# "Coward's way out"; attitudes to suicide
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [January 8, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776 "2012-01-08T00:00:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [January 12, 2012, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/81 "2012-01-12T10:31:40Z")
> [@eightysix](#):
>
> Likewise, when someone obviously puts effort into minimizing at least the immediate impact and the practical hassle for the survivors, by, say, choosing a clean method, warning people before they enter the scene, clearing up their affairs and loose ends prior to the act, etc, it is more difficult to consider their suicide a wholly “selfish” act, regardless of why they did it.
My wife’s cousin killed himself following a love affair gone wrong and some other personal issues, and he left the neatest scene I’ve ever heard of - he paid all his bills and month’s rent in advance, left his note and will on the table in plain sight, put a note on the door telling whomever read it to call the police rather than coming in, and put a dropcloth on his bed before lying on it and shooting himself in the chest. Very, very sad but very considerate.
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### Author:  [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/82 "2012-01-13T00:57:31Z")
Cowardly and selfish, but with the caveat that many people are not in their right mind at the time, and I wouldn’t necessarily consider it cowardly and selfish if caused by such mental illness.
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### Author:  [@daniel13021994](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/daniel13021994)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2012, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/83 "2012-06-27T12:23:42Z")
I don’t think suicide is cowardly. If suicide is cowardly, then failed suicide must be twice as cowardly because the person didn’t have the guts to finish the job when they were halfway through.
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2012, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/84 "2012-06-27T12:41:15Z")
Nah, failure just means “bummed _and_ inept.” Well, and possibly sorely confused & conflicted, but that’s not the same thing as cowardice.I think suicide is rightly judged as a lot of things depending on the circumstances, but it is certainly not cowardly.
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### Author:  [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2012, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/85 "2012-06-27T14:21:10Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#):
>
> Nah, failure just means “bummed _and_ inept.” Well, and possibly sorely confused & conflicted, but that’s not the same thing as cowardice.I think suicide is rightly judged as a lot of things depending on the circumstances, but it is certainly not cowardly.
After waking up from a failed suicide attempt, my first thought was, “Dammit, I’m even _more_ incompetent than I thought I was!” 😃
Cowardice doesn’t have much to do with failure of attempts at suicide, either. Sometimes circumstance intervenes, sometimes the person has a change of heart prompted by something other than fear, and sometimes the means are inadequate or imperfectly administered.
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### Author:  [@diggerwam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggerwam)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/86 "2012-06-27T17:47:31Z")
The plan right assuming my wife passes first is to end it once all my savings are spent. Now that might be 40 years from now. Who knows. I would never leave my wife like that. It would destroy her but I’m not planning on living without her. I don’t get that much positive out of my life. Don’t have kids. No reason to stick around waiting to pass naturally or accidentally. I’m a control freak. I’d much rather be in charge. My wife is my only source of enjoyment and fun. If that is gone. Then 6 weeks of travel then I’m done.
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### Author:  [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2012, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/87 "2012-06-27T18:12:28Z")
I didn’t vote, but I’m not sure why none of the answers feel right to me.
-I believe a person has the right to end his time on earth whenever he wants to. So, that is selfish in that only that person has the right to control himself that way. So, selfish, yes, but in the same way that deciding to continue living is selfish.
-People tend to use the word ‘cowardly’ to describe an action declined that takes strength to overcome, so in that way yes, it’s cowardly. But not everyone has the strength, so…yeah.
Life, in and of itself, is not a reason to live. There’s gotta be more.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2012, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/88 "2012-06-27T22:26:16Z")
Perhaps some people DON’T commit suicide because they are too cowardly.
And here’s another thought: Suppose you don’t believe in any kind of after-life. And suppose you find life so awful that you want to kill yourself to escape it all. (Extreme pain, disability, loneliness, whatever.) If you successfully kill yourself, _you will never know that you succeeded!_
I ask you, what kind of relief is _that_ ?
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### Author:  [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2012, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/89 "2012-06-27T22:51:19Z")
> [@daniel13021994](#):
>
> I don’t think suicide is cowardly. If suicide is cowardly, then failed suicide must be twice as cowardly because the person didn’t have the guts to finish the job when they were halfway through.
Hello Daniel and welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board.
Please note that the thread you replied to is about six months old and many of the original posters are probably no longer paying attention to it. This thread is not quite old enough to qualify as a “zombie,” but it’s close and such threads are usually closed. I’ll leave this one open for the time being.
- Gukumatz,
IMHO Moderator.
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### Author:  [@oreally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oreally)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2012, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/90 "2012-06-28T02:31:55Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> I agree with **WhyNot**. An action can’t be selfish or cowardly.
??? On the contrary: not only can they be selflish, but absolutely they ARE selfish. In fact, when you get right down to it, EVERYTHING people do is, strictly speaking, “selfish.” The problem lies in how the meaning of the word “selfish” has gotten such a bad rep and been misrepresented for so so long.
