Subject: Re: guide lines
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Wed Jun 14 2000 - 09:51:46 GMT
On Wed, Jun 14, 2000 at 08:50:23AM +0100, Scottie Bowman wrote:
> I'd forgotten the bit about the scratches on Seymour's
> wrist.
>
> For what it's worth, in the course of forty odd years'
> psychiatric practice I have never known anyone kill
> themselves with slit wrists. The classical Roman method,
> of course, was to retire to a warm bath with the razor
> but it doesn't seem to happen in my part of the woods.
I recall ONE time only when I came across this. There was a bookstore
near a job I had, a shop I visited every day to pass an hour of idle
time, and there was a sulky girl working the cash register. She always
dressed in black and she always seemed to have the weight of the world
on her back. I had a good rapport with her (it figures!) and used to
chat with her when I bought a book. One day I went in and saw her there
with the remains of huge gouges on her arms, sloppily bandaged. It
looked as if she had tried to cut her wrists with a windowpane. I
remember watching them heal gradually, as the weeks went by, and then
one day she wasn't there any more. And I never saw her again.
My observation mirrors yours, Scottie -- a lot of overdoses, a few
hangings, a handful of carbon monoxide cases, but never a bullet and
virtually never a cut wrist or throat.
I don't mean to make out that my world consists of people killing
themselves, though! It is quite rare and more often than not a
friend-of-a-friend -- or someone even more distant -- who is
involved.
--tim
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Thu Jul 13 2000 - 23:22:21 GMT