Interesting article. Comments beneath also worth reading.
+ 1. I would hate to live in a ski resort.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Interesting. Cause and effect is not self-evident. I suspect that the people who move into a ski resort on a "life time" basis (as opposed to doing a season as a chalet host with Crystal in your gap year) include a higher than average number of people who are a bit rootless, few strong social ties, less likely to become involved in a longer term job or career, more dissatisfied, maybe loners.
Note my choice of words. A "higher than average" number of rootless loners looking for the "greener grass". No suggestion that everybody in a ski resort has those characteristics.
Comments are interesting, and Pam's thoughts are very much like my own. Maybe being a skibum is harder on the soul than you would think.
I have seen a parallel with retired (expats) people in parts of the Med, who go to live the dream, but can't afford to live as they thought they would, but are trapped due to property devaluation.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
under a new name wrote:
@TQA, i haven't heard anything similar for Chamonix, but I can understand the problems in the US - which is a bunch of very different situations.
Reading the article, I agree - seems a very different situation. For a start, "access to firearms, lack of mental health care, and the isolation that results from communities and homes spread across wide swaths of land" doesn't seem to apply.
After all it is free
After all it is free
pam w wrote:
Interesting. Cause and effect is not self-evident. I suspect that the people who move into a ski resort on a "life time" basis (as opposed to doing a season as a chalet host with Crystal in your gap year) include a higher than average number of people who are a bit rootless, few strong social ties, less likely to become involved in a longer term job or career, more dissatisfied, maybe loners.
Note my choice of words. A "higher than average" number of rootless loners looking for the "greener grass". No suggestion that everybody in a ski resort has those characteristics.
This reminds me of a ski instructor I know in Canada. On the face of it he has the perfect job and lifestyle. The reality is that he can barely scrape a living, especially during the summer months, his family is a thousand miles away and he has no guarantee of future employment. He also managed to break his collar bone at the start of this season (got taken out by a snowboarder) and lost quite a few weeks while recovering. He loves the skiing and the mountains, but he has a lot of worries too and doesn't have a clue what to do long term. He gets quite depressed when the season ends and he has to head into town to find a job. Relationships tend not to work out either, he's been married twice and divorced twice in short order, but that could just be him!
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I've always heard that Moutier has a very high suicide rate. No idea if it's true but if so then I gather the lack of sunshine is a key factor. (Bottom of a valley, mountains blocking all but mid-day sun).
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
"The lifts are all deserted
The pistes are green again.
There's nothing quite like
an out-of season ski resort in the rain.
When the skiers go
And there's no sign of snow
And my chalet girl is on the plane home"
Etc....
Apologies to Chris de Burgh
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
maggi wrote:
Interesting article. Comments beneath also worth reading.
Yep, interesting to see the number of people that are thankful it's not just them suffering...although also interesting to read a comment supposedly from the brother of the guy mentioned at the start, who corrects quite a few of the details.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
The world around us is designed to make us depressed. It's good for the economy. If we weren't made to feel inferior or needing the next thing, we wouldn't buy anything.
Despite living in a era of the greatest wealth ever known, many are depressed. Ironically, the poverty hit villages in Africa are full of beaming faces.
having spent a hundred years being hit by adverts of what a great life should look like we now have an intravenous drip of facebook pictures and posts of how wonderful our friend's lives are, including their every meal.
There are a few solutions:
Run my little beauties run - (Tim Minchen)
Alcohol makes a great substitute for happiness
Mindfullness is going to be the next big thing (western Budism, I'm led to believe)
Get a dog. Unconditional love etc.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Quote:
Ironically, the poverty hit villages in Africa are full of beaming faces
Hmm.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
I have a dog, it does not make me happy.
I went to Les Coches many years ago, when I opened my apartment door, believe you me I felt suicidal, 7 foot square room with zero amenities.
Not sure your beaming faces in Africa is a good yardstick.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
blahblahblah wrote:
I have a dog, it does not make me happy.
I went to Les Coches many years ago, when I opened my apartment door, believe you me I felt suicidal, 7 foot square room with zero amenities.
Not sure your beaming faces in Africa is a good yardstick.
Sure it's not a cat in disguise?
Happiness in poor parts of Africa is a very good yardstick. They often have little of the material goods westerners take for granted yet on most scales are much 'happier' than those in industrialised nations. My family grew up in Africa and often said there was much poverty but not unhappiness.
Interestingly, all the research seems to show that mental health is very much linked to the spectrum of distribution of wealth in a country. The difference between the rich and the poor in a ski resort is usually massive.
