My exam results are made of fail. And AIDS.

Well, we haven’t had the results back from the semester 1 exams, but I think it is likely that I’ve failed.

I’ll be surprised if I haven’t, to be honest, because I deserve a fail. I did almost bugger all to prepare. In fact, I spent the whole week-and-a-half between my last class and my last exam playing minesweeper on difficult level. After almost two-hundred attempts, I finally won a game. The night before my last exam.

I think part of the problem is that during the course of the semester I put far too much faith in the belief that I would do some work when exam-time came around. So I did hardly any work on the course material as it was being taught, and then exam-time DID come around, and I thought, ‘fuck it, I’ll just play minesweeper.’ I think my new year’s resolution shall have to be to always assume that, under pressure, I will inevitably find some unproductive addiction to procrastinate from learning, and consequently to prepare as much as possible in advance for this.

In a way, I’m disappointed that I didn’t try harder to get a better grasp on the material, because I do genuinely find it interesting. But, on the other hand, if I had wanted it that much, surely I WOULD have put in the effort. I’m not sure. I think I just liked not being under any pressure to do well. That sounds ridiculous, considering I’m at med school – the standards are kinda high. But what I mean is, I’ve spent the last however many years labouring under what mostly consists of others expectations of myself to perform well academically. But now, I’m in a year-group with 239 other creams-of-the-crop. I’m nothing special anymore – and it’s kick-ass.

But if this semester has taught me anything, it’s that I would like myself to do better than I have been doing. And now that I’ve had this chance to start over, I feel that I can better motivate myself to perform better from now on, knowing that it’s MYSELF I have to answer to, and not the potential disappointment of others.

So, along with writing up my learning outcomes on the WEEK of the relevant lecture, my other resolutions include:

• Join the fucking gym. Go at least twice a week, for an hour at a time. My heart rate is startlingly high. And the confidence acquired by conforming to the general standard of attractiveness might revive my currently withered sex life somewhat.
• Practice ressuscitation. We had a ressus session in one of our clinical skills classes this year, and I think I was the only person in the room who couldn’t breathe into the fucking dummy. How embarassing. I don’t know if it was the fact that I wasn’t tilting her head back enough,or if I was accidentally blocking the airpipe, or if I wasn’t holding the nostrils shut firmly enough, or if it’s just that my mouth is too fucking small, but I was disgustingly bad at ressuscitation.

 

 

…My chest compressions were excellent, though.

Abortion in the 21st Century

On Monday I attended a debate hosted by the divinity college on abortion – a real debate, this time, unlike the one I got tricked into attending by my religious studies teacher in 5th year, which is another story entirely.

In the red corner we had Ann Furedi, Chief Executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, arguing from a pro-abortion stance, and in the blue corner, John Wyatt, Professor of Neotal Paediatrics at University College, London, defending the anti-abortion lobby. I hesitate to use the terms ‘pro-choice’ or ‘pro-life’ because they imply that the other party is opposing choice, or life, respectively.

Both speakers were very concise, and although I am in favour of a woman’s right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy at will, I did feel that Wyatt’s arguments were well-put, and both speakers ultimately agreed that ideally, there should be fewer abortions – they just didn’t agree on how to make that happen.

Furedi opened her ‘pragmatic’ pro-choice argument with a statistic - 1 in 200 women who correctly use the pill well get pregnant every year in the UK. Other methods of contraception, even when used properly, can also fail to prevent pregnancy. Adequate contraception is not enough to ensure total reproductive autonomy. We live in a society where we expect to be able to enjoy sex outwith the aim of reproduction. Hence, there is a need, a demand, for abortion to be available. This not confined to the realms of those who are too young, or poor, or unsupported to bring up a child – 1 in 5 women treated at abortion clinics are married.

