responsibility for it, is likely shaped by the cultural standards we put on men and women).
The belief, btw, comes from the fact that women actually have a much higher rate of depression than men do, but a much lower suicide rate. Idk if a study was done, but the theory is it's more accepted and expected in strong female friendships to share deep emotional struggles and expect support than it is in strong male friendships.
I'm fortunate that I live with my two adult sons whom I raised and homeschooled. When I'm seriously suicidal and not just whining about how my life sucks and I hate it so much, I can let them know that I'm not right today and can't be left alone and they will arrange to babysit me. The fact that they do that helps touch one of the roots of my problem -- that I feel like no one cares -- and helps kill it off and I've gotten less suicidal over the years in part because of the evidence that they actually do care.
President Lincoln was prone to bouts of darkness and suicidal fits and his friends would babysit him at such times. So I'm not the only one who has found that to be an effective policy.
Suicide usually occurs when you are alone. Simply not being alone can be a deterrent.
It's been a while since I've had to tell my sons "I'm just not right today and can't be left alone." One root cause of my suicidal tendencies is an incurable medical condition. I used to be in agony all the time and I'm not anymore. My improved physical health means I'm much less prone to being seriously intent on wanting out of this life right now, thanks, though I still have other problems that make me somewhat often wonder "What is the fucking point??!!"
Anyway, a side effect of my medical condition is that sometimes I'm just not rational when I'm extremely sick and my sons have learned to feed me, hydrate me, make sure I'm adequately warm and their policy is "Don't engage Teh Crazeh" at such times because it doesn't help to engage me in discussion when I'm not rational. All it does is amplify my focus on negative feelings and there's nothing therapeutic about talking with me at such times.
Very often, I'm irrational because I'm at the end of my physical rope. Over the years, we've learned that when I'm a serious whack job, tending to my physical health -- feed me, hydrate me, make sure I'm warm -- often results in me falling asleep. When I wake up, I'm fine, mentally.
My experiences have convinced me that a lot of mental health issues have a strong component of physical health issues and have given me renewed appreciation for the biblical thing of feeding people as an act of love, caring and promoting the peace. Life is chemistry and food has powerful chemical impacts that tend to go somewhat unrecognized by most people, most of the time.
My sons basically nursed me back to health after doctors wrote me off for dead. Helping me actually solve my "unsolvable" problems has proven to be the best antidote to my suicidal tendencies.
I think people who are suicidal typically have intractable personal problems and one of the best antidotes to suicidal tendencies is to help people solve their intractable problems, which is part of why I blog and try to create informational resources for people with serious personal problems. I think being suicidal is often shorthand for "My life just doesn't work and can't be made to work and it's torture." So I try to help people make their lives work.
(I'm horrendously short of sleep and have been for days. Hopefully, I haven't said anything really badly here. 0_o)
Def Leppard "Behind the Music" talks about the drummer's car accident and recovery.
His seatbelt cut off his arm, and the family living at a nearby farmhouse included a nurse, who initially responded.
When recovering from limb injuries, there's some surprising possible side effects:
1) infection or circulation problems can kill other limbs. People with kidney damage or sepsis often lose all four limbs.
2) Overexerting during recovery (or even later) can cause an overuse injury to the healthy limb. For example, climbing out of a bathtub with one arm can cause nerve or muscle damage that effectively kills the good arm.
3) The embedded Time reporter during the Iraq war who threw the sticky bomb out of his team's Humvee lost his hand. He initially tried a modern prosthetic, but changed to a hook since it was 100% reliable (strong, waterproof, certain), and the fake hand wasn't.
AIUI by some convention people in war are divided into combatants and noncombatants. To remain in the latter group you have to maintain a non-hostile position. By using a bomb (which sounds very weird for an experienced reporter to do) they'd be becoming combatants and so reasonable targets for the other side. If the NPR story covers this, I can't read it, blocked.
