What I think a lot of people don’t realize is that many people who consider or commit suicide (aside from those that are terminally ill or in constant pain from a physical disability) are being tortured by there own emotional pain. You wouldn’t wish this kind of suffering on your worst enemy.
It is good that there are many treatments out there such as medication and therapy that can assuage the suffering enough to prevent self destruction. But that is not always the case. The problems that cause the suffering can be so ingrained and so intense as to leave death as the only relief.
I think many people who regard suicide as a selfish act are themselves acting very selfish. If someone you loved was tortured by the mere act of living you can’t blame them for seeking a way out. If they chose to get relief by death then it shows how much they were suffering.
I think there should be more education to all of us to spot those who might be experiencing such emotional torture. That way there can be some intervention before it’s too late. But to call these people selfish is misguided and insensitive to say the least.
My ex-wife was a former anorexic. She told me once that there really were people, some of whom she’d met in treatment, who were so messed up (for lack of a better term) by their eating disorder that they really did believe that their anorexic condition was a valuable and desirable one, and that other, presumably non-sick, people should try their “lifestyle.”
Extremely sad. Especially when the morbidity rate of anorexia is greater than 10 per cent. A few more months in her condition, and my ex-wife would have been one of them.
vertigo, you are scaring me a bit. Your message is coming across to me as almost encouraging. While you advocate looking for signs and trying to intervene in time, that is not the predominant message.
I was suicidal in high school. I can look back now and say that it was a “mild” case and certainly nothing worth killing myself over. But at that time, the pain was very real and very devastating. If I had gone through with it, it would have released me from that pain. But it would have permanently solved a temporary problem. It would have released me from the misery I felt, but it would have released me from later finding the love of my life, having a beautiful child, and developing a loving relationship with the person who drove me to that pain (my dad).
Had I gone through with my plan, no one would have known why or had a clue that I considered it. I spoke to no one before hand. I was obedient to my parents, earned all A’s in school, had many talents and loads of friends. I cannot imagine the pain I would have caused everyone. I did not think that no one cared, I simply felt that my pain was inescapable.
I do believe that suicide is selfish, in a way. I don’t think it’s deliberately selfish. But it is definitely short-sighted and unwittingly selfish. Everyone who loves you must carry the pain of your death with them for the rest of their lives. They will search themselves for blame and will feel guilty.
Some people have true mental illnesses that are the exception to this. They do not operate on the same “wavelength”, their perception is a bit skewed due to their illness. But there is a big difference between those people and others who are suffering a more situational pain (bad grades, relationship problems, bullying, etc.). If I had told my mom that I would kill myself over my relationship with my dad, she would have instantly done something to change that situation. By deciding to bear that burden alone, I feel I was being selfish. My mother should help me and take care of me. I was keeping her from doing her “job” and would have caused her unending pain to boot.
Sorry to get longwinded, but this is a topic that is rather personal. I still have never told many of the people in my life about it.
Wow, I just wanted to check it out because I hadn’t heard of such a thing. I wasn’t advocating suicide. I guess it’s not pc to have morbid curiosities?
And the trolling thing, well, that would depend on the exact nature of the site. My troll friends wouldn’t encourage anyone to kill themself, although they might make remarks regarding the stupidity of the site. Again, it would depend on the content.
The point is Indy, that these people are on a razor thin edge, and even someone coming in and saying “how f-ing stupid” they are could push them over the edge.
It’s like screwing with a volatile substance. I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.
Suicide is selfish-but depression by it’s very nature prevents one from being any other way. The pain is so blinding, you cannot consider others, because pain is all there is.
Vertigo, if you read my post carefully you’ll see that I did not say that people who committ suicide are selfish, I said it was a selfish act. It is a selfish act in the sense that in order to committ suicide you have to be able to put aside the pain that you know everybody else will feel so that you can end your own.
I understand that people who do this are in excrutiating emotional pain and they are not thinking clearly, but that doesn’t change what the act represents.
I don’t wish my comments on this subject to appear crass, I’m just telling it like it is because I once wanted to end my own life so I know what goes on inside the head of a person who’s thinking about suicide. Depression that has become so intense that you have to block everything and everybody else out, does see you become very self-absorbed. That unfortunately is the nature of the illness.
