I was beside a 18wheeler on the highway and I thought "I could end it all right now" is NOT a suicidal thought?!

[JEDI]

Random reading on another forum of a successful guy with lots of anxiety who sought professional help.

How is this NOT a suicidal thought?!

 

[sandorski]

I suspect it is, unless the dude is just being Edgy.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

It is, but taking out others isn't a great way.

 

[Muse]

The highways are dangerous places. I'm edgy on the freeways, on any road where you're driving over 30mph. You don't know what addled people are out there, what they're doing. Cell phones, kids in the car, drugs, distractions, impatient drivers by the dozens, immature drivers by the score, unpredictable often challenging road conditions, things falling off trucks, pot holes (they can be damn big around here).

I'm a damn good driver but I know it's goddamn dangerous out there. Of course, you could always be 10 seconds away from death when in a motor vehicle. I think of that when driving.

A big local story the last couple days is a guy who took an Uber in San Francisco the other day. A car stolen on Jan. 12 collided with the Uber. The passenger died, the driver is in the hospital. The guy driving the stolen car took it on the lamb and they're looking for him.

 

[dank69]

The highways are dangerous places. I'm edgy on the freeways, on any road where you're driving over 30mph. You don't know what addled people are out there, what they're doing. Cell phones, kids in the car, drugs, distractions, impatient drivers by the dozens, immature drivers by the score, unpredictable often challenging road conditions, things falling off trucks, pot holes (they can be damn big around here).

I'm a damn good driver but I know it's goddamn dangerous out there. Of course, you could always be 10 seconds away from death when in a motor vehicle. I think of that when driving.

A big local story the last couple days is a guy who took an Uber in San Francisco the other day. A car stolen on Jan. 12 collided with the Uber. The passenger died, the driver is in the hospital. The guy driving the stolen car took it on the lamb and they're looking for him.

If you're edgy while driving, you're probably not a damn good driver.

 

[allisolm]

The guy driving the stolen car took it on the lamb and they're looking for him.

LOL Got an entirely different mental picture than from

The guy driving the stolen car took it on the lam.

 

[pauldun170]

If you're edgy while driving, you're probably not a damn good driver.

I know several women who refuse to drive on highways. My mother and mother in law included.
Half a century of driving and they will take side streets to get from point a to point b even if it means adding an hour of travel time to what would normally be a short hop.

Also seems plenty of city folk panic as soon as well as the speeds go past 50

 

[IronWing]

I was beside a 18wheeler on the highway and I thought "I could end it all right now" is NOT a suicidal thought?!

No crap, you could get COVID from a trucker.

 

[dank69]

I know several women who refuse to drive on highways. My mother and mother in law included.
Half a century of driving and they will take side streets to get from point a to point b even if it means adding an hour of travel time to what would normally be a short hop.

Also seems plenty of city folk panic as soon as well as the speeds go past 50

Honestly, anyone who feels nervous driving at or around the speed limit should not be driving. Period. Speed limits are calibrated for the worst drivers among us.

 

[dullard]

Sounds like the poster is making a fine (but very important) line between "I could" and "I will". Saying "I could eat a horse" is a whole lot different that actually saying "I will eat this horse".

The difference is the unspoken "but I won't". I could post 1000 posts on Anandtech today (but I won't). I am making the conscious decision NOT to post 1000 times today.

 

[nakedfrog]

It could be an intrusive thought, it's not necessarily suicidal ideation simply because the thought occurs.

 

[Captante]

Simply thinking "I could kill myself doing this" is NOT the same as "I WANT to kill myself and this would work".

Seems pretty obvious to me.

However a blanket-statement claiming the person speaking this sort of feeling aloud isn't suicidal is a potentially HUGE mistake. ANYTIME you hear a person bring up thoughts of harming themselves in any "positive" way its a major red-flag.

 

[Zanix]

"I'm gonna KILL you!"
"Dad's gonna kill me!"
"You're killing me!!"

"I'm gonna kill myself." = RED FLAG

idk, discretion is important. I mean if we're talking about a hungover parent early morning with screaming toddlers, I understand the sentiment. No need to have a CPS review or therapy.

 

[Muse]

If you're edgy while driving, you're probably not a damn good driver.

No accidents since the 1960's, no moving violations either. I'm just on edge at high speeds with traffic around me, I think it's appropriate. I'm not panicky, my heart rate doesn't go up AFAIK, I'm just "be aware, a tenth of a second reaction time could be the difference between life and death," which is indisputable. I don't avoid the freeway unless it's raining (or I have reason to believe it may be bumper to bumper) then I sometimes do.

