What if a person has struggled with depression for most of his (or her) life, so much so that depression is the “normal” state for that person (i.e. that person cannot even remember what it was like to not be depressed)? What if that person has sought treatment continuously for all of those years, has diligently tried every treatment offered, with no results?
I do understand your point that often people are suicidal in reaction to life events: a breakup, a loss, whatever. There are other people who are intrinsically depressed, perhaps due to some somatic disorder that is either untreatable or ignored by physicians. Sometimes, doctors don’t have all the answers. Sometimes, they don’t even care enough to look for answers.
I believe that most cases of depression are treatable, and when that is the case, the depressed person should at least give treatment a chance. In other cases, depression is not treatable. What then?
This is one topic that I think I have done a full circle upon. I had always sensed it was wrong when I was a child. As I grew into adulthood, out of sheer compassion for those who greatly suffered, I could understand the desire to end one’s life on earth and wondered how society could show more compassion for pets than other individuals.
But, somehow, taking one’s own life just didn’t seem right, the greatest violation of all.
I believe that there is a vast difference between blowing your brains out (etc.) and refusing medical means to prolong your life, thus allowing nature to take its course. The first instance is suicide, the second is not.
Suicide is never justified. It is the most selfish act that you could possibly do regardless of what money you left behind. Do any of you think for a moment that money will fix it or make it okay? I’ll explain (as best I can) why. You brought upon your friends and family anguish and pain from which you profoundly changed their lives. Your act may even dump guilt upon them that they may struggle with for many years or even the rest of their lives. Leaving a note that it wasn’t their fault will not prevent them from wondering what they should have “somehow” known or could have done or done differently. And a person who commits suicide reaped this on them because life got tough?
Suicide is not an act of love… it’s an act of destruction not of just your earthly life, but on other’s lives too.
As a side note, with all the wonders of the medical profession, there is no excuse for anyone to suffer physically. Some years back I read an article about heroin being used by terminal cancer patients in England. They were able to finish their days functionally (as possible) and pain free.
I would counsel anyone against suicide and help them in anyway that I could. But in the end, it’s their decision.
I wouldn’t. I’d climb to the top of a large hill overlooking the San Fernando valley and blow my head off there. That way, I have an impressive view burned into my brain as I go.
I’d also set up a large canvas behind me to catch the spray of blood and brains… it’d be pre-signed, and titled “Ouch”.
Maralinn…
Seems like a whole lot of restrictions on something that is, ultimately, a personal choice, doesn’t it?
A person has just as much right to commit suicide as they have to get an abortion. There shouldn’t be anything to infringe upon it.
There it is, the “suicide is selfish” argument. :sigh: It’s not that I don’t agree with you; I do happen to believe that suicide is selfish: it is an individual’s choice to end his own pain, knowing that others will be hurt in the process.
How does one judge whether or not the survivors’ pain will outweigh the pain the suicidal person feels? In other words, can a person suffer so long and so deeply that the pain felt by his loved ones is miniscule (or at least acceptable) in comparison?
When I told my mother I was going to get married, she cried. She couldn’t stand to see her baby leave home. Should I have then cancelled my wedding plans and stayed at home with mom forever? At that point, I made the decision that even though my mom would be hurt, I was going to get married and leave home. That was selfish of me.
And to some people, the idea of suicide is the only thing that has ever “felt right”; for some people the option of suicide is the only hope. Can you imagine living every day thinking “at least I’ll be dead someday, and hopefully very soon?” Can you imagine, every time you drive on the highway, hoping that an 18 wheeler crosses the median and plasters you all over the road- and this is a good thought? Can you imagine being deeply disappointed when the 18 wheeler doesn’t cross the median and kill you?
I believe that each person’s emotions are his own responsibility. If my husband forgets my birthday (which he does from time to time :)) I can choose to be angry, or I can choose to laugh about it. I cannot control any other person’s emotions- only my own. In my view, depression is not an emotion; it is a deep physical and mental suffering, and it cannot be controlled.
Yes, suicide is a choice. For some people, it is the only choice (i.e. there is no choice). How much must a person suffer before he is allowed to die? How much must a person suffer for the good of other people?
Suicide because life or a situation therein has become extremely difficult (sometimes confused with #1).