To whom does the term “murderers” in the subject heading apply? If it refers to anyone but the suicide victim him/herself, then that’s a pretty ridiculous thing to say. No matter how much one is egged on, encouraged, or coaxed, the final decision to kill oneself isn’t made by anybody but the person in question. In fact, the decision to explore a website about suicide methods isn’t anybody else’s, either.
This group allegedly “told her that suicide was an acceptable way to end her despair, and gave her instructions on how to obtain a lethal dose of potassium cyanide and mix it into a deadly cocktail.” And this full-scholarship-winning girl decided this all sounded great and followed the advice. And this is the group’s fault? They’re murderers?
Well, opinions can differ, but yes it was my OP, and I think validating, aiding via explicit “how to” instructions, and/or otherwise encouraging someone who is emotionally fragile to follow though with the desire or inclination to commit suicide is tantamount ot murder morally if not legally.
How about if the person was an 70-80 IQ special needs girl that a group of other girls encouraged and egged on to do something insanely dangerous that resulted in ther death. Would they be held harmless because the “final decision” to go through with it was the vulnerable, low IQ girl’s?
The person in question apparently wasn’t a “special needs” girl with a moderately low IQ; she was a full-scholarship winner with a radiant smile and tight-knit family. Which is why the accusation that the people whose website she explored are murderers is even more ludicrous.
There are millions of websites outlining bombmaking, bicycle maintenance, religious conversion, and baking. People make decisions to surf them (unless they’re popups). I’m not going blame a website for making me repair my bicycle.
I agree that it’s unfortunate some people see suicides as a sort of “success” story, but I don’t agree that a website which simply presents information to those seeking it should be held responsible for what some people may do with it.
Had a long-term boyfriend once. The relationship ended agonizingly and really painfully, once I became aware of the emotional blackmail - “If you leave me I’ll kill myself because then nobody will love me.” It nearly ruined my life and I hadn’t done a damn thing to deserve it except love someone and want to make him happy. If he had killed himself, it would have been much, much, much worse for me. Thank Og he didn’t.
He was probably coming from a place of depression, loneliness, powerlessness etc - but I remain convinced he was hugely selfish because he didn’t care at all about the torment he was putting me through. He wanted what he wanted (ie me) and didn’t care what pain he put me through to get it.
It’s possible to be depressed and selfish, I think.
I think that he was more manipulative than selfish. I will make a distinction between people who want to release themselves from pain and those who are so pained as to use it as emotional extortion on others. I don’t believe the woman in the OP article was doing what this guy was doing.
I hope you don’t feel like I am advocating that we let people who are suicidal just go and release themselves from the pain they are going through, be happy for them and move on. That’s really not my position at all. That’s why I said we need to be better able to see the warning signs so that there can be outside intervention.
I suppose that if we pull apart the semantics of the word “selfish” then, yes, suicide is a selfish act. We could also say that people who want to prevent a suicide because of the negative impact on their own lives are selfish too. Then we would be going around in a circle - my meaning is more relevant than yours…, no mine is…, so on and so forth.
My point, and I still think it is valid, is that there is a cultural or psychological bias to make the victim of suicide also the bad guy. Their “selfish” behavior is the problem and it was “selfish” of them to take their own life. These people usually feel little recourse and definitely are thinking of others. Unfortunately they usually think that their death will be ultimate relief, not only to themselves, but to those around them. They truly believe that everyone else will be better off without them. Now, from an objective position one can see that this is the depression reworking their own rationalization and reality. But the person feeling this doesn’t think that way. For all intents and purposes they are making a “selfless” act and releasing themselves from the immense emotional pain all at the same time. So, from their point of view it’s the best thing. From ours it’s short sighted. Relativity is everything.
Now before anyone goes on and accuses me of making a case for those who are suffering to go ahead and kill themselves, hold on. I’m not. All I’m saying is that when they do, don’t depict them as “selfish”. If that guy who got his arm caught under a rock had instead ended his life rather than hacked off his own arm with a dull knife, we likely would have thought he did the noble thing. Why would he be expected to suffer a long drawn out death (or another way to put it - a painfully drawn out “rest of your life”)? We would have expected him to wait as long as he could for help, and then when it all seemed lost, to hasten his death along quickly. No one would have accused him of not taking into account what his death meant to those who loved him. I know that in my above example some might point out that he knew he only had days to live, so it’s different than someone who ends a potentially long life. But for the sake of argument, what if he could have lived the rest of his long life life stuck under that rock? It isn’t so clear what we think he should do.
