I’m sorry, Inigo. I’m stupid.
I spend hundreds of hours every year on the phone at a local suicide/crisis hotline talking with all kinds of people in all kinds of situations (strictly as a non-professional volunteer).
Most of them are calling about something other than suicide, such as depression or family problems.
Of the remainder, the reasons for their suicidal feelings are as numerous as the individuals who are calling. Some are able to discuss things rationally and understand that what they are discussing is wrong. Though they may be in tears, they quite often calm down, and are often open to seeking professional help. Others are so full of hopelessness and despair that you cannot find a shred of a reason for them to live: no one loves them; they get abused regularly; they have debilitating diseases; their depression is so strong that all they can do is beg for peace.
Rational thought is not always possible.
It’s important to understand just how broad the spectrum of factors is. Talking with different people who are suicidal also makes you think: could I walk a mile in their shoes? What would I do in their situation?
I will be honest: there have been times when on a call that I thought in the back of my mind “You’re absolutely right. This really is the best answer”, but I would never say that to a caller since that just wouldn’t be proper.
If it is something that you are passionate about, then lose the attitude and do something positive about it. Crisis lines across the nation are losing folks through attrition as fewer young people volunteer for myriad reasons.
One could flip this rant around and pit the people who allow others to have such horrible lives that death seems like the only alternative. Pit the people who’s lives are so busy that they can’t visit with lonely, desperate friends. Pit the people who create Hell in their households and in all their relationships. Don’t pit the victims, pit the perpetrators and the indifferent bystanders.
Or, you can choose to pit a thing rather than a person. Pit sadness, meanness, cruelty, pain, and hopelessness. Take away all these things and you won’t have any intentional killing.
Just in case your tongue ain’t in your cheek…Having a limited ability to feel as others do has made me a student in that arena so that I can function normally through mimicry and present a reasonably stable front. I was playing. Sort of. 
You might not, but you’ll also have a very empty and meaningless life. Take away those things, and you’ll remove any of the “good” opposite things that go with them, too.
It ain’t, really. What I said was stupid. I was trying to be encouraging and supportive without being patronizing or pretending that I thought I could make you feel better, and I realize now that I came off sounding smug and condescending. I’m ashamed.
Oh. Okay. Thanks, I feel better. 
I could tell you were being at least partly ironic, but I still think that what I said was stupid.
The OP has every right to feel angry at those who have taken their own lives. It’s a feeling–we’re all entitled to our own. You get to be angry at him for caring enough about the individuals to miss them and wish they weren’t gone.
This is what I’m trying to wrap my head around:
So, according to those here who say that it’s their life and no one can have a hold on them etc-- it’s OK that a father of 3 girls, (one of whom is chronically ill), kills himself, shooting himself in the head at home so that his girls can find him? This man was a lawyer, who left behind 3 girls to a very uncertain future. His brother had commited suicide many years before, so their mother got to bury two of her sons. She is now raising the girls. No doubt he thought they were better off without him–this is a delusion that most suicidal people have, IMO. Or how about the middle aged woman I used to know–in treatment for her depression–who hanged herself and her 13 year old daughter found her after school that day? Or the executive who had left his wife for his personal assistant, only to overdose in his office-guess who found him. I know of too many suicides.
What the hell? Sure, those girls can feel his pain–the pain of his absence for the rest of their lives. Plus the guilt that they perhaps are to blame-no matter how irrational that belief may be.
No matter what anyone says here–suicide is not as simple as gaining that oblivion. Nothing is that simple-yes, the suicide cannot know the pain s/he leaves behind. That does not make that pain less or shorter lived. I would say that commiting suicide can also lead to others thinking that it is a viable alternative–perhaps one of his girls will do so herself. Can anyone say that is something he would want for his daughter? (in as much as he can consider someone else’s feelings).
I cannot say I feel the pain of suicidal person (and wouldn’t attempt tosay that I can), but I have seen the pain, anger and self-destructive behavior of those left behind. To me, they are indistiguishable in depth, if not in action. If anything, the ones left behind take on the pain–sure it’s manifested in different ways, but it is there; and it lingers, forever.
While theoretically there may be nothing noble in keeping yourself alive for others, doing so goes far beyond convenience for other’s people’s feelings. Despite what is perceived, we are none of us alone–even posting about depression etc here is a connection of sorts. Inigo-I have read your posts here often. You are often witty and funny and seem to be enjoying yourself. I am not trying to diminish your pain. I do wonder at the venom here. Why can’t the OP just express his feelings? Why are they not valid to those who have attempted suicide or are deeply depressed? It seems to me that you and Kimstu and Rag are almost threatened by this OP’s post. I don’t get it.