Although you have completely misinterpreted the situation the article does touch on the issues you have raised. Perhaps if you adopted an attitude of engagement rather than reflexively blocking and avoiding things which you feel go against your worldview, you'd learn something.
I should not have posted because I did not read the article. However I did not read it not from laziness but because it was blocked. No text = no read.
Ah I see, I thought you meant you blocked the poster which would be a very odd thing to see on HN! Apologies. Where are you that NPR is blocked? I'm in the UK, and even if I decline their data protection stuff they take me to a plaintext site. I suspect they do it to annoy people but I actually really love it
I've not read the original article either, but the only conclusion I can come to from that short paragraph is that the sticky bomb was thrown into the car and the reporter threw it out to save his and his team's lives.
If you clicked on this article because you wanted to read about anger management, you may be disappointed. In the event you were, I highly recommend the book, "Feeling Good" by David Burns:
https://www.amazon.com/David-M-D-Burns-Feeling-Good/dp/B00GY...
Burns turned his practice into a platform, featuring a very active podcast.
He's working with people on a mobile app and is publishing the sequel to "Feeling Good" (Feeling Great), scheduled for publication Sept 2020: https://feelinggood.com/
The podcast is a treasure trove of information. If you can tolerate the slow pace of the show, you can learn a lot.
Thanks for writing the article. Fortunately, I can't relate, but it gave me some insight into the inner lives of people I know and love who probably could relate. It will help me more effectively empathize with them.
> I'm the author. It absolutely is about anger management.
I get that. I think his point was the article spoke of your realization that you needed to - and could - let go of your anger. And although you discussed the process, I suspect what he didn't see were methods & techniques.
For example: How does one actually let go of anger?
or
Let's say you have learned how to let go of anger. But when you release your hold on it, it just hangs there, not leaving. What do you do?
David Burn's book really changed my life for the better :)
Even nowadays I have the list[0] of cognitive distortions bookmarked and every time I get triggered by something I go through the list and check to which disortions I'm falling victim.
In the 90s in the USA, the grunge movement ruled rock music. We were told, by the music critics of the day, that this was for the greatest good, that rock music was finally returning to authenticity after the excesses of 1980s hair metal.
But closer examination of 1980s metal reveals that it doesn't want for genuine, heartfelt angst, boiling below the surface. I realized this upon relistening to a song from the dusk of hair metal's golden era: "Heaven" by Warrant, and realizing that it was the blue-collar lament of an aging factory worker who had been put out of a job, and hadn't much to look forward to except the grave -- and the continued love of his wife, for whom he would make every effort no matter how meager.
It seems this author came to a similar conclusion, and that's heartening.
- current Top 40 rarely has guitar. Basically Taylor Swift and Lil Wayne use one as a prop, and that's it.
- but Youtube is teeming with young adult virtuoso electric guitarists. Check out Polyphia (Tim Henson), Covet (Yvette Young, San Jose!), Periphery, Mel.
- Grunge is misunderstood. Kurt Cobain was a good guitar player, and he made his band practise for months before their first album. Same with Soundgarden, etc. Those bands didn't need autotune.
- Metal fans ate their own: no loyalty. So 70s and 80s rock bands still tour, and 90s and oughts are scraping by. See the Youtube "Punk Rock MBA" channel for detailed analysis.
- 70s and 80s rock bands have tremendous respect online now. View counts on Skid Row, Metallica, Bonjovi, etc. are huge. Their musicianship is acknowledged, and the niche each band occupied is now understood and appreciated.
I don't play the guitar: I'm a keyboard person. But I'm very concerned about the future of the guitar market.
Over the last three years there have been numerous articles about how the guitar industry is in serious trouble. Electric guitar sales have dropped by a third over the last decade, and profits are way down. Guitar Center is in trouble. Gibson is bankrupt. On the other hand, Rolling Stone put out an article about how Guitars are Doing Just Fine Thank You Very Much. (https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/guitars-are-ge...). It feels very... apologetic. So I don't know what to think.
