You and me both, Joe_Cool.
For the last time, no, I’m not angry. If you read my post again, you’ll see that I said my life is going pretty well, and overall I’m quite happy. I’d say I’ve been dealt a pretty fine hand. So there’s no need for you to be sorry for me. I’m sincerely not saying this sarcastically or in a jerky way.
Yes, there have been rocks in my path, and I’ve bumped my toe a few times, but “there is no new thing under the sun” and there is nothing I’ve experienced that is so extraordinary that billions of people haven’t been worse off. There is nothing in my life that is such a big deal. Those are just things that people go through, and you either pick up and go on with life, or you stand there and feel sorry for yourself. I chose to go on.
So someone is so despondent, so depressed, so hopeless and so lost that they resort to killing themselves, and you get angry at them for being selfish?
I so desperately wish we had more mental health care professionals on this board to dispel the ignorance that abounds.
Esprix
Hawthorne, I thought that what was said, by me and later by others, did answer your question – but I apologize for not having responded directly.
IMHO, and people may feel free to differ on this, those of us who do have the strength and support of the Holy Spirit to rely on and whose lives are more or less going well, have the responsibility to reach out in “Christian charity” (not almsgiving, but caritas – compassionate love) to those who aren’t doing so well. Joe and many others have done precisely that for me in a most practical way in the recent past; CJHoworth has been sending me little “faith-lifters” that have done marvelous things for my spirit; and examples abound on this board as a community of people doing right by other people. I tried to get past the casting of blame in the original Daryl story (having instigated it unintentionally by being very much upset with his parents for apparently, based on what information I had, reacting in a way that was over the top and effectively pulled the rug out from under him – and I hasten to note that I’m reading that into the report of his death, and do not in fact have any right or grounds to judge them), and say that people who are in despair, marginalized by society, including particularly teenagers who admit to a homosexual or bisexual orientation, are among those who need that help the most.
As is typical of things lately, I failed utterly to get that point across.
Well, let’s examine it a bit, shall we?
I feel depressed. I feel despondent. I feel despair. I feel like everybody is coming down at me. I think I will kill myself so that I don’t have to deal with this anymore, and I will feel better.
So I ask you the same question I asked in the other thread: Who else benefits?
If the answer is ‘nobody’, then I stand by calling it a selfish act.
That it may be caused by mental illness, or that the person doing it may feel as though he is driven to it by circumstances, it is always a choice – a selfish one – driven by selfish desires, and by its nature cannot do anything but harm to those around him.
Pissant.
I am agog. I am utterly speechless at your lack of empathy, compassion, understanding, and basic grasp of mental health issues. The only thing I think is selfish in this discussion is you.
Esprix
Clearly, Joe, you don’t have any grasp on the suicidal thought process. Every person, every situation, and every thought process is a little different, but it tends to go more like this:
The pain never stops, and I don’t add anything to anyone else’s life. No one will even miss me, so why not just end it?
What I’m seeing in your post is this: I hurt because that bastard left me to deal with his death. I hurt, I grieve, and I feel guilty for not seeing any warning signs. And by god, that makes me angry.
Have you ever considered counseling to deal with your obviously unresolved anger and grief at your friend’s death?
Oh, and the answer to your question is that nobody benefits from suicide, even the deceased.
The thing about depression (not a bout of self-pity, but full-bore, can-barely- get-out-of bed, even-eating’s-more-trouble-than-it’s-worth depression) is that it changes how you see the world around you. You look at your family and friends, but you don’t see a group of people who’d move heaven and earth for you. You see apathy and indifference and people for whom your very existance is a nuisance. You start to think they’d be better of without you mucking up their lives.
When that happens, people start thinking about ways to do their loved ones a favor and get rid of themselves.
You know, it’s not unusual for the friends and relatives of someone who committed or attempted suicide to be angry with the suicide or think that he or she acted selfishly. As far as I can tell, it’s a fairly common emotion, and part of the grieving process.
Esprix,
As someone who’s gone through two suicide attempts myself, I have to agree with Joe Cool’s perspective. I’ll save you the details and hope it’s sufficient to say that I was at a point where it was all I ever thought of, and I’d take comfort in running a blade over my wrist. My motivation? I wanted to hurt everyone else around me: my parents, my siblings, my teachers, my classmates, my coworkers, and anyone else who even had the remotest connection to me. Looking back, I realize that I never bothered to explain my feelings to anyone.
