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Exploring Life
Being pro-choice goes both ways. We believe exiting is legitimate,
but continuing to live is also definitely a valid choice. However,
at times it may appear that most of the information on web sites and
forums related to the ash subculture is biased towards suicide.
Indeed, this site is no exception. One may ask "but where is all the information about choosing life? If you consider both exiting and living as valid choices, why does your site contain so little information about living?"
The reasons for this are practical. Worldwide, there are thousands of mental health professionals, hundreds of research institutes and mental hospitals, scores of support groups and self help books, and dozens of web sites and online support forums dedicated to suicide prevention and exploring the option of life. We could try to add to this information, but our contribution relative to the tremendous amount of resources and ongoing efforts in this area would be negligible.
In contrast there is very little information available about suicide. Therefore, even the contribution of nonprofessionals (as most of us are) is significant.
If you choose to live, then there are many resources available on the web which could provide much better help than anything which could be provided here. To find them, try the following search:
What remains to say are some issues which may help people who are pro-choice to remain in control of the process of exploring life. You may want to go to a mental health professional but maintain control of the process. If you want to avoid being institutionalized, it is important to know what to tell your shrink , so you will get the the help you are looking for but remain in charge. The Antipsychiatry Coalition is a useful resource in this regard, for example, they provide a list of mental health professionals who oppose involuntary psychiatric "treatment". It might also be useful to know how to get out of a mental institution. Another way to obtain help while avoiding the mental health system is to use methods such as co-counseling and apply them to ash (arguably, ash already has some traits of co-counseling).