On the other side of the coin, she also offered an ‘ethical argument, addressing the issues of respect for life versus autonomy. She made the (largely overlooked) point that few women, when faced with an unwanted pregnancy, will be easy with having an abortion. I feel this is an important point to stress as many of those who argue that abortion is too freely available will say that women will rely on it as a ‘fall-backplan,’ that they are using it as contraception. As if it’s such a casual thing. From her experience, she said, most women will find it to be an unpleasant procedure, and may feelings of guilt at being responsible for taking a life.

The issue, she argues, is not so much to do with when life begins biologically, which is of course at conception, but when that life begins to matter – when the entity itself can experience self-awareness, self-interest, and consciousness. A human life ‘matters’ when it is valued by the person living it.

She mentioned that a lot of pro-life activists, in arguments with her, have compared abortion to such atrocities as the Holocaust, and that she finds this extremely offensive to the memory of those people who died under Hitler’s rule. She thinks that to compare the life of a developed, conscious person to the value of that of a foetus is insulting. Hence, the mental and physical well-being of a woman with an unwanted pregnancy should take precedence over that life of the neonate.

Of course, one could argue that a newborn child also lacks self-awareness and self-interest, in which case infanticide is also, theoretically, morally right. She anticipated this argument and countered by stating that a newborn child can be cared for by society without infringing on the autonomy and bodily integrity of the woman.

Ultimately, the decision should lie with the woman herself, as it is her life it affects – whereas the medical or even legal staff can go home to find their lives unchanged whatever the outcome, she must bear the responsibility of whatever decision is made. And so, she should have the right, and the responsibility, to make that decision herself.

Responsibility was an aspect she stressed on this issue. She said that many overlook the difficulty involved in making such a decision – whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. And, that by proposing to hand the decision-making responsibility to someone else, it is implied that society does not trust a woman to be capable of making the morally right decision. I appreciated this point, as sexism is now so much of a taboo subject – we all like to assume that the problem of gender inequality is solved, and often ignore the subject in order to avoid being labelled with unattractive stereotypes, but in fact, gender bias and prejudice is still a hidden influence in many circumstances and situations. She expanded on this point by stating that in England, a woman can refuse to consent to having a cesarean section performed, even if she knows her child will die without it. This invasive procedure cannot legally be performed without the woman’s consent. Also, a parent, or parents, can refuse to consent to life-saving treatment, such as an organ transplant, for their child if he/she is a minor. Why is it that only in the case of abortion is autonomy being challenged?

She finished her argument with some Dawkins quotes – “to take away the ability to make decisions takes away a person’s humanity,” and “tolerance is the price we pay to be able to live in a liberal society.” Or something like that.

Wyatt also opened his argument with some statistics:

• 1 in 3 women in the UK will have an abortion during their reproductive lives
• 1 in 5 of all pregnancies in the UK will end in termination

He made the point that the abortion debate is framed as the rights of the woman vs. the rights of the foetus, which in his opinion was overly simplistic. The value of human-life as being determined by society, he said, is an entirely post-modern idea – one which he disagrees with. The value of a life is not simply determined by ‘how much their relatives love them’ – it is an inalienable human right, and all lives are equal.

Furthermore, reproductive decisions are not, in fact, wholly autonomous. The social context of such a decision is predetermined, and a number of social factors will influence its outcome. In his words, there are a variety of ‘malevolent’ factors ‘manipulating’ women into thinking they have no choice but to terminate. Such forces can include wealth, or the opinion or influence of the dominant male in their lives. In many cases, he believes, a woman cannot find adequate support to continue with the pregnancy. Expanding on the latter example, he believes that if the father takes the stance of ‘respecting the woman’s autonomy,’ she will see this as him abandoning her to make the decision alone. He also stated that where the woman’s autonomy takes precedence, the autonomy of the man involved will be infringed upon.

Furedi countered this point by saying that the decision to terminate a child is often taken by a couple together, in the best interests of both parties, not just that of the woman. A couple whose lives are involved with each other will often have similar needs, and hence a single solution will likely be beneficial for both parties. Conflicting interests are not as much a problem as Wyatt made out.

