During National Suicide Prevention week ...

A mostly reactionary move to the increase of suicides among its teenage population in Utah in recent past ... is it too little, too late? Hint: It needs to do more than lip service if it's to get to the root of the problem.

"Utah made news this year because death by suicide became the No. 1 cause of death for children 10 to 17 in the state. In fact, the number of teen deaths by suicide in Utah doubled from less than 12 per 100,000 in 2011 to 24 per 100,000 in 2014. The increase was limited to that age group."

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865661994/LDS-Church-launches-Preventing-Suicide-website-during-National-Suicide-Prevention-Week.html

LDS church leaders have absolutely no shame whatsoever. This is atrocious.

I haven't looked at their website, but maybe they'd appreciate learning what prevented me from killing myself -leaving the damn Mormon church!

I've known my whole life that I'm gay. And I grew up Mormon. This was back in the 70s and 80s when the only thing worse than homosexuality was murder, and AIDS was God's punishment against gays. So of course I hated myself. I did everything a good Mormon boy was supposed to do - went on a mission, graduated from BYU (summa cum laude), etc., and none of that did anything to change the fact that I was a "filthy homosexual." I attempted suicide several times.

Things didn't improve for my until I realized that the Mormon church was the problem and not me. I'm perfectly fine the way I am! Once I got away from the Mormons life was great!

So here's my idea for suicide prevention - love and accept people unconditionally. Don't try to change them. I could add a few quotes here: "The greatest commandment is love." "As I have loved you love one another." Etc. But I doubt the Mormons would recognize any of them.

Thank you.

You summed it up right there, in a nutshell.

Wish there were more out there like you who could find what you did in time to save themselves from this fallout. My prayer they'll see this and see themselves through your eyes. In place of the shaming they get from the church instead.

I was a teenager growing up in Utah, that seems like a lifetime ago now. While there I experienced homelessness (at 17,) and some close calls. And yet that was nothing compared to what's happening nowadays.

((((Hugs and hearts to you))))



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2016 01:49PM by Amyjo.

... it would disband.

Caller: I am thinking about suicide.
LDS, Inc.: Pay, Pray & Obey.
Caller: But...
LDS, Inc.: All is well in Zion.

Hey, I have an idea for preventing suicide in Utah. Quit making kids feel like they are useless, evil, worthless, empty, and of no value whatsoever just for being normal kids. Normal human beings. Let them have space to figure out their sexual feelings. Quit shaming them for what they do in the privacy of their own home. Quit trying to tell them their sexual attractions are wrong. Quit making them feel like sinners for every little thought that comes into their heads. Build up their self esteem. Give them credible mental health resources. Love and accept them for who they are.

Oh, wait. I forgot. It's because of the altitude. Never mind. Nothing they can do.

Long gone are the days of good old fashioned blood atonement when avenging angels with guns executed the proscribed penalties.

Come now the modern gospel which deftly places the gun in the hands of its victims and obliges them to carry out a do it yourself atonement plan.

:(

The greater sin would be the sins of the parents me thinks than the sins of their children.

Suffer the little ones to come unto him, Jesus said. It was the self-righteous pricks that had no need of a physician, maybe because they were beyond any help he could give them? He came for the rest of humanity.

"Every soul is precious to God and to the church and the loss of life to suicide is heartbreaking."

I can picture a GA saying this. But is each soul precious to you personally? Or are you as cold as a witch's fun bags?

Is it no surprise most if not all the GA were corporate professionals and highly successful entrepreneurs prior to being called to serve? It is the corporation they're serving first and foremost.

The church is a front, sadly, for what else goes on in terms of commerce.

Children, like families and individuals, are a by-product. But not really who it serves. Patrons are there to help support the church; the church does not support its members where the real help is needed. It turns a blind eye to actual physical/spiritual needs - because that was never its real business in the first place.

By launching a website is reactive to what's happening - but it still isn't addressing the actual need or the core problem. And a large part of that is the church itself shaming its members who don't fit the mold of the cookie cutter Mormon.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2016 07:32AM by Amyjo.

From the church's web site intro:

"It[suicide] is a complicated issue that we don’t fully comprehend. There is seldom a single cause or a simple solution."

They start right off with failing to take any responsibility whatsoever. Then they start insisting that church leaders can "help."

Ugh.

Again it is all about appearances and excuses.

High number of young LDS people killing themselves? They now have talking points. They can claim they attempted to address the issue, and all blame can be transferred to the deceased.

Per the church, which has access to ghawd:

"There is seldom a single cause or a simple solution (to suicide)."