 

[dank69]

No accidents since the 1960's, no moving violations either. ...

There is a LOT more to qualifying as a "damn good driver" than that.

 

[Muse]

There is a LOT more to qualifying as a "damn good driver" than that.

Care to specify? Anyway, I think I am. I don't even have close calls. That's my measure of a damn good driver, avoid situations where I could have an accident. No dings on my car, either.

Or maybe your idea of a damn good driver is Nascar.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I went through a depression and everything around you starts to look like an "opportunity" to end it. It's a battle to stop yourself from actually doing it because deep down you don't ACTUALLY want to die, you just want the feeling to go away. I remember doing a routine walk around in our building on a night shift and noticing all the ways to die. I jokingly thought to myself I should join the H&S committee, I seem to have an eye for it. Everything would be so safe no work would get done.

I wonder how many people who commit suicide from depression didn't even plan to, and just did it at the spur of the moment, like jerking the steering wheel into a semi or a lake etc. Though lot of them are also planned. In that case you can tell the person really did want to die and gave it more thought. Really sad either way.

Someone at my work recently comited suicide and took his children with him. He had huntington, lost his wife to cancer, and his kids were very likely to have either the cancer his wife had, or huntington (both genetic and high % chance to be passed on) and basically him and his kids had no hope in life. He drove into a lake with the kids in the car. Super horrible situation all around.

 

[pmv]

Not sure I understand the OP, or the thread title.

But I mean, people can be troubled by intrusive disturbing thoughts like that without actually being suicidal. I think it's related to OCD.

 

[dank69]

Care to specify? Anyway, I think I am. I don't even have close calls. That's my measure of a damn good driver, avoid situations where I could have an accident. No dings on my car, either.

Or maybe your idea of a damn good driver is Nascar.

Making sure you do not inconvenience other drivers more than absolutely necessary is rule #1 after safety. If I have to even think about tapping my brakes because of someone who is only concerned about themselves and nobody else on the road, that someone is a bad driver no matter how clean their record is.

Other important factors:
1) Making sure you have outs and know where they are when things go wrong.
2) Anticipating WAY in advance potential problems long before they happen.
3) Knowing when it's your turn to go at an intersection and fucking go the instant you can, not a half-second later. This includes already knowing if anyone is potentially going to run a red light through your path assuming it isn't a blind intersection.

I could go on but I don't want to derail this thread too much more.

 

[pmv]

There is a LOT more to qualifying as a "damn good driver" than that.

Yeah, I could make the same claim.


Honestly, just as you can tell a politician is lying because his lips are moving, you can tell a bad driver, because they are behind the wheel of a motorised vehicle.

 

[Muse]

Yeah, I could make the same claim.


Honestly, just as you can tell a politician is lying because his lips are moving, you can tell a bad driver, because they are behind the wheel of a motorised vehicle.

Like I told my dad one day while I was driving us around, you can tell a lot about a person by the way they drive, just observing their vehicle. He wholeheartedly agreed. My dad was a great driver who took a lot of pride in it. You can read a person's mindset by the way they drive.

A great disproportion of accidents involve stolen cars, the drivers are sure to be dangerous.

 

[pmv]

It could be an intrusive thought, it's not necessarily suicidal ideation simply because the thought occurs.

Yeah, exactly. This sounds more like someone with a problem with OCD and intrusive thoughts, than someone actually suicidal. Having such inappropriate thoughts is a conditon in itself. People seek help for it out of fear they might one day feel compelled to act on them, but it's more of an anxiety-condition than depression.

 

[Zeze]

Call of the void / intrusive thought.

It's common, documented, and normal.

 

[Muse]

Call of the void / intrusive thought.

It's common, documented, and normal.

If there weren't that cyclone fence between me and that tiger it could have my head in its mouth in 5 seconds.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Yeah...intrusive thoughts. I suppose you could have a lot of "thoughts" about doing this or that....but if you don't ever have the intention to make it a real threat, it's not necessarily a suicidal thought.

Let's change the action to something like pushups. If I thought "I'm going to get ripped and do a bunch of pushups right now!!! RRRAAAAWR!!!!", but knew for a fact I wasn't actually going to rip my shirt off and hit the ground to do them....it was just a thought and nothing serious. I never had the intent because I'm a lazy, handsome guy on the Internet.