Parents? Charity workers? Gandhi? Mother Teresa? Selfish, every one - and it doesn’t take away one bit from their “goodness” either. I just wish like hell we’d stop with the negativity of the word.
> [@](#):
>
> Unless you have brought dependents into this world who need your financial and emotional support, you are not obligated to live for anyone.
Unless you have no family or friends who really care about you, yeah, you are.
PS and FWIW I see nothing wrong with replying to an older thread and allowing others to comment. Who cares if the “original” people are around or not?
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### Author:  [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2012, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/91 "2012-06-28T04:15:41Z")
> [@oreally](#):
>
> Unless you have no family or friends who really care about you, yeah, you are.
Let me get this straight. You believe that their caring obligates the object of that caring (me, for instance, or **monstro** ) to live for them?
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### Author:  [@oreally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oreally)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2012, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/92 "2012-06-29T04:05:32Z")
Sorry not sure I’m following the question.
I’m saying if you have people who really care for/love you, you are being selfish by ending your life and putting them in abject misery vs trying to work through your own misery somehow…ie thinking of yourself and not them. Yes I’m one of these weird people who thinks you have obligations to the people who care about you.
That said, for the sake of the argument I concede there may be extreme cases where despite that someone is in such unbearable and unbeatable pain that they see no other choice. My sympathies to any such person.
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### Author:  [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2012, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/93 "2012-06-29T06:20:48Z")
> [@oreally](#):
>
> Sorry not sure I’m following the question.
>
> I’m saying if you have people who really care for/love you, you are being selfish by ending your life and putting them in abject misery vs trying to work through your own misery somehow…ie thinking of yourself and not them. Yes I’m one of these weird people who thinks you have obligations to the people who care about you.
>
> That said, for the sake of the argument I concede there may be extreme cases where despite that someone is in such unbearable and unbeatable pain that they see no other choice. My sympathies to any such person.
You responded to this sentence from **monstro** ’s post
> [@monstro](#):
>
> Unless you have brought dependents into this world who need your financial and emotional support, you are not obligated to live for anyone.
thusly.
> [@oreally](#):
>
> Unless you have no family or friends who really care about you, yeah, you are.
I was asking (pretty clumsily, I admit) whether you believe that an individual has an obligation to continue living just because a different person “cares for” that individual. In other words, do you believe that simply being the passive object of someone else’s concern or love places you under an obligation to remain alive regardless of your own circumstances? Your subsequent post indicates that you do allow for some extreme cases where this doesn’t apply, but it sounds like you believe those are rare.
If that’s indeed what you intend to say, I respectfully but vehemently disagree. My only obligation would be to people who are dependent on me for their support. Whether I give consideration to the feelings of others who “love” me is an issue outside of that altogether.
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### Author:  [@oreally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oreally)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2012, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/94 "2012-06-29T06:25:41Z")
Agree to disagree then, and we clearly have quite different definitions of obligations to those closest to us. Oh well.
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### Author:  [@RedWood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedWood)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2012, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/95 "2012-06-29T18:42:02Z")
I did not vote because I think the answer should be “it totally depends on the situation”. I do agree that making one’s death a vengeful act upon those you leave behind is crazymean… and/or very juvenile. I still think that each of us has the right to choose our exit.
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### Author:  [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/96 "2012-06-29T18:57:00Z")
As a Christian, it is the ultimate failure to trust God. As a cancer victim, how much pain and disdcomfort am I expected to endure?
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/97 "2012-06-29T19:01:13Z")
\*Posted on 01-07-2012, 06:51 PM \*
> [@Foggy](#):
>
> **I consider the act of suicide neither cowardly nor selfish.**
>
> I want to end my life. I have for most of the last 40 years.
> I have tried to fix what is broken. I have tried to recreate myself.
> I have failed, multiple times. I am exhausted, I want out.
>
> The only reasons I’m still here (besides the fact that I failed at previous attempts) is concern for my mother and for my ex, but mostly because I am a coward and lazy.
>
> _ **I have the middle of February penciled in** _, but I will probably miss that one too.
Anybody seen Foggy around?
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### Author:  [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/98 "2012-06-29T19:06:32Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#):
>
> \*Posted on 01-07-2012, 06:51 PM \*
>
> Anybody seen Foggy around?
**Foggy** posted to a couple threads today, I believe.
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/99 "2012-06-29T19:09:15Z")
Good to know.
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### Author:  [@Sudden\_Kestrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sudden_Kestrel)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/100 "2012-06-29T19:10:49Z")
> [@oreally](#):
>
> Agree to disagree then, and we clearly have quite different definitions of obligations to those closest to us. Oh well.
Perhaps, perhaps not. I think we just have different levels of tolerance for having obligations thrust upon us without our express consent. Oh well, indeed ;).
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