Student finds teacher hanging in classroom.

[nearwildheaven]

@usedtobe

Since when is suicide ALWAYS irrational?

There are very good reasons certain people are given cyanide pills for use if they are captured.

And soldiers have been told to save the last bullet for themselves for as long as there have been bullets.

And are really certain that a rational person cannot weigh the good vs bad of continued existence and decide the bad far outweighs the good?

Always? Every last time?

Yes? How old are you?

I can think of one situation where suicide is rational, and it’s when a person has a terminal and untreatable disease that is likely to kill them slowly and painfully.

As for “why don’t you just kill yourself before taking other people with you”, I found out a while back that a medical student I did rotations with did indeed do exactly this. He was separated from his wife and was at her house to pick the kids, who were single-digit ages, up for a visit, and he got out of the car in broad daylight, pulled out a gun in the front yard, and shot himself right then and there. :eek:

I would never have expected him to ever do anything like this, either.

[dada2fish]

@PunditLisa

One of my dad’s best friend’s committed suicide. My dad, who had taken care of him for the better part of a year, found him. He’d shot himself.

I often wonder why his friend didn’t call 911 prior to offing himself. It sure would have saved my dad the trauma of finding him with his face blown off. And he’s a grown adult. It really sucks that a teacher would traumatize her students like that.

Maybe he wanted to make sure he was good and dead before he was found.

Maybe he feared EMT might show up faster than he anticipated before he got up the nerve to put a bullet in his brain.

Maybe since there’s no such thing as a practice shot, he feared the bullet might not inflict enough damage to cause his immediate death and EMT might show up in time to stabilize him and he’d live out the rest of his days a vegetable or somewhat brain damaged.

Maybe he felt your father could handle it better than anyone else.

Maybe he felt your dad was the only person he’d prefer to see him in such a personal, exposed way.

I’ve had the crappy experience of finding a loved one dead by suicide. He knew I would be the one to find him. I’ve run that question through my mind hundreds of times.

I don’t think they are concerned with how we, as the ones who discover them, will deal with the aftermath. I can only assume they are overwhelmed with other thoughts in the moments prior to death.

[kopek]

@Battle_Pope

The situation is developing.

Focus, man ---- focus.

[Master_Wang-Ka]

I find it notable that a fair number of students have shot up their schools… and yet no teachers have done likewise.

Suicide, now, at least seems plausible.

[G0sp3l]

^^^ give 'em time

[running_coach]

@Master_Wang-Ka

I find it notable that a fair number of students have shot up their schools… and yet no teachers have done likewise.

Suicide, now, at least seems plausible.

He’s back!

[panache45]

When I was in college, I discovered one of my rooming-house-mates hanging in his room. That’s one memory I wish I could erase from my mind.

And a distant relative of mine hanged herself in her basement, knowing that her pre-teen son would discover her. The kid’s in his 60s now, and has spent all the years since, going from mental institutions to homelessness.

I can’t put myself in a suicidal person’s shoes, but if you’re going to do it, there has to be a less selfish way.

[Ambivalid]

@nearwildheaven

I can think of one situation where suicide is rational, and it’s when a person has a terminal and untreatable disease that is likely to kill them slowly and painfully.

Even those who choose suicide due to mental illness I would guess usually make “rational” decisions about their suicide to them. It’s not the suicide itself that is the irrational part, it’s the mental illness and the thoughts, etc. produced as a result. Someone who is horribly, intractably depressed for years on end and sees no hope and no way out ever is not making an irrational decision when they choose suicide. They are escaping pain just like the terminal patient.

[Nancarrow]

@Master_Wang-Ka

I find it notable that a fair number of students have shot up their schools… and yet no teachers have done likewise.

Suicide, now, at least seems plausible.

Where THE FUCK have you been?

[kaylasdad99]

Writing the OP for his comeback thread.

[Inna_Minnit]

@gigi

Absolutely, but can you hang yourself at home and not at school where students can find you? If not, perhaps there is something else motivating you? Like the local kid who went where he knew the girl he was mad at would be the first to find him, and shot himself in the head. I guess maybe he wasn’t depressed – just pissed off.

Maybe she was one of those people who didn’t have anyone in their life who would notice if she went missing.

Michigan woman’s auto-payments hid her death for over 5 years | CNN

[nearwildheaven]

@Master_Wang-Ka

I find it notable that a fair number of students have shot up their schools… and yet no teachers have done likewise.

Suicide, now, at least seems plausible.

Wanna bet?

2010 University of Alabama in Huntsville shooting

And this incident, which produced the highest casualty count of any act of school violence, was committed by a janitor. He mostly used dynamite, but some of the fatalities were caused by a gun.

Bath School disaster