You know, I never start threads. And here I am starting this one. It’s just that I feel so bloody-minded tonight…
If you were going to kill yourself (not that you would) how would you do it?
Shotgun blast?
Lethal drugs?
Noose in the garage?
I mean if you were going to…
"Knives will pain you
Rivers are damp
Acid stains you
And drugs cause cramps
Guns are unlawful
Nooses give
Gas smells awful
You might as well live"
But if you were going to anyway, what would it be…??
Ummm…thought I put this in IMHO…
Before it gets shoved there postage due, I’ll give my 20 kopecks.
I’d use some drugs. Anasthetics would be my first choice, but I know I could rig some poisons using more prosaic chemicals. If I didn’t have access to anasthetics, I would fire up a two-stroke engine with no exhast system in an enclosed garage and let carbon monoxide work its miracles. Failing that, I hear sleeping pills can work, but the possibility of choking on my own vomit while awake makes me leery of them. I might buy castor beans and learn to extract the poisons therein (sorry, I’ve forgotten just what), just to be different. Of course, commercial rat poisons are effective. I don’t know about the effects they have on you before they kill you, though, so I would read up on them beforehand. Material safety data sheets on the main ingredients would give symptoms of ingestion that occur prior to death.
Of course, failing all chemicals, I would just grab my gun and aim at my grey matter.
Ah the fine art of offing oneself. I’ve attempted it a few times, was never very successful. The details are rather boring, as well as slightly embarassing, so I won’t share. However. Out of boredom, my friend Crack’dOff and I, have discussed various creative ways. The numero uno would be by bungee. Buy a bungee cord, drive halfway across the Golden Gate. Set it up. Tie it around your neck, and take that last plunge. Would definetely get you on the news. We also decided that taking yourself out whil alone in your house is stupid and pathetic. If you’re gonna do it do it in style. Like face down in your own vomit at 9am at the EndUp, surround by hundreds of cracked out freaks. Other possibilities?
Cover yourself in meat and jump into the crocodile pit at the Aquarium.
Jumping out of a plane has already been done unfortunately.
Not that I’m planning on killing myself, but I thought I’d contribute. According to a (fictional) book I was reading, commiting suicide by shooting yourself in the head is actually harder than it appears. Most people, it seems, aim at their temple – and then the bullet has to penetrate the skull, and risks being stopped or deflected, so they end up bleeding and brain damaged, but alive. No, they continue, the best way is to almost literally bite the bullet; put the gun in your mouth, pointing upwards, and then the bullet only has to penetrate the soft palate before hitting brain cells.
There, everybody feel better now?
I’ve noticed that famous people who commit suicide do so in private - Curt Cobain, Capucine, Lupe Velez, even though the attainment of celibrity is often due to a desire to be validated through mass recognition. It’s only the pathetic nobodies who have to make a public performance of it (by holding up traffic at the Narrows Bridge her in Tacoma, or that guy who shotgunned himself on the freeway in LA).
I guess two ways I’d care to take myself out is either utilitarian: death by the bodygards of the dictator I’d just assassinated; or pure oblivion: way out in the widlerness near an anthill, or over the side far offshore - leaving no mess for somebody else to have to clean up and no traces of my identity worth the time to explore. If I couldn’t perform a service, at least I wouldn’t create an annoyance.
I once had a theory of self drowning… “Just duck your head under water and take a nice deep breath.” However, I failed to take into account the automatic bodily spasms, so all I got was a coughing fit and no further desire to experiment.
Gunshot to the temple still seems a tad attractive.
Rat poison is NOT a good idea, as I’ve heard it’s an extremely painful way to go.
Gunshot to the temple is also not a sure-fire (forgive the pun) method. I knew of a fellow that tried that. The bullet ricocheted off of his skull, and basically just followed the curvature of the skull inside 'round, and 'round until it lost momentum, and stopped on TOP of his brain, rather than inside. He ended up a semi-vegetable, aware of his surroundings enough to realize the state he was in, but not aware enough to function normally. Pretty horrifying.
Assasinating a dictator isn’t all that great of an idea, either. You might get shot, but you also might recover, get arrested, and be placed in a third-world country’s prison, awaiting execution. They also might torture you to get the names of your accomplices, and wouldn’t you be screwed, not having any?
I can’t imagine that a Bungee cord would be all that effective, due to its elastic nature. I don’t think that you would snap your neck cleanly once you reached the end of the cord, else Bungee jumpers would always be breaking their ankles when they jump. Seems to me that you would just recoil a few times and then slowly strangle.
Carbon monoxide is effective, and painless, but what about the others that might enter the home and be accidently poisoned by the gas? Your pets?
Drugs and wrist slitting might not be effective, and take too long. Somone might rescue you before you died, and if you’ve taken enough drugs, you might end up a vegetable.
I also don’t fancy the idea of any of my loved ones finding my body, or having a nasty mess to clean up.
I agree with Lissa that you shouldn’t leave a mess behind for the living to clean up. That puts out slashing wrists or shooting yourself, or jumping from a great height.
Forcing an unwilling person to be party to your suicide, like stepping out in front of a train, is a truly evil act.
Barbituates and alcohol seem like a pretty good way to go. One would have to take precautions to avoid premature discovery, and figure the dose precisely.
Still, I am really attracted to jumping off a bridge or something. I’m a bit nervous about heights, and I love the thrill of jumping off the high diving board. As long as you made sure the height would absolutely, certainly do you in and not just break your back and leave you a cripple. . . and if you jump into water, it wouldn’t be too messy.
A friend once said he’d like to die on punji stakes hidden in a bar of soap. Sounds painful.
