I have thought about suicide most of my life. I have posted this before:
At 15, I decided I was too young and inexperienced to make a rational decision about suicide. I decided to reconsider at 30.
At 30, I decided the world wasn’t worth killing myself over.
At 45 and starting to have some chronic health issues, I wondered if the world was worth keeping myself alive for.
The jury’s still out on that one.
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
At 45 and starting to have some chronic health issues, I wondered if the world was worth keeping myself alive for.
[/QUOTE]
Of course, at 45 you’re kind of committed (pardon the word), you’re at the point in Return of The King where Frodo just got his finger bit off. He failed and lived. And then the story ended. And then it ended again. And then one more time… Peter Jackson is God. 'course I understand Dennis Hopper just got up and walked out of the theater before the movie was over. So…do you identify with Hopper?
[QUOTE=Sgt Schwartz]
If 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.
[/QUOTE]
This is bullshit. Do not make the OP feel guilty for not “saving” his friend. When a person is that bent on suicide, there really is nothing anyone can do, or can be expected to do. When you want to die, you really don’t give a rat’s ass about the efforts of your friends and loved ones. Laying guilt on the OP for not preventing the suicide or being hurt by it is not fair and not called for. Disagree with his sentiments, but the above is just out of line IMO.
Rubystreak is totally right there Shwartz. One of the guys was more his brother’s friend, ffs. We can’t all be our brother’s buddy’s keeper.
I was honestly curious about your opinion on the self banishment to a monastery question, MTRG, though I guess the question may seem frivolous. I think I’m trying to understand the difference between death and otherwise suddenly never hearing from a person for the rest of your life - when both are decisions taken secretly by the other party.
[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
This is bullshit. Do not make the OP feel guilty for not “saving” his friend. When a person is that bent on suicide, there really is nothing anyone can do, or can be expected to do. When you want to die, you really don’t give a rat’s ass about the efforts of your friends and loved ones. Laying guilt on the OP for not preventing the suicide or being hurt by it is not fair and not called for. Disagree with his sentiments, but the above is just out of line IMO.
[/QUOTE]
The OP begins with suicidal people are weak. I think it has been shown on this thread that many people think about suicide. Not all of those are weak in mind, spirit or body. I did offer my help to get over the grief of losing a friend, but unless he knows what his friends were going through, who is he to say they were weak. How do you know his friends were “bent on suicide.” I work to prevent death by suicide, but I also try to help prevent the stigma of suicide.
The OP may not have prevented it, but he needs to understand that you can’t pass judgment on those who choose suicide. Also, as I stated, if he started this in another forum, I would have been more touchy-feelly. He picked the Pit. He gets my Pit feelings.
SSG Schwartz
[QUOTE=Obsidian]
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.
[/QUOTE]
I could not have said it better and that is why i did not try. Very well put.
Inigo: Well, okay. But at the time, it didn’t sound like a “promise”, and I know I didn’t want you to keep it! I just wish it wasn’t like this, that a person has to be suicidal, or claim to be, before people offer help.
[QUOTE=mswas]
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.
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Well never let it be said that SD censors the idiotic. That is easily the second dumbest thing i have read here, of course i have only been a member for less than a week. (Yes Martin Hyde’s comment that sick people did not deserve treatment if they couldn’t pay for it was the dumbest so far, but I must say the competition is getting fierce.)
Let’s see: you are glad that people who don’t want to live kill themselves because they have no appreciation of their own lives. You spent long stretches where you did not want to live, every day, but you did not want to kill yourself so that is ok. Of course I can see the difference. You lack ambition, you are an underachiever, you are using and wasting our resources. Get a l…
[QUOTE=mswas]
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.
[/QUOTE]
This is suitably edgy, at least, if not consistent— you encourage suicide for those wastrels who want it, then admit you’ve been one of those wastrels who couldn’t manage to follow through. Were you “wasting the precious gift of life” during those stretches where you contemplated suicide? Is there a finite supply of life such that we need throw the weakest from the lifeboat for the betterment of the elect who “get it?”
