Suicide.

[DossarLX ODI]

Re: Suicide.

I read something online that made a good point about suicide.

You are not a bad person, or crazy, or weak, or flawed, because you feel suicidal. It doesn't even mean that you really want to die - it only means that you have more pain than you can cope with right now. If I start piling weights on your shoulders, you will eventually collapse if I add enough weights... no matter how much you want to remain standing.

People often turn to suicide because they are seeking relief from pain. Remember that relief is a feeling. And you have to be alive to feel it. You will not feel the relief you so desperately seek, if you are dead.

Source: http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

If suicide is something a person is considering because of pain or stress, he/she needs to know that relief is a feeling and you need to be alive to experience it. So unless he/she WANTS to lose all these feelings/senses, suicidal thoughts are just interfering with logic.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Suicide.

I don't think it's so much a desire for an active feeling of relief as it is an absence of pain. An absence of any feeling at all accomplishes this just as well.

[tyler2zelda]

Re: Suicide.

This is coming from someone who, sadly, has attempted suicide multiple times, and been in a psych ward.

To me, it's like people said: an escape. I've become tired of living my life on many, many occasions (such as, funnily enough, right now) because of the person I am, who I've become, and how I've been treated because of it. I've tried changing into something I wanted to be, but... a lot of people don't agree with it.

I've tried all the anti-depressants, and all those dumb therapists, and all the other medications under the sun. Nothing works.

It's not always OUR fault, in fact, it rarely is, that we end up making that decision to cut our lives short. We just... can't take it anymore. The pain needs somewhere to go, but there's nowhere for it to go. It's like why some people (again, such as me) cut themselves; as a way to put the pain they constantly suffer from somewhere else, something physical. So it can be treated in some form.

[Cavernio]

Re: Suicide.

"I don't think it's so much a desire for an active feeling of relief as it is an absence of pain. An absence of any feeling at all accomplishes this just as well."

I know this is not going to be entirely true, because I think most suicidal people feel something at the times when they ARE suicidal, but when you're suicidal because you feel there's no point because you usually feel emotionless, this doesn't help at all. Feeling anything besides despair is a blessing. Besides which, not feeling much of anything makes hurting yourself quite a bit easier.

[masterhickle]

Re: Suicide.

I've witnessed my share of deaths - I have a fairly large family. Since the time I was about 14 or 15, there's been at least 12 deaths in my family (aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins). Don't even try to tell me that that hasn't taken some kind of toll on me. Each death makes me realize more and more how vulnerable I really am, how easily it could happen to me.

I've been through my share of states of depression. I have an 18 month old daughter and a wonderful fiancee, but I consider myself lucky if I get to see my fiancee once a week and (since she's usually asleep when I get to see my fiancee) my daughter MAYBE every other week (I think I've seen her twice this month). I hardly get to see my family, even less my friends. My dad lost his job and was out of work for three months, and, being in a family with 4 kids, we've been going through hell to just stabilize ourselves. My mom works full-time night shifts at a hospital, so she sleeps through the day. My dad is on the road for up to (and sometimes more than) two weeks at a time. Whenever either of them happen to be off of work on the same night, I have to work, so I don't get to spend time with them.

Edit: I have friends that have been kicked out of their houses even before the age of 16 and have had to live on the street for a time, working two or three jobs to try and get by. My cousin got kicked out of his house on his 18th birthday and his parents left him with nowhere to go. They're both still alive and going, even though their families didn't care about them.

I'm now working 40 hours a week at one job and starting to work a second job. I plan to be working at least 70 hours a week - I'm only 21. I'm barely getting myself by from paycheck to paycheck, let alone be able to do for my daughter what I want to do for her.

My life is miserable. I just break down and cry because I don't have the luxury of being able to spend time with my family, my fiancee, or my daughter. I still get to talk to my friends late at night when I have the time, and that's enough for them and me.



Q:What's the point to this post?
A: There's always a reason to live, no matter what a person may think. Have I sunk into depression? Yes. I've drank to the point of delirium to get myself away from reality, but I don't rely on it. Do I want out of this? You'd be crazy to think I don't want out of it, but I've never even considered taking myself out of this world. I've accepted that my life is miserable now, but I tell myself that things will get better with time.

What's my reason to live? I have people that need me. My parents need me to watch and take care of my 12 and 7 year old sister and brother when they aren't around. My fiancee needs me to provide money for us, even if she knows it means that I'll hardly get to see much of her or our daughter for a few months.


