# Suicide by train **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 20, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421 "2013-03-20T03:13:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tollhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@Tollhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tollhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/41 "2013-03-20T19:48:45Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > What are ways of suicide that don’t traumatize anyone else. > > I presume finding the body is traumatic. > > Perhaps before killing oneself, you need to find a replacement actor to fill in for you for the rest of your life. > I guess that it’s OK to traumatize only people you know, but don’t traumatize or even inconvenience strangers. Yes isnt that the truth. Some people just flat do not get it. They think serious mental illness is something that should be neat,tidy and not somehow ever affect others. Other health issues can also affect others. My grandmas dementia was sometimes an “inconvenience” but we had the brains to not think she was an asshole for having it. If we were selfish and ignorant, then we might have blamed her ,but alas we knew enough not to. ---
**Author:** ![Tollhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@Tollhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tollhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/42 "2013-03-20T19:59:20Z")
> [@SmellMyWort](#): > > How about a PSA saying you’re only an asshole if you jump in front of a train? ``` No, its the other way around. We need a psa to say its assholery to think so.:rolleyes: ``` ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/43 "2013-03-20T20:00:30Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > Sorry, but your guy was an asshole. Not as big an asshole as this [giant asshole](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Glendale_train_crash), but an asshole nonetheless. > If you want to off yourself, I don’t have a problem with that. But to kill other people in the process or subject a train conductor to a lifetime of nightmares, well only an asshole would do that. > Want to kill yourself? Fine go ahead, but man the fuck up and do it without endangering other people. QFT. Selfish enough to not think about the pain to those who know and love you, but deliberately traumatizing strangers? :mad: ---
**Author:** ![SmellMyWort](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/44 "2013-03-20T20:12:57Z")
> [@Tollhouse](#): > > No, its the other way around. We need a psa to say its assholery to think so.:rolleyes: Any words of support for people that shoot up movie theaters or kill elementary schoolers? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/45 "2013-03-20T20:13:02Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > You seem to be saying that people who need help are assholes. I honestly have no idea where you are getting that from. I certainly don’t believe that and I haven’t read anything here from others that even remotely supports that idea. We’re in MPSIMS and I have no interest in moving this to the Pit. Can you explain what has been posted here that you believe supports the idea that anyone with a mental illness is an asshole? ---
**Author:** ![Tollhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@Tollhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tollhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/46 "2013-03-20T20:43:30Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > QFT. Selfish enough to not think about the pain to those who know and love you, but deliberately traumatizing strangers? :mad: Welcome to the wonderful club of those of us who get it and marvel at the ignorance on the subject. Yes in their self contained reality believe it or not,this is how those types of people think. Believe it or not. . ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/47 "2013-03-20T20:47:00Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Mental illness doesn’t turn you into a robot incapable of free will. Unfortunately, it can, and in some instances, it does. **Thylacine’s** story is a good example. Most people with OCD can describe instances where their free will was destroyed by the impulses they endured. When I had a bout of suicidal ideation a few years ago, it wasn’t a calm deliberation of “I hate my life, so I should kill myself. Gee, what method would be best?”. It was a series of incredibly intrusive, painful thoughts that I could not control. Thoughts of “I SHOULD BE DEAD RIGHT NOW.” I have no problem imagining that it could have driven me to kill myself in a way that would have harmed other people. I accidentally submitted this long before I was done, so I’ll continue in another post. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/48 "2013-03-20T21:06:54Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > People absolutely do choose when and where to commit suicide. Most suicides and suicide attempts are made at the spur of the moment, and they are completed with whatever method is on hand at the time - a gun, a bridge, a rope . . . or a train. Time and again, prevention approaches which remove access to a method (there was an article about Great Britain changing the type of gas used in their stoves and that it drastically cut the number of suicides, but I can’t find it) and give suicidal people the opportunity to seek help reduce the number of suicides. > [@](#): > > Mental illness does not mean that you become completely free of responsibility for your actions. Except that very obviously, there are times when we, as a society, acknowledge that a person is no longer in their right mind and cannot be held accountable for their actions. Psychosis