Having been depressed, I know what that interminable grayness feels like. I have had my own dark stretches of the night where I thought I’ll swerve my car into that highway lamppost and end it all. Such thoughts for me have been fleeting; I have not lived with them day in and out. To do so must be a hell that is corrosive and corrupting. But please don’t negate the feelings of those left behind. They grieve.
minorflat-I think you’re right and that some people cannot be reached. Perhaps they do the right thing. I am not sure. Life is so full of possibilities of circumstance and chance–who knows where any of them could have been at this time? I sure don’t.
Speaking for myself, I didn’t feel threatened by it. What I think you’re overlooking is the direct insult in the thread title, where the OP claims that suicides are “weak people”.
Sure, I can sympathize with the angry resentment of somebody who’s left behind to grieve. But if the OP thinks that suicides are just “weak people” looking for “an escape, the easy way out”, then he simply doesn’t get it.
Inigo, aren’t you the one who scared the shit out of us back in November '04? Were you serious about what you said, or were you playing then, too?
Missed the edit window. Meant to say that the survivors grieve and in that grief is much anger-both toward the one gone and themselves. Abide with them.
You’re right. I would not have described them so (and overlooked that they had been categorized as such; my apologies).
Depressed people are awful to live with. They’re awful to be friends with. They’re moody and sad and unpleasant. You can’t make them smile, you can’t get the to enjoy anything. So, most people drift away, and the ones that don’t get increasingly aggitated, angry, frustrated. (“Why don’t you ever get out of the house?”)
The depressed person feels like a burden-- look at how miserable they’re making their loved ones. It’s a spiral downward where you’re more miserable because they’re more miserable and you think you have nowhere to go because the inside of your own body is somewhere you can’t stand to be.
You think about killing yourself. You seriously feel you are doing your loved ones a favor by getting out of their lives.
I’m just so flabbergasted that people had a friend/family member/loved one who was in so much pain that they chose to end their own life, and your primary reaction is “How can they do that to ME?” Seriously? Did you ever try to help these people when they were depressed and impossible to be around? My experience has been most people don’t want to get involved with the messy part, they just want to feel sanctimonious after the fact.
If you chose to start this somewhere other than the Pit, I would be the sympathetic mental health person that I usually try to be. You post in the Pit, I respond in kind. You had two good friends kill themselves. What did you do to prevent their deaths? How could you be hurt by the deaths of two good friends that killed themselves if you knew they were hurting. I am thinking you didn’t know what they were going through. You don’t know what they were feeling. You don’t know how they hurt. Do you? Everybody has a limit. Everybody has a breaking point. For some it is more than others.
Professional hat back on: Look, I get pissed when a client chooses suicide. But it is a choice. I really don’t want the pain to eat you up. You can PM me if you need someone to talk to. The hurt will pass.
Oh, since this is the Pit: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK
SSG Schwartz
I’m all for suicide. I think that everyone who does not want to live, should not. Life is too precious a gift to waste on those who do not appreciate it. I am grateful to all of those who took a proactive approach to their own death.
It is sad that some probably succeeded in a momentary lapse of reason, but that is natural selection for you.
I have had long stretches where I wished to die nearly every day, or contemplated suicide, but in the end, I never wanted to do it. The urge to survive was just too deeply ingrained, deeper than any existential anguish that I might have felt.
Perhaps we should all learn to be willing to let go when one truly wishes to depart. I cannot imagine that a person who does not desire to live, is truly doing any favors to those they profess to be doing it for. Living a wasted life is just as disruptive to the people around you as killing yourself. Rather than being an abrupt end, it is a slow poison. Either way, why drink of the Earth’s precious nectars which you do not desire, and yet others crave.
We have sanctified death to the point of having an unhealthy relationship with it. We cling to the lives of others because we fear the loss of our own.
Really? I had no idea I was immune from criticism in MPSIMS. 'Cause in the past I’ve gotten enought flack in there that I considered suicide.
I agree with you that the survivors have the right to be angry. How is someone supposed to react when such a horrible thing has happened? Perhaps my feelings are colored by the fact that in this line of work I have not seen the aftermath; instead, I have heard hundreds of people describing their state of mind while they were considering suicide.
I don’t think anyone would disagree that those folks have a right to be feeling all kinds of emotions, anger being one of them, but our society is all set up to prejudge the person who committed the act without any knowledge of the situation — there is such a strong stigma attached to suicide that the suicide victim is an easy target. I guess my point is that the side of the family is an obvious easy one to defend, while the side of the individual is easy to criticize.