I don't care who hates me for this (I know someone will). Mental illnesses aside, Suicide is selfish. There's always a reason to continue living. If you can't find that reason, you just don't care enough about the people around you, whether or not you think they care.

[tyler2zelda]

Re: Suicide.

I don't care who hates me for this (I know someone will). Mental illnesses aside, Suicide is selfish. There's always a reason to continue living. If you can't find that reason, you just don't care enough about the people around you, whether or not you think you care.

This I have to respond to.

I care -too- much about the people around me. And that's probably one of the reasons I've tried to leave the world. I care, but there's nothing I can do for them. And what's the point of caring if that's all you can do? Can you always do something for them when they get hurt, or sick, or if something else happens to them? A lot of people can, yeah, but there are people such as myself who literally cannot do anything to help.

If I had the ability to actually be a helpful person, rather than someone who can only say they care and that's it, I wouldn't have tried to off myself in the first place.

And suicide isn't always a selfish act. Imagine, if you will, someone thousands and thousands of dollars in debt, no job, no house, no immediate family, barely able to feed themselves, sick, the works. Is it really selfish then?

[masterhickle]

Re: Suicide.

And suicide isn't always a selfish act. Imagine, if you will, someone thousands and thousands of dollars in debt, no job, no house, no immediate family, barely able to feed themselves, sick, the works. Is it really selfish then?

Are we to assume this is the case for every suicide?

There is always somewhere to turn if you have the will to go on. Most everyone has that one friend that would do anything to keep you from committing suicide, to the point of taking you in until you get back on your feet.

I'd write more now, but I'm on break at work. I'll elaborate a little bit more later.

[blade_anime]

Re: Suicide.

I'm not sure if I'd classify it as "selfish." After all, some people do it because they actually think that they are doing everybody else a favor.

[basicdrummerman]

Re: Suicide.

think that they are doing everybody else a favor.

^this, trust me. I know...

[AsphyxZero]

Re: Suicide.

While suicide probably isn't morally right, everyone has a right to it.

[Yieldsign]

Re: Suicide.

thats a pretty big presumption there. i dont think you'll find any ethic that can deem suicide as "unethical" without creating some pretty gaping contradictions/reductio ad absurdums

[Endrilliance]

Re: Suicide.

On another note, would you consider martyr-ism or sacrifice a form of suicide? That is the only way I can see suicide as not being selfish, as in leaping in front of a bullet to save a friend or push a child out of the way of a speeding car.

Well hell, I hope no one does. I've taken a bullet in the back for Aerei AND I've been hit by a car while preventing my much smaller (yet, still elder) sister from being hit by the same car.

Though, clearly I am not quite dead yet. The car incident did break my left arm and (still puzzled by this one) my right pinky toe.

[-Barista-]

Re: Suicide.

Everyone likes the outlook on life that there's always more to live for. It's just optimistic thinking while they don't ever consider that there really isn't more to live for. That statement and my statement are merely opinions.

I actually, not so much as like but, do think that life is incredibly boring and I would off myself given the right circumstances. I do hate the thought that my parents would miss me which is probably why I haven't. I pretty much hold everything together for my family.

As for the whole thing being selfish or not, it probably is. But being selfish isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[ledwix]

Re: Suicide.

Life is the perpetuation of selfish entities. Thus we are selfish by default, since we are the only conscious entity inhabiting our bodies; no one else is. By reproducing and having more than 2 kids per family, we are making even more selfish entities appear. And all of these entities, like you and me, HAVE to perpetuate themselves, because it is considered cruel to leave people behind, which is because we intuitively understand what it is like to be left behind ourselves.

If you don't take care of yourself, who else will? When you wake up in the morning, you are the only person who can reasonably be expected to dress yourself and feed yourself, etc. It would be nonsensical to allocate such tasks mutually, such as having everyone feed each other and brush each other's teeth, etc. Sure, it can feel very warm and fuzzy when random acts of kindness are spread, but overall, selfishness with occasional altruistic anomalies is far more practical than true altruism.

Therefore, suicide is also selfish. But no one else can suicide for you...that's murder. So if you want to kill yourself, you know you will hurt others, while stopping pain inside yourself. It's a balance of who gets hurt more, you by living or others by having you not live. There are some situations where suicide is desirable...like while being tortured. Some people feel perpetually tortured by some post-traumatic stress disorder or early-childhood sexual abuse, and so for them, suicide seems like the best option.

[blade_anime]

Re: Suicide.

You know, in Europe at one point, attempting suicide was punishable by death.