Posts by Kerry Weston
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Kia ora, Islander, Kracklite for your thoughts. Yeah, my lot are reserved and all kinda twisted up inside, too, with the effort it takes.
Only one more thing to say - it interests me how we respond to the phrase "looking for attention" as in "you're just looking for attention" usually spoken in contemptuous tones. Is it that old kiwi thing of it being virtuous not to seek the limelight still operating?
However someone expresses it, by seeking attention, it surely means they're missing something they need. It may not even be the thing they're fussing about. i still hear parents tell their children not to show off and stop looking for attention. When we all so much need to be attended to.
I think this is a big part of what's making us so fascinated in spite of ourselves in mr Veitch.
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It makes me very cross indeed when people play with suicide as a manipulative thing.
That is a line that needs further discussion. What is an appropriate method of expressing a death wish, without the risk of vilification
Well, to go all Freudian, Sigmund believed in a death drive didn't he? Like you're kind of inexorably attracted to it, because the fear of death is at once crippling and magnetic. Long, drawn-out self-destructive behaviour, like addiction, is another form of death wish.
My implicit point in posting about my nephew was that he had one go at it - there were no attempts, nor any distraught communications or even depressive episode that we knew about. In a strange way, i found this comforting. It was calculated, planned, no rescue required.
In the case of suicide ideation, and failed attempts, i guess one can't generalise about how to handle it. But I've observed others handle it by pretending it hasn't happened and not mentioning the "S" word and hurrying the victim off to counselling. That isn't how I'd deal with it. I don't mean I'd tell them off and say what a bad person they are for trying it, rather, relate in story-form, what the consequences are. And let them know, emphatically, that they matter to me. Doing something, as simple as taking them out for a walk, or coffee, staying in touch is really important, rather than endless talking. You can't live someone's life for them or make the life/death decision.
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Thanks, Jackie and Kracklite. I'm open about it all because I do believe it needs to be aired, it's still stigmatised because people are afraid to deal with it openly.
For the family and friends left behind it exposes all the weaknesses, amplifies them. People tear themselves apart, and others apart, in their pain. I'll admit something awful -- I've never been able to discuss it with my brother (his father), in the years since. I have the feeling his pain is stored so deep that to dig for it would be cruel.
And like others here, I get the Black Dog nipping at my heels, as does one of my sons. It was dealing with his major depression that, on the one hand, ignited my anger about the pitiful level of help available for teens in distress and, on the other, forced me to have faith in my own methods of dealing with it. One of which was to make sure he had no opportunity to be alone and do anything fatal. It was like being on Home D. for a year.
I also kept up contact with nature - bush walks, beach, river. Kept all stress at bay. Let him sleep. Didn't harass him to talk, but let him know I was there, would always go in to bat for him. And just retold stories, allegories. And got him to cook! Stories and cooking ...sounds like I'm channelling Islander! Aue!
i was never going to let another loved one slip through my fingers like that. And, now, three years later, he's making up for losing 2-3 years of school, he's just started playing guitar, and most wonderful of all - he laughs and cracks jokes.
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However, I have to say that suicide is a matter I am very passionate about and I really do need to find ways of understanding and helping people who might be at risk. The questions then are 'what are the warning signs?' and 'what to do next?' Some sincere attempts to help only make matters worse if they are uniformed by others' experience of similar cases. I think that that transcends moral fastidiousness.
Yeah, dealing with teenagers at risk has been a prime soap box of mine for quite some time. My 20 yr old nephew topped himself some years ago - no note, no warning signs that anyone put together. It was a huge shock to the family as he was away at uni in Dunedin, so we saw no obvious signs and neither did his friends down there. However, he did leave some rather enigmatic clues - like a philosophy book marked at a certain page in his room and a marked calendar. He'd also come to a fancy dress party at my house dressed as the Grim Reaper a few months before and talked a lot about wanting a simple life - love, children, living simply at Portobello and maybe designing computer software (he was a maths whizz). He had done medicine and as part of their training did experiments in losing consciousness with anaesthesia - he made his own mask so he wouldn't choke on the exhaust fumes and made a very ritualised exit, at dawn, somewhere very beautiful. I have no doubts he wanted to end it, rather than a cry for help. i think he couldn't handle the stress of expectations that he 'be someone' because he was so gifted. Murray was a lovely, sensitive, witty young man.....much loved.
The repercussions are still felt today in my family - it's never over. I've lost several friends to it over the years. It makes me very cross indeed when people play with suicide as a manipulative thing. The few occasions when someone I know has done so, they've got a huge telling-off from me and told in glorious detail why it is such an appalling thing to do. I don't abandon them, though.
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Kerry, Lhaws was Giovanni's idea I think.
By the transitive property of compliments, I'm going to usurp "being a man of great wit" for the day. Hooray!
My pleasure, gio. I think both you and sacha are worthy of that embellishment!
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The world is indeed a strange place when Michael Lhaws makes some sense:
Love "Lhaws", the way it has a laugh embedded in it. You're a man of great wit, sacha. Maybe Mr Lhaws has had a gutsful of the whole thing too.
Not buying a Sunday paper today, read Lhaws and Woodham links and that's it. It's starting to make me feel grubby and voyeuristic.
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some people who are emotional narcissists/sadists try to inflict as much pain as they can on other people (often those they have selected precisely because they are vulnerable) by any means at hand so as to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions.
Bingo! I can see this whole nasty business has touched a nerve with you, Kracklite - pinged the whole nervous system even - me too, and doubtless many others. I've never had to endure physical abuse, only various forms of emotional/mental blah, and I'm pretty good at spotting the patterns now.
I agree it's the culture that matters - the willingness to minimise, excuse, forgive the abusers and (worse to me) willingness to find the slightest excuse to claim the victim attracted their punishment.
I accept that humans have a remarkable capacity for cruelty to each other. i don't want to accept it but the evidence is overwhelming.
Funny, though, how some cases attract the judicial line: "we've got to make an example of them, so others will realise they can't get away with it" and others don't. I'm disappointed that this case evaded that line and i do believe it sets a tragically bad example.
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So, will the 300 hours community service etc sentence set a precedent for other cases in the future? It seems mighty light to me. i think New Zealand women would do well to feel afraid. So often it seems one would do better to simply walk away and spare yourself the agony.
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Because thinking about things like quantum entanglement mangles even the cleverest brains? And no matter how awesome that shit is, it doesn't help to put bread on the table, or offer direct and easy solutions to social problems?
Quantum entanglement, at a distance, even! Synchronicity - told ya. Tho quantum entanglement sounds like a state John Key might find himself in rather soon.
Apparently, reality is just a state of mind after all.
That was a good link, thanks Rich. Interesting fella called Ian McN posting in the comments and some book titles to add to the "Must Read One Day" pile. Like Roger Penrose: "the Road to Reality" - anyone read it and is it any good??
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Well, even tho Sting besmirched the concept, I'm a starter for synchronicity - today, even, i listened to "In the Court of King Crimson" for the first time in decades, and whaddaya know? You're talking about it here. Is that deep and meaningful? Nah, probably not.
And dredging it up from long ago in Huxley's 'Doors of Perception', I liked Huxley's depiction of the human brain as a reducing valve. There's so much out there that we simply don't have the means to perceive. We just get whiffs of it now and then.
I'd like to think there's a divine spark in all of us but then i remember Paul Henry.