I’ve had over 25 years to think about and research suicide. Nothing you have said is new to me, I’ve heard it all before. You’re “I’m merely offering another viewpoint” is condescending. I disagree with it. I find the “consider the other viewpoint” endlessly repeated to be nothing more than an attempt to batter at alternative viewpoints until they go away or crumble, because you don’t view those other perspectives as valid. I find repeated statements that the survivors shouldn’t resent the suicide to be a total disregard of the mental wounds the survivors suffer.
I think in many cases it truly is the case that transient problems are wrongly seen as intractable. I also think a lot of people give more weight to the pain of the suicide than to anyone else’s pain, and I think that’s also wrong.
You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion because in the end that’s what this is, a war of opinions.
I find some of what you said offensive. I don’t think you intended them to be such, but they were.
True, it was mostly Uber the Goober that was saying the survivors were wrong to resent the suicide but you know, YOU, individually, Mijin are not the only person in this thread I’m responding to.
What I find most objectionable about YOU, personally, is your continual questioning of my sister’s death with such statements as “but how do you know that her problems were transient?”. They were. Job loss is temporary. Mom got better. The other things eating on her were likewise temporary problems. I get the sense you want me to say that oh, somehow I was mistaken and I just didn’t understand and yes, it’s all OK now that she killed herself. That’s not going to happen. Her death was needless, pointless, done in a manner to viciously hurt others, and a great waste of talent and intelligence. No one’s life was improved by her absence, and the lives of some were considerable diminished by her loss. There was not one goddamn positive thing to come of her death. Not one.
I have repeatedly said that there are very rare circumstances where suicide might be justified but you and Uber the Goober and others seem to not see when I write that. My sister is a glaring example of a non justifiable self-murder, because that’s what it was - she murdered herself. Any statement that I shouldn’t feel resentment or anger over that act is a slap in the face. ** Anger and resentment is a very common and very normal reaction to suicide. ** Saying to a survivor “you shouldn’t feel that way” is like telling someone thinking of killing him or herself “you shouldn’t feel that way”. It’s a denial that their state of feeling is valid. I might feel someone suicidal is irrational or wrong in their perception of reality but I don’t doubt they feel suicidal. Likewise, don’t fucking deny MY feelings, MY pain, MY state of being.
I understand that some people in this thread have been in that unimaginably dark pit of suicidal feelings. I am trying to convey how the survivors can feel, how those left behind can perceive suicide. If you want me to respect your feelings, your stories, don’t disrespect mine.
MyFootsZZZ stated
which sums up the dilemma here. The suicidal person is suffering, but ending his suffering means others suffering. Is it a burden to keep living solely for the sake of not hurting others? Sure. It’s also a burden to suffer because someone else died needlessly. Either way someone gets hurt, which is why it’s so important to try to find an alternative to suicide whenever possible.
Clearly, “don’t hurt other people” isn’t strong enough to prevent some people from killing themselves. I recognize that. Just because I recognize an unpleasant fact about reality doesn’t mean I have to like it. I also don’t approve what so many people do, NOT talk about a suicide, not talk about someone who killed themself, pretend that person never existed or they died of some other cause. I don’t approve of the silence, or the stigma still attached to being related to a suicide. Trying to sweep it under the rug is just another way of minimizing the situation and I don’t believe that helps anyone else either.
You know what Broomstick, let’s forget about your personal experience, because you clearly are not in a place where you are comfortable talking about it.
That’s understandable, but don’t accuse others of telling you what to think or disrespecting you etc when they were just trying to have a discussion in a discussion forum.
Actually, I am very comfortable talking about it. You are uncomfortable hearing it.
Again, you are making unwarranted assumptions about my inner state and minimizing my feelings. You don’t want to hear it from my side, it makes you uneasy. I get that.
Sorry, your emotions about your sisters suicide are obviously too raw to see past what you think I’m saying.
I’ll try one more time, and you’ll have to just accept that if you’re still ascribing some sort of cold-heartedness to me, then it’s clearly a miscommunication.
Resentment is natural, yes.
Resentment that the suicide happened is natural, yes.
Resenting the PERSON for what they did, does not help, and must be dealt with if you ever hope to move on from your pain. Those emotions are real, and they are also a natural reaction.