Another counterpoint made by her is that although social context will influence the decision to terminate, many of these social factors e.g. poverty cannot be helped or changed by those involved in the pregnancy. In an ideal world, nobody would find themselves in the situation where they are financially unable to raise a child, but until that day (if it ever comes), what would you have the woman do?

Wyatt makes the point that of the many factors that influence a woman’s decision to terminate, abortion will not solve any of them. There is nearly always another option – shouldn’t we do more to support people in choosing these alternatives?

Of course we should, Furedi agreed. If there are underlying factors that are ‘forcing’ a woman to have an abortion, we should do as much as we can to change these, as no woman takes the decision to terminate lightly, and many would much rather avoid it if there was an easier alternative. However some women, even if other maternal options (that may be appropriate alternatives to others) were made available to them, would still want to terminate.

My feelings are that some social factors are unlikely to ever change, and even if the problems of poverty are somehow solved, there will always be other social factors influencing the decision-making. You can’t possibly divorce the decision-making process from the environment it takes place in – a person’s wants, needs and responsibilities are based on their surroundings, their relationships with individuals and society. Wyatt actually made a similar point sometime later in the debate with regard to moral decision-making – he said that individual autonomy is an ‘enlightenment myth,’ as any decision taken by an individual will affect others. All people are integrated and linked in society, so we should discourage moral decision-making based on the needs of an individual, and instead place the focus on the consequences a decision may have for the wider society.

Wyatt also addressed the issue of foetal screening, saying that many disability lobbyist believe that termination following a positive test result encourages social prejudice towards disability, and de-values the lives of disabled people. He asks, ‘Do people really believe a life with Downs syndrome is not worth living?” Obviously expecting a rhetorical, unanimous ‘no,’ I think perhaps this question is a little naive. Obviously from the perspective of someone who IS living with a disability, they will of course value their own lives as much as the next person values his, and most would still rather be alive than dead. But then again, some wouldn’t. And I’m certain there are some crippling disabilities that many currently healthy people would, if they were unfortunate enough to sustain such disabilities, feel death is a better alternative to. I’m not going to address the issue as to whether all lives are inherently and equally valuable, as it’s way too big an issue, I don’t know a thing about it, and addressing it in the context of disability would make me seem prejudiced, which I’m not. I’ll just say that I think that the value of a person’s life is not intrinsic, but is determined by the regard they themselves, or the people they interact with, hold it in.

Wyatt also addressed the issue of whether the medical sector in today’s society should be a consumerist provider, or an ‘enshrinement’ of society’s moral values (obviously insinuating the latter). This is another interesting topic I would love to expand on at some point – for now, I’ll just say the I believe the role of medicine is somewhere in between these two extremes. I believe people should have the right to free access to healthcare when they need it but not necessarily when they want it – for example, cosmetic procedures. However, people also have the right to refuse intervention or treatment if they don’t want it, even if such treatment would improve their health. It’s a grey area.

The debate was then opened to the floor.

When asked if rising abortion rates were a concern, Furedi replied in the positive – because even if a woman feels a termination is the right thing to do for her, it is still a distressing experience. We would ALL like fewer abortions to take place, but only by preventing unwanted pregnancies by increasing use and reliability of contraception, rather than by limiting access to termination. When the 28-week limit was brought into law in England and Wales, there were no more third trimester abortions in Scotland, where there was no legal limit.  Hence, there is no need for an external regulator of abortion use – women are responsible enough to make the decision for themselves. The increase in the number of abortions does not necessarily reflect the decreased value placed on human life by society – the society in which legalised abortion came into place was one where women were not expected to have sex outside of marriage (and, if they did, they were expected to become married) or make their own living – these days, where women have more rights and a more independent role consisting of more than just motherhood and home-making, there is a greater need for abortions.

A member of the audience challenged Furedi’s view that all women are morally responsible enough to make such a decision, citing a recent newspaper article about a girl who had ‘6 abortions before age 18.’ Furedi maintained that the number of abortions an individual is allowed to have should not be limited, as a person who isn’t even responsible enough to use contraception will likely not be in an ideal position to raise and care for a child.

