Suicide

[JoeJoe]

Have you ever contemplated suicide or even attempted suicide?

How do you judge suicide? Is it cowardly? Or are we unable to judge it, if we haven't been there?


For myself: I have contemplated suicide, but less from a "solution" point of view than to phantasize about what effect it might have on all of my surroundings. I don't think I will ever come close to actually committing suicide in real life.

Another INTPforumer (Jonny S. who are you again?) posted on facebook, that suicide isn't cowardly. I agree mostly with that for the suicides that happen today, but I regard most if not all the suicides of Nazis near the end of WWII as cowardly. They seem to have been unable to accept and face the consequences of what they did.

The reason why I hate the idea of suicide is, that I view it as extremely selfish/arrogant/unsocial. Just because you have loads of problems doesn't mean you have the right to give your loved ones even more problems by committing suicide.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

I voted no even though I've wondered about what would happen if I did. I don't count that as considering anything.

Don't think we can judge it though, except on a case by case basis assuming we know all the relevant facts (which we really can't). Sometimes it's probably cowardly but sometimes it's just the right thing to do. That can depend on timing. Consider if Hitler killed himself in 1930. That would have been the right thing to do in hindsight considering what he went on to do. However his doing it as the Russians are just blocks away from storming his bunker made it cowardly.

 

[AlisaD]

I've considered it, but mostly as a theoretical idea, didn't really make plans.

But no, I can't judge it. Not under any circumstances. It's one of the rare freedoms we really have - to chose to end out existence at any point.

How can it be cowardly to willingly die? It's the biggest leap you can ever take. It goes against all your natural instincts, against religion, against society, and no matter what the alternative is, you can't really believe that choosing suicide is cowardly.

And to judge someone because they did not carry on living for the sake of others, once life lost all meaning and joy - that's beyond self-righteous. I don't even have a word for that.

 

[Anling]

I have seriously considered it.

Whether it is cowardly or not depends on the person doing it. I don't think that other people's feelings are necessarily a reason to continue living. Obviously having loved ones and not wanting to cause them pain would be a good motivation, but if that's all you've got it's going to be hard to keep going just for someone else. I think suicidal people need reasons from themselves to continue living. Maybe living for other people works for some, but I can't see that working for very long for me.

I guess I'm trying to say that if you've got people who love you and you still hate life, find the pain of living more than you can bear, then obviously you need something more to be able to keep going.

 

[Mondorius]

I voted for the third option, although you could say I attempted, it was rather a rather pathetic excuse of an attempt.

Is it cowardly? I'd say it depends on the circumstances. I think it's just stupid, unless you know you're going to die a painful death very soon and want to avoid the whole pain thing.

Why stupid? Well, we all die eventually anyway. Also, if you're going to go through some kind of effort to actually end your life, why not try something else before?

In retrospect, I kind of disagree with myself, you can't really judge suicide, I mean, it's the individual's choice.

 

[Words]

@OP

For the theoretical thought, "If I did x, blah blah". The idea requires a certain amount of emotion that I haven't succeeded in real terms. In other words, the simple thought of it is easy but actually doing it is another thing. Though if ever it occurs, it would only be after I get crazy. I will follow the master that told me to desire survival. It is the entity that did not let me have the choice of whether to exist or not.

Cowardice is subjective. It is not because one is a "coward", it is because one does not want to be "brave". The reason is simply a lack of motivation. It is a choice and whether it's good or what is what I don't care about anymore.

 

[FrostFern]

I have seriously considered it. I don't want to think that my life will ever come to such a point that I will carry through, but I can't be certain given how long I've struggled with depression. People who say they would never do it either don't have a very good imagination or are in denial of their inherent frailty as human beings.

Also, the people that say it's selfish / cowardly really have no clue. Were the people who jumped out of the top floors of the WTC while it was burning cowardly? What makes you deny the possibility that someone in the depths of the HELL that is mental illness (and severe clinical depression is a real mental illness, often with genetic/biological causes BTW) won't ever see their situation in the same light?

It probably isn't ever an easy choice for those that do end up committing suicide either. It might seem like an easy way out, but most people can't reflect, at least not entirely, on the true gravity and ramifications of it until they actually stand on the very edge. It's only at that point that you really realize it isn't so simple. There's a reason a lot of people talk about wanting to kill themselves but only a small minority actually end up carrying through with it.

 

[nexion]

I have never considered committing suicide, but I have casually thought about what would happen if I did it. It seems to be more of an intriguing idea than something I would actually be interested in trying.

You should have had a poll choice like that. I voted no.