Here's what I know: DAWs, electronic production tools, synthesizers, etc., are doing very well. Today's underground seems to have a lot of rap, synth metal (NiN, industrial, whatnot), EDM, even pop. [I'm none of those things]. Is the garage band going away, to be replaced with the bedroom producer?
As a guitarist and hobbyist bedroom producer for 15+ years, here's what I think is happening to the guitar market: the middle is falling out.
Cheap guitars were previously way too expensive. I'm talking about things like the no-name starter packs you'd get from Frys, or even the equivalents from Squire. They were riding on lack of competition and brand clout, and they'd been disrupted by companies that are happy to sell guitars of similar quality for half the price. It has never been more affordable to start playing guitar. I think that's great.
The high-end guitar market has some fascinating and innovative entrants. Strandberg stands out as king here. They build absolutely stunning guitars and IMO they've got an impressive adoption rate for something so expensive (2-3K). There are a surprisingly large number of high end guitar manufacturers targeting this market.
The 500-850$ market feels like it's got a ton of options, but it's flooded with noise. Some dead wood needs to burn off, I think.
I think amp companies are at much greater risk. First, the processing you can get out of the box now is just unreal. $100 for a preamp, and something like neural/toneforge (or even impulse responses + free amp sims) will get tones that compete with very expensive gear. A distant second but interesting: millenials are all broke and living in apartments / cities. You can't really have a giant loud amp in that environment. If you're not gigging, you no longer need to own one at all.
> Is the garage band going away, to be replaced with the bedroom producer?
At least partially, and for the best: the demand for being in a garage band should fall. Lots of people were in only in bands because they couldn't self-serve across as many instruments as they'd like. That's much easier now for a bunch of reasons.
There's a middle ground too. I see a lot of "bedroom bands" – with bedroom production but the multi-member aspect of a garage band.
----
Another random thought: guitars are one of those products that strongly requires showrooming. Buying a guitar without feeling and hearing it is tough. This is one of the few things keeping guitar center alive. If a company figures out how to be warby parker for guitars, letting me pick five and mail four back, they could stand to make a bunch of money. This pairs really well with all the up and coming guitar brands trying to break into the market via youtubers.
Animals as Leaders and Chimp Spanner make this list for me as well. I got a chance to see Intervals live and they're the most impressive guitarists I've ever seen. SO dialed. A lot of these bands (polyphia especially) don't really gig like the album, but Intervals is every bit that good in person.
Thanks for this, generally find discovering new (as in recent) guitar music challenging. You've sent me down a veyr enjoyable rabbit hole of awesome new stuff!
> 70s and 80s rock bands have tremendous respect online now. View counts on Skid Row, Metallica, Bonjovi, etc. are huge. Their musicianship is acknowledged
In my opinion, this is backward and is survivor bias. Only those bands with musicianship survived because all the other fluff goes away with age.
I'm curious if you could name some examples of "fluff that went away" in this particular genre, that was mainstream? By mainstream I mean either charted or got radio play, during that era? I mean also, please don't rattle off a list of bands no ones ever heard of :)
That's a tricky question because "went away" is fuzzy. For example Ministry were popular in the early, mid 90's - apparently they're still going, I had no idea. There are many who technically haven't gone away, but they're far from the spotlight these days. A certain fluff example: Body Count.
Meat Loaf has wrecked his voice and doesn't sing anymore. However, he is on tour: he talks about the music and another guy actually performs his old songs.
Warrant has a number of pretty political songs, Uncle Tom's Cabin also comes to mind. I mean, "Heaven" was on an album called "Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich" whose cover featured a caricature of the archetypal hyper-capitalist sleazebag.
Bon Jovi also wrote a lot of hit songs during that era featuring the suffering of working class people.
I don't have the words to express how this article so accurately reflects my experience, other than gratitude that you have put this into words for me.