Another member of the floor was employed in her working life as a helpline telephonist specialising in post-traumatic stress resulting from having an abortion. She said that many of the women she spoke to said that they felt abandoned by the healthcare service in their time of need, that they would never have had the termination if they had been told they were going to feel so bad afterwards, and that many of them were pressured into having one by their partners who had threatened to leave, but that the relationship dissolved even after the procedure. The speaker felt that abortion clinics did not do enough to provide support to their patients after the termination. Furedi replied that the women at her clinic receive as much or as little counselling as they feel they need, and that you ‘can’t force counselling’ on a person. Very few woman actually do suffer from post-abortion trauma. Wyatt replied to the issue of the quality of informed consent by explaining that many practitioners feel that offering information about the adverse effects of the procedure is insensitive while the woman is making such a difficult and emotional decision. Furedi made the point that abortion is not a ‘miracle cure’ and that it should be made clear that it cannot fix your relationship. Personally, I think that if you’re in a relationship with a man who is pressurising you in a situation as sensitive as the decision to terminate, the relationship’s not going to work anyway, whatever you do. It would be difficult to maintain a happy relationship with a person like that.

The speakers were asked by a member of the audience to address the ‘underlying issue’ in the abortion debate – whether they believe society needs to have a more responsible view of sex? i.e. should people consider sex with childbirth as an end? Furedi replied that sex was not without purpose, even if divorced from the aim of having children – she doesn’t believe it to be dysfunctional to have sex just on the merits of having sex. The pleasure derived from making love to a partner is meaningful enough. Wyatt then argued that not all sex has this value – promiscuity, casual sex, one-night-stands and all the rest of it are not healthy ways in which to behave.

To be honest, I’d have to disagree with him here. It’s true that many women will have promiscuous sex due to self-esteem issues, and I agree that this is NOT healthy, but not all sex outside of a relationship is for these reasons. I think even one-night-stands can be a mutually beneficial experience, even if it’s not the same experience as sex within a relationship (or sex to procreate, for that matter).

Inevitably, the issue of termination in the case of rape was brought up. Wyatt made the point that he personally knows a woman who was raped, and who eventually decided to have the child. He said that the situation eventually ended happily, even if it wasn’t a pain-free ending.

Sure, it’s a lovely story, but you can’t just say that because one woman was happier to go ahead with the pregnancy, all other raped women would be as well. In fact, I’m fairly sure this woman is in the minority. Surely the ‘happy ending’ for most rape victims would be not being forced to have their rapist’s child.

The weekend that didn’t go to plan, part 2

The majority of Saturday night was spent at work, after which Adam had promised to take me to an engagement party.

Which he then decided was shite. He took me to the studios (a metal club) instead. Much drink was imbibed (this seems to be a common theme to my entries as of late…) and a good time was had by all until Adam, being the twat that he is, injured his leg trying to climb onto the stage. After we were turfed out of the club around 3am, we decided to go back to the flat of a guy we had met (which, fortunately for me, was about a 5-minute walk from my own flat. Hurray!). We didn’t stay there long, though, as one of Adam’s friends, who was out-her-face on E’s, hysterically declared that we HAD to take Adam to A&E on account of his leg (which was beginning to look rather swollen and nasty).

To A&E we went, then, Adam and I, where we (predictably) waited until around 7am to be told that it was just bruised. You have to love the junior doctors at A&E – fair enough, they’ve been doing a round-the-clock shift on a Saturday night, and at that time in the morning they probably just want to go home - but they make absolutely no effort to hide their contempt if they think you’re wasting their time. I’ll admit that with their experience, they can probably spot bruising from a mile off, but to folk like us with no experience, a bruise is one of those purply-green things that turns up on your skin when you bump it. It is NOT something that swells to the size of a small fist and makes walking extremely painful.

