A tricky problem is, you can’t really read the situation from a brief description. Here is an example of increasingly suicidality to show why:
Monday: “Today was horrible… just horrible. I can’t take this any more, I’m going to end it all.”
Tuesday: “I am going to walk to that cliff near my house and jump off, that would do it. That would definitely be fatal.” and then not doing anything or:
Wednesday: “Okay, I have a list of things I’m going to do before jumping off the cliff. Step 1, Eat a large meal.” eats “Step 2: Write a Suicide Note:” types “In retrospect… I don’t feel like jumping off the cliff anymore today.” (Deletes note)
Thursday: Doing all of the above, actually walking to that cliff near your house, looking over the edge and only then thinking “You know, maybe I shouldn’t jump. Not today. Maybe I’ll jump if tomorrow is this bad too.”
Friday: Standing on the edge as previously, but doing so until one of your friends finds you and pulls you away while you are saying “No, let me go, I need to do this!”
I have no idea what serious contemplation refers to (I’m assuming the verge would be either Thursday or Friday.) For instance, even in the past, on my worst days of depression, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten past Wednesday on the list above.
If there is a more explicit metric for this, please let me know, I’m not finding one, and it would be great to have an easier way of communicating about some of this.
Well, thanks for the distinction between suicidal intentions but I don’t see this to be really relevant to what I said. In this example ‘on the verge of suicide’ referred to:
And that did it. For the rest of the day, I wreaked physical havoc, and emotionally alienated everyone I interacted with. I even seriously contemplated suicide.
Seriously contemplating something is semi-synonymous with being on the verge of doing something. I can’t really help you decipher how suicidal he was but if I had to guess he was just exaggerating.
Sorry about that. I was trying to break something that seemed unclear into concrete examples, but on looking at it again, I think it may have been a bit too much armchair psychology, and when I tried explaining what I was saying, my explanation sounded even more like armchair psychology (but this time I noticed before posting). Thank you for helping me see that problem more clearly.
Seriously contemplating something is semi-synonymous with being on the verge of doing something.
From my perspective, Tuesday would feel like “seriously contemplating” from the inside; even late Monday night could too I think.
So I disagree with the quoted sentence.
EDIT addition for clarity: Had I personally felt like the “Tuesday” scenario described above, I could easily imagine myself describing the event as “seriously contemplating suicide,” regardless of what other people think about the definition of “seriously contemplate.” So it seems wise to me not to dismiss the possibility that when someone described their situation, it may be less serious than you personally think should be the definition of those words.
A tricky problem is, you can’t really read the situation from a brief description. Here is an example of increasingly suicidality to show why:
Monday: “Today was horrible… just horrible. I can’t take this any more, I’m going to end it all.”
Tuesday: “I am going to walk to that cliff near my house and jump off, that would do it. That would definitely be fatal.” and then not doing anything or:
Wednesday: “Okay, I have a list of things I’m going to do before jumping off the cliff. Step 1, Eat a large meal.” eats “Step 2: Write a Suicide Note:” types “In retrospect… I don’t feel like jumping off the cliff anymore today.” (Deletes note)
Thursday: Doing all of the above, actually walking to that cliff near your house, looking over the edge and only then thinking “You know, maybe I shouldn’t jump. Not today. Maybe I’ll jump if tomorrow is this bad too.”
Friday: Standing on the edge as previously, but doing so until one of your friends finds you and pulls you away while you are saying “No, let me go, I need to do this!”
I have no idea what serious contemplation refers to (I’m assuming the verge would be either Thursday or Friday.) For instance, even in the past, on my worst days of depression, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten past Wednesday on the list above.
If there is a more explicit metric for this, please let me know, I’m not finding one, and it would be great to have an easier way of communicating about some of this.
Well, thanks for the distinction between suicidal intentions but I don’t see this to be really relevant to what I said. In this example ‘on the verge of suicide’ referred to:
Seriously contemplating something is semi-synonymous with being on the verge of doing something. I can’t really help you decipher how suicidal he was but if I had to guess he was just exaggerating.
Sorry about that. I was trying to break something that seemed unclear into concrete examples, but on looking at it again, I think it may have been a bit too much armchair psychology, and when I tried explaining what I was saying, my explanation sounded even more like armchair psychology (but this time I noticed before posting). Thank you for helping me see that problem more clearly.
From my perspective, Tuesday would feel like “seriously contemplating” from the inside; even late Monday night could too I think.
So I disagree with the quoted sentence.
EDIT addition for clarity: Had I personally felt like the “Tuesday” scenario described above, I could easily imagine myself describing the event as “seriously contemplating suicide,” regardless of what other people think about the definition of “seriously contemplate.” So it seems wise to me not to dismiss the possibility that when someone described their situation, it may be less serious than you personally think should be the definition of those words.