If you had the courage of your convictions and succeeded in taking your own life, would that have been a laudable “proactive approach,” or a “momentary lapse of reason,” the vicissitudes of natural selection?
And frankly, who the fuck are you to make that determination about the lives of others?
(On preview, I see I am late.)
[QUOTE=Kozmik]
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.
[/QUOTE]
That is truly kozmik.
I live in a state (Alaska) that has the highest rate of suicide in the USA. Its not uncommon to read of a suicide EVERY day on the state trooper report. Its epidemic. Suicide hit home early this summer when a friends nephew (whom she raised as her own) shot himself in the skatepark. His grandma, who was just here for his graduation from high school, returned for his memorial a couple of days later. Friends and family mourned by painting the skatepark. Now, they want to name the skatepark after him. I say no. He did not die in the war or in a tragic car accident. He is not a hero. Do not immoralize him and send the message that you will get a park named after you when you kill yourself.
My consolation was he didn’t do the deed in my friends house and he didn’t take anybody with him.
Kimstu: heart in the right place.
Inigo: asshole.
That is all.
~descends from the throne whence he has meted out wise and infallible judgement, and gets on with his day~
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya]
Of course, at 45 you’re kind of committed (pardon the word), you’re at the point in Return of The King where Frodo just got his finger bit off. He failed and lived. And then the story ended. And then it ended again. And then one more time… Peter Jackson is God. 'course I understand Dennis Hopper just got up and walked out of the theater before the movie was over. So…do you identify with Hopper?
[/QUOTE]
Well, it’s never too late! Besides, if you get the right illness, you can effectively kill yourself without lifting a finger.
I am a big fan of Dennis Hopper. Was he in the Ring movies? I am not a fan of those – I’ve never been able to watch the first one through, and haven’t even tried to watch the others.
So, maybe that makes Denny and me kindred spirits, I dunno. He does seem to have an aesthetic of a very dark humor toward what goes on around him, and I do as well. I have taught myself to be more entertained than angered by our fuckup world. This relates to my isolation from the rest of the world – I find it easy to believe I’m not even human, I am a separate species watching human antics like I’d watch bears wearing funny hats at a circus. But I’ve seen most of the bear acts by now, and they’re getting repetitive.
[QUOTE=Kozmik]
I would never commit suicide because there is so much that I know and yet so much that I don’t know.
[/QUOTE]
Like what it’s like to lie bedridden in a nursing home, old, sad and alone while a minimum-wage nurse’s aide who hates you flips you over and wipes your ass? (And probably doesn’t even do a very good job)
[QUOTE=MTRG]
I am not so much hurt (personally) as I am angry at the hurt they cause.
[/QUOTE]
Becoming angry at the newly electively dead is not productive.
In the abstract, one’s life should be one’s own, to use and use up as one sees fit.
Those who have courted dependents have no right to leave them behind but all others should be permitted, in philosophic principle, to throw away a life they did not ask to be given. Suicide changes the timeline but not the inevitability of death.
The practical dilemma is that the evidence is fairly good that the vast majority of suicidal folks would change their mind if given time. This includes nearly all of the underage crowd as well as most suicidal adults.
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya]
I…I just can’t thank you enough for reminding me how absent hope and happiness have been from my life for these last 40 fucking years! And how negative and dark and painfully pendulous between numbness and horrific mental agony my existence has become this last decade. Thank you! Thank you so very much for reminding me that, while there may be no joy for Inigo, at least suffering and horror and perpetual confusion can be consistent; and if nothing else, predicting consistency is a form of success!
God. Damn. You.
[/QUOTE]
Ouch. That was a little rough on someone whose intentions were only good.
