- Joined
- Nov 14, 2012
Julie Terryberry, a 19 year old Canadian woman with a thread on this website, ended her life a few days ago. She hanged herself with a belt in her bedroom. As far as I know, she did not leave a note. Her life was wrought with difficulties: financial disparity on top of emotional and physical abuse. She had no people in her life she could rely on, and despite blatantly telegraphed cries for help these problems were allowed to compound until it manifested in her death.
This is an entertainment forum and we like to be entertained, which is why we actively discourage people from becoming emotionally involved. This most frequently means "don't get angry", but it should also extend to sorrow and guilt. It is incredibly arrogant to think that your account on this irrelevant, obscure Internet forum has somehow ended someone's life. If anything, our member's involvement of the police at her prior suicide threats prolonged her existence and exposed her to members of society and law enforcement that could provide pathways to a happier life. She, unfortunately, made the conscious decision not to take those avenues for help.
Suicide is a markedly selfish thing which is characterized by extending prolonged suffering to everyone except the person who dies. It is not an end. It's not a fix. It's a retaliation, and imbibing the notion that anyone besides Julie Terryberry could have prevented her death is impertinent and outright wrong. You are free to shift blame in whatever direction you please but she is the one who made and carried out her final decision.
We have locked threads about her and her suicide because, first and foremost, there is very little left to be offered for discussion other than condolences. We are also afraid of seeing messages wrought with unnecessary and frankly embarrassing expressions of guilt. You were not important enough in her life to be even partially responsible, and believing you were is self-aggrandizement. There is enough selfishness involved in the act alone; no one needs you playing up your shitposts as murder weapons to complicate matters.
That said, we all handle things differently. This forum is wrought with weirdos and depressants and "suicide survivors". If you're genuinely distraught, hit up @Flowers For Sonichu or @Vitriol or someone else capable of lending an ear and they'll respond kindly. Don't post in public. Spare yourself embarrassment.
If this sounds too harsh, perhaps it is, but I have never ignored the fact that the people chronicled on this website are often mentally ill. I'm also not ignorant of the fact all people will eventually die. I've seen Bob Chandler die. Recently, Nick Bate was sentenced to an impressively long stint in federal prison. If he doesn't get murdered by other inmates due to the details of his crimes, perhaps he would be better off dead, as his life in essence has been ended. I'm running a very high risk of sounding edgy and nihilistic, but this is reality. We've been speculating for years about Barbara Chandler's death, and jokes aside the reality is that one day she will die. One day Bob McKim or his wife will die. One day, Ashleigh's body will finally collapse from her constant abuse. One day, Tommy Tooter will die. While the older people are obviously at more risk, there are a multitude of younger people here who constantly push their luck of escaping imprisonment or early death.
I'm going to keep this thread open for general discussion (short of the tearful, guilt-ridden posts I talked about earlier), but let me end on a note of levity.
When I was in the Philippines living near Fredrick Brennan, I explained to him what I consider a meaningful life. To me, a life's worth is its net impact on other people. It's like gravity in that way. The more that you impact other people with what you do, the more the course of history is changed, and the more important you are to all of life that is left to be lived (even if your name is forgotten).
Imagine a man who was dumped in the forest as an infant and raised by wolves to die without ever interacting with another person. What is the value of such a life? No one would ever know he had ever existed. Compare that to Louis Pasteur, Alexander the Great, Plato, Muhammad -- the impact of these people is incalculable, and plucking them from the timeline would shuffle all of history as we know it. This thought is incredible to me, and it's what motivates me to try and provide tools, services, and communities for as many people as I can. It is my impetus in life.
Upon hearing this Fredrick replied, "by your theory, isn't Christian Weston Chandler very important?". Yes, he is. Thousands of people right now know the name Christian Weston Chandler. In a way, each of those people have been impacted by Chris. On this forum, which would not exist without Chris, I know of people who have made friends, met new roommates, found love, found a new career, or were inspired to do something new and exciting that may have ended up changing how they lived the rest of their lives and how they themselves affect other people. In a strange, cosmically significant way, Chris is extremely important, and only because we know who he is. At least, much more so than if he had lived his life in obscurity playing legos in his room alone for decades. There are many people like Chris, who live exactly like he does, but will have no impact on history because no one knows who they are.
