Nobody lives forever, and nobody is healthy forever. Many people reach a point in their lives when a merciful death is a better alternative than a painful life.
A lot of people are in favor of “assisted suicide,” so long as it refers to someone else, or possibly their own remote future. But suppose you were in that situation today, and you were thinking of actually doing it. Also suppose that you didn’t want to involve another person. So by what means would you do it?
Please post your sex, age, and method.
I’m 64, male, and I’d probably OD on the antidepressants that I take (and yes, I appreciate the irony).
I would only consider this if I were really sick or had some sort of condition (such as Alzheimer’s Disease). I’d also probably try to make it as clean as possible so that people wouldn’t have a huge hassle in cleaning up my mess. I’m not sure how I’d accomplish that though…
I think the idea would be to be quick, painless, and as close to 100% effective as possible.
No way would I try to OD on pills (no offense). It’s simply unimaginable to me, what with the idea of waiting for them to kick in…
*BTW - just to be clear - I’m not suicidal or even depressed. This is merely a hypothetical.
Male, 27. Here’s mine. It’s a little elaborate so bear with me:
Equipment: A thick, heavy rope measuring precisely 100 meters in length; a piece of high tensile coil measuring precisely 99 meters in length; several tubes of industrial strength glue; one megaphone.
STEP 1: Climb a very, very tall building and don’t stop climbing 'til you’re actually out on the roof. Barricade the door behind you with whatever you can find and use the megaphone to signal your intentions to the gawping masses below. Don’t stop until you’ve roused a substantial crowd
STEP 2: Find a very, very sturdy object around which to tie your rope (a stone pillar or a steam vent would be perfect for this). Remember, this should be a very thick rope, the kind of rope you might use for mooring a boat, for instance. Tie one end of the rope around this object and secure it with an extremely sturdy knot.
STEP 3: Take your high tensile coil (piano wire might also work well) and similarly affix this to the same object.
STEP 4: Tie the rope around your ankles, and the wire around your neck. Walk to the ledge.
STEP 5: Use the industrial strength glue to firmly affix your hands to either side of your head.
STEP 6: Jump. If all goes according to plan, your head will pop off easier than a Pringle’s lid and will remain in your hands as your corpse sprays unmentionable viscera all over the horrified spectators like a Champagne bottle from Hell that’s somehow managed to catch it’s own cork.
Quick, painless, and absolutely fucking awesome! I’d never commit suicide, but if I had to, that’s how I like to think I’d do it. Idea stolen from Doug Stanhope.
Hm. Take a bunch of sleeping pills, or maybe get really drunk or something, wrap a plastic bag over my head and duct tape it around my neck. Go to sleep.
Yep, that would be my kind of thinking as well. Some sort of method where I could change my mind like carbon monoxide in the garage thing: I’m getting kind of sleepy but I’m hungry so maybe I should get a late night snack first.
Somebody once linked to a long, long thread on another forum full of stories from emergency room doctors and such.
Bullets or buildings, and do it carefully. At least ten stories and put the gun in your mouth. The last thing you want is to fail and be unable to make a second attempt.
Of course, I’m thinking I might want to come up with something where it’s hard for people to clean me up. You know, so I have “staying power” or something. If I’m going out, I want at least 3 hours of spectators. None of this “put up a sheet and start shoveling” crap.
Male, 56, paraplegic, open left femoral artery. (Given my paraplegia I have virtually no sensation below my waist and what little there is is less on the left).
Sorry about not divulging the age for obvious reasons.
I have known others who were brave enough to insert the barrel of a rifle in their mouth and pull the trigger. I’m not in favor of a gruesome death and that includes dying slowly in some hospital bed while they string you along endlessly. It depends what a person is up against medically. If they have cancer they may be fighting pain issues and medical agencies will be involved. However, if you are only talking about a person in generally OK health that wants to die peacefully, gradual starvation is something that works and others can’t force the person to eat. Yes, there are feeding tubes, but they can’t make a person accept them these days. The key is to keep your wits about you and never ever say you want to die. If you let that cat out of the bag, the goofballs and sometimes relatives will have you declared incompetent and force feeding will occur. You’d want to be in a situation where people left you alone for a long enough period of time and it could take awhile. It’s not supposed to be painful though. All kinds of info on the Internet about such things. I say live as long as you can and have a positive attitude to the end. That worked best for some of my relatives who died at home peacefully.
I’ve never come close to starving. But I’ve been really, really hungry before (to the point of eating condiments). It hurts. I can only imagine how painful it is to actually starve to death.
Damn, maybe it’s because of my GERD/gastritis/whatever, but there are days when my stomach feels like it’s eating itself before dinner and I haven’t even skipped a meal.
Vets in clinical practice have virtually free access to all kinds of opiates and anesthetic drugs. No plans, just saying. If vet school goes well, I will be in that situation well before I am likely to face this sort of dilemma.
My parents have both expressed their desire to reach a quick end should they get Alzheimer’s or suffer a debilitating stroke and have to go to a nursing home (I will do my best to take care of them myself as long as possible, but there are limits to what I will be able to do and still have a job, etc.). In that case, I might suddenly see myself needing to buy a gun and leave it lying around. I don’t think I could euthanize my own parents, and the whole jail time thing would really screw me up.
