… or let’s say I am having a heart attack, (and being in the medical field (IANAD) I know all the signs and symptoms) and at the risk of sounding morbid, I think I could say “Fuck it, I’ve had a good life, go ahead and take me”, instead of calling for help.
Could you do it? Or do you think that maybe I could not do it?
Q
I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t. Not right now. I have a husband and young children and am vain enough to think they might do better with me around
If I didn’t have kids, all other things the same, I could do it. I have kids, though – one only 9 years old – I’d hate to leave them without a mother. I’d have to call for help. Same as I’d administer CPR to my MIL if she fell out in front of me. I don’t care for her one bit, but why deprive my son of his grandmother?
Same here. Several years ago I did think I was having a heart attack (severe chest pain, numbness in left arm–turned out to be gallstones), and my first thought was “I can’t die, I have a baby to take care of!” Now I have two kids to bring up and a husband who wants me to stick around.
Yeah, sorry. Forgot to mention that I’m single and no family to speak of…
I’ve done it. Let me warn you, it doesn’t always work out the way you think it will.
The way I’ve been feeling lately I’m not sure I’d be too bothered, once I didn’t survive.
Okay, that’s kinda cryptic. Care to expand on that, An?
Q
If I still had all my faculties, I’d be calling for help.
I’d posit that you probably couldn’t do it. The adrenaline dump and sudden, higher-brain-function clouding agony is going to scrub the morbidity and calm, introspective contemplation away and leave your survivalist, reptilian brain dialing for the paramedics.
At this point in my life, I’d probably just say “fuck it, let me die”.
Are we talking “Fight or Flight” here?
BTW, I am taking all your responses seriously, JSYK, okay?
Quasi
If it was totally fatal & wouldn’t leave me mute & paralyzed, yeah, let me go. I need the rest.
No spouse or kids. My Mom’s in good health & the only reason I’d have to stick around is not to hurt her or a couple of close friends. But then again, they’ll be OK.
Ah I just mean I’m not too bothered with living at the moment.
An just means* the* by the way.
I had a dream once that was so vivid I actually thought I WAS dead.
It started off as a lucid dream. In the dream I was sitting in my bedroom. I looked over at my half open bedroom door and commanded it to close with my mind.
It was at that point I realized: “hey I must be dreaming! Cuz’ that’s supposed to be impossible!” (lucid dreams aren’t uncommon for me) So then I told myself I was going to wake myself up. So I did. But not really. I only dreamt I woke myself up. A couple of minutes would go by; something else “impossible” would happen and then I’d freak out and say “OK this time I’m really going to wake up”
In the dream this kept happening over and over again. I started to get a little freaked out as I’ve never had any trouble waking myself up in the past when I’m having a lucid dream.
Somehow I came to the conclusion that I must be dead and what I’m currently experiencing is an afterlife. A very freaky feeling for an Atheist!
Funny thing is tho’, it didn’t take me long to accept it. As a matter of fact,I actually started to enjoy myself. Doing all sort of things that would be impossible in a physical world. Also, I seemed to be living in some sort of utopian society as everbody in my dream seemed to get along quite nicely with each other.
Life being the bitch that it is; once I started to enjoy the dream I actually DID wake up. This time for real. I thought to myself “Sigh, time to get my ass up and go to work.” It figures.
I wouldn’t choose to die primarily because I like my life but it would hurt my partner and leave him in bad shape. It wouldn’t matter much whether I called or not anyway. It would take an ambulance 40 minutes to get here and I’d be dead by then.
Not with a three-month-old baby girl who needs her daddy, as well as a wonderful wife who I couldn’t intentionally burden with the whole responsibility of raising a child.
Come back in 20 - 25 years and ask again. Maybe then. . .
Actually, if you’re in an appropriate frame of mind, it’s pretty easy to do. You just lay there on the floor and wait. But it’s a bad plan, because there’s too much room for failure. What if the heart attack doesn’t kill you? How long will you lay there? Will you stay on the floor till you starve to death or will the urge to pee make you get up after a day or two? And now you’re still alive, and your heart is more damaged than it was before. What have you gained? You’re in pain and you feel stupid and chagrined on top of it. It takes a long time for the pain and embarassment to subside. I won’t do it again.
Wow. No freakin’ way. Life may not be everything I had expected or hoped for but it’s still pretty darn good. Even in the heart of winter. I’m not dying yet if I can help it. I’m only 33, and there’s no second go-round, or so I believe.
Calling for help doesn’t always work out the way you think either.
OP talk is cheap of course, but I think I can