So anyway, I think the issue is more complicated and ill-described as saying that suicide is a selfish act, even if the reasons seem valid to the victim. I will leave it at that.
And, I also speak from experience. My own struggle with depression has often left me with feeling the need to release myself from the pain. So far therapy and medication, as well as ECT have kept me from acting on it. And I am not currently in any danger now. But I know what it’s like to think about it from both sides and I don’t think I have ever been selfish except in wanting to be happy.
A very dear friend of mine was egged on by an IRC chatroom to OD on a plethora of illicit drugs earlier this year. I feel where the OP is coming from… it hurts to know that no one tried to help, but in the end I had to face facts, my friend made his own decisions. He chose to listen to them, he chose to take the drugs, nobody held him down and shot him up with them and though I hate them on a personal level for not DOING SOMETHING to stop him, I’m a huge believer in personal accountability. The girl in the OP was an adult. She made her own decisions and it sucks that those are the decision that she made, but those people didn’t kill her… and no one will be able to say whether or not she would’ve gone through with it a different way if this resource hadnt been available to her.
You’d have to be a real loser to want to feel better about yourself by taunting the emotionally frail.
I have had three suicides in my family. Perhaps you can speak well on this topic if you have a similar perspective.
For those left behind, there is not only the grief at a person’s death but the horrendous conflicts and upheaval brought by this type of death. There is anger (why did you do it?) guilt (why didn’t I save you) shame (what does the world think of me) and perhaps worst of all, the implantation in the mind that this is a way out (if they did it …) People who have had someone commit suicide in their family often experience thoughts of suicide themselves – a sort of bond with the deceased. Look at the Hemingway family. I don’t have all the facts in front of me, but I believe Ernest Hemingway’s father was a suicide. So was Ernest, and his brother and sister. Later of course, was his granddaughter, the actress Margaux Hemingway.
No, they’re not murderers. As another poster said, they are a great believer in personal accountability. I am too, and I’m also a great believer in group or in this case on-line community accountability. Although we’re not responsible for the actions of others we are all responsible for what comes out of our mouths or from our keyboards. People need to think more about what they’re saying and how it may affect other people who are vulnerable, impressionable or at risk.
On that particular message-board it’s a tricky situation because you’ve got at-risk posters advising other at-risk posters, the outcome of which is not going to be good most of the time because they’re all sick. But even on other message-boards and chat-rooms where there is obviously a mix of posters who otherwise appear quite stable, when someone suggests they are going to do something stupid, instead of receiving support or being discouraged from doing the act, the replies often amount to no more than yeah do it dude! especially when web-cams are involved. The voice of reason seems to be totally absent because no one wants to look like the uncool one who says ‘that’s dumb, don’t do it’.
Well, without being for or against the site, it IS different. Ozzy’s song was anti-suicide and alcoholism (if memory serves, I’ve read it laments the death of AC/DC’s Bon Scott). Idiots misconstrued it as encouraging it. This site actually DOES encourage suicide. Does that make them responsible? Separate issue. But the cases aren’t quite the same.
But she was emotionally damaged. Her intelligence, her looks and her family have nothing to do with the part of her that was broken. The people on that site may not be murderers in the legal sense but they are the spiritual equivalent of a gang of hooligans who kick the crutches out from undeneath a one-legged woman and then beat her over the head with them, all the while encouraging her as she crawls towards the edge of the river to throw herself in. Charming bunch, with troubles of their own, no doubt.
To add a datapoint to the file on reasons and motivations, in the times when I have come closest to suicide it has not been prompted so much by a desire to end my pain nor even by the conviction that no one would notice or care if I were gone. It was a direct result of faulty brain chemistry convincing me that I was the most useles, worthless piece of crap that had ever sullied the face of the planet, a waste of valuable oxygen that could be used for better purposes, someone who ruined everything and everyone she touched and that I would clearly be doing the world a favor to pitch such a revolting piece of trash in the garbage. It was not only logical, it was a positive favor to those left behind, who would breathe a sigh of relief, as one who opens a window to let in fresh air and drive away a noisome stench. Suicidally depressed people are not reasoning with the part of the brain that wins scholarships.