and some forms of schizophrenia remove people so far from our inborn ability to make sense of the world around us, that we accept their decisions are not rational. Depression can go that far as well. Some types of depression can actually lead to psychosis. **MsWhatsit** , like you, I really, really want people with suicidal impulses to get the help they need, especially because there is no such thing as a suicide that harms no bystander, and especially in the case of “suicide by train” or other instances where the person uses other human beings to cause their deaths. I just don’t consider the people who do this to be morally culpable. That’s partly because the hate-and-blame reaction doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t prevent others from using that method. In fact, it either discourages people from seeking help, or in the case of some very damaged individuals who want to spread their pain onto others, it may encourage them to follow suit. > [@SmellMyWort](#): > > Any words of support for people that shoot up movie theaters or kill elementary schoolers? Not really. My own visceral reaction is so overwhelming that I can’t manage to find any empathy. After all, these people have priorities of a) kill and maim as many other people as possible; b) kill myself to avoid facing the consequences. That’s in opposition to people whose priorities are a) stop the soul-killing pain I can’t escape by any other means and b) not really caring if someone else is hurt when I do that. Because, you didn’t really mean to compare mass murderers with people suffering from a severe, life-threatening and often fatal mental illness, did you? I’m sure you didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/49 "2013-03-20T21:09:40Z")
> [@Tollhouse](#): > > Welcome to the wonderful club of those of us who get it and marvel at the ignorance on the subject. Yes in their self contained reality believe it or not,this is how those types of people think. Believe it or not. . I find it difficult to be sympathetic to anyone who deliberately harms others without good cause, such as by forcing a stranger to carry the guilt of taking their life. I’m also not 100% sympathetic to the POV that claims that suicide has nothing to do with cowardice. My father checked out when I was 10, the day after my mother found out he’d been molesting me. Knowing him, it was a combination of being unwilling to face up to the consequences of his choices regarding me and a control thing. He couldn’t have cared less about the pain left in his wake, unless maybe he considered hurting his wife and child a bonus. I’ve had suicidal tendencies of my own, largely in situations where I found the idea of continuing my life too scary, so yeah, I’d call that a certain degree of cowardice on myself as well. Situations and people differ, I know. There are still some absolutes, such as the selfishness of deliberately traumatizing strangers by making them kill you. If you must opt out, don’t force someone else to commit that act. Suck it up and DIY. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/50 "2013-03-20T21:16:18Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > QFT. Selfish enough to not think about the pain to those who know and love you, but deliberately traumatizing strangers? :mad: It’s impossible to say from outside that person’s mind whether they deliberately set out to traumatize other people, but having experienced suicidal impulses and having listened to others describe their experiences, I can say selfishness really doesn’t enter into it. Depression so severe it brings about suicidal impulses does not include rational thoughts or decisions. It is not rational to believe you are so worthless you should do everyone around you a favor and kill yourself. When a person gets to that point, it’s impossible to accurately judge others’ reactions. Suicidal people honestly believe that their deaths will be a relief to their loved ones. It’s not difficult to extrapolate from there that a stranger would be, at worst, unaffected by their death. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/51 "2013-03-20T21:24:24Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > I’m also not 100% sympathetic to the POV that claims that suicide has nothing to do with cowardice. My father checked out when I was 10, the day after my mother found out he’d been molesting me. Knowing him, it was a combination of being unwilling to face up to the consequences of his choices regarding me and a control thing. He couldn’t have cared less about the pain left in his wake, unless maybe he considered hurting his wife and child a bonus. > > I’ve had suicidal tendencies of my own, largely in situations where I found the idea of continuing my life too scary, so yeah, I’d call that a certain degree of cowardice on myself as well. > > Situations and people differ, I know. There are still some absolutes, such as the selfishness of deliberately traumatizing strangers by making them kill you. If you must opt out, don’t force someone else to commit that act. Suck it up and DIY. **Seanette** , I am so sorry you had to go through that. However, I think a distinction should be drawn. Your father was (probably, but not without doubt) not depressed. He killed himself to avoid the consequences of having been discovered. That? Yes, I’d call that cowardice, with a big dollop of self-hatred. The people who commit suicide by throwing themselves in front of trains tend to be impulsive - they are overcome by the impulse, they know that getting hit by a train is just about guaranteed to be fatal, so they fall onto the tracks just in front of the train - and that impulse is part of a poorly understood, imperfectly treated mental illness. It’s less cowardice or evil than it is an inability to grasp reality. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/52 "2013-03-20T21:54:47Z")
