# "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:** 9
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@Weeping\_Wyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeping_Wyvern)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/101 "2012-06-29T19:23:51Z")
I voted “not cowardly, but selfish”. I’m not totally certain I’m happy with choice that, though, since I can imagine cases where it would be cowardly.
I guess there’s plenty of ways to throw away your life in a courageous and selfless way, but I would consider such things more along the lines of battlefield heroism, not “suicide” in the way we normally use the word.
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### Author:  [@AmandineGreekos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmandineGreekos)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2012, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/102 "2012-07-05T10:53:13Z")
> [@janeslogin](#):
>
> Rent some old Japanese movies and really study the motives for suicide. Some can be quite positive.
Harikari, huh? There would be substantially fewer crappy people around if everyone adopted the traditional Japanese motives for suicide…ironically perhaps, one of these motives is an act/display of cowardice, a subcategory of the main motive-dishonor.
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### Author:  [@Kat1978](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat1978)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/103 "2013-02-06T21:31:56Z")
I think if you are in enough pain where medication, therapy, and other forms of “help” are NOT helping… then a person can make the decision whether or not to end his/her life. I have had depression since a very young age and have only found minimal help through medication. I have the type where there are times I want to die, but wouldn’t take my own life. I told my mom for the first time yesterday (I am 34) that I don’t take the medication for me. I take it for her, but I don’t want HER to feel guilty or miserable if I did die at my own hand. I also told her I think it the other way around. I think it’s selfish when other people expect you to stay “here” when you don’t want to be “here” because you are in nothing, but pain. So, you are just living for THEM and not YOURSELF. Anybody that says it’s selfish obviously has never been clinically depressed. Depression is cancer of the brain. If it’s clinical and not situational (most people get situational) then it is not going away and medication is just a bandaid and there is no cure. I suffer, daily. I take medicine for mood swings, depression, and anxiety. I have to take medication to go to sleep. I am in a lot of pain and it’s constant. Of course, the depth fluctuates. But, it’s always there. And I am here so other people don’t feel bad? Hah. Yup. I’m here because THEY are selfish.
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### Author:  [@Kat1978](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat1978)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/104 "2013-02-06T21:42:29Z")
And for your reply of “crappy people…” Excuse me? In pain people… yes… crappy? No. I am a 4 year Bachelor Degreed, multi-language speaking woman. And you call that crappy? I think you’re crappy for judging. And if you are a Christian, you’re not supposed to judge. And if you are not a Christian, you’re just a judgmental sociopath.
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### Author:  [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2013, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/105 "2013-02-07T07:21:44Z")
I think it could be cowardly-selfish or neither. (In suicide, the two go together, IMHO.)Depends on the context.
Life too hard, and you have kids and a wife? TS, don’t leave your fat ass around for me to bury, and to come make your funeral arrangements and to comfort your wife and to pay for your funeral, and to do all of the phone calling to the relatives, etc… You’re a selfish prick. Too fucking cowardly and mentally lazy to tough it out.
Mental problems? You’re someone for whom I have a great deal of sympathy. I can understand, but wish you had not done it.
Terminal illness: Same as mental problems.
9/11 Terrorists/suicide bombers: Cowardly and selfish. Too chickenshit to fight a man’s war, actually looking a warrior or a politician in the face to kill them. Actually, like, not even having the balls to disagree to somebody’s face about policies in one’s own country.
When I read of the breakup of the Third Reich, there was a curious exchange between Heinrich Himmler and some of his SS people (allegedly). Himmler pointed out that he was going to commit suicide if the going got too rough. Some of his men actually told him not to be so selfish, for leaving them there to take the burden without him.
So, in my economy, life is a burden that one must bear, and there are others that you must consider. If there is nobody, or you are in extreme mental (mental disease) or physical pain, with no realistic hope for relief, ever, then I do not consider it cowardly-selfish.
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### Author:  [@TheCrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheCrow)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2013, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/106 "2013-02-13T00:59:36Z")
The reason is clear. People have become clear that their life has no meaning, that except misery, nothing happens; except anxiety, anguish, life has nothing to offer.
Individuals have always committed suicide. And you will be surprised: the people who have committed suicide have always been a little more intelligent than the normal people. Psychologists commit suicide twice as much as any other profession. Painters, poets, philosophers either go mad or commit suicide. Idiots have never been known to commit suicide, nor do they go mad. - **Osho**
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/107 "2013-02-13T02:04:14Z")
I voted Other because it can be cowardly and selfish or not, depending on the motivation and the method chosen. Someone who kills themselves after arranging their affairs to avoid a slow death by disease is being rational and as considerate as is practical; someone who throws themselves in front of a train because they are too proud to ask for help or admit failure is being both selfish and cowardly. Or for pretty much the ultimate example of that, the “family annihilator” type of murder-suicide who responds to personal failure by killing their family along with themselves. That’s selfish and cowardly.
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### Author:  [@RedBloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedBloom)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/108 "2013-02-13T14:11:33Z")
> [@Ken001](#):
>
> The problem with the words selfish and cowardly is that they are pejorative - judgemental. We don’t like selfish people. Selfish is bad, cowardice is bad ergo the suicide victim is bad. This makes everyone else feel better. I know this because I recently hear a man describe his dead sister-in-law as being all about herself - she was selfish to take her life.
>
> This man is a decent person but has never experienced depression and does not have the remotest conception of the pain and depths of despair the woman was feeling.
>
> When a person is at their lowest, **there is no sense of self**. They feel irrelevant. They cannot feel empathy for others - this is a classic sign of clinical depression. They actually believe that their family and friends, everybody, will be better off if they die. It is the right thing to do.
>
> Also the psychic pain is so bad that death is the only escape. It is actually a logical step. I’m not saying that we should easily accept suicide but I hear the word selfish so often and know that it simply makes depressed people feel worse. Not only are you in a black void but all the healthy people around you imply by default that you are a bad person for having suicidal thoughts.
>
> .
Very well said.
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### Author:  [@Jr.DNA\_test](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jr.DNA_test)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cowards-way-out-attitudes-to-suicide/608776/109 "2013-02-13T16:45:16Z")
I smell two-way fear!
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