Nobody is shaming survivors, or you (since you’re taking it awfully personally), for feeling resentment. All I’m saying, and you can go ask a couple counselors/psychotherapists/whoever, is that resenting a person after they’ve committed suicide is NOT a helpful emotion.
If you can’t acknowledge that at times, all people, even yourself, occasionally have emotions come up within them that are not helpful, then you’re being woefully naive.
Driving a car down a road, getting filled with rage because of another driver’s careless maneuver - legitimate emotion but not HELPFUL to your situation. You’ve got to deal with, and eliminate that emotion or else things will go poorly.
Walking through a zoo, past a lion/snake/arachnid enclosure and getting filled with paralyzing fear - legitimate emotion, but not HELPFUL to your situation.
Your child is running through the house, playing, and they accidentally knock over a very expensive vase - getting very angry would be natural, but certainly not helpful for you to allow that emotion to guide your actions and thoughts while teaching the child to not run in the house. So you’d have to ELIMINATE that emotion from within you, or at least find a way to accept it and move on.
[QUOTE=Broomstick]
True, it was mostly Uber the Goober that was saying the survivors were wrong to resent the suicide but you know
[/QUOTE]
No, No I’m not. I am not saying it is wrong to resent the suicide. I am simply saying that it is not helpful to survivors to resent the person who committed suicide because you can never fully understand their motivations. Accept the difference of perception that leads to different people choosing different solutions to their problems, or else you’ll constantly be ascribing YOUR motivations and values to them, and it’ll hurt all the more.
If you can quote a post where I said it’s WRONG to feel resentment - then please accept my apologies for mis-speaking. I’m pretty sure I did not say that. Your words, my mouth. In fact, I just did a ctrl-f for the word “wrong” and the only post of mine where it appears is this one.
What I don’t like is the assumotion that I’ve never been in as dark a place than someone who has killed themselves. I can’t say for sure myself… but I don’t think it get’s any darker than where I’ve been. I still don’t think it’s an option. I’ve wanted to die so badly before. But if my family is still around, and I know it would mess up their lives greatly, I just couldn’t do it.
I don’t understand what you’re saying. That the person is weaker (in a negative way) than you, and that is why they killed themselves? Or that they MUST have consciously chosen to kill themselves IN ORDER TO HURT YOU…
Neither one of those two things provides for an empathetic response the pain they’re feeling.
It also de-legitimatizes all their pain, by placing your (the survivor) pain above theirs. You can’t be empathetic, or sympathetic, to someone who’s feelings you don’t consider legitimate.
Suicidal people are in a very fragile and very sick place mentally. You certainly can’t expect any type of rational, sympathetic, normal actions from them. You obviously are not a suicidal person - because you’ve never had suicide be an option. That’s good. The suicidal person’s reality is soooo different from yours, because their reality is made entirely by their PERCEPTION. If you read that first sentence in the wiki - you can see how their perception would create for them a totally different world than the one you’re living in. One where their death is the only viable option, at all costs.
They’re not nearly as raw now as when my sister killed herself. Yes, this is the improved me.
I’m not saying I resent my sister, I resent what she did. Yes, I am still powerfully angry at what she DID after all these years because it’s an injustice that will never be corrected.
Are you clear on that now? I am angry at what she DID, at her ACTIONS. That is NOT going to go away. Ever. That is what I want to emphasize here. There has been much said about how awful it is to live every day in a lifetime with a horrible burden. Yes, I know that because my sister has given everyone who knew her such a burden.
A suicide imposes a life long scar on everyone touched by the suicide. Does that mean the survivors, individually, suffer as much as the suicide might have? Probably not. But as pointed out upthread, as an aggregate that’s an awful lot of suffering left behind.
You are implying that I resent my sister. No, I don’t. I do think she fucked up in a very permanent manner, though. It’s rather like if a friend of my came up to me and punched me in the nose hard enough to break my nose. I’m going to be really, really angry at that, and short of doing that to save my life or something it’s not justified. I might later make amends with that person but I’m not going to forget that incident.
The thing is, my sister made it impossible to ever make amends. Giving and receiving of apologies is never going to happen. Suicide is unforgivable in the sense the suicide can’t say “I’m sorry” afterwards. You might come to terms with it, you might have capability to look at their motivations, but viscerally you’ll still be grasping your bleeding nose and saying “What the hell—?”