I still wonder where in this conversation, especially among those who view the mentally ill as not sufficiently human to be accountable for actions, there’s any compassion for their victims. ---
**Author:** ![Tollhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@Tollhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tollhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/53 "2013-03-20T22:07:23Z")
> [@phouka](#): > > Unfortunately, it can, and in some instances, it does. **Thylacine’s** story is a good example. Most people with OCD can describe instances where their free will was destroyed by the impulses they endured. > > When I had a bout of suicidal ideation a few years ago, it wasn’t a calm deliberation of “I hate my life, so I should kill myself. Gee, what method would be best?”. It was a series of incredibly intrusive, painful thoughts that I could not control. Thoughts of “I SHOULD BE DEAD RIGHT NOW.” I have no problem imagining that it could have driven me to kill myself in a way that would have harmed other people. > > I accidentally submitted this long before I was done, so I’ll continue in another post. ``` Phouka, thank you for helping shed light on this. I assumed this is widely known by the average joe, even,But apparently not known by some here.. . When I was little a teenage girl across the street whom we knew very well, jumped off a freeway overpass and was very fortunate in that she was harmed but didnt die. Turned out she was manic depressive or now known as bipolar. She was the sweetest person, and not selfish at all ``` ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/54 "2013-03-20T22:08:41Z")
> [@Tollhouse](#): > > Rick, Im sorry, you seem to have misunderstood who is exhibiting assholery behavior > [@Telemark](#): > > Yup, thank you for demonstrating proper technique. Both of you knock off the insults in this forum. ---
**Author:** ![Tollhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@Tollhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tollhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/55 "2013-03-20T23:01:17Z")
Idle Thoughts, I just wanted to explain that I was not calling any person an asshole. I was stating the behavior of calling a victim of mental illness an asshole as Rick did at the start of the thread, the behavior of that was. But I will not mention the word again, just wanted to point out the word asshole was used first to descrive.the person who tragically died from mental illness. Apparently this was offensive to some others as well. Hopefuly the many people who used that word will also cease using it as I saw an abundnce of that word used here. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/56 "2013-03-21T00:23:54Z")
> [@Tollhouse](#): > > Idle Thoughts, I just wanted to explain that I was not calling any person an asshole. I was stating the behavior of calling a victim of mental illness an asshole as Rick did at the start of the thread, the behavior of that was. But I will not mention the word again, just wanted to point out the word asshole was used first to descrive.the person who tragically died from mental illness. Apparently this was offensive to some others as well. Hopefuly the many people who used that word will also cease using it as I saw an abundnce of that word used here. Your post was a subtle insult, so again, don’t do it in this forum. If you wish to call out another poster, you do so in the Pit. If you have any further questions about this note or the last one, feel free to ask about it in PM or in About This Message Board. ---
**Author:** ![Tollhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@Tollhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tollhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/57 "2013-03-21T00:55:30Z")
Ok, thank you, and hopefully the posters who were not so subtle in their use of the word will cease using it. Recently it was explained that it is ok to call a behavior an insult, but not to call a person an insult, (i.e. ok to say a behavior is assholery, but not ok to call a person an asshole) so that was what I was going by In any case it appears there was no lack by many posters here, in using the word ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/58 "2013-03-21T01:30:14Z")
I think a lot of people commit suicide by train because it has a pretty high guarantee of being fatal. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/59 "2013-03-21T01:38:33Z")
Wow. I don’t know what I expected – this was MPSIMS that happened here – but I didn’t expect such animosity! ---
**Author:** ![Tollhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@Tollhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tollhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421/60 "2013-03-21T01:46:22Z")
At least one other pposter mentioned this,…the poor coverage of mental healthcare, especially for those on low cost insurance many of whom are young people. It is all too common for a person to not be able to get the level of care they need. A person who attempt s suicide released after only a couple days, you know there was not any psychiatric treatment in two days. I read andrea yates during one of her hospitalizations was released prematurely while she was still psychotic. There needs to be alot more accountability on the medical care providers hospitals and insurance. And then this goes back to the fact society needs to take more ownership or respinsibility by advocating better medical coverage for serious mental illness. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-train/653421.md?page=4)