A guy called Jeffrey in 1979 conducted a qualitative study in 3 Accident & Emergency departments in the UK, where he discovered that the staff grouped patients into either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ categories, depending on the extent to which their complaints allowed them to practice and develop the clinical skills necessary to pass their exams, or to practice their chosen specialty. ‘Good’ patients also included those who were acutely ill and hence presented a ‘challenge.’ The bad patients were the drunks, regular overdosers, homeless people and those presenting with trivial complaints (which is a coniditon not due to trauma, nor urgent), which they felt were not legitimate uses of the A&E service.

It’s probably easy to blame the patient for presenting with such inappropriate use of emergency services, but this use primarily occurs in either people who are not registered with a GP, or individuals who feel they are unable to evaluate the seriousness of a condition (which, in this case, was Adam and myself). The choice of A&E over primary care can also be due to the availability it provides in terms of immediate access and out-of-hours service.

I just thought I’d note all this because, at the moment, I’m viewing this from the perspective of an NHS user, whereas in 5 or so years I’ll be seeing it from the point of view of the junior doctor. I’m hoping that in future I’ll remember this and conduct myself accordingly.

The weekend that absolutely did not go to plan…

Last Friday I found myself with bugger all to do once again, having repeatedly failed in my attempts to organise a night out with a bunch of lads from school.

My mother, on the other hand, was out having the time of her life with her colleagues from work, who had been drinking at a steady pace since 3pm. When Alan (mum’s boyfriend) and I went to pick her up, it was 9pm. She was, if I even need to say so, pretty drunk. This night also happened to be the 5th anniversary of her-and-Alan’s first date, so she decided it would be a wonderful idea to take me along to the bar where they met, where she regailed me with stories of the first time they shagged (‘It’s okay, though! We waited until a month after we met!!!’).

During the afternoon of this particular Friday, the internet access in my dorm-room had once again gone tits-up, so I got Alan to drop me off outside the medics’ society building before he drove Mum home (they’ve got wi-fi and 24-hour access for members). After spending an hour or so getting my facebook fix, I wandered down to the student union where The Christian had told me he and the rest of the university Christian group would be spending the evening, giving out hot chocolate and biscuits and talking about God.

I ended up staying and chatting to them until about 2am. The banter was actually quite good, although any conversations I took part in involved a minimum amount of God. After a while, passers-by began to assume I was part of the group. I had a lovely conversation with a random student about biscuits – we argued over the merits of chcolate digestives, and I told him the best way to eat a digestive biscuit is to put two together with butter in the middle, like a sandwich. He replied,

“Wow, I’ve never heard of that! I didn’t realise you Christians were so nice!!”

The irony was a little delicious.

Anyway, I decided to go back to the church with them and give them a hand putting their equipment away – that way I wouldn’t have to walk home by myself. I declared to The Christian that this was my good deed that would get me into heaven. He told me that such an idea was an inherently Catholic one (he doesn’t think Catholics are real Christians), and proceeded to go off on a long tangent which I’ll briefly summarise by saying he thinks it’s faith, and not actions, that gets you into heaven.

I said, ‘Okay, okay, stop. You’re confusing me. Just complete this sentence for me: When I die, I will go… where?’

“Well, hell.”

‘…Does that make you sad?’

“Of course it does..

(Yes!! I’m in there!)

..That’s why I spend time doing this every week – it makes me sad to think that so many people are going to hell because they didn’t get a chance to be converted.”

Damn. Now I don’t feel at all special anymore.

Anyway, we had packed up all the stuff, and they had all had a big support group-like discussion with each other about the people they had encountered throughout the evening and the discussions they had had. It made me realise that, annoying as these guys may be, they really do have the best of intentions. They honestly do believe if you don’t believe in god, you’ll go to hell. The fact that they’d give up so much of their time to try to, as they see it, ’save’ people, is really quite sweet. I felt that the evening had been a valuable experience for me, to have gotten this insight into the motivations behind the preachy behaviour of religious folk that is normally held in such contempt. Until…

‘Okay then everyone, shall we pray?’

