Posted by wendy b. on June 26, 2002, at 10:19:34
In reply to Re: As someone who once lurked, suicidal. . ., posted by Zo on June 26, 2002, at 2:13:48
Zo,
Of course we've been writing to each other off-line, but on the subject at hand, I'm going to add my comments to yours here.
I'm so glad you're writing on the Boards again, it took some doing, maybe a topic as hefty as this one, to bring you back. Whatever it is, just want you to know, more people than me are looking for your name here. We've missed you...> . . .I can tell you that the *last* thing I wanted to know was that someone here didn't make it. The board was to me, then, a pocket of hope. I could not have borne it, I think, had I been hit in the face with a page, with a mention, with *any* evidence of a real suicide.
I absolutely respect and take seriously your comments on this. I truly think it's all going to depend on the way the tribute page is handled. If it's a big, bold link in bright colors or whatever, that draws attention to itself unnecessarily, that mentions the way she died, and makes a big deal of it, that would be the wrong approach. If it were merely a link on the main page, and then a series of remembrances collected in one spot, then I don't see how that could be harmful.
> As a person, of course I'd like to have a memorial to Sar.
>
> But as a once enormously vulnerable reader of PB. .. In that stripped down state of mind, everything's a scorecard, you're looking for signs--okay, she is making it, and here's someone else who sounds bad off, but they're making it. . .As I wondered in my last post, why is this more difficult for a potential suicide to deal with than somebody posting on PSB, for ex, that they're ready to off themselves? Were there any on the boards when you first came? If so, when you read those, did that make you feel closer to actually doing the act? Or were they less real, since the person, if posting, was still alive?
> Maybe we need to separate our personal feelings about Sar.. . from the implicit obligation that a public message board has.But personal feelings are all over this board. They don't detract from the implicit obligation of the Board to educate. Sometimes the person succeeds, yes. But we can still go on, we can still talk about it. Bob didn't remove the threads that focused solely on Sar's death when it happened. If he thought it would detract form the board's mission, he would have taken them off, I think...
> I know I'd rather err on the side of hope. I'd rather we extended the fiction that we're all going to make it. . .Well, you've said it right there - it IS a fiction. It doesn't always come out the way we think it should.
>I mean, why *document* that some don't.
Because it's real? I don't know.
>It could have been, for me, that last little nudge. Perhaps we have a serious responsiblity to *not* provide that reminder, given the situation of many who come looking for a site like this.It could have been, but how could we know for sure? The reminders are everywhere anyway. I don't have an inside line on the way things should be done, all I have are my reason, my intellect, and my feelings. Maybe my feelings ARE getting in the way. But I don't know how to take them out of the equation, and I don't know if they're on overdrive, or if they're normal... Maybe I'm being selfish? Maybe others like me are, too? Maybe we want the ineffable. But then again, maybe we'd settle for a simple page that honors the person in a quiet, simple way...
Thanks for contributing to the ongoing discussion... I do appreciate and honor your feelings on the matter, and hope we can come to some resolution that makes everyone happy. But maybe that's a fiction too?
Yours,
Wendy
poster:wendy b.
thread:5764
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20020510/msgs/5813.html