[QUOTE=butre;50017562]most people in the real mental health community and not the tumblr mental health community agree that avoidance therapy just makes the problem worse anyway[/QUOTE]
Indeed it does, and triggers generally shouldn't trigger anything unless you're avoiding dealing with it. Outside of extreme cases anyways.
I get that discussing suicidality can be really difficult to someone who's had bad experiences with it, but merely mentioning the word? That makes no sense, you'll have to mention the word to warn people about the contents of discussion.
[QUOTE=icarusfoundyou;50016434]I can't imagine deer are worse than kangroos.
I remember being in Australia many, many years ago in a 4WD with my mother driving in the middle of the night on a road with no lighting.[/QUOTE]
Imagine you're driving down a windy dark country road, and suddenly 4 deer just bolt out from tree line and accross the road 20 meters infront of you. You hammer the breaks but it's too late, you've slammed into the fourth one. Welcome to deer country, drive slow!
[QUOTE=Sleeves;50016533]I wanted to learn more about the psychology of the deer. Instead I read about offended people. :/[/QUOTE]
Same here. I was expecting something genuinely interesting, some reason for the deer to be seeking cars on purpose, but nope, just more of the same old thin-skinned nonsense that seems to be getting popular in America as of late.
[editline]28th March 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=Duck M.;50017125]
Lol, drivers being oblivious morons isn't the fault of the sign. Pay attention when you're on the road.[/QUOTE]
This dismissive attitude seems like the obvious answer, but there are proper studies that show that road signs being spammed everywhere makes everyone notice them less. Everyone.
[QUOTE=butre;50017562]most people in the real mental health community and not the tumblr mental health community agree that avoidance therapy just makes the problem worse anyway[/QUOTE]
To me it's more of a case of people getting offended on behalf of others as usual, I very much doubt that a "[I]Oh my god I can't believe they wrote the word "suicide"!! I'm so triggered!! I'm so triggered, somebody help me, I just wet my pants! Oooh my god I just defecated myself, huuuuuu![/I]" person actually exists and isn't just armchair tumblr psychologists trying to protect suicidal people in a well-meaning but utterly misguided and misinformed attempt at activism.
Why not "[B]KAMIKAZE DEER[/B] "?
[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;50016366]So you prefer having a deer potentially kill itself [I]right in front of you[/I]? Get fucked.[/QUOTE]
Is the word suicide necessary in any way in that sign? Using the word Watch would make far more sense, and is typically used anyway.
You are not going to trigger suicidal thoughts in people. Second thing any professional who handles groups of people who have a high risk of suicide learns is that TALKING ABOUT SUICIDE DOESN'T CAUSE SUICIDE.
[QUOTE=Sunday_Roast;50019782]Why not "[B]KAMIKAZE DEER[/B] "?[/QUOTE]
this
That's pretty hilarious honestly.
It's literally local residents expressing, if a bit misguided, concern for other people's well being not "omg tumblr getting offended for others". You guys are getting really worked up over people being "offended".
Deer can just be complete dumbasses most of the time, so need for "Suicidal Deer" to be thrown out there since I'm pretty sure a deer can't experience depression.
One time this deer was waiting by the side of the road for these cars to pass right? And it saw that there were more coming because it was looking at right at us, so were slowing down for it so it could pass without it getting hurt, but as slow as we were going it just stood there like a total idiot so we just picked up speed again since we were holding up traffic. But as soon as we started going 40 again the fucking deer leapt out from the side of the brush and right over the hood of my Dads' car. It almost got to the other side of the road but since all of the traffic behind us picked up speed again a car drove right into it's hind legs and snapped them.
Deer are just stupid.
[QUOTE=Pascall;50016452]I kind of find it hard to believe that the deer are actively committing suicide in comparison to just running out because they're stupid and don't know the appropriate times to cross.
Either way, a deer crossing sign should suffice???? Suicidal or just stupid, they're gonna die and your car can get fucked either way. There's no difference.[/QUOTE]
Sign should say "Stupid deer crossing" instead of "Suicidal deer"
I remember watching a video where Elon Musk said that if roads were to be redone correctly they would be underneath the ground in tunnels not deep under ground. Just underneath the ground enough to be out of the way. Which would then solve the problem of wildlife crossing the streets because they wouldn't have to cross streets at all they could just go over them. Plus it would make cities less crowded and overall much nicer for everyone. There could be deeper tunnels obviously but you get the general idea.
[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;50016366]So you prefer having a deer potentially kill itself [I]right in front of you[/I]? Get fucked.[/QUOTE]
You do know that signs warning of deer crossing already exist, right. Suicidal deer is a stupid sign. A deer warning sign is plenty.
[QUOTE=apierce1289;50021601]I remember watching a video where Elon Musk said that if roads were to be redone correctly they would be underneath the ground in tunnels not deep under ground. Just underneath the ground enough to be out of the way. Which would then solve the problem of wildlife crossing the streets because they wouldn't have to cross streets at all they could just go over them. Plus it would make cities less crowded and overall much nicer for everyone. There could be deeper tunnels obviously but you get the general idea.[/QUOTE]
Nicer for everyone that isn't a motorist you mean, I don't want to drive around in tunnels all the time.