I understand there are people speaking here from the standpoint of being the depressed/suicidal person. I’m here as someone who was left behind.
Suicide is not a helpful action.
There’s a difference between “dealing with” an emotion and ignoring that it occurs.
I have moved on. However, when the topic of suicide comes up and I hear people going on and on about how the depressed suffer I do feel an obligation to point out that the survivors also suffer.
Accepting there is a difference in motivation is not the same as agreeing with that motivation or condoning it. I think in the vast, overwhelming majority of cases suicide is wrong because it causes great suffering in those left behind. I think every other possible alternative needs to be exhausted before even considering that a suicide is justified. I don’t think transient problems justify suicide. Mental illness can be treated. Maybe if my sister hadn’t killed herself one of the modern pharmaceuticals we now have could have helped her. Maybe they wouldn’t have. We’ll never know, will we?
Let me preface my screed with the proviso that I fully accept and support the right of an individual who,** after much consideration and counsel**, chooses to end their life. In particular I am including those with severe disabilities that hinder normal life experiences, disabling pain and of course the terminally ill. I also include those who suffer intractable mental illness.
I’m going to go out on a limb here though and make a claim that most suicides are by those who are temporarily or situationally depressed…most often with liberal applications of drugs and alcohol. And often they are meant as a call for ‘rescue’ by partners who want to leave them, or by family who have supposedly ignored their distress. It is not a noble act of sacrifice…it’s emotional blackmail.
And yeah, it’s selfish, because on the death of a loved one who takes their life suddenly, there is no recourse to answers. It is the worst hell for family (especially children) who are left to ponder ‘why’ and whether they could have done something to remedy the problem. For kids, they live their whole lives wondering whether THEY were responsible for the death of their parent. No matter how you try to reassure them, the questions remain unanswered by the dead one. Selfish? You bet!
Each case is going to be different. There are many times, I can’t find justification for it, other times I can. Too many times young people doing this to themselves, and it was not necessary with few exceptions it seems.
My cousin was 26, developed schizophrenic, the drugs they medicated him with hadn’t helped with the voices. He hanged himself.
My aunt was in the latter stages of lung cancer, hooked up to an oxygen bottle, and with months to live decided to end it with one bullet to the heart.
I read about a sportscaster not too long ago that insisted he wasn’t depressed. Anyone he said claimed otherwise was a liar. Nor was he having any health problems. He was 60, gave it plenty of thought, and felt like his best years were behind him, and decided this was a good time to go.
I personally will consider suicide a viable option for me in the future. If anything it makes me feel better knowing I have this option. Of course, I could have a major stroke to where I’m no longer capable of carrying it out. That would truly suck.
But as long as I have any reasonably good health, I’d like to continue on as long as my quality of life is fairly good. If my health ever starts to deteriorate to where I’m no longer any good to anybody, and especially to myself, I certainly don’t want to stick around if I have to depend on somebody full-time to look after me. And the last thing I want is to get caught up in America’s health care system and have it bleed my estate dry. Other loved ones I have talked to felt the same as me, and also want it as an option for themselves too.
If America and other cultures didn’t have such a stigma and often religious driven taboo against it, there would be others considering suicide a viable option if their health ever got to a certain point. I think what is it, only two states in America that even have assisted suicide?
Nah, Broomstick, you’re still not picking up what I’m putting down.
I don’t think you can - not for lack of intelligence, but for over abundance of emotion and preconceived ideas. Add in a dash of poor communication and there’s just no point in trying.
All your feelings are legitimate, and you have my sympathy.
The fact, however, that *resentment *is not a helpful emotion (however legitimate and natural), is a fact that does not need to be disputed any further. That’s all I’ve been saying. Truly.
My uncle killed himself a few years ago. My grandfather, who I never met, killed himself at about the same age. I think my uncle, who clearly had mental problems, thought that it was his legacy: the only son, a junior, an alcoholic just like his father, just like everybody said he would be. That his wife had recently left him was probably just a catalyst, though people blame her and think that he killed himself for no other reason. And that probably looks like a transient problem, something he could have overcome with a little work, and that he’s totally selfish for doing what he did.