Seriously, my feelings were me, me, me. I feel bad, and you don’t understand (even though I haven’t told you), so I am going to make you feel bad to give me some grim sense of satisfaction before I expire. My thoughts boiled down to: I want out of this, and if it pisses off a few people in the process, more power to me.
And, in retrospect, that was complete idiocy on my part. I’m particularly disappointed in my desire to hurt my parents, given that they had been available to me, but that I wilfully blinded myself to the idea that anybody, let alone the people who raised and provided for me, could understand my pain.
Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that I’d slap someone who’s considering suicide across the face and tell them they’re being selfish. I prefer to meet people where they’re at, and the one time I did talk somebody out of suicide in college, that’s how it went. Based on my own personal circumstances, I always, always want to take into account what tragedies and human malevolence drove the person to that point.
But by golly, I can also look back on my own personal experiences and recognize exactly what Joe is talking about.
Res, I understand where you’re coming from, but what should the reaction of those left behind be? Anger and derision because the person was so selfish, or compassion and love so it never happens again? Should we blame the person who committed suicide, or look at the entire situation to find a solution? And, in the specific case in the OP, should the parents hang their heads in shame, or should we point at the child and say, “Well, if you’d only gotten help, maybe this wouldn’t have happened?”
Esprix
Yes, anger is a part of it, however, it seems Joe has never gotten past it.
He seems like an extremely angry, unhappy individual in general.
I disagree–Joe_Cool in his posts comes off as being a happy, secure guy, and he says as much a few pages back. He only gets angry when he feels his beliefs are being unfairly characterized or he and his wife are personally attacked. His belief system has rigid demarcations between Good and Evil, and he reacts strongly when people, in his POV, expect him to accept what he sees as Evil.
IMO, Joe_Cool has too much of the Pharisee about him. He weighs and judges when others would ask him to show mercy and understanding.
(You know how hard it was to slip a Vb tag into the middle of all that coding and not screw it up?? 
)
I contend that the underlined portion of the above is 100% speculation on your part and thus inaccurate. While some people may feel this way ( as res said ) many more don’t ( as evidenced by other posters in the original thread ). Treating everyone in the situation with anger and contempt is an unthinking reaction on your part, IMHO.
Huh. I see just the opposite – an angry, insecure guy who clearly has control issues. I have yet to find anyone else on this board so full of hate and vitriol, and so quick to react angrily with self-righteous know-it-all nonsense wrapped in the irrefutable cloak of Christianity. Even the simplest discussions/debates have been brought to a standstill by the agenda-filled rantings of Joe. Clearly, the guy has issues.
I have nothing but pity for the man.
Gobear, I have to agree with you. Unfortunately, sometimes I’ve gotten into a vicious circle where Joe_Cool thinks he’s defending himself, but I see him as attacking me. I can also see how someone could see another’s attempting to see things from another point of view as compromising principles which must not be compromised.
I’m nervous around angry people. To me, they’re unpredictable and could lash out against me without me knowing what I’ve done to provoke it. That attitude was ingrained into me long before I even heard of Cecil Adams, let alone the SDMB. As a result, my trigger’s lighter around Joe_Cool than it is others, especially since I don’t spend that much time in Cafe Society.
My experience with suicide has primarily involved the possibility of me coming too close to committing it and trying like mad not to. Even when a friend had a nervous breakdown and left my life pretty much permanently, there were people I could see as being the proximate cause for it, and I certainly blamed them, and I’m probably still a little angry at them, and that was over 20 years ago. The nature of our relationship didn’t allow me to be angry with her until the past month.
Interesting. In the course of typing this post, I’ve acquired a better idea of where Joe_Cool might be coming from. Joe_Cool, I don’t even know if you’re reading my posts, but I am sorry if anything I said came across as an attack on you or your beliefs. In my own way, I’m still trying to protect a friend I haven’t been able to protect for a couple of decades, and to atone for my inability to protect her. It’s foolish, I know, but that’s one of the reasons I’m paying a therapist. :rolleyes: (directed at myself)
Respectfully,
CJ
Joe_Cool:
I don’t usually post in threads that unintentionally (or intentionally) get into Dopers’ feelings toward one another. Hence, I’m gonna make like Switzerland & not comment either way on the situation that precipitated this thread.