Where is the data that supports this? It may well be true, but the reverse is also a possibility, that one issue causes it and that one simple solution could solve it.

But the point is, it is a knowledge/fact based issue, and ghawd is, per mormonism, the source of all knowledge, as in, there is nothing he doesn't know. So, naturally the question arises, why are do they have questions without answers?

Well, I truly hope that the church could learn something valuable about its own approach to the problem instead of passing it off on those who are struggling with depression &/or thoughts of suicide.

If this website actually saves lives, and can make some positive changes in church policy, then maybe it will do a lot more good than mere talking points. It could salvage its own image if it really cared enough about the youth and the people it claims it's there to care for their needs.

Otherwise it will only be lip service unless it can incorporate changes itself where they need to be made, like the dysfunctional family that it is. Doctor: Heal thyself.

I responded to a post sort of praising the website with this.

I believe this website offers much more bad than it does good.

The message "You are loved and we all want you to feel better by getting help" is pouring salt in the wounds. It is like a batterer who makes a big deal out of posting the numbers to ambulance services and emergency rooms, all the while crowing about how much the victim is "loved".

1. LDS leadership is neither honest, nor do they deal in good faith. Look, the claim that the Policy is revelation is a lie. They know it is a lie. The Policy was cooked up in the law offices of Kirton & McConkie. There are three big reasons we can know this is so.

First, the chronology of how the Policy was originally discovered betrays that originally it was a NON-revelatory policy change that was intended to be sneaked out to leadership via amended Handbooks. Once outed, the church tried a few damage-control strategies to stem the outrage (that failed) before finally going for broke with the false "revelation" claim.

Second, any review of the history of the church's stance and policy regarding LGBTQ people shows a very clear evolution with no claim of any specific revelation concerning any altered policies, but the clear lynch-pin for changing the Policy was the U.S. recognition of same-sex marriage. (In case you wish to review: http://www.nomorestrangers.org/timeline-of-mormon-thinking-about-homosexuality/)

Third, the announcement of the Policy in response to American same-sex marriage reveals Jesus Christ to only give authoritative revelations when American interests are involved. Remember SSM has been around in a number of countries for over ten years. Are they really saying that the moment American LBGTQ people are able to marry, then Jesus shows up with a big revelation?? AYFKM?

2. Don't forget that high incidences of suicide among gay mormon youth is NOTHING NEW. This has been happening on the Q-T for a very long time. People have been clamoring for a long time trying to get mormon cult leaders to intervene and provide help. The problem has been so severe that the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University, together with believing members, created a MORMON-SPECIFIC 32-page brochure designed to be distributed to mormon leaders and mormon parents. SFSU initially created a universal brochure in several languages. But they then created a custom brochure for no other specific group, church, or organization EXCEPT the damn mormons!! That is how compelling the need for it has been. (http://familyproject.sfsu.edu/publications)

People have been trying and trying to get the cult to just distribute it and they wouldn't do it. IT WAS CREATED IN 2012!!!! It is the height of arrogance and infuriating beyond words that all of a sudden somehow it is important to address suicide. It betrays that they never gave a shit for years about dead gay members until they were getting bad press over it, and then they ignored the professionally-produced materials that had been produced and offered for years to instead TAKE CREDIT THEMSELVES.

3. It is all good I suppose to have the list of crisis-line numbers. What operators of these crisis lines have said repeatedly is that they when a mormon teen calls in, they are forbidden to tell them the one life-saving true thing that can provide permanent and lasting relief: that the mormon cult is false and that the teachings are not from god and that they are in fact fully whole and fully majestic in their own right.

Instead counselors have to dance around the sword of Damocles hanging over the lives of these children to somehow convince them that they are loved and valued and important and worthy despite every single person around them and god himself telling them through doctrine and policies and actions they will never have happiness and never be worthy.

Ask yourself this. Do you think the cult would publish these numbers if the crisis lines would actually tell kids the one thing that can save them: that the church is false??

Recently a child of a prominent Mama Dragon committed suicide. A professional commented that people should wake up as this child was part of a loving family, loving school, loving ward, and loving activist group. IF ANY KID SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MAKE IT, THIS KID HAD THE BEST CHANCE. But in the end there is no excuse for allowing for false doctrines that enforce the trauma of existential unworthiness and even the MOST LOVED people cannot escape the implications of believing such false religious doctrines.

The bottom-line is that the cause and atrocity of these suicides is not about the presence or absence of love, and continuing to accept this false association dooms dozens and dozens more kids.

