Hanging one’s self seems like a somewhat popular method. To me, though, in the thankfully few times in my life I was unable to breathe, they were the most unpleasant experiences of my life. Mostly it was choking on food, a couple times my throat closed up from acid reflux while sleeping. In every case, it was horrifically unpleasant being unable to get my next breath. And it was a primal panic, not one I imagine that is going to be alleviated by wanting to die.
Why do people choose this method? They never choked before, or it’s just not as horrible an experience to them as me? Or do they actively want to suffer? Or what?
Plus once you kick the chair out from under you there’s pretty much no going back.
If you’re afraid you might have a change of heart at the last second and want to make sure you succeed that may be an important factor.
I wonder that as well. Is it that we the living only see the dead body in its final, peaceful state? Because we never see the panicked thrashing of the person, we imagine it is a peaceful way to go?
What a bummer for the suicidal person, to find out far too late that their last moments on this earth will be in a blind panic, unable to scream what they are thinking - “my god this hurts a fucking lot! Get me out of here!” Not knowing how long it will be unbearable before you finally go unconscious, but knowing that it is already too long.
It’s a very well-known method, you don’t need access to special equipment or chemicals, you can do it in private pretty much anywhere, and it’s set up and principals are simple enough to perform that a even a person in a distressed mind set can usually pull it off.
It’s easy enough that even if you don’t do it with great technique it’ll still usually work unlike other methods like bleeding to death or OD which can actually rather tricky to get right. Yes there are quicker and more pain/distress free methods, but those usually require more elaborate set up and can be riskier to get caught at or do incorrectly.
Most people sitting and reading this could pull it off with about 2 minutes (or less) of prep time and using nothing more than their own clothing and the nearest anchor point.
There is a well known how to book on suicide that states that asphyxiation is the best method but it describes a different way involving oxygen replacement. I will not go into details. I have seen it several times. For the record it does not make your 15 year old daughter less devastated when she finds you dead in this manner.
We had a guy who put a dry bag over his head to kill himself. At any time, he could have simply unclicked the clasp to take it off but he rode it out to a successful (?) conclusion.
Hanging isn’t as unpleasant as it sounds. Pressure from the ligature pinches off the carotid arteries, interrupting bloodflow to the brain, and inducing cerebral hypoxia in a matter of seconds - long before your lungs start to develop uncomfortable concentrations of CO2.
This is a common cause of death for practitioners of autoerotic asphyxiation because they don’t realize how rapidly unconsciousness sets in. A typical scenario involves someone relaxing their legs or knees to apply tension to their neck ligature, with the expectation that if trouble arises they need only stand up or straighten their knees to relax the neck ligature. But - surprise! - they are rendered dizzy and unconscious with unexpected quickness, and then the weight of their body maintains ligature tension until they are dead. They get discovered in this state, and it’s not uncommon for the discover to think, “why didn’t they just stand up?” Well, that’s why; the victim was unprepared for how suddenly unconsciousness could set in.
It’s not clear whether people intentionally committing suicide by hanging are aware of this (i.e. that unconsciousness sets in rapidly), or whether they don’t care.
I had a friend who killed herself via hanging (belt, from a closet rod, relaxing knees/legs to apply pressure) because she’d played asphyxiation “games” as a teen and knew how easy it’d be for her to slip away.
I suppose they are a few ways that someone can die from hanging. The first is when the drop is too high and results in decapitation. Not a problem with a belt or a short drop. The second is from cutting blood flow to the brain. by applying pressure to the arteries running up the neck That one happens quickly as ME notes. The third is by restricting oxygen flow into the lungs and CO2 flow out.
How common is 2 vs 3? If a method of hanging prevents oxygen from coming in, is it pretty sure that it’s also preventing blood from going to the brain?
Am I correct that all the pain associated with choking is a result of not expelling CO2?
Yes, this. I had an acquaintance who accidentally killed himself this way.
They’re not slowly suffocating themselves. Putting pressure on the throat cuts off the flow of blood to the brain leading to rapid loss of consciousness.