I disagree. Trying to see things from his perspective, I genuinely believe that he saw suicide as his destiny, an inevitable conclusion to a life plagued by comparisons (actual similarities, too, from his name and his looks to his mannerisms and suicide method) to his father.
A close friend hung herself when we were 14. Even now, most people who remember her would say she did it because her boyfriend broke up with her. That’s because most people didn’t see her life for the lie that it was. Her parents were unhappy in their marriage and she felt like it was her fault they were both so miserable because they were doing the “stay together for the kid” thing and she knew it. Her mom treated her like garbage, probably out of some sick, misplaced resentment. She told me her dad tried to stick up for her a few times only to get shot down and then they would fight forever. Yeah, her boyfriend broke up with her but the truth is, she really didn’t like him all that much anyway. It was just one more example of how worthless, how unlovable, how disappointing and stupid she was.
To the outside world they were a happy family and she was a happy, popular girl who didn’t have a care in the world. And everybody was SHOCKED when she turned up dead.
My point is it’s easy, as a “survivor”, to think you have all the facts and then mentally put yourself in what you think their position was and say, “I would NEVER…” It’s easy to blame. But the one person who could correct your misconceptions isn’t around to do that anymore so I tend to err on the side of, “You know, I probably don’t know everything they were going through…” I tend to give suicides a pass and silently thank the universe that I don’t feel like dying is the only good thing I can have in my life, and the only good thing I can give to the people who know me.
Thanks for illustrating my point about perception/perspective with your anecdotes. It’s a horrible thing to even imagine what’s going on in a person’s head that makes them think suicide is the best course.
What, exactly, is wrong with doing that? The survivors’ suffering is minimal compared to the suicide’s, proven by the fact that they are still alive.
Think about that. Really think about it, how much you’ve suffered and your family has. Then realise that your sister was suffering far, far worse than you or they. And if that doesn’t stop you being angry at her “selfishness”, that’s total proof that she was not the selfish one.
You say in another post that she suffered from depression for twenty years, and then refer to that as “transient suffering”. That’s absurd and offensive to anyone who’s ever been mentally ill, and shows you have no empathy with anyone’s suffering but your own.
I’ve been in that position, depressed and suicidal. I know what it’s like, and I know how it seems impossible to stop hurting yourself and others. Suicide is the opposite of selfish, it’s removing yourself from a situation that is hurting everybody. That there are often better ways to end or reduce the suffering doesn’t change that.
Expecting someone to live just so you don’t suffer is disgustingly selfish. It’s on a par with people who threaten suicide to get someone to stay with them, or whatever.
I have respect for your loss and I am not targeting your specific instance in any regard. I am simply using this common phrase I hear from your argument as a leap towards my own argument. That being said, this is not an easy thing to say for most people who are suffering from mental illness that results in depression.
Think about the milieu of the US culture. Anything that deviates from normal is concentrated on, isolated and savagely addressed. Sometimes even ostracized. A transgender gets elected as a Homecoming Queen and is piled upon as evil and somehow a sin against nature by horrible people as a whole.
Now, look at what that says to someone who has any kind of mental illness. Our “normal” is a duality of mental stability and emotional control. If you are neither stable or able to control your emotions, what will you say to others? Nothing. You’ll hide it. You don’t want to be the focus of attention, you don’t want to find out just how horribly you’ll be treated when everyone finds out that you have some mental issue. Will you be denied a promotion? Will your friends desert you? Will aliens abduct you and use an industrial-sized anal probe to find out why you’re different? If you’re in a bad place, the answer is always yes. It’s best to hide.
Professional help **IS **available, but it’s expensive. Talking it out helps with low-grade mental issues (grief, non-illness-related depression, etc) but a real mental illness will likely have to be medicated. And pills, aside from being MORE expensive, have side effects that people don’t realize. A lot of the pills change who you are and how you react. Some of them are powerful enough to actually change your thoughts, which can be good for certain disorders, but it means that the people closest to you no longer recognize you.
Your friends, whom you likely shared a bond over certain interests, will suddenly feel alienated. In deep friendships it won’t matter, but most of your friends will drift away and you won’t know how to find new ones to replace them. Your new state of mind is new, after all. You feel isolated and it’s hard to put into words exactly how you are feeling because you don’t know what you’re feeling, yet. It takes several years to figure out who you are, now.
