Friday, June 18, 2021

How do you count ~these~ people?

I have a special sort of anger for people who politicize the pandemic. I do. I would never be as casual with other peoples health as many people have been. It's really fucked up. Every crisis exposes just how horrible people are with each other.

I told everyone last year that dieing was the easy part. No one wanted to listen. They just wanted to demagog. I feel like they were willfully ignoring what is really happening with people. And frankly - Long Covid is going to be our next health crisis. People are already incurring a tremendous amounts of medical debt.

So today I wanted to ask - what category do you put these people in?

Heidi Ferrer, who wrote Dawson’s Creek and Wasteland, has died by suicide aged 50.

"The writer of hit teen drama Dawson’s Creek took her life aged 50 after a 13-month long, painful battle with coronavirus, her family has revealed." 

Texas Roadhouse Founder Kent Taylor Dies After Struggle With 'Post-COVID' Symptoms.

"Texas Roadhouse restaurant founder and CEO Kent Taylor died by suicide last week at age 65 after what his family described as a "battle with post-Covid related symptoms, including severe tinnitus."

And literally no one would give a shit if these people weren't somewhat famous. How many ~not famous~ people have also made this choice? Meaning their stories never made headlines.

6 comments:

  1. it falls on both sides though. Suicide in general spiked hard in the last year. People forced to abandon jobs and friends and the things that kept them sane, and increase debt because they had to shut down business. One set of suicides is not more equal than the other. Nor is one set of debt more equal than the other.

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  2. "Suicide in general spiked hard in the last year."

    I'm sorry Baby, but that is not true at all. I have been watching this too. And really, outside of the first three months, Trump pushed so much money into the system, bankruptcies were actually lower than pre pandemic. No one lost their houses. Business did not fail.

    But I'm sure you won't believe me - so pick your poison. Choose any link you want from the ideals that suite you. Suicides decreased in 2020.

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  3. Interesting, I'll have to sit down and compare links and info from my saved links.

    On the other hand, a similar search for "businesses closed permanently 2020" says that yes more businesses than usual, possibly ALOT more, closed permanently. Possibly fewer than expected, but more than usual.

    I'm not so sure that "didn't lose homes" is a good metric considering the widespread forbidding of evictions. I don't think we've seen the results of that yet. Ditto bankruptcies. I think that still has the potential to come back and bite.

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  4. Ok, the difference in numbers is that "mental health crisis" and "suicide attempts" do not count as suicides, officially. And apparently a bonus to covid is that with everyone home more suicide attempts failed/were noticed/stopped. Which is a good thing. But multiple hospitals in multiple states are reporting a very significant increase in treatments for mental health problems, attempts at self harm, threats/attempts at suicide. Especially in the younger generations.

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  5. I think it's fair to say that nearly everyone had ~some level~ of mental health impact in 2020. But the rules that everyone has set (not me) that if you aren't dead it doesn't count. Right?

    Which is exactly why I posed this question. Do these people count now? They survived Covid but had such lingering health problems they didn't think living was worth it. I'm just trying to be consistent. Everyone seems to want to have exceptions to all their rules.

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  6. I just had one of those days. Apparently consistency is to much to ask for…..

    I don't disagree. But I do think that the "actual suicide count is down" is misleading.

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