I can’t even begin to describe how stupid is the phrase “I got mine” to refer to someone giving up their entire life.
People don’t kill themselves for personal gain. It’s the end of their existence. People do this when their suffering is too intense to remain living for someone else’s benefit. What kind of person requires people to exist in agony just to spare the bystanders any degree of discomfort?
My mother attempted suicide twice when I was a child. Was my “degree of discomfort” at the concept of becoming an indigent orphan of less value than the “agony” she felt in those times? Are you going to lecture me about how selfish my ten-year-old self was for not wanting my mother to die?
I don’t think suicide should be easy and convenient because then people may do it impulsively when in a brief moment of distress. Example situations might be things like a breakup, loss of job, financial problems, after a big argument, etc. The person may consider suicide in that moment, but given a few days or weeks those thoughts would likely dissipate. If there were suicide pods that they could hop into at any moment, some people would do it impulsively. But if someone has a condition which will seriously degrade their quality of life on a long-term basis, I think suicide should be an option for them. That’s where a proper screening process can help. If the person has to go to multiple sessions over several months to get the doctor’s approval, then that will help filter those people who are really serious about it versus those who may be more impulsive about it.
A therapist would say that fear and anger are normal in this situation, and that you should work with them to process and move past it so that it doesn’t overtake your entire worldview.
I’m not your therapist. If you’re able to harshly judge someone in such grievous pain that they want to die, do not come to me waving the bloody shirt of your childhood trauma. My compassion is reserved for people who show compassion to others.
So your response to ten-year-old orphan me would have been “suck it up, your emotions don’t matter”, then.
Got it.
I do judge my mother’s grievous pain back then, because the last thirty years of her life have proven that her intents at the time were wrong. She never would’ve gotten the chance to survive my father’s abuse and outlive him, to come to grips with her own sexuality and overcome her religious upbringing, to meet her grandchildren, and to see her kids become successful adults in spite of their rough childhoods.
The world is better for her not having left it.
Was your degree of discomfort of more value than her agony, how do you determine it without knowing what agony she was in, and why should your determination be the deciding factor?
Nobody is saying this, or even hinting at this.
The thing is, suicide IS an option for them. No need for suicide business to spring up.
My mother died of cancer when I was a child. Had she committed suicide, to spare herself those final months of agony, I’m sure ten year old me would have been devastated and angry at her “selfishness.” Looking back now, adult me can see that suffering to the bitter end, in hospital, was not less “selfish” of her, and that building a grudge against someone who tries desperately to escape pain is, in itself, a bit selfish. Why should someone be forced to suffer to reduce my emotional pain - especially when we are talking about great personal pain for her, and only a slight reduction in emotional pain for me? Why should adult me be angry that someone I love doesn’t suffer more than necessary?
I suffered regardless of whether she died in January or in May.
And for some It will also guarantee several more months of mental and/or physical torture and anguish.
At the potential expense of several decades of a life well lived.
You’re not getting anything. You obviously feel hurt and rejected by your mother’s actions (understandably), and as a child you couldn’t rage at her, so you want to have that fight with anyone who will give it to you. I decline to do so. I will just observe that this must be a really awful way for you to live, and therapy often benefits people in this situation.
For the people who truly cannot fathom going on for a few months, there are always self-implemented options they can use. If they have to wait a little while for the push-button convenience, that seems a reasonable trade-off to prevent the people who are momentarily distraught and irrationally thinking that suicide is the answer to their problem of the moment.
I used to be an orderly in a nursing home in my younger days, and I watched as human beings slipped into dementia and/or died of cancer or some other painful disease. How much pain should they be forced to suffer through, how much indignity should they be forced to go through just to make you, a total stranger to them, feel better emotionally. Can you offer them something better than the pipe dream of " several decades of a life well lived"?
It is funny (really, not) how people who have never experienced the suicide of a parent lecture people who have. It’s like fucking easy to have an opinion on things you (the general you) have no experience with. The gall to then tell a survivor that he’s not getting it, Jebus.
Way to downplay the pain and anguish of people you don’t know.
No, it is not “fucking easy”, and to assume that I (general or otherwise) have no experience in these matters is harsh and dismissive. There are no “fucking easy” answers in matters this complex.
Such as seeing a parent die in agony from a terminal illness with no hope of recovery? Or watching someone wanting to die for most of their life due to mental illness? Is that the sort of thing you’re talking about, or are we just supposed to center the whole discussion on what’s important to you?
I don’t think arguments about who is suffering more are likely to be productive. Can we agree that:
?
Sometimes, we can make a really good guess at (3). The person with painful terminal cancer. The teen in the throes of their first romantic break-up. But often we can’t. And often we don’t know just how bad someone else’s suffering is.
I believe that people who have a decent shot at getting better should be discouraged from suicide. There’s tons of evidence that people who were prevented from committing suicide later regretted having tried, or were grateful they failed. But that’s not ALL people who were prevented from killing themselves. Some go on to succeed. Maybe that was the best for them. It’s really not possible to know.
That is truly a bizarre interpretation of anything I’ve written, especially the part you quoted (please go back and read it again). My message would be like any other sane, caring adult, to help her deal with her shock, her grief, and her loss. Those feelings are all real, and she needs to be given whatever help possible to deal with the feelings and integrate them into her future life. That would probably include helping her understand what kinds of feelings can drive a person to suicide.
Your anecdote, by the way, seems to be less about the fact of suicide than the manner of it. I can only imagine what mental anguish that woman must have been under to have taken that action in that way.