Suicide for productive means. #1: My argument against suicide that is spawned by depression, etc.: If depression has taken me to the point that I’m about to kill myself, I’ve necessarily come to the decision that I do not deserve to live. If I’m so worthless that I do not even deserve to exist, So vile and contemptible that I am little more than a wart on the face of the world, then what right do I have to make a decision that will affect others (such as the decision to kill myself). As well, what right do I have to inconvenience more existance-worthy beings with my death… that is to say, to cause them anguish, incur them funeral expenses, cause them to find me hanging from the maple tree out back, etc.?
#2: Coupled with the arguments against #1, remember: what good are you if you can’t get through this? People have gotten through worse situations than this (whatever ‘this’ is). So your life will hurt for now, or forever. Your death won’t do anyone any good, least of all you (especially if there’s no afterlife).
#3: Sometimes suicide may be logical…
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, or the few.”
For those of you who didn’t see Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, I’ll use a different example. Suppose HMCS Charlottetown is on patrol in the North Atlantic, and collides with an American submarine which is practicing an emergency maneuver. The conning tower of the submarine, call it U.S.S. Blind Pride, rips a gash in the hull of the Charlottetown, starboard forward and below the water mark. Cold, dense seawater is spilling in, and if nothing is done, Charlottetown and her eighty crew will be sent to the bottom. The only way to prevent it is to seal off the section of the ship by closing off the bulkheads around it, but this can only be done from within the afflicted section. Realizing that there’s no time to waste, and that orders from the bridge will be too late, Master Seaman Andrew McAllister clears the area, enters the damged section, now full of knee-deep seawater, and seals the bulkheads, locking the water, and himself, out of the rest of the ship. The section fills up with water, and McAllister drowns, but Charlottetown is saved. Blind Pride, of course, makes it away safely.
Is McAllister’s suicide justified? Probably. They might even give him a Victoria Cross.
So… there are times when it is logical, but that same sort of logic kills any idea of suicide for emotional reasons before it can bear fruit.
You describe the thought process of a person who is not rational. What if a person is depressed but rational? For example, say a person suffers from debilitating depression, but realizes the depression for what it is: an incurable illness? Say this person does not have low self-esteem; this person realizes that he is as “good” as any other, “deserves” life as much as any other, but his life has been debilitated and miserable for many years because of his depression, for which no one can offer a cure? In this case, I would liken the depression to an intense and debilitating physical pain (severe enough to destroy the person’s entire life), for which there is no treatment.
Some people suffer such intense physical and/or emotional pain that I cannot judge them as being “no good” if they cannot withstand it. To some people, death is good: it is an end to that pain. If there is no afterlife, all the better: many people who cannot withstand the suffering of this life wish only for oblivion; they certainly don’t wish for eternal life.
For some people, to be judged by others as “no good” for not being able to endure the pain is irrelevant. They want only to escape the pain.
Suicide is a profoundly selfish choice. Like all choices, people can choose it unwisely, or for reasons that to me might seem downright stupid.
But it’s their choice. And that pretty much settles it for me.
I used to think that suicide out of depression was “cowardly” and the usual. After all, I’d been “depressed” before, they can just suck it up and deal. So I thought then.
Then I had some literal depression. I realized I’d never really had real depression as a teenager. The real mccoy hurts, to a level that’s unbelievable to anyone who’s not experienced it. In my case, it passed on fairly quickly, and in retrospect was a pretty valuable experience. But imagining it going on and on, not relenting, not responding to treatments, for a few years? Suicide doesn’t seem quite as cowardly a response anymore.
Everyone has a different limit to what they can bear. I can’t judge anyone harshly anymore for having hit their limit, or surpassed it. I think usually there are options people are overlooking, that it’s seldom a choice made with a clear head (it’s hard to have a clear head when simply suffering), that the consequences of it to the living are certainly horrible–but it remains a choice of a free person.
If a person’s major (literal) depression begins at, say, age 12 and continues through age 30, (let’s see… that would be 18 straight years), and no one could offer an effective treatment, would you still think suicide was “selfish” for that person?
Yes. It’s a choice made by them, for them, for their benefit. (Hypotheticals may always, of course, be massaged; perhaps they’re not killing themselves to escape the anguish, but because their ongoing depression is causing a lot of pain for everyone around them, and the suicide is simply done–misguided or no–to take away that suffering for others. In that case, sure, it’s not selfish.)