Oh. Fuck.

Damn you, diminishing returns!

I want to listen to something that will make me cry. I’ve not had a good cry in ages. The music that usually gives me the tingles just isn’t cutting it anymore – good music is like drugs. The first few hits are fucking awesome but after a while you need to move onto something stronger.

Obama

In the wave of post-election relief and adoration sweeping not just America, but the international community as a whole, I can’t help but feel a little suspicious. Pretty-much-already-president Obama seems like the perfect leader-figure for the world’s economic super-power – wholesome, young, and easy for the public to identify with.

Perhaps my cynicism is too heavily influenced by the broken promises and underhanded techniques of– well, governments in general, really. But I can’t shake the feeling that change – the entire driving-point of the Obama campaign – is going to be very slow in coming, if it even comes at all.

I just don’t see any reason why this Democratic office would be any less corrupt, greedy and imperialist than the last, appealing front or no. My impression of a president of the US has always been that of a puppet, with all the real decisions being made by the guys behind the curtain. I’m likely wrong, but if the demands of big business haven’t changed, then the policies of any capitalist government aren’t likely to either. Or, if their needs HAVE changed, in the case of the current economic ‘crisis’, it’s still the same suits and companies influencing policy reform, regardless of whether the government is Democratic or Republican, and whether their frontman is likeable or not.

The Christian

I recently (read: almost a fortnight ago) went for drinks with a guy from my course - he’s in my tutor group, we were paired on a lab practical and then got paired together again for an interview assignment. He also, incidentally, happens to be a Christian. Of the hardcore variety.

Now, my previous experience of having any kind of interaction with Christians has not been particularly confidence-inspiring. It might have something to do with the fact that I’m not the most tolerant of people. And I’m pretty argumentative.

I take the ‘everybody has the right to express their own opinions’ stance like any other democratic, free-speech-enthusing Westerner… but only when the opinions in question aren’t fucking stupid. I hate to sound authoritarian, but some people just don’t deserve the right to express their opinions. Racist people, for example. With the right to free speech comes the responsibility not to use it to harm others, and some thoughts and theories do just that, whilst having no other value, intellectual or otherwise. I realise there’s a lot of grey areas here – some opinions, when expressed, will unintentionally cause offence to some while still expressing a valid point. And I also realise that there’s no way to stop wankers from saying stupid shit.

I’m just saying that when they do they should fully expect me to deliver the mother of all verbal smackdowns.

ANYWAY. I don’t know whether this guy was just particularly amiable, or because I had imbibed enough alcoholic beverages to make me unusually amenable [normally when somebody says 'I think homosexuality is wrong' to me, I get a little hot-tempered], but we actually ended up having a really cool conversation.

During the course of which he let slip that he doesn’t want to have sex before marriage.

 

…

 

Challenge accepted.

The whole wide-eyed and virtuous thing just totally does it for me - I don’t know where this predatorial, despoiler-of-innocence thing suddenly came from, but all I’ve been able to think about since the pub is riding this boy. I don’t think it’s the idea of the sex that turns me on so much as the bit afterwards where he curls up into a ball and weeps with shame at having forsaken his mighty principles. It’s a power-trip – that must be it.

In any case, we get along astonishingly well considering how we disagree on fundamentally everything: he disdains drinking, and I only ever drink to get drunk; he doesn’t believe in sex before marriage, I don’t even believe in marriage; he believes in god, I’m practically a nihilist. And he likes musicals for fucks’ sake.

But in spite of all these things, or maybe because of them, I absolutely adore him.

“Fucking babies, stealing all our antibodies!”

Adam: You really do hate babies, don’t you?

Me: No! I like them fine, when they’re not making any noise. Or moving.

Adam: So, basically, you only like them when they’re dead.