During Kavanaugh I told my partner that I would never stop being angry. He was shocked and eventually understood what I meant, which was that violent anger would evolve into the kind of stewing anger that would ultimately protect me, and us.
Thank you for caring. Thank you for caring for my soul. I wish I had the words to express to you how meaningful this post was to me.
I too (as other commentators did) appreciate this article. My relationship with music has always been less predictable and easy to understand than I'd like it to be. I have always loved music, but as I've gotten older and stabler and healed more from earlier psychological hardships (and maybe just matured from a young adult into an adult), my connection to it and its ability to make me feel have receded. For some reason, it is only in my moments of greatest need that I am able to reach inside and access an extremely strong, resonant connection -- whether it is listening to it, or writing it.
But maybe it's that way for a reason. I still have scars on my arm from putting my fist through a glass window as an angsty teen. They remind me of how I too could be someone who "could have lost his second arm had he lost the battle to his inner demons." I probably would have struggled to articulate this earlier, but as the article states, "...I learned to stop just stewing and being mad and wallowing in that feeling. I learned to do something about things that made me mad and this was the best thing I ever learned." This hits home for me. I was a lot more rootlessly, aimlessly, existentially depressed earlier on in my life and in my career. Depressed in a way that made it very easy for me to have a very strong and particular kind of connection to music, but which served as a stand-in for an inability to do something about my woes. Once I began to get better at solving the root causes of my woes, my life improved, but that very specific kind of connection to music faded. I was never a professional, but perhaps what's true for the drummer is true for me: "The music was still in there. It just needed to be redirected elsewhere."
I appreciate the relationship between anger and depression. I was a very angry child - but angry young boys are not tolerated. I became a depressed young boy instead, and the world seemed much happier with that.
Recognizing that you're saturated in an emotion is definitely important. It is difficult to even notice, but stepping back from it an analyzing it (through therapy, meditation, counseling, friendship) is really all we have. It's a constant task to have moments of self-awareness that the emotion has taken control. That in itself can breed resentment.
I haven't really found a cure for these things, but strangely they are not all negative. I think people who can manage some distance from these types of emotions are extraordinarily empathetic.
I feel like I went through a similar experience growing up; Any angry outburst was met with harsh punishment.
I remember reading somewhere that depression can sometimes be the result of repressing anger, which we may have needed to do to survive growing up and is now a bad habit we hang on to.
Wow. Thank you so much for this. I've struggled with the exact same things and have found the moments when men show me the kindness and respect that I, previous to the rape, had just expected of myself and everyone, are the most healing ones. You can't always afford to wait for those though. And I appreciate you sharing your experience on how to heal when no one else is around.
I've struggled with the exact same things and have found the moments when men show me the kindness and respect that I, previous to the rape, had just expected of myself and everyone, are the most healing ones.
I wanted to pull this out and emphasize it. This is a mostly male forum and decent men often feel helpless and like there isn't anything they can do to counterbalance the atrocities done by other men.
Humans generally tend to feel like "nuke it from orbit" is the only useful response to really bad things and if they can't do something akin to that, they feel they aren't making any difference at all. But just being kind and respectful and decent to someone stressed out who doesn't trust you because you are male or white or rich or whatever and someone like you burned them really badly at one time is the most powerful thing you can do to help them heal, help them put down their baggage and foster a more civil world in which atrocities are less likely to be the norm.
We currently have things like the #MeToo movement, so there is currently a lot of visibility for the fact that a lot of men behave really badly towards women and it's actually pretty problematic because decent guys are scared to be kind for fear of being accused of being a rapist or something. So I wanted to emphasize that I'm not the only woman who was raped who feels like the best thing a man can do is just be kind and respectful and decent to me and act like "that's normal" and not anything special.
And maybe that will empower some of the men here to feel like they are making a meaningful difference to just be decent and that's it. No war paint or chest beating or grand standing or the like required.
> Humans generally tend to feel like "nuke it from orbit" is the only useful response to really bad things and if they can't do something akin to that, they feel they aren't making any difference at all.