4. Let me point out that, like www.mormonsandgays.com, the website serves to provide a platform wherein members can now pass the responsibility easily away from the cult, and pass it to the dead teens and their families.

"Obviously, Brother and Sister Brown missed the signs, it is so sad. If they had just listened to the counsel of the leaders and had been more vigilant this tragedy would never have happened."

Good points, rodolfo.

Until the Mormon church addresses its institutionalized homophobia, and changes its policies regarding its acceptance of the LGBT community & others in its midst, it is helping to create and maintain the environment into which these kids are dying.

What does it take to open their eyes to their own undoing? The death or deaths of their own children, before they address the scourge and extent of the suffering imposed upon their young?

One of my cousins through marriage lost a granddaughter in 2014 to teen suicide, blamed by her family on her being gay in a mostly Mormon community because she was shamed and bullied by her peers and her school teachers. Does my relative have any voice as a family history missionary working in SLC since losing her granddaughter to this needless violence? Does her voice even matter to the higher ups?

It makes you stop and wonder if the church has a heart, where is its pulse?

I'm all for this website if it would help save lives. It's going to take more than a prevention website to undo the homophobia and institutionalized hatred the church instills toward the LGBT community and others who find themselves different through no fault of their own.

The church can't fix all its wrongs. But it does have the capacity to do a great more than it is, if it can only see itself as needing to change and reform - not just those it addresses in its suicide prevention campaign.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2016 08:52AM by Amyjo.

totally ridiculous.

That website is fantastic. I don't know about you but when I get depressed and suicidal, I always turn to the "Joy in the Journey" address given by Thomas S. Monson at a Women's conference in 2008. Wherein he begins his address with an overtly sexist story about a Wife, apparently unable to mow the grass herself, trying to influence her adoringly aloof husband to do so. Further hilarity ensues when the Wife begins to cut the grass with scissors (because Women only know how to communicate through passive aggression) leaving the lovingly bewildered and well-intentioned husband to return with a toothbrush and command his wife to sweep the steps with it after she's done cutting the grass. The best part, however, is when Monson describes the husband as now being permanently disabled as a result of physical violence perpetrated by his Wife because, clearly, Woman are only capable of responding with physical violence.

No wonder mormons are killing themselves left and right.

Isn't this like the Philip Morris company putting up a web site with tips for dealing with your emphysema? Complete with, of course, ads for cigarettes.

That's what I was thinking too.

It probably has endless scrolling banners that state "All of your failures and shortcomings are the result of disobedience to the gospel."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2016 12:03AM by messygoop.

At least we've moved passed blaming a victim for their own tragedy at their own funeral.

No, that will probably still happen here and there.

Because even on a page about preventing suicide, we just had to say "Although it is wrong to take one’s own life, a person who does so may not be responsible for his or her actions. Only God can fully understand and judge the situation."
(https://www.lds.org/topics/suicide?lang=eng&_r=1)

And we all know nothing prevents suicide better like another liberally-given guilt trip about just one more thing at just the lowest moment when you admit you are thinking of taking your life, because a culture of shame and conditional love couldn't possibly be the culprit.

No, like they say on their newly updated section on suicide, "It is a complicated issue that we don’t fully comprehend. There is seldom a single cause or a simple solution." (https://www.lds.org/preventingsuicide/?lang=eng)

That's not to say a culture of shame, and also the kind of high expectations that take a hold of the worst parts of our self-paradigms, doesn't contribute to suicide at least a little bit, but remember that people kill themselves everywhere, for a lot of reasons, not just in our church. "It does not spare people of any race, religion, age group, gender, sexual orientation, or marital status (see World Health Organization)." (https://www.lds.org/preventingsuicide/?lang=eng)

If any of you wish to puke your guts out, each of you bow your heads and make sure you don't get any barf on the bathroom floor. For, any God that thinks the Mormon church has a great track record on this, or has any right to speak without an apology first for their history, will most definitely be mocked.

I'm not a specialist in any way. But from first hand experience, the only person I knew who took his life was in horrible, physical pain. Suicide was the only way he could stop his constant, unrelenting pain. Drugs were not working.

I'm just guessing but I'd imagine that emotional pain is every bit as bad, if not worse, than physical pain. It is constant and unrelenting. And unlike physical pain, the one suffering thinks he is responsible for his own pain and yet cannot make it stop.

I have to disagree with LDS, Inc. I think there certainly can be (maybe not always) one single reason for suicide. And I think it is PAIN! The reasons for the pain could be simple or complex. But I'm guessing that if you stop the pain you will stop a lot of the suicide. Maybe not all, but a lot.