I’m so metal, I gave myself whiplash

This weekend I went to visit Adam in Aberdeen (he lives there now), and together we embarked on what can lovingly be termed the 48-hour piss-up.

It also happened to be the most painful weekend of my life.

Collateral damage:

• At least a dozen bruises on my legs due to unwisely climbing into the back of a van that Adam was driving, and general drunken stumblings.
• SEVERELY limited neck movement due to God-knows-what (but the metal clubs can’t have helped the situation any).
• All manner of bruises, rashes, burns and, bizarrely, bite marks, due to Adam beating the shit out of me, which is the only term I can think of to describe it (he has yet to realise I’m not just one of the guys – or, if he does, he just doesn’t give a shit).
• Two near-crashes (in the van).
• One count of throwing up all down myself.
• In a club.

To be fair, though, it was the most discrete bowel-emptying I’ve ever performed in my entire life. And it did persuade me to finally take my coat to the dry-cleaners. So now I have no coats.

And no money.

However, it beats going around town reeking of vomit and tequila.

 

 

The smell of a good weekend. ;-)

Teen Suicides

This is by no means intended to make a statement of any kind on the problem of teen suicides or depression, either from a teen POV or from hindsight (I’m at that wonderful age where I can do both, and hence I hold the key to all knowledge in the universe). It’s just a (my) subjective experience of the whole thing.

It started when I was 13. Suddenly, nearly all my friends were depressed or self-harming (I’m not sure the two have to be related). Maybe it was just the group of kids I hung around with, or maybe every Western teen in these decadent times has to persuade at least one friend not to top themselves to progress onto adulthood. I’m not going to be the judge of which of these friends I thought had good enough reasons to be so morose – to be quite honest, even if I knew, it wouldn’t be my place to say. All I know is that by around my 15th birthday, I’d probably ‘persuaded’ at least 5 people, two of them from outside my usual peer-group, not to kill themselves. One had even accredited me with ’saving his life,’ for which I was rewarded with a four-month-long torrid, unhealthy love affair which ended on even worse terms than it began.

Were any of these kids really going to kill themselves, had I not, in my earnestness, ‘pulled them back from the brink?’ I think we can probably say with some confidence, probably not. In fact, those of my friends whom I perceived to have been dealt the worst hands in life were also the ones whose liasons with self-harm and suicidal thoughts, had they had them at all, were very brief. Or, at least, they kept it to themselves.

On the other hand, however unlikely I perceive these suicide threats now, at the time they seemed, to both myself and them, very realistic. And both parties treated them as such.

No matter which way you look at it, from the perspective of the mature and age-wisened, no child or young teen should have to go through the relatively traumatic experience of having to persuade a friend not to end it all; to live, however temporarily, in constant fear of waking up one day to several mates dead; to feel completely useless in the face of the unhappiness of others; to have their own happiness toppling unsteadily on top of several weak promises not to cut or burn again. To those in adulthood looking back through rose-tinted glasses on the idyllic happiness and simplicity of their childhoods, it’s a horrific thing to imagine.

However, the reality is that this is probably the norm for teens, and has been for some time. Even if the suicide threats aren’t real, even if the depression is caused by problems some of us would dismiss quite easily, if they SEEM real to people, they pretty much harvest the same emotional effects. And in such close-knit communities as highschools, where teens are hoarded up together for most of the week for 6 years of their lives, such attitudes and feelings are contagious. In that kind of environment, where kids are forced into like-minded groups in order to protect themselves from the bullying of, well, all the other groups – where the happiness of an individual so deeply relies on the happiness of his peers - feelings of hopelessness or depression can be pretty epidemic.

Around the year I turned 15, a boy in my year killed himself. Exactly one week later, a boy in his final year also killed himself. The two suicides were unrelated- the two boys didn’t even know each other. I didn’t know them either, to be fair, but I think it’s a good illustration of how much despair schools can harbour without even knowing it. I guess the reasoning behind this, and behind most chain-suicides or ’suicide pacts’ (or however they’re reported) is that once the first guy does it, all the other guys who’d been thinking about doing it but were dithering can plainly see that it CAN be done, and that it’s a realistic possibility for them.