And to judge someone because they did not carry on living for the sake of others, once life lost all meaning and joy - that's beyond self-righteous. I don't even have a word for that.

Eh... I don't know. In the event that I would ever actually consider or want to commit suicide, this very idea is probably what would keep me from doing so.

 

[Moocow]

I hold the belief that the only real right humans actually have is the right to die, and suicide counts. Why shouldn't we be able to end our lives whenever we want? If some people commit suicide out of sheer shortsightedness then it's still within their right.
I think we have the right to do it simply because we did not have a choice in our own creation. No one asked us in some spirit realm before we were conceived "Can you handle life?" If someone decides that they can't, who is anyone else to disagree?

That being said, I am not planning to. You never know though.

 

[The Lurker]

I've never attempted suicide though when I get very depressed I become preoccupied with death. I think about how I'd commit suicide if I eventually wanted to and what effects it would bring. It is immensely morbid that coming up with different ways for me to off myself from start to finish is really the only creative thing my mind can focus on if I do find myself sufficiently depressed.

 

[JoeJoe]

I have never considered committing suicide, but I have casually thought about what would happen if I did it. It seems to be more of an intriguing idea than something I would actually be interested in trying.

You should have had a poll choice like that. I voted no.

meh, actually that's what I meant with the second option but w/e.

 

[FrostFern]

meh, actually that's what I meant with the second option but w/e.

You should add another option between the second and third. Something like "I think about it a lot but something stops me from actually doing it". That's where I'd fit.

 

[snafupants]

In some circumstances (if not most), it should not be deemed selfish/arrogant/unsocial as you say. Some people go most their lives - until that point - with a neurological imbalanace which severly affects their thoughts, feelings, behaviors, etc. That said, they should explore every option before kicking the bucket.

 

[Moniker]

Attempted.

That being stated, before and after it, I've always held the belief that - just as Moocow stated - that humans have the right to live, and the right to die. Whether it is cowardly or not makes no difference -- everyone has the right to end their own life. If they have absolutely no other rights, they deserve that one. It makes me angry that in some states, suicide is a crime. Though rarely enforced, one can actually get in trouble if they fail at taking their own life! It's ridiculous.

Either way... Yeah. I don't think anyone has the right to judge anyone else, including their decision to take their life. And especially not if your only reason for judging them is the strain it brings on others. I've resisted the urge to slap people for insinuating that a person in physical and/or emotional pain should continue to endure it simply because the people around them are selfish enough to guilt them about a highly personal decision. Their life's most important decision. I'm not "pro-suicide" or anything, but guilting irks me.

/rant

 

[RubberDucky451]

I just saw a very well done documentary on suicide. Very thought provoking and incredibly sad.

http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Frontline_The_Suicide_Tourist/70135303?trkid=1279951

Here's the full video stream from PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/front...aign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid

 

[RandeKnight]

On the subject of assisted suicide, I consider it a disabled rights issue.
Noone can stop an able bodied person who really wants to die from suiciding, but someone who physically can't do it any longer isn't allowed to be assisted?

On the subject of hurting the families feelings - there's a lot of things that people do that hurt their families feelings - marry someone they don't like, stop the children seeing their grandparents, drop out of college and live like a wastrel. So why is suicide considered so much different?

Personally, I don't want to die anytime soon, but I'd like to have the option to go out at a time of my choosing, rather than rush it because I fear that I won't be able to physically do it and noone will help when the suffering becomes too great.

 

[Anthile]

The problem with assisted suicide is the question: Is it ethical to assist someone who is not mentally healthy? Which then leads to the question how mentally healthy someone can be who wants to commit suicide.

 

[Kuu]

I contend all human actions are selfish in one way or another, and that there is no such thing as "rights" so this selfishness argument makes little sense to me.

You are able to judge it, but with the non-existance of an inherent universal objective morality, your judgement will be as arbitrary and subjective as any other.

Personally, if I am to die one day, I'd rather it be by my own choice in manner and time.

Spoiler

Also, there are a good amount of suicide threads around here y'know...

For example: http://www.intpforum.com/showthread.php?t=281
And, most notoriously: http://www.intpforum.com/showthread.php?t=2445

The wisdom of the ancients. Use it.

 

[nexion]

On the subject of assisted suicide, I consider it a disabled rights issue.
Noone can stop an able bodied person who really wants to die from suiciding, but someone who physically can't do it any longer isn't allowed to be assisted?

On the subject of hurting the families feelings - there's a lot of things that people do that hurt their families feelings - marry someone they don't like, stop the children seeing their grandparents, drop out of college and live like a wastrel. So why is suicide considered so much different?