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
@cameronphillips2000, I have a cat as well, also does not bring happiness.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
How are you measuring 'happiness'?
The UN World Happiness Index has quite a few African countries in the bottom 20.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
It's rather more complex a picture than any of us understands I suspect. I think the view that anyone who moves to a mountain town is "running away" from something is rather too convenient a justification from people who have made orthodox choices. There's plenty of loneliness and depression in cities without even the luxury of personal space for many. I know people who've made the conscious decision to get away from the grind and they always seem to describe themselves as "never poorer, never happier". That said in N America there is definitely a problem with "party culture" in mountain towns, drug use is pretty normalised and drinking is a constant.
@cameronphillips2000, I have a cat as well, also does not bring happiness.
A Pisten Bully 600 brings me happiness sometimes.
On the OP, it reads suspiciously to me, like those books which are all polemic and zero rational analysis.
They don't cite their sources. https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/ tells a very different story.
Montana (not Wyoming as they claim) has the highest rate. Alaska comes in second, with some great wet snow, but it's a vastly different place from "the Rockies". New Mexico is third.... Taos is good, but it's hardly big enough to sway the statistics. What's the suicide rate for journalists trying to make up a story, I wonder?
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
@Dave of the Marmottes, And maybe a small malt as well. TBF, the Mums often start after the school collection.
After all it is free
After all it is free
blahblahblah wrote:
@cameronphillips2000, I have a cat as well, also does not bring happiness.
I have two cats. They bring no happiness (They are my wife's) We have two dogs. The bring a lot of happiness.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
miranda wrote:
How are you measuring 'happiness'?
The UN World Happiness Index has quite a few African countries in the bottom 20.
mental health is very much linked to the spectrum of distribution of wealth in a country
African countries do rather badly on that measure. Many people in Britain have two stereotypes of poor people in Africa. One features gaunt adults and too many children with the distended bellies of malnutrition and huge pleading eyes. The other features happy go lucky "laughing piccaninnies" and people content with very little.
Both have an element of truth but......
Shocking mental health problems (like other problems) just get hidden in Africa. I was once in a police station in Nairobi being invited to sign a paper which would have seen the young (sixth) wife of my Kikuyu servant committed to an asylum where conditions were beyond unspeakable.
There are fashions in suicide as in other types of self-harm. It was quite the thing in Ancient Greece. It has always figured in Japanese culture, it seems. I was reading a report yesterday on the growing problem of "self-poisoning" amongst adolescents in the UK. It seems to be overtaking "cutting" in some groups. And most secondary schools will have several "selective mutes" on their rolls. Did schools 60 years ago have self-poisoners, kids who regularly cut their arms and selective mutes?
Just because people don't kill themselves, it doesn't mean they're "happy".
I wish all you people with dogs and cats which don't make you happy would get rid of them. Some problems are easily solved.
I am happy. I don't have a dog or a cat....
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
cameronphillips2000 wrote:
I think how the UN happiness index is calculated says it all really. Nothing about stress levels or smiling.
Any links to research on stress levels in African countries v other countries? Would be interested to see how it's being measured.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
@pam w,
Quote:
Did schools 60 years ago have self-poisoners, kids who regularly cut their arms and selective mutes
Don't know about 60 years, but 40 years ago we had similar stuff. Two guys who tried to commit suicide in my year at school, one by taking an overdose of aspirin, which turned out to be not much fun. Lots of problems with drugs. Same stuff as you get today. Just probably wasn't reported on, or chatted about on twitter, as much as it would be now.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Quote:
Two guys who tried to commit suicide in my year at school
Suicide has long been one of the leading causes of death amongst young men. I didn't mean that nobody committed suicide, or was thoroughly unhappy. But the cutting and self-poisoning (which isn't normally designed to kill) and choosing to be mute? I suspect that the internet is responsible for the spread of some of those ideas. Copy-catting, and finding support and encouragement online. Similarly anorexia. Most schools now have some anorexics, some of them seriously ill. 50 years ago?
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
edited to add the quote below
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Steilhang wrote:
@pam w,
Quote:
Did schools 60 years ago have self-poisoners, kids who regularly cut their arms and selective mutes
Don't know about 60 years, but 40 years ago we had similar stuff. Two guys who tried to commit suicide in my year at school, one by taking an overdose of aspirin, which turned out to be not much fun. Lots of problems with drugs. Same stuff as you get today. Just probably wasn't reported on, or chatted about on twitter, as much as it would be now.