Note: “selfish” does not equal “bad” in my headspace. To many people, it does; I think it’s that unnecessary conflation of terms that leads to kneejerk judgmentalism about the act in general.
As an addition: if you do reach your breaking point, don’t decide to take the wife/kids/local McDonald’s with you. I’ve always found the whole murder-suicide thing a bit unfathomable…
It is my perception from the statistics in the above study that most people who kill themselves are not in their right mind (ie, these folks wouldn’t suicide if they had normal brain chemistry), or, were in such terrible circumstances that they were unable to see themselves clearly out of the situation.
It’s very difficult for me to see suicidal behavior as selfish. I don’t know what kind of hell another person may be going through for suicide to seem preferable, but until I actually experience their personal breaking point there is no way I can judge their suicidal reaction as selfish.
Sticking my neck out now… about two years ago a man I’d intended on marrying blew his brains out. I am still going through some of the grief processes (anger, blame, sadness, etc). While I miss him and wish he wasn’t dead, I do console myself with the conviction that at least he doesn’t have to suffer anymore.
I have just one question: Aside from the philosophical abstractions of the debate, how many people here have actually known someone close to them, a loved one or family member, who has committed suicide?
It’s very easy to say “personal responsibility” and “individual freedom” and “right to choose.” Viewed abstractly, in fact, it’s hard to disagree. But I would caution that this is one of those things that works out differently in real life than it does “on paper,” so to speak.
If you’re not a survivor yourself, I don’t think you can legitimately claim that those left behind will be able to cope with the loss by saying, “Well, it was his choice” or “Yeah, it sucks, but she had the right to do it.” I have firsthand experience with this, and I can tell you, for whatever reason, the loss of a loved one to suicide is far, far, far more disturbing and scarring than, say, someone’s death by disease or accident.
There may well be legitimate reasons and justifications for suicide, taken on a case-by-case basis. But discussing it as a detached abstraction, I think, seriously misrepresents the concrete reality of the act’s repercussions, and again, speaking from experience, I’m having difficulty with what strikes me as a rah-rah control-your-own-life attitude from certain posters.
What pain are you referring to? Emotional or mental pain? If so, they do have a choice to pull themselves up by the bootstraps or lie down and drown in their pool of misery. My close friend, Kelly, realized too late that taking his life to escape his pain was, in the end, miniscule compared to the harm he brought upon others. It may have to be atoned, but it cannot be undone.
No, of course not. It was not selfish of you to begin a new chapter in your life. Though your mother was sad to experience the closing of one chapter of her life (having children at home) it would not compare to losing you to suicide. If you don’t believe me, ask her.
Hope for what? Escape? Do they know for certain what they are “escaping” to and that there is no consequence for their action?
Ruling out a chemical imbalance, yes, it can be controlled by making the heartfelt choice to overcome it. Where your heart is, your mind will follow. I’ve made that choice several times in my life.
Suicide is a choice, I agree. But, no, it is never the only choice. As to your questions, I have never known of a terminally ill child who asked that and I’ve known a few. For those who think suicide is an acceptable choice, go spend some time with terminally ill children. You’ll learn more than you could possibly imagine.
Well, I have had loved ones commit suicide, but it was when I was young, so I personally can’t comment on how it felt at the time, as I don’t really remember exactly.
My grandfather and two of my uncles on my fathers side all committed suicide. One uncle committed suicide before I was born, my grandfather died when I was about six and the other uncle when I was ten or eleven. I didn’t really understand what was happening, particularly with my grandfather, and I wasn’t actually told that it was a suicide until a few years later. I knew at the time that the second uncle killed himself that it was a suicide.
It has had a large effect on my family. Not to say that there were emotional outbursts or recriminations, but they never talk about them anymore. It has led to a lot of tension that no one really talks about. Not that this happens continuously, but it’s damn near impossible to even casually mention “I remember that he liked to do…” or similar memories. Everyone just kind of stops talking and there’s general awkwardness. No one feels comfortable mentioning them at all, particularly around my grandmother (somewhat understandable) and particularly my father. My aunts are a little more open with their feelings.