I have similar, extreme anger issues due to how I was mistreated in my childhood (both physical and mental abuse + abandonment). I get better, from time to time, and then I get worse, like a yoyo for half a century. I have made my peace with the thought that I'll never get out of it, because when my anger boils up it instantly burns every fibre of my mind and body. I worry that my children are unwittingly absorbing my anger. Thank you for writing this, and sharing with us.
One thing I've found to help is to channel that anger in productive ways.
I have in the past worked on things like increasing the usability of censorship circumvention technologies, advocated for strong encryption, pushed for the decriminalization of activities between consenting adults, and advocated for tech being more inclusive.
Anyways, I did not advocate these things because of an abstract ideology.
I advocated these things I want children and adults who are failed by the authority figures in their lives to be able to find resources, take legal action, and if the courts fail them to be able to be able exercise their 1st Amendement rights. (Truth is an absolute defense against libel in the USA)
I've seen many an op-eds lately noting that it is OK that you may not be as productive during this crisis, and that it is normal to have trouble focusing during a traumatic situation.
That is a wonderful sentiment, and I hope that when we emerge from this crisis, we will emerge with more sympathy for those who have suffered trauma and value the unique perspective they bring to the table, especially in the privacy and security spaces. (People who've faced threats are very good at threat modeling.)
Also, I hate to network in such a serious topic, but if anyone reading this is looking for a privacy and security expert with additional experience in policy and UX, my twitter handle is the same as my HN username (@dontbenebby) and has open DMs. I was recently laid off, and am happy to forward a CV.
(Also feel free to DM if you just need to talk. We're all in this together)
I run r/GigWorks. You could check the Welcome message there for some links to online platforms where you may be able to find some short term work while looking for a more permanent position.
This is great OP. I shared with my SO who also struggles with anger. I thought a lot of this mirrored things she has expressed and she could relate.
A very different cause for sure but it’s been a long road for her to become aware of the anger and ultimately how interested she is in finding a more effective shield. I think she doesn’t trust deep down there is anything more effective, even at the high emotional cost.
I’ve had that anger before. It even extends to ruminating about the events - I assume that’s protective too, as maybe I think that if I think about things long enough it cant happen to me again?
Medication sometimes seems to be the only thing that can pull me out of that rabbit hole of rumination.
More recently, I’ve had some success with magnesium l-threonate, as it’s the only form of magnesium that crosses the blood brain barrier (magtein it’s sometimes labeled as). It’s quite calming and increases mental endurance.
Effects of Elevation of Brain Magnesium on Fear Conditioning, Fear Extinction, and Synaptic Plasticity in the Infralimbic Prefrontal Cortex and Lateral Amygdalahttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6623582/
I’ve had that anger before. It even extends to ruminating about the events - I assume that’s protective too, as maybe I think that if I think about things long enough it cant happen to me again?
I'm prone to rumination and at some point I learned to turn that into a positive. When I was younger, I would get stuck in mental loops of imagining some negative outcome, but I started asking myself "What outcome do you want?" and trying to use rumination as a problem-solving tool to try to imagine how you get there from here.
So I imagine X social problem -- argument with a friend, for example -- and instead of getting into a ball of fury about how I'm sure this will go badly, stop at that point where I am imagining it going south and ask "What reply would move it in a better direction?" basically. Then iterate from there until it goes from reliving some nightmare scenario over and over to imagining various potential solutions.
It's been wonderfully life changing.
More recently, I’ve had some success with magnesium l-threonate
Working on my health has been enormously helpful in improving my ability to manage my mood. When I'm under the weather, I'm much more prone to stewing for various reasons. Magnesium deficiency is one of the things I'm prone to and have to work at combating.