Suicidal Deer is a funny sign that will get peoples' attention.
At least, until they get habituated to the sign, like basically every other sign out there.
It's not harming anyone by the wording, regardless of what people say. Avoidance therapy as stated before is terrible advice and in the real world you can't get rid of triggers, you learn to recognize them and develop coping mechanisms. The sign doesn't [i]need[/I] the word "suicidal" in it, but at the same time it isn't bad or wrong to have the word there. It's a non-issue, and people suggesting otherwise are misguided.
I think the signs going to be pointless anyways and local governments need to find ways to funnel deer into safer crossings and have clearly defined areas, such as a red painted road or something incredibly eye catching, on the paths that deer cross, because one tiny sign is never enough to warn motorists and it's not the motorists fault the deer can't cross properly.
The thing about not doing "avoidance therapy" is that you don't just go "Tough world, kid" and let them be on their way, you would generally want them to get used to the subject slowly and try and accommodate them as much as you can while taking very small steps to building up an "immunity" to said trigger. Having OCD, for example, you don't want to make someone dip their hand in a toilet bowl or something right off the bat, it takes small steps like "Okay, this napkin touched a toothpick that touched a pencil that touched a shoe" and work your way up from there in a controlled manner and build up a tolerance through that. As someone who had a mental illness, encountering triggers can be debilitating to your experience and I had some horrible meltdowns over these things. People can have a lot of things be a trigger to their things, I had thoughts about sociopaths and they absolutely ruined me for a while and I'd focus on them so much. Telling someone to "Grow up and stop being baby" is the most disgusting thing you can do to a person experiencing this stuff. I don't know anything about suicidal thoughts, I've never experienced them, so I can't say if this applies in the same way.
And this has very little to do with "accommodating" avoidance therapy. You go as far as to suggest this sign is a good thing because it curbs "avoidance therapy" which is just trying to be contrarian. The point is to be considerate to people because they might be effected by this (Even if they really aren't, I have no idea) and yes, you don't practice avoidance therapy, but is a sign that says suicide in the middle of the road really some form of therapeutic notion?
i've had suicidal thoughts before and being treated like the mere mention of suicide could send me back there is more likely to make me feel like shit than a sign that says "suicidal deer" ever could
[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;50024102]i've had suicidal thoughts before and being treated like the mere mention of suicide could send me back there is more likely to make me feel like shit than a sign that says "suicidal deer" ever could[/QUOTE]
Alright, I wouldn't know at all. Like I said I've experienced mental illness with a "trigger" before but not suicidal thoughts, so I'm just trying to relate to that with something I've been through. Still, this is at worst people expressing sympathetic, if very misguided concern though.
[QUOTE=GarbageCan;50024174]Alright, I wouldn't know at all. Like I said I've experienced mental illness with a "trigger" before but not suicidal thoughts, so I'm just trying to relate to that with something I've been through. Still, this is at worst people expressing sympathetic, if very misguided concern though.[/QUOTE]
i understand that it comes from a place of concern and i can't fault them for it. i guess with my thoughts, they weren't triggered so much by the concept of suicide, rather one of the myriad of things that i hated myself for. me fucking something up or being reminded how pointless the things i do are, that kind of thing. the thoughts of suicide wasn't the torture, it was the reasons why i was thinking about suicide that was with suicide seeming to be a way out. i'd get it if it were something encouraging suicide, but its use in this manner really isn't doing that. that is why i believe i wouldn't have been triggered by this sign. of course, i am only one person and i only have my own experiences to pull from.
[QUOTE=pentium;50016423]All the better reason to Mad Max the fuck out of your car before a family vacation.[/QUOTE]
After mythbusters did that plow on their series finale I really can't wait for some zombie movie to do it
[QUOTE=WitlessTanuki;50020991].
Deer are just stupid.[/QUOTE]
Peacocks are the dumbest animals I've seen on the road but that's probably a non-issue in most places plus their small size.
[QUOTE=GarbageCan;50022426]The thing about not doing "avoidance therapy" is that you don't just go "Tough world, kid" and let them be on their way, you would generally want them to get used to the subject slowly and try and accommodate them as much as you can while taking very small steps to building up an "immunity" to said trigger. Having OCD, for example, you don't want to make someone dip their hand in a toilet bowl or something right off the bat, it takes small steps like "Okay, this napkin touched a toothpick that touched a pencil that touched a shoe" and work your way up from there in a controlled manner and build up a tolerance through that. As someone who had a mental illness, encountering triggers can be debilitating to your experience and I had some horrible meltdowns over these things. People can have a lot of things be a trigger to their things, I had thoughts about sociopaths and they absolutely ruined me for a while and I'd focus on them so much. Telling someone to "Grow up and stop being baby" is the most disgusting thing you can do to a person experiencing this stuff. I don't know anything about suicidal thoughts, I've never experienced them, so I can't say if this applies in the same way.