I’m posting 'cause I feel that I ought make a suggestion that might do you some good:
I humbly suggest (as have other Dopers) that you may have unresolved feelings concerning your friend and the manner in which he died, & I think that talking with a counselor might help you to resolve those feelings. Speaking with friends & family can be comforting & helpful, but I think it’s good to bounce certain thoughts and feelings off a trained professional.
Even if you have indeed spoken with a counselor in the past, it might do you good to have a visit anyway, if possible. I think an occasional counseling session is good for everyone.
That’s all.
Well, crud. I posted a response to Esprix before (a response to his response to me), only I don’t see it here. I can only assume a hamster got it. Let’s try again.
Esprix, why can’t a person feel and react both with anger and compassion? I don’t see the two as mutually exclusive, but rather as two sides of the same coin. When I screw up, dad yells and mom hugs, but in either case, it’s based on them loving me.
I can understand why someone like cjhoworth might be upset around anger. That’s normal. I don’t think that needs to exclude anger as a reaction. Speaking personally: when I’m upset, I deal with it better when someone yells at me to quit being so stupid. I actually tend to react negatively to compassion, if you can believe that, because it always sounds like a false empathy that’s intended to cheer the other person up. I suspect that’s more common than we might think.
So let’s see if this is fair: can’t a person get angry that a suicide happened, but show compassion to prevent it from happening again?
In the meantime, I’m not sure people should jump to conclude that Joe_Cool is somehow repressing his reaction to the suicide. My impression of him is that he’s an analytical person. He’s not attached to the circumstances in the OP, which suggests to me that he’s simply analyzing the situation as though it were a hypotetical. I don’t think that necessarily makes him callous or unresolved.
Give me a break. Unresolved anger and grief? :rolleyes: Guess what - sometimes people have opinions and beliefs that aren’t tied to victimizations and therapy. If you had read what I wrote, you’d see that the incident REINFORCED WHAT I HAD ALWAYS BELIEVED. I’ll even give you an approximate idea of my age, and tell you that I was at the tender young age of 28 - not exactly impressionable youth.
I hurt four years ago. It’s done. I dealt with his death at the funeral and a couple weeks mourning afterwards. I grieved years ago, and I feel absolutely no guilt for his death. It’s Done. Get it?
The general concept of suicide makes me angry, and ALWAYS HAS, because of the lack of concern for the effect that a person’s actions will have on those around him. In other words, because it’s selfish.
I appreciate the [appearance of] concern, but counseling is not in my near future. Nor is it necessary.
To all:
It is getting frustrating to keep repeating this, but please pay attention this time:
At no time did I ever condemn the guy who killed himself. I attempted (fruitlessly), based on lack of reasonable evidence, to defend his parents against the unfair accusation that they were instrumental in his death. Yes, I consider his actions to be selfish, but I DID NOT ATTACK HIM IN ANY WAY.
So I’ll kindly thank the peanut gallery to stop implying that I did.
And finally, leander:
I’ll repeat it for you: I have no need for your pity, and I’m sure you can find better ways to spend it. So please stop wasting your time and mine with statements of how you pity me. Next time you have a problem with my “irrefutable cloak”, Here’s an idea: refute my statements. That would make a lot more headway than showing off your razor-sharp wit by calling me “Joe_Angry”. (hoo-boy, do I get a good laugh out of that one. It’s so clever!)
Anyway, I can assure you that gobear is right on the money with at least this portion of his ‘vision’ of me:
The rest is not accurate, but in fairness, I can at least understand how the narrow slice of me that’s visible on the message board can (incorrectly) appear that way.
Regardless, accusations of judging and acting like a pharisee in no way have any relevance to the current discussions, so let’s leave them out, ok? Or did a mod surreptitiously change the name of this thread to “Amateurs: blindly psychoanalyze Joe Cool”?
People have opinions on subjects. Mine is that suicide is a selfish act. That’s all there is to it.