I have learned anger management the hard way. In my past, We a had team who approves most of the deployments for our team and it was annoying because they used to take a crazy amount of time to respond even for small requests, I was angry because I had caught them on Youtube and chilling on the day when I was worried about my deployment for 6 hours. So, I used to get really annoyed and had to fight with them often. Then I learned to correct myself and learned ways around to fix the problem rather than make the situation worse. Not only on the professional front but also personally I had to deal with a lot of anger issues, so I believe it all comes down to how supportive you are to yourself and how effectively you tackle any problem.
Another angle which might help someone is introspection: observing and understanding how your thoughts, physical sensations, and emotional states are all tied together and feeding each other. Meditation helped me through some rough spots. Here's one explicit resource on anger but it's really a more general tool.
“I think hurt people tend to cling to their anger because they hope to use it as a shield. They hope to not be made a fool of again. They think being mad as hell will serve as protection from bad things.”
This way of thinking about it resonated with me. Thank you.
Crying helps. I remember reading about the different kinds of tears.A photographer made some kind of art project out of Microscopic slides made from slides. Anger crying and stress crying had markers for cortisol in them.
Me neither, but I find it is a perfect description for that age (38): you are tragically hip.
You are young enough to be hip to everything that is going on. Tragically though, you are too old for being 20 again, to do everything "the right why" now that you have discernment.
But you are not there yet, where the 50 year old dude is, squeezing the lemon for all that's still left and not giving a function key f1.
I must be missing some hidden meaning in these wikipedia link/lyrics because what I'm getting from them is a song about a guy who broke out of prison for killing a guy who raped his sister when he was 20 and was in jail for 18 years..
I guess the point is he was gone from society for 18 years? Am I the only mid-30s person who doesn't feel like they're unhip?
"...when I was trying hard to figure out how to put down my anger instead of continuing to cling to it."
McKay's book When Anger Hurts got me onto the right path. https://www.amazon.com/When-Anger-Hurts-Quieting-Within/dp/1... TLDR: Anger starts with expectations. Which leads to disappointment, resentment, blame, and then lands on anger. I keep hoping for followups; surely the state of the art has progressed since.
The next plateau for me was figuring out how to unlearn my anger habit. I heard that habits can only be replaced. So I decided to pretend being happy, positive. Why not? Nothing else worked and I was out ideas.
I was really surprised that it worked.
Next plateau for me was dealing with anxiety. Maybe half of my symptoms had a physiological origin. Only discovered after a lumbar fusion and my anxiety was mostly gone. In retrospect, I'm grumpy for all the wasted effort and misc treatments endured (eg SSRIs).
I still don't have much clue about dealing with trauma, PTSD. I'd like to try psychotropics (shrooms, MDMA), but have had trouble finding trustworthy suppliers.
--
Thanks to u/Dowwie for Bone's Feeling Good tip. Somehow hadn't seen that before. Will try it.
I dont have thoughts of suicide at all, but I constantly have thoughts of leaving everything - the job, family, friends, etc and go to a place i dont know anyone.
however, this is not me at all. I have never wandered, am very conscious all the time, and thats why i have not left family, kids, job etc
my favorite ad would the SouthWest 'wanna get away'? I think the failures in life, and how i think others perceive them, and how my family perceives me make me have thoughts (consciously)
but the fact that i am unable to act on it makes me very sad.
I have both suicidal ideation and escapist fantasies. I spent years fantasizing about moving to a small coastal town, which I more or less basically did about 2.5 years ago. (I'm on a river coast, not an ocean coast, 20 minutes or so from the ocean and we get tidal surge here and brackish waters.)
When I first got here, my life was still frustrating and I would have escapist fantasies of just leaving and moving to a small coastal town somewhere and then realize I already live in a small coastal town. I never quite knew how to feel about that. Like "Um, I win? I guess. At least I don't need to pack my bags and move. I'm here already."
With living here, my life is slowly coming together and I much less often have that fantasy of "I'm just going to up and leave and move to a small coastal town, damn it!" But it wasn't immediate. Arriving here didn't promptly fix everything about my life, even though it was immediately a huge improvement over what I had been experiencing.