It’s a challenge to look at that and say “Yes. they should be angry” while at the same time accepting that suicide is not necessarily the act of a sound mind that can reason things out. That the person’s judgment is very likely nothing like our own. That the person’s emotional pain may be so completely alien to us and so unbearable that absolutely nothing else can possibly matter.
Is it right to judge someone when we incorrectly assume their actions are based on flawless logic with no contradictions or internal inconsistencies?
Nevertheless, this does not absolve them of responsibility. They are responsible for their actions, and they have caused their families to suffer. That cannot be removed. But am I so much better that if I had to work with the same cards that they were dealt that I would be able to do a better job of managing that responsibility?
The arrogance of one who simply looks down on the person who takes their own life with an attitude of superiority is upsetting to me. Just exactly what should the victim have done in their life to avoid a mental state where death was the only option? It’s not like one can simply choose not to suffer debilitating depression, or fend it off by making a correct choice based on superior intellect. Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes friends and family members could have made a difference but didn’t. Sometimes it results in the end of a life.
I’ve known a lot of suicides. I just feel profound sadness, not that someone committed suicide, but that their lives were filled with so much pain that suicide became a real choice for them.
I’ve mentioned before about a man I knew who was from a family of severe mental illness. Many hospitalizations and incarcerations and medications. He was doped to the gills but the meds didn’t do much. One day he wrote a note saying that he was losing his last vestiges of control; then he killed himself.
The tragedy isn’t that he killed himself. The tragedy is that his life wasn’t worth living for him any more. His life became a torment for him. It became something to dread, that he would snap, that he would harm someone, that he would descend into some savagery and lose more than his life.
Who would demand that of anyone?
I would never commit suicide; there is so much that I’ve learned. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. I don’t think my parents put me through college to off myself. (I took a step outside to take in the breeze and to breathe!) I would never commit suicide; there is so much that I want or need to learn. I’m here at the SDMB for a reason. There is so much to wonder, pity, inspiration, dispair. You can look at things from many perspectives.
I would never commit suicide because there is so much that I know and yet so much that I don’t know.
Desire is the reflection of hope. It is good that you have it, it makes you human and links you to others of your species. For a good time, snuff the spark. Imagine, if you can, a life with no hope and thus no desire (for desire is only the hope that a wish will come true). Imagine being unable to feel either. You simply exist, and on the outside, apart from the rest of humanity that is willing and able to dare, to hope and feel thrill and purpose.
OP can express his feelings, but at least from my perspective they are misfounded. Just wanted to clear that up. It is bad enough for me to realize how profoundly cut off I am emotionally from the rest of the world–so much so that I have had to learn to “fake it” just to keep from getting stared at and ridiculed–but to be thought of as “weak” for wanting to stop the loneliness is threatening. DIFFERENT people are persecuted and/or ignored because they are not understood.
Rilchiam, yep, that was me at close to my worst. Was I playing then? “Once a thief, always a suspect; Once a liar, never believed.” We’re acquainted on a message board, I didn’t make good on a promise once–who am I to try & defend my credibility? People will believe what they want. My world facinates me, I expect it would bore others. But listen, I live on a stage. I am not allowed to respond to all of my senses because much of what I sense is only in my head. I hallucinate under stress, and the hallucinations are not limited to what you might call “sensory malfunctions.” I guess they could be called delusions, but I prefer “cognitive hallucination.” I’m given to believe things that simply are not true. The greater the stress, the worse the symptoms, which in turn add more stress. Simply put, I broke. And while I can live it down to some extent here, I see a broken man in the mirror every day. I know what I am, and it disgusts me that I can’t function properly.
I horse around here sometimes. But look at the form it takes. I play with perception. I dig language tricks, logic tricks or just plain disjunction becuase that’s where I live. I lie every day just to fit in so I can keep a job and pay the bills. I’m seen as qwerky by my peers and am not trusted by those who know me. And who can blame them? Any joy I do find is in my own fantasy world, and it’s a rare person who can keep their feet in the right world and be willing to poke their head into mine for my own amusement. I cherish and trouble them, but I also know I’m using them, which is wrong. So with joy comes guilt and self-loathing. Dafur, habe ich angst.
Sorry to pick on you — but you are speaking from your current rational state of mind. What if you suddenly found yourself plunged into the depths of a depression that you had no control over? It’s like saying you are sure you will never get sick.
Of course, on preview I see that Inigo Montoya responded to your statement in far more elegant a fashion. Hopelessness and lack of desire for anything are the hallmarks of depression. You are certain you are above those?
Here’s an interesting tangent: this article states that 15% of deaths in multiple sclerosis are due to suicide. Could you say with certainty that after years of decline with such a disease that you would not consider ending your life?