Personally, I don't want to die anytime soon, but I'd like to have the option to go out at a time of my choosing, rather than rush it because I fear that I won't be able to physically do it and noone will help when the suffering becomes too great.

Oh my God. Do you have any idea how many times I've said that in real life and gotten blank stares and comments of how stupid I am?

Perhaps that's a good way to look at things.

I contend all human actions are selfish in one way or another, and that there is no such thing as "rights" so this selfishness argument makes little sense to me.

You are able to judge it, but with the non-existance of an inherent universal objective morality, your judgement will be as arbitrary and subjective as any other.

Personally, if I am to die one day, I'd rather it be by my own choice in manner and time.

Spoiler

Also, there are a good amount of suicide threads around here y'know...

For example: http://www.intpforum.com/showthread.php?t=281
And, most notoriously: http://www.intpforum.com/showthread.php?t=2445

The wisdom of the ancients. Use it.

Love the emphasis on the word if.

 

[AkiKaza-chan]

I wrote an essay on this once (just for myself), about the Right to Die. I mean, if we have a right to live, shouldn't we have a right to be able to take our own lives?

I agree with mostly everyone, you can't really judge suicide or say it's a cowardly act. To be able to take your own life is one of the hardest things a person can do, how is that in any way cowardly?

I was particularly upset about the argument that one would be putting one's family and friends through pain and grief and that that is just selfish. Is no one thinking of the person contemplating suicide? Is no one thinking of how much mental pain and agony they must be in to contemplate such extreme measures? To say that one should keep living for the emotional wellbeing of others is not any real reason to keep on going, and is the most selfish thing, I think.

 

[snafupants]

Yes, that argument of staying alive for loved ones is insane to me. If everyone did what they wanted to do at all times this world would be a better place for it.

 

[Matteo]

I have already attempted suicide - I should have been successful too.

If I had to chose again, I would have chosen a method to ensure success than to create the unfavorable circumstances from having survived.

How do you judge suicide? Is it cowardly? Or are we unable to judge it, if we haven't been there?

I used to judge it a certain way - that it was an overwhelm of coping mechanisms. I did view it negatively before, but now I see it more as a choice or response.

I think the reasons behind suicide can be any number of things (including cowardice). But I don't think it matters what the reason is: suicide is a permanent choice.

You can judge suicide if you haven't been there, but you lack the experience of it (to relate to anyone else who has attempted or succeeded). You may even lack the mindset that accompanies someone who commits suicide.

 

[A22]

One thing I don't understand is suicide notes. I mean, if I would suicide it would be because I have no reason to live anymore nor I care about anything or anyone. If there is something you still want to say / do then you obviously care, and still have something to live for.

Or maybe I just don't get suicide.

 

[Cognisant]

I got all excited when I saw someone had posted in the suicide thread.

I was just going to pop in and tell you to donate your body to science.
Who knows maybe you'll get a fancy cyborg body out of it? (probably not)

Still you gotta be in it to win it!

 

[ObliviousGenius]

I couldn't fathom the possibility of even attempting it. Is life really so bad that you want to erase your very existence on Earth? To go from horrible existence to no existence at all boggles my mind. Especially when there are means to make things better in your life. I just don't get it.

 

[lungs]

i "attempted" when i was about 15 but it was more of a half-assed attention seeking thing. i convinced myself i wanted to die but i couldnt even be arsed to take all the pills one by one, i crushed them into water and drank it and since it was gross i didn't even finish it. the whole "attempt" was pretty pathetic, really.

i don't think suicide is stupid or selfish from a depressed state of mind, and i don't think someone who is in that state of mind should be convinced that it's stupid or selfish because it won't do any good. but i think it should be discouraged because from a rational state of mind it IS pretty stupid in almost all circumstances. time does a lot of things, it heals and changes things. you never know what will happen but if you die you'll never find out. it's just a really bad wager.

 

[Matteo]

I got all excited when I saw someone had posted in the suicide thread.

I was just going to pop in and tell you to donate your body to science.
Who knows maybe you'll get a fancy cyborg body out of it? (probably not)

Still you gotta be in it to win it!

I would prefer to have my body destroyed or buried than to give to 1st year medical students (not that they wouldn't learn anything, but that I wouldn't want them to use my body as a teaching tool).

I couldn't fathom the possibility of even attempting it. Is life really so bad that you want to erase your very existence on Earth? To go from horrible existence to no existence at all boggles my mind. Especially when there are means to make things better in your life. I just don't get it.

I was like you once in the views you express.

People pushed to the brink will do irrational things. Sometimes they do irrational things even without being pushed.