And this has very little to do with "accommodating" avoidance therapy. You go as far as to suggest this sign is a good thing because it curbs "avoidance therapy" which is just trying to be contrarian. The point is to be considerate to people because they might be effected by this (Even if they really aren't, I have no idea) and yes, you don't practice avoidance therapy, but is a sign that says suicide in the middle of the road really some form of therapeutic notion?[/QUOTE]
I've done more than just experience suicidal thoughts, and the only way the word suicide would have triggered me is if someone literally told me to kill myself. Like, I've read news of suicides, seen TV shows or movies where somebody kills themselves, and that didn't make me want to kill myself because the reasons I wanted to in the first place were complex and more about self loathing and hopelessness rather than reading a word off a sign.
"Avoidance therapy" is bunk anyways, it's been shown by engaging in avoidance coping you cause your anxiety to snowball and get even worse. What you're talking about here is "exposure therapy" which is completely different and a valid theraputic tool. Exposure therapy is taking baby steps to get over phobias, and if you have a phobia so bad you can't be exposed to things in the outside world without intense anxiety then driving is a basically too big of a step until proper coping mechanisms are first developed so you'd never even be exposed to this sign.
Anyone saying "stop being a baby" is being blunt but I sincerely doubt anyone is going to go off themselves after seeing this sign who wasn't going to do it anyways and would find some other excuse to write in a note.
[QUOTE=Duck M.;50017125]
Lol, drivers being oblivious morons isn't the fault of the sign. Pay attention when you're on the road.[/QUOTE]
While I agree that people should pay attention, at one point, you've seen something so often that you just stop noticing it. Like the stop signs on the path I take to work and back. I know they're there, I stop for them anyway, but I don't conciously see the sign itself. It's no different with deer xing signs. They're so commonplace out here, seen so often by the people driving around out here, that we just don't notice them anymore.
Changing the wording on the sign will cause our brains to stop filtering out the sign. Whether that means a particular driver takes steps to prevent a deer hit or not remains to be seen, but it's going to increase the chances of people noticing the sign.
Also, there's not always much you can do about the dumbasses. I've been hit by the deer before, as in the stupid thing waited so long that it ran into the side of my vehicle while I'm driving along. Went under the back tire, got up, scurried off. No damage to either party.
[editline]30th March 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=SleepyAl;50022146]such as a red painted road or something incredibly eye catching, on the paths that deer cross[/QUOTE]
There isn't enough red paint in the world for that. I live out in the sticks, I drive alongside and around the moronic critters every time I leave my house. Trust me. There is no 'crossing point'. Once you leave city limits you are in the danger zone, so unless you plan on painting every square inch of rural tarmac red...
"Instead of asking what actually suicidal people think about a sign like this, we'll assume it's potentially offensive and try and rethink all of this."
Here I'll be the first suicidal person to say the sign is absurd and doesn't make sense from an animal psychology standpoint. Self termination in animals is almost universally accidental or the result of instinctual altruism, where self termination in humans is roughly an even mix of accidental and intentional where the intentional side is more better known as "suicide". Animals can't commit suicide because the lack the mental/emotional capacity to override the self preservation instincts voluntarily much like a human could. Also if you even look at how the word "suicide" is used (at least in English) it's not a simple verb. You [I]commit[/I] suicide. I don't think animals have the mental faculties to commit to anything of their own volition.
And then there's the specific issue with species described: deer. I know a lot about deer, one of the interesting (and tragic) things I learned about was the deer in headlights phenomenon. Deer have terrible eyes, they're red-green color blind meaning red and green look mostly the same hue to them. They also have a difficult time focusing on hardly anything, everything they see is blurry as fuck. They also have a [I]self-preservation[/I] instinct where they don't move AT ALL when they can't see anything. This is because they're mainly looking for a pattern in their image rather than trying to identify individual objects or beings. One pattern is "i see nothing in particular", one is "i see other deer", one is "i see a potential mate", one is "i see a potential predator", and one is "i don't know what the fuck that is i'm going to run away". Their navigation is primarily done by nose and sounds are what change or grab their attention.
Now put a deer into a scenario where they're walking across a road in the middle of the night and a car is approaching fast. They either hear the wheels against the pavement or a horn, which is a sound they don't entirely recognize or understand. They instinctually turn their heads to see if they can recognize what's approaching by eye (they'll sniff to attempt to identify what's approaching too, but it won't work obviously). The deer's eyes are flooded by the headlights so it can't see anything at all, so naturally it doesn't react at all. It's waiting for its vision to return to normal before making any moves because its instincts dictate that moving before a sound or sight is identified could get you turned into lunch.
The tragic irony of this is that standing still puts it in more danger than running out of the way would, but since they don't know exactly what is approaching (they're effectively blind) they think they're safe by standing still to avoid attracting attention.
TL;DR - These deer aren't suicidal in the least, they're just in high volumes on a particular road and acting according to instinct.
[editline]30th March 2016[/editline]
They should take the sign down because it's technically incorrect above all other reasons.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.