If Julie did not impact us, we would not be having this discussion. Fewer than a dozen people would be aware that she died, and yet she assuredly would have ended her life in the exact same way. As with the Lady of the Lake, she exists because you acknowledged she exists, and that makes the short life she lived more extraordinary to our small world.
This is an entertainment forum and we like to be entertained, which is why we actively discourage people from becoming emotionally involved. This most frequently means "don't get angry", but it should also extend to sorrow and guilt. It is incredibly arrogant to think that your account on this irrelevant, obscure Internet forum has somehow ended someone's life. If anything, our member's involvement of the police at her prior suicide threats prolonged her existence and exposed her to members of society and law enforcement that could provide pathways to a happier life. She, unfortunately, made the conscious decision not to take those avenues for help.
Suicide is a markedly selfish thing which is characterized by extending prolonged suffering to everyone except the person who dies. It is not an end. It's not a fix. It's a retaliation, and imbibing the notion that anyone besides Julie Terryberry could have prevented her death is impertinent and outright wrong. You are free to shift blame in whatever direction you please but she is the one who made and carried out her final decision.
We have locked threads about her and her suicide because, first and foremost, there is very little left to be offered for discussion other than condolences. We are also afraid of seeing messages wrought with unnecessary and frankly embarrassing expressions of guilt. You were not important enough in her life to be even partially responsible, and believing you were is self-aggrandizement. There is enough selfishness involved in the act alone; no one needs you playing up your shitposts as murder weapons to complicate matters.
That said, we all handle things differently. This forum is wrought with weirdos and depressants and "suicide survivors". If you're genuinely distraught, hit up @Flowers For Sonichu or @Vitriol or someone else capable of lending an ear and they'll respond kindly. Don't post in public. Spare yourself embarrassment.
If this sounds too harsh, perhaps it is, but I have never ignored the fact that the people chronicled on this website are often mentally ill. I'm also not ignorant of the fact all people will eventually die. I've seen Bob Chandler die. Recently, Nick Bate was sentenced to an impressively long stint in federal prison. If he doesn't get murdered by other inmates due to the details of his crimes, perhaps he would be better off dead, as his life in essence has been ended. I'm running a very high risk of sounding edgy and nihilistic, but this is reality. We've been speculating for years about Barbara Chandler's death, and jokes aside the reality is that one day she will die. One day Bob McKim or his wife will die. One day, Ashleigh's body will finally collapse from her constant abuse. One day, Tommy Tooter will die. While the older people are obviously at more risk, there are a multitude of younger people here who constantly push their luck of escaping imprisonment or early death.
I'm going to keep this thread open for general discussion (short of the tearful, guilt-ridden posts I talked about earlier), but let me end on a note of levity.
When I was in the Philippines living near Fredrick Brennan, I explained to him what I consider a meaningful life. To me, a life's worth is its net impact on other people. It's like gravity in that way. The more that you impact other people with what you do, the more the course of history is changed, and the more important you are to all of life that is left to be lived (even if your name is forgotten).
Imagine a man who was dumped in the forest as an infant and raised by wolves to die without ever interacting with another person. What is the value of such a life? No one would ever know he had ever existed. Compare that to Louis Pasteur, Alexander the Great, Plato, Muhammad -- the impact of these people is incalculable, and plucking them from the timeline would shuffle all of history as we know it. This thought is incredible to me, and it's what motivates me to try and provide tools, services, and communities for as many people as I can. It is my impetus in life.
Upon hearing this Fredrick replied, "by your theory, isn't Christian Weston Chandler very important?". Yes, he is. Thousands of people right now know the name Christian Weston Chandler. In a way, each of those people have been impacted by Chris. On this forum, which would not exist without Chris, I know of people who have made friends, met new roommates, found love, found a new career, or were inspired to do something new and exciting that may have ended up changing how they lived the rest of their lives and how they themselves affect other people. In a strange, cosmically significant way, Chris is extremely important, and only because we know who he is. At least, much more so than if he had lived his life in obscurity playing legos in his room alone for decades. There are many people like Chris, who live exactly like he does, but will have no impact on history because no one knows who they are.
If Julie did not impact us, we would not be having this discussion. Fewer than a dozen people would be aware that she died, and yet she assuredly would have ended her life in the exact same way. As with the Lady of the Lake, she exists because you acknowledged she exists, and that makes the short life she lived more extraordinary to our small world.