I think it's pretty normal to want immediate relief of some kind and to, on some level, recognize that "These people and this place and yadda -- that's a big part of the problem." and the logical inference is that if you could just get away from these people and this place, things would be immediately better.
So it's kind of like wishing for an "easy button" for life when life is frustrating.
But there's also truth to the saying "Wherever you go, there you are." Not all problems are cured by just getting away from these people or this place.
It took me a lot of years to resolve some of my problems. I persisted because I didn't feel I really had another option. I could work on it or I could kill myself, basically. It certainly wasn't acceptable to just accept the problems I had and make my peace with simply living with those issues. Something had to change, so I just kept at it, even though it took a long time to make changes happen.
For me, my idea of "I would like to live in a small coastal town" is something I was eventually able to arrange and it is proving to be better than anything else I've ever had. But it still is something that is growing on me, so to speak.
And that's just my personal story. It's not advice and I'm not telling you what you should do.
I'm somewhat surprised it got traction, but, to be fair, I didn't post the About page, which is the page you are quoting from. I think this piece stands on its own just fine and it isn't really relevant what the site is about.
I run a number of blogs. I could have put this piece someplace else, but I felt it best fit on this site because it is intended to be a resource for people with very serious personal challenges that put them at high risk of homelessness.
I'm sort of amused that you went looking at the rest of the site and are criticizing the fact that this piece was posted based on other content on the site.
It's not intended to be a touching story. That's not the point at all. The About page gives my credentials for why I think I am somewhat qualified to provide resources for the LGBTQ community. The site was started, as the About page states, because this population is at very high risk of homelessness, so I don't feel homeless resources are complete without LGBTQ resources.
I'm not someone who flagged your comment and I wasn't accusing you of being a douche.
I'm not a founder. I am a long time member who has been here more than a decade and I'm probably best known as a subject matter expert on homelessness. This is one of my blogs that is intended to be a resource for trying to address the issue of homelessness because the LGBTQ community is at very high risk of homelessness.
Between my old handle and this one, I have more than 50k karma, so some people recognize my name and sometimes they check out my posts for that reason. But with 5 million visitors a month to HN, plenty of people have no idea whatsoever who I am.
It's not really a touching story. If you read through the blog, I was targeted by someone who treated me horribly. This person just so happens to be trans and I learned a lot about trans issues in the course of knowing her, but I got badly burned.
"Grist for the mill" and all that. I do my best to separate my anger at how this specific individual mistreated me from what I learned about trans issues because of them and I try to use that knowledge to provide resources for a high risk population because it's clear to me that if you want to reduce homelessness, you need to address the needs of the LGBTQ community.
I think you just have to come to terms with HN changing. It's scope is in a progress of broadening beyond IT and tech. And I like that. At least to some extent.
To be fair, HN's scope has never been exclusive to IT and startups, it's always been satisfying intellectual curiosity.
It just happens that as the userbase grows, the variance of interests people have grows with it. The demographic that only wants to read about technical content or only finds intellectual gratification in it no longer represents the mainstream here, if it ever did.
I have a similar relationship with album "The '59 Sound" by The Gaslight Anthem and especially with the title track. My younger sister took her own life on Memorial Day weekend of 2014. If you've never had the misfortune of losing a loved one to suicide, everyone around you will speak about it in a way that erases their agency as much as possible ("they were sick, they weren't perceiving reality," etc). And this is helpful, to avoid blaming oneself, and also in a wider, civic-duty sense, to help people view suicidal ideation as a syndrome that responds to treatment, since it so often does.
This did not help me grieve her, though, since the young woman I lost was not demented, as my grandparents were before they passed, but sensitive and insightful. Fallon's lyrics (written in response to the passing of a loved one of his own) are so respectful of the deceased, expressing only his hope that the moment of death was peaceful and not regretful, contextualized through their shared experience. I really needed this perspective at the time, and six years later listening to the song without crying my eyes out is still touch-and-go for me.