Worse is if you ever can’t get the pills for whatever reason (lost a job, medication becomes ineffective, etc) and suddenly any progress you may have made is lost. Not only do you go back to the Mr Hyde version of yourself, but Mr Hyde is WORSE because the loss of meds will drop you from a stable platform into a pit you’ve forgotten how to navigate. If you can get on medication, again (found a new job, different meds, etc) even if you return to the same exact medication, the results are different as your body has adapted to it. A brand new med means a new you, again, and the cycle starts over.
Couple all of this change with the original fear of being ostracized and the loneliness of losing your new friends, and it becomes easy to see how a confluence of temporary incidents can just about destroy a person who isn’t mentally stable in the first place.
This whole post is really cool but I have a personal anecdote for this point, too.
I was suicidal a couple years ago. It was a mixture of general life stress and post partum depression and some family issues coupled with existing and long untreated depression and anxiety. I wasn’t suicidal in a “I consciously intend to kill myself” sense, but in a “I have really disturbing, invasive thoughts sometimes that are horrifying and, while I’m reasonably certain I would never act on them, I cannot seem to control them at all.” It was a very scary time for me. I needed help and I knew that but I also knew that if I went to my husband, to my parents, to therapy and said, “Hey, sometimes I have really graphic, daydream-realistic thoughts/flashes of images in which I am killing myself in a horrible, violent way and sometimes, in my head, I take the kids out first just so they don’t have to be home alone with my body until somebody finds me,” they were going to think I was dangerous and they would call child protective services and they would take my kids and I’d get locked up and my husband would leave me and blah blah.
Looking back, that sounds really silly to me. None of that was true. At worst, my mom would have downplayed my concerns because that’s how she is, my dad would have given me bad advice but with really good intentions, etc. Nobody would have taken my kids away and I probably could have gotten the help and support I so desperately needed way sooner than I did.
I was in a hotel room one night after a send off party for a friend of ours who was being deployed. Hammered drunk. I had a decent time at the bar, took a cab back to the hotel, and poured myself into the elevator. Happy drunk. Got to my room and went into the bathroom before falling into bed for the night. I honestly don’t remember why I ever came back out because the impulse to hang myself with the hair dryer cord, knowing that my husband would pass out before he even realized I was taking too long in the bathroom and that I would be well and truly dead by the time anybody bothered to come looking for me, was so incredibly strong and I still don’t know why. It is by far the scariest moment of my life. That’s when I finally got help. It took until that point, those few seconds when I almost died through no real conscious decision on my part, before my obvious need became greater than my fear of the “consequences” of mental illness.
Sometimes those who threaten a lot finally do commit suicide. I believe you have everything backwards. When one dies all suffering and pain is over. But the ones left behind are just starting to grieve and feel the pain of loss. I have had experience with people wanting to die and those after a loved one committed suicide. There is nothing you can say that will lessen the pain and grief of one who has lost a family member or loved one to suicide. The guilt alone can be devastating. A friend of mine and I worked with a girl who lost her boyfriend to suicide for over a month before she could go back to work. It is devastating to those left behind. If you want to help them give them a hug and listen until they have no more to say. Listen without any form of judgement on the one who died or the one who lived. In other words just be there for them when they need a shoulder to cry on and some encouragement. Be part of the solution, listen to those threatening also without judgement.
If a person dies from lung cancer, like my dad did, few people consider it suicide. If a person with ALS suffocates to death, like my mom did, no one blames her.
But my dad used to smoke, and mom would have died much earlier and less painfully if she hadn’t consented to a feeding tube. So they each chose to die sooner than later.
I smoke a pack a day in hope that I develop cancer. People who die of cancer don’t leave behind such ruined people. When I was 8 I tried to freeze myself in a snowbank. I failed and hated myself even more for that.
It’s been 23 years of pain since then. I started treatment at age 14. I am so weary. At what time am I allowed to die? When will you allow it?
I
I understand that ‘REAL’ people don’t want to have to deal with me. But I work full time and pay my taxes. How long must I hang around to make sure you are happy? Why is your happiness so important that I must continue to be here?
I’ve held off because I don’t want to hurt the people I love. But my dad was so so so so lucky to have cancer. I hate the fact that I don’t have cancer. I would gladly trade my life for anyone.