That said, the anti-suicide laws, in all their religious glory, are stupid and illegal, as far as I’m concerned. They benefit no one. I’ve already decided I’m moving to Oregon if I’m diagnosed with anything horrid. I’ve also asked some people to help me out if I’m incapacitated and cannot do the deed through legal means. [Billie Holliday]'Tain’t nobody’s business…if I do.[/Billie Holliday]
[QUOTE=CarnalK]
MTRG, if your buddy hated his life so much that he moved to a Tibetan monastery and never communicated with the outside world ever again, would you accept that as a valid choice? Would you be just as angry?
[/QUOTE]
This is an interesting thought.
My initial reaction would be “No, I am not as angry”. my friend moved on …
But , after thinking a bit (and I think that this is what you are getting at), is that yes, I am as angry since the people left behind can never know why (he moved to Tibet).
Part of my premise is that I feel like I am over my grief, sadness, but yet I know of others (family , freinds) who are not over it.
So the fact that I/they will never know why is part of it, no doubt
[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
Ouch. That was a little rough on someone whose intentions were only good.
[/QUOTE]
Was intended as a joke. I still don’t have this whole humor thing down I guess. But evidently I’m an asshole, so at least I’ve learned that about myself.
No, can’t let it end there. Kimstu was able to grasp the truth behind the (rough) jest. I suppose the polite thing to do would have been to just smile & wave and say “Thank you for the kind and encouraging thought” but this being The Pit and all It seemed (and still does) appropriate to explain how that kind of a comment is actually more destructive than encouraging. For some people at least. So I’ll put the asshole ball back in Malacandra’s court. But I’ll agree that Kimstu is tha bomb.
This attitude is pretty common, and it’s something that irritates me.
It’s easier to cope with anger than sadness or guilt or whatever, so I guess that’s the motive in most cases.
Do you honestly believe that suicide is the “easy way” out of anything? Humans are hard wired to do anything they can to avoid death - to overcome this requires extraordinary circumstances.
There are people, I’m sure, who make far too rash decisions over temporary emotional pain, and that’s unfortunate. And anyone who leaves a dependent behind deserves scorn.
But there are plenty of people in which there was there was no overreaction to a temporary crisis - their very lives were utterly miserable to the point where they could no longer function. If you don’t understand how debilitating long term, deep depression is, it’s difficult to emphathize. It’s not just about feeling sad in the sense that most people understand it - the very essence of your life is sucked away by an existance that has no happiness for unbearably long periods of time. And you can’t just “snap out of it” or anything ridiculous like that - it’s not a choice to become depressed or stay depressed - the very will to work your way out of it is what’s sapped away.
Most people don’t spend much time thinking about death because they shield themselves from thinking about it. They’ll intuitively think they’re all going to heaven (or whatever vague, pleasant thought appeals to them), even if they aren’t particularly religious. They avoid thinking about it. But people who contemplate suicide contemplate death. There’s no vague happy religious comfort - pretty much all religions say that suicide will only lead to more pain in the afterlife. So, at the very best, they’re hoping for some kind of non-existance that they don’t have the ability to truly comprehend. It’s incredibly scary. The drive to avoid death is fundamental to human nature.
So to be able to overcome that requires suffering that most people can’t truly understand. And if a person is experience this kind of suffering - you expect them to keep going, to suck it up and keep suffering, for your convenience, because you don’t want to be bothered by them choosing to end it? And you suggest that they’re the selfish, contemptable ones?
You assume they’re weak, but what if they’ve been struggling for years to keep it together, with what remained of their psyche being chipped away? What if people lived in utter misery for years for exactly the reason that they wanted to avoid hurting those who would be left behind? Are these people weak when they’re finally utterly destroyed as a person and can’t muster the energy to keep going?
If someone close to me committed suicide, I wouldn’t be angry. I’d probably be very hurt - but I would try to empathize. I’d have to recognize that they suffered so much that it would be wrong of me to want them to stay alive simply to avoid the pain of losing them. Anger is generally a selfish reaction from someone who lacks the understanding to empathize with the situation.