There are things worse than death and worse than suicide. In suicide, one can at least have control over how they die - though I'm not condoning it. Just stating a fact.

It didn't have anything to do with a horrible existence - it had everything to do with losing what I valued and cherished.

 

[snafupants]

I couldn't fathom the possibility of even attempting it. Is life really so bad that you want to erase your very existence on Earth? To go from horrible existence to no existence at all boggles my mind. Especially when there are means to make things better in your life. I just don't get it.

Those means aren't there for everyone. Just to rattle off a few examples: inherited major depressive disorder, child abuse, doddering old age, mountains of debt, disfigurement, disability, traumatic brain injury, drug abuse, and cancer. Some of these points are moot and subjective while others are more prohibitive and absolute. As a rule, when the pain of life outweighs the fear of death, folks voluntarily bite the dust. It ultimately doesn't metaphysically matter whether you kill yourself or not. Your loved ones might care, but you (by definition of suicide) forfeit the ability to care.

 

[MissQuote]

There is a lot of talk about the feelings of the family not mattering as much as the feelings of the person deciding to end their life, and while that may be true, I wonder if the people saying it really understand the pain of loosing someone they love? I mean, those aren't just little feelings of not getting ones way or being irritated with someone or even having the heart crushed by the rejection of love.*

Loss, grief, those are profound feelings of the deepest nature. They pierce the core and turn their blade around and around until one is torn to shreds from the inside out. It is not only having a piece of ones heart irrevocably ripped out, it is a constant eating away of what remains after the fact. It is a hollow emptiness that will never be filled, that someday becomes an dull echoing ache one thinks of or forgets at all the moments that make them feel guilty for thinking of or forgetting. It is feeling everything. All of it. Every last little bit.

We all know we will die. But we all sort of hope it won't really happen to anyone we like or love.

I don't know. In the past six years I have lost my grandpa to unknown causes (he simply dropped where he was standing and no test showed why) my close friend to a drug over dose that was likely a suicide, my other close friend to cancer, my brother to an auto accident, my husbands grandpa to cancer and early this year my teen aged sons friend took her life.

I guess I just think it is kind of screwy to disregard the feelings of those left behind as simply "hurt".

I support assisted suicide for those suffering from terminal illness.

I have been on the brink of suicide several times in my life. I don't really feel like saying anymore than that.

*by "a lot" I mean not only this thread, but others I have read around here too.

 

[MissQuote]

Also, donate your body to science please. Best plan. Be useful and shit.

 

[ach003]

I understand suicide is a touchy subject. But I am far too rational about things to agree with you when you say that it is wrong to leave your friends and family with the burden. Honestly, your life is for you to choose what to do with. I do not CONDONE suicide. I wouldn't want anyone to kill his or herself. However, is it wrong to be selfish? I mean, should one not make themselves the primary focus of his or her life...? Or should one not have the choice whether or not they should live? We will all die anyway.

Anyhow, I have, like probably most humans, considered it, had thoughts about it. I chalk it up to being a moody teenager, and being bratty and wanting to get attention. I know I would never actually do it, because it makes no sense to me to actually kill myself. I' like to enjoy my life, even at its shittiest. Then again my hyper-rational way of functioning makes me able to be content with existing. I feel like an observer, an outsider to society...just watching people as they go about things. I am pretty at home in isolation, at being the outside observer...haha

Life is whatever you want it to be. If you want it to not exist, then that's awfully upsetting...but rationally speaking, I have no problems with suicide. Then again I don't get too emotionally attached to the point where it would shatter me to lose anyone. Maybe I am more detached than the average person.

 

[snafupants]

What's wrong with condoning suicide? Is there a moral quandary surrounding advocating suicide as a solution to pain? The converse, namely discouraging suicide, seems even more moralizing and ridiculous by comparison. How could someone simultaneously contend that they respect the dignity and individuality of a person, and then refuse to grant that particular person the right to take his own life? My thoughts on suicide basically accord with Zeno and Schopenhauer in that, one, suicide should be dealt with rationally, two, proscribing suicide, legally or socially, is inane because it undervalues personal autonomy and, three, suicide is ethically permissible. This notion that loved ones in pain should endure that pain because of emotional dependency is far more selfish than suicide itself. The only thing that's truly owned in this wretched life is one's own body.

 

[Latte]

Especially when there are means to make things better in your life. I just don't get it.

Such means are not always easy or available.

An example is, imagine you have an illness that is deemed chronic. You are in constant pain every day, you can't think clearly, your ability for various sorts of cognition is eroding. Your very self is being destroyed. You are constantly exhausted. Your sleep does little. The people you live with, on