# "Dear" rapist, may your life be eventful and short **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 29, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-rapist-may-your-life-be-eventful-and-short/544994 "2010-06-29T22:53:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-rapist-may-your-life-be-eventful-and-short/544994/41 "2010-07-06T03:12:16Z")
> [@Claude\_Remains](#): > > I apologize for shitting here. Dude, it’s the Pit. You have nothing to apologize for here. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-rapist-may-your-life-be-eventful-and-short/544994/42 "2010-07-06T07:16:56Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Honestly, if you get to the point of being suicidal, thinking of others in your life might help you to not go through with it. > > BUT IT ISN’T ABOUT THEM, and it isn’t being selfish towards others if you end your own life. For many people who kill themselves, the pain is exactly about others. They feel that their loved ones will be better off without than with them; this is actually a view that’s espoused and even touted as some sort of beautiful sacrifice by some writers (makes me sooooo stabby!); the RL cases I know were people who had been recently diagnosed with either a bad-sounding illness (the big C is a favourite) or a mental illness; it seems to be commonish also in people with depression. Apologies for yelling at you, **Claude** , can I propose a pillowfight to blow steam off instead? ---
**Author:** ![Claude\_Remains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@Claude\_Remains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claude_Remains)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-rapist-may-your-life-be-eventful-and-short/544994/43 "2010-07-06T07:43:49Z")
🆒 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-rapist-may-your-life-be-eventful-and-short/544994/44 "2010-07-09T01:26:18Z")
> [@JoseB](#): > > It doesn’t help that, apparently, her parents (and I am using that word rather loosely here) told her, basically, “it was your fault” for getting raped. If it were up to me, those parents would lose their right to be called “parents” at all. The most glass-half-full thing to say about that is, it could be worse . . . There have been times and cultures where a woman who had been raped would be **expected** to kill herself; it would be the only decent and honorable thing to do. (Sometimes even a heroic thing – see the story of [Lucretia.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucrece) Shakespeare wrote a [poem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Lucrece) about it.) Few such cultures exist any more. Progress exists . . . sometimes you have to squint to see it. But there are still places where [“honor killings”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing) are done, may that come to an end for good and all in our lifetime. None of which sociohistorical commentary does your friend any good, of course. Just do what everybody else in this thread has said: Be there for her, and don’t let her think she’s in any way “ruined,” and try not to think any more than you can help it about the brute who did this to her – **he** is not your problem or hers, not any more. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-rapist-may-your-life-be-eventful-and-short/544994/45 "2010-07-12T19:21:29Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > For many people who kill themselves, the pain is exactly about others. They feel that their loved ones will be better off without than with them; this is actually a view that’s espoused and even touted as some sort of beautiful sacrifice by some writers (makes me sooooo stabby!)… it seems to be commonish also in people with depression. Depression can make you think that you’re a liability to other people in your life, that they’d be better off if they didn’t have you around to deal with. **Claude** ’s wife and best friend may have really thought they were doing him a favor by getting such a worthless person out of his life. It’s not true, but it’s the kind of distorted thinking you can get from a mental illness like depression. Some depressed people also have low self-esteem. If you tell them they’re being selfish, they’ll just think “that’s one more reason why I am a bad person”. Probably not the result you were trying for. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dear-rapist-may-your-life-be-eventful-and-short/544994.md?page=2)