When I was 16, an ex-boyfriend of mine, during a phone conversation, happened to mention that he was seriously considering killing himself that evening.

By this point, I couldn’t have cared less.

I carried out the usual routine – you can’t kill yourself, think how much your mum will miss you if you kill yourself, we’ll all miss you, at least wait until tomorrow morning and consider it again once you’ve slept on it, promise you’ll wait until tomorrow morning, when I call you tomorrow morning I want you to still be alive, etc.

I felt it was kind of a sad parody of my younger years – it was a time-tested method, but with none of the previous empathy or desperation on my part. I think it was partly due to the fact that I lacked the same conviction – I didn’t honestly believe he’d do it, and I was angry at him for putting me in that situation simply for the purpose of garnering attention.

Another part of me though, couldn’t completely dismiss the possibility of him actually acting on his threats, and it was that part of me that kept me on the phone until 3am repeating the same useless, feelingless phrases over and over again until I could get some kind of promise out of him. Of course, I’d seriously considered telling him I couldn’t give a fuck and hanging up the phone – he was wasting my time, after all. But, then again, what if he did do it – what if I woke up in the morning to realise he was dead? And that I, by giving a couple of hours of my time, could have prevented it. I’d be distraught, if not for his death itself, then at least because of the guilt.

Wouldn’t I?

On further consideration, although I hate to admit it, I’d have to say no. I wouldn’t have. I may have been slightly upset, but at the end of the day, I’d have gotten over it - my lack of sincerity when trying to persuade him otherwise was therefore due not only to my doubt, but in small part to a simple lack of caring.

It’s difficult for me to admit this, since compassion for our fellow man is something that defines humanity – is one of those key things that distinguishes us from the lower animals. But I think over my couple of years of over-dramatic angst and despair over the similar angst and despair of those close to me, I’ve become pretty immune to other people’s pain. I know I’m capable of feeling empathy, because I have in the past, but I feel like I’ve pretty much run out of it at this point.

And over those couple of years, I’ve also had more of a chance to reason the whole thing out. We’re of course told, if we’ve not already worked out with the aid of basic childhood logic, that suicide is wrong. It’s an inherently selfish act – it’s murder. You’re easing your own pain by removing yourself from the population at the expense of those close to you. You’re causing the people you love unecessary suffering that could easily be avoided by er, not killing yourself.

The thing that struck me during my ridiculous phome-call to the ex-boyfriend was that, if he really, genuinely, sincerely wanted to kill himself then

a) There was probably nothing I, as an estranged ex-girlfriend, could do to stop him, and

b) Even if I could, who was I to command him to stop? Sure, by killing himself, he’d make a few people pretty unhappy. But by telling him not to kill himself, assuming I was successful, I would be making him unhappy. Theoretically, if his pain was so great that the only way he could relieve it was by offing himself, is it not selfish of me to ask him to keep living in suffering, purely for my benefit?

There’s a phrase my lecturers use when referring to genetic mutations – some changes in the genome are such that they don’t make much of a difference, if any, to an individual’s biological function. Others, however, are more serious – affecting their health and standard of living to various degrees throughout a somewhat limited life. In the most affected cases, of course, the mutation impairs functioning to such a degree that a foetus will die in utero. Such a mutation is ‘incompatible with life.’

At first, it struck me how cold and clinical this phrase was. After a while, though, I realised that it’s just the truth. My point is, for some, emotional pain may be so great that, at the time, suicide SEEMS the only way out. Of course you would try to stop them doing it if there was a decent chance they could get better in the future. But for others, I think, no matter how many psychological and chemical interventions you hurl at their limp, unresisting, unwilling bodies, there’s just not going to be that much of an improvement to their standard of living. Some people will always be, for the large part, terminally unhappy. They are incompatible with life. So who are we stop them if they want to end that unhappiness?