If I was going to kill myself, I’d want to do so in a way that would give others some satisfaction as well. I would return to Regina (my hometown), to the upper hallway of the Fine Arts building on the university campus (which has a long, tiled hallway with a large cement column at each end). A bungie cord would be stretched across the midpoint of the hallway. I would be bound hand to foot behind my back, and placed on my stomach on a wheeled platform like that used by auto mechanics to roll themselves around under cars, with my head sticking off one end. I would be loaded into the cup of my makeshift slingshot, and a team of twenty ex-girlfriends would draw the slingshot back. When they released, I would be sent hurtling headfirst towards the column at the other end of the hallway, and when I hit it, my head would explode like a ripe mellon. Quick, painless, dramatic, though terror-filled for the ten seconds it took to traverse the hallway.
The last time I brought this up, those ex-girlfriends present starting arguing over who would get to be the one on the bullhorn chanting “pull… pull… FIRE!”
Like here (closed by Manhattan), and here, and here and here (although these two are somewhat whimsical), etc.
Hurm.
Maybe place a nice note on the door of the house. seal it up air tight as possible. Drop a few sleeping tablets crank open mucho number containers of nitrogen and pass out while the nitrogen displaces the oxygen in the house.
Would hate for someone to fallinto the same death trap I made for my soul use, hence the note on the door.
Of course, becoming a Darwin Award does has some apeal for the notoriety.
Osip
Oh come on! Lets get creative here!
If I was going to kill myself, I’d rent a really expensive car (eg. Dodge Viper), aquire some high powered explosives, and find a 100 meter cliff. I would blow myself up as I drove off the cliff at 200 km/h.
hansel: Hey Regina’s my hometown too! What a great place to kill yourself! 
I’d say jumping from a really high place and landing. Every other method seems pretty prone to mishap and chance, the gun in particular.
However, if I used a gun I think I would rig up a shotgun to fire at me from some distance away with a slug in it instead of the usual BBs. Right at the forehead. Doesn’t seem like much left to chance there.
I wouldn’t really give much thought to other people in general finding me, just the people I loved. But then, the people I love have always gave me a reason to live, so I dunno anyway. I do plan on suicide in old age…fuck dying gracefully. I ain’t gonna end up in a home. Though I alwayas thought at that time going on a depressent like excessive morphine or something, just depress the system down and down…bye! Plus it would feel good on the way down, it seems.
I think I’d go for a long fall–I have this weird DB Cooper obsession, and I imagine that (if he died) it was probably the most cool and peaceful ways to go.
I vote for carbon monoxide.
The main objective is to avoid intense pain, surviving in a maimed condition, and possibly regreting your decision when it’s too late. These criterion seem to rule out shooting oneself, hanging, jumping, or overdoses.
(I always liked the poem in the OP. I think it’s by Dorothy Parker.)
Ahhh…but the beauty of slowly strangling at the end of several hundred feet of bungie cord from the Golden Gate bridge! Did I mention that this needs to be done on the west-facing side of the bridge just at sunset? Such splendor, particularly following such a spectacular event as the original dive. Everyone is expecting you to be ok, just pulled up by the cops and arrested - yet there you are taking your final dance for everyone to see.
Painful? Perhaps. But what small price is pain for art? Effective? Oh, yes. Who said that death had to be quick to be effective? I’m relatively certain that I’d be quite dead before anyone was able to pull me back up to the bridge. What other alternative does anyone have to save my life? Cut the cord and let me fall? While people have survived the same fall, I’d be VERY surprised if the combination of bungie and fall didn’t do me in. Hey, if I survived, I’d be so astounded, I wouldn’t be depressed anymore!
As for shooting myself, I’d go for the eye. Stare death down and say, ‘fuck you’ just before pulling the trigger. Of course, the opportunity for error and not doing the job properly is great. Use a large caliber weapon - nothing smaller than a 9mm. Personally, I wouldn’t even use a 9mm. I’d use a 12 gauge shotgun, .30-06, .30-.30, .45 or equivalent. Also, make sure that the path of the bullet is correct. Buy one of those styrofoam heads that people use to store their wigs on. Get it as close to the same size as your head and then make a template that will allow you to hold your gun at the proper angle.
If I was going to go by way of knife, I wouldn’t slit my wrists. I’d put the point of the blade right next to my voice box and plunge it straight in, severing the corotid artery. Mess? Who cares? If you really want to make an impact and leave a lasting impression, do it on a blank canvas that you’ve signed at the bottom - also in your own blood. Make sure that your will covers the preservation and delivery of the canvas to someone who’ll really appreciate it.
I could go on. Perhaps later, I will.
I like the swallowing mercury method. Easy and inexpensive to obtain, quick, definite and painless.
And mm-mm! that taste!
I’d slit my wrists… but would hold them in the bathtub, so all the blood could get washed off after they drag away my body.
Either that or I’d jump a few stories off a parking garage.
So would I. But I think I would have so much fun of the way down, but the time I got there I wouldn’t want to be dead.
I would definately avoid the shot gun…I always think about that guy- the one whose parents sued Judas Priest?- who only managed to blow half his face off.
You shouldn’t leave a mess for your next of kin to deal with…on the other hand if you WANTED to cause problems for those who survived you, there’s Jim Knipfel who in his memoir “Leaving the Narobi Trio” tells about his attempt to kill himself and make it look like a murder committed by a neighbor he didn’t like. I think it came down to taking a bunch of pills and duct taping himself to a chair. He freely admitts now he didn’t really think it all the way through.
I hope this doesn’t get closed for being tasteless (like the one Manhattan closed). I didn’t intend for it to be (except in a good way).
And if “When A Man Loves a Chicken” is still open…
Oh, yeah, that is Dorthy Parker in the OP. Isn’t she great?