Yep go to agree. Don't know what the 50's were like but the mid 70's through the mid 80's definitely had it's problems.
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
pam w wrote:
Quote:
Two guys who tried to commit suicide in my year at school
Suicide has long been one of the leading causes of death amongst young men. I didn't mean that nobody committed suicide, or was thoroughly unhappy. But the cutting and self-poisoning (which isn't normally designed to kill) and choosing to be mute? I suspect that the internet is responsible for the spread of some of those ideas. Copy-catting, and finding support and encouragement online. Similarly anorexia. Most schools now have some anorexics, some of them seriously ill. 50 years ago?
Agree with the above too mind.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Male suicide is a major western world problem. Feminists have fought hard for women's issues and rights over the years but men are conditioned not to even ask for help so there has been little voice to champion the cause. To some, it's male world whereas based on friendships and support networks, charity support networks, disposable spending power many would argue it's a female world
Self harming became almost fashionable some years ago. I was a head of year school for many years and we had a wave of it spanning about 10 years, mainly across the goth/emo kids. It was featured on Hollyoaks too which seemed to trigger lots of it. The same type of kids seemed to have moved on to Anime/Cosplay these days and it seems less of an issue. It was hard at the time as so there were self harmers with deep rooted problems you wanted to help and then there were many more grazing their arms a bit as it was the done thing in their group. It was sometimes hard to tell the difference
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well the cat and I are happy campers although he is not wild about sailing.
Still no suicidal tendencies.
One of the reasons I raised this is I knew three people who committed suicide, they were all competitive. Now I have no idea if people who live in the mountains are competitive but it got me thinking.
Male suicide is a major western world problem. Feminists have fought hard for women's issues and rights over the years but men are conditioned not to even ask for help so there has been little voice to champion the cause. To some, it's male world whereas based on friendships and support networks, charity support networks, disposable spending power many would argue it's a female world
While it's true that more males in the western world are successful in taking their own lives (seemingly because the method used is more effective than overdose, which is how the majority of females attempt to take their own lives), that shouldn't lead to the conclusion "it's a female world". Help needs to be there for all, and everyone - irrespective of sex - should be encouraged to seek it.
Si les victimes du suicide sont pour près des trois quarts des hommes, les tentatives de suicide sont majoritairement le fait de femmes (65 % des tentatives de suicide avec une prédominance des intoxications médicamenteuses).. Men make up nearly 3/4 of suicide victims but the majority of attempts are carried out by women (65% with overdoses of medicine).
Females attempt suicide three times more often than males. As with suicide deaths, rates of attempted suicide vary considerably among demographic groups. While males are 4 times more likely than females to die by suicide, females attempt suicide 3 times as often as males.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
I think 'attempted' suicide and suicide are two different things. Those determined to kill themselves usually do although there are many that don't. I do think the western world will look back in 500 years time and see how badly men were treated and the lack of support they received. Children are, in general, very well supported, as are women but support for men's mental health lags far behind.
I think 'attempted' suicide and suicide are two different things.
Well that's obvious. "Attempted Suicide" is used when someone survives. "Suicide" is used when someone does not.
What's your point, though? That someone who tries to take their own life but doesn't succeed doesn't need help?!
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
cameronphillips2000 wrote:
I do think the western world will look back in 500 years time and see how badly men were treated and the lack of support they received.
If that's the way you feel, you should do something about it. Unless you are already? If so, start a thread about it - it would be interesting!
After all it is free
After all it is free
Quote:
While males are 4 times more likely than females to die by suicide, females attempt suicide 3 times as often as males.
What exactly does that mean? Does it mean female are almost as likely to attempt suicide but not as successful as male?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
@abc, yes, gun, hanging, stepping out in front of a train... more effective than taking an overdose. Women are more likely to take an overdose it seems. Women are more likely to attempt suicide according to the French and US stats.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Sorry, the numbers don't seem to add up
If by "males are 4 times more likely than females to die by suicide", which I read as means for every woman who died of suicide, 4 men had died of suicide.
And "females attempt suicide 3 times as often as males" reads to me as for every woman who died of suicide, 3 had attempted.
That makes for every 4 men who died of suicide, 3 women had attempted. That's less than men who DIED, never mind attempted. So that's contradictory to "women are more likely to attempt suicide". They're LESS LIKELY to attempt suicide, and even less likely to succeed (in actually died).
Granted, these number may come from difference sources. But it calls into question the validity of these "numbers" we're using to draw conclusions.
If we were to try to identify WHY some attempted suicide, wouldn't it be crucial that we at least get those basic numbers right?
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
