Dear Congresswoman Lori Trahan,
Please reconsider supporting the Stop Online Suicide Assistance Forums Act. I know I am one of many who will try to persuade you, but I hope my message can at least resonate with you.
First and foremost I DO NOT give you permission to share my message to any media/journalist outlets, reasons for that will come later. I do not wish to start any conflict, nor am I currently planning on harming myself or others. I give you my word.
I am 20 years old, and I am currently studying psychology in university in hopes of becoming a counselor. I want to help others so they can have proper support and guidance where I didn't and so that they won't repeat the same mistakes I made. However, I also have no real ongoing drive to accomplish this goal, I simply just "exist". I lost someone special to me. I have been suicidal and severely depressed for years.
I came across Sanctioned Suicide when it was covered on the New York Times. I started using it not just out of curiosity to observe what was going on as I enjoy seeing communities that welcome the freedom of taboo speech, but it was also because it was a community of people who had similar feelings as me, despite our many different experiences. What I found was not just another toxic, malicious community alike to Kiwi Farms that people like the average person would see, but instead a community of people all suffering together.
Each person has their own stories and reasons for why they got to the place they are. People with terminal illnesses, people who have been mistreated their whole lives or already destroyed their lives, people who were given bad cards from the very start.
These people have no places or people to turn to for help, especially professionals as it becomes a dangerous and taboo topic in therapy. If I want to speak my mind to a therapist, I get sent to a psych-ward against my will when I do not want that kind of help. I have been in the system, a great number of the forum members have been in the system in some way. Do you want to call the suicide hotline? Get ready to talk to an emotionally insensitive volunteer with a binder of "resources" who will not get you anywhere in the slightest.
The conditions in psych-wards are horrible, and the modern mental health system does not do anything to truly help people turn their lives around. They simply just shove pills down our throats, restrict us to a zoo akin to prison conditions and preach generic bullshit that won't ever help anyone. They don't understand us at all, no matter what their intentions are or where those intentions come from. As someone who has been in the system, and is going to work in therapy, I am disgusted at the state of what current mental health treatment is.
Other current mental health awareness contributions from companies or people are all just the same. Let's look at Amazon for example, certainly their mindful wellness box is effective for their wage-slave workers who were forced to work an unfulfilling, dead-end job. I can see that all you want is for people to keep living for the sake of it. Nothing is done to change their circumstances, all it is is just a happy distraction from living a miserable life with no real fulfillment or hope left.
By the way, I also dislike Canada's approach. It is opposite to yours in encouraging medically assisted death. Hospitals have actively encouraged patients to die, especially those who do not have any interest in the first place. It is sad when society leads people to those options because people's lives are legitimately fucked.
Contrary to what you may think, being able to have a place to share grievances and experiences and to be able to support one another when we actually want support is more helpful than anything a therapist can provide. We can help each other to know that sure, life ain't great, but at least we can stay a little bit longer and suffer together, and if we truly cannot handle it, we can leave. This community is more caring and open than any mainstream social media platforms out there.
Taking this away from people like us won't change anything. Taking away methods won't change anything. People who have no hope in themselves will still suffer for longer under a society that really doesn't care about them, and that they never belonged in the first place. If they die, at least they do so on their own terms. A vast majority of those who have died do it efficiently and safely as possible to not impede on anyone else. It takes months and even years of preparation and research until the day when someone finally gets the courage to "catch the bus" as we call it. Until then if that day comes, we simply just "exist" with no real drive or options. A special note to make is that failure will only lead to more suffering, as failing hanging for example could leave someone as a vegetable and a despairing shadow of their former self.
If you are going to take measures to stop suicide, at least actually try to make change to help those who will be lead to consider it the most.
As for those minors you worried about; oh the children! It's always and only bad when it affects the children! I will say that it is a damn shame to see youth waste their lives away when they still had possibilities for things to get better for them, and potential. However, the few that were on the site (who lied about their age) knew full well what they were doing, and it wasn't the environment of the site itself that lead them to die, it was what was happening to them in their own lives. These kids never had proper support in their lives. Why else would they go out of their way to find an obscure suicide forum with people who would never be able to know their age or stories. There was no one to support them in their time of need, they were only screwed over by society. They made their decisions.
In addition, you and everyone else who supports this bill know nothing about these people and instead from your moral high horses are HYPOCRITICAL towards your views. You think this site grooms children and adults alike to end their lives? These kids are constantly being exposed to all kinds of crap anyway; such as porn, extremist ideologies, actual grooming from predators (or trying to exploit them) on mainstream social media. (all which you should be concerned about!) You would be surprised and sick to your stomach at what kids do these days. You allow them to get abortions and you allow them to go under gender transitioning, because you think they are competent enough to think that they could make such life-changing decisions at an early age and assume there isn't any sort of outside influence.
You, supporters, and the media have also abused our members. There have been people who have spoken up about problems on the site such as the occasional, very taboo and looked-down upon predator, and have used victims stories to push your narratives. I read an apology letter from someone who spoke up about their experience with the New York Times, the journalists completely twisted their narrative, mixed up their words and disregarded their original intentions. You are only fueling echo chambers of hate and self-righteousness.
I could ramble on paragraphs for longer, but I will end it here.
We have a right to freedom of speech, for privacy, and deserve a right to choose how we end our lives. Please consider our plights. I once again urge you to reconsider your support for this bill, and simply leave people who do not want your help or attention in the first place alone. Instead, I ask you to help reform the mental health system and interact with those in the suicide wards and with people on the site or similar. Just by listening you can better your understanding and use it for real change.
If you read this far, thank you.
Sincerely,
- Anonymous