Incidentally, the causes of the suicides were not clear cut, such as terminal illness or even debilitating depression (at least none were obvious). My grandfather did have several health problems, but none were insurmountable or even untreatable (hearing problems and diabetes), and although both of my uncles had bouts of depression they had seemed to be functioning. This was particularly the case with the second uncle. He had been depressed previously, and he had gone into therapy. He was dating a wonderful woman and everything seemed normal. Then one of my aunts found him after he asphyxiated himself.
Like shell said, It is my perception from the statistics in the above study that most people who kill themselves are not in their right mind (ie, these folks wouldn’t suicide if they had normal brain chemistry), or, were in such terrible circumstances that they were unable to see themselves clearly out of the situation.
This has been a concern in my family, though not one that is openly talked about. My father has four sisters and two brothers. His father and both brothers have committed suicide. Sometimes I wonder if there is a neurological chemical imbalance that may be a factor. Thankfully, my father is a very stable person who enjoys his family and his work. He is open about his feelings in general, even though he isn’t the type of person to have long discussions about his emotions.
Anyways, I think that it is selfish of the survivors of suicide to call those who kill themselves selfish (with the assumption that this is a “bad” thing). By definition, suicide is a selfish act, but I don’t think that anyone else has the right to pass judgement on that.
On a tangent, what about “gestures”? Is there actually such a category of suicide attempts? Or basically does everyone just want someone to care enough about them to protect them from themselves? It would be hard to argue that case in my family’s case, as the suicides weren’t in public places or with methods that are more likely to fail.
And like Cervaise said: I can tell you, for whatever reason, the loss of a loved one to suicide is far, far, far more disturbing and scarring than, say, someone’s death by disease or accident.
I think this is true because at least when someone dies in an accident or by disease, it is easy to remember and talk about them with others. This makes it easier to deal with the grief and move on with your life. I know personally, however, that this is quite difficult with a suicide.
When you tell people what happened you can get strange and/or awkward reactions. Most people don’t know what to say, or they give you some strange kind of sympathy, or whatnot. It’s also difficult (particularly in my family) to just talk through what happened, because everyone’s afraid to mention “it”. My grandfather and grandmother on my mother’s side are both deceased, from “natural causes” - cancer and congestive heart failure. It is quite a bit easier to just talk and discuss our memories of them. For some reason, people seem to think that you can’t talk about someone who has committed suicide without talking about the suicide itself.
Your post just set me right off. Did you read the statistics in my previous post? 90 frigging percent of suicides have an chemical imbalance, the most alarming increase in suicide has been in younger people! As for working with terminal kids… I spent ten years working in a hospital that did a lot of hospice. Why don’t you go and work with elderly folks who beg and plead with the staff to 'just let them die", etc. Sure, suicide of a loved one is painful, but aren’t you concentrating a bit more on the pain {b}you** feel/felt when someone you cared for killed themself? And how about all those compassionate folks who suicide and nobody realizes because they managed to make it look like an accident, hmmm?
Cervaise:
My opinions remain the same. I feel suicide is ultimately the choice of the person involved. It is very difficult to physically take that choice away, short of complete incapacitation of the person. Ethically, the point may well be moot. People can and will take their own lives. Is it justifiable? I’d say sometimes, if a person has exhausted every other route they have open to them. I can honestly say I would consider it very seriously if the choice in my life came down to pain vs. death. Much like many other issues, people bring their experiences to the table in deciding what is correct and what is not.
I’ve had two relatives commit suicide, one before I was born and one shortly after. I haven’t felt their losses directly so I can’t say that I understand your pain - no lip service. I’m sorry someone you cared about took their own life… this thread is taking a very hands-off approach to the issue. I can only reiterate that I feel it is justified if someone has examined every other possibility. I also feel that most of the time, there are better options. The justification is IMO a case-by-case decision made by the person in question. I don’t preach either the ‘if you love them, let them go’ mentality (the rah-rah control-of-own-body viewpoint you speak of), or the ‘you selfish bastard’ mentality. Suicide is never the only choice, but sometimes it’s the one that people find most acceptable.
Oh, I’d leave a hundred bucks as tip for whoever has to clean up. And I’d use depressants, preferably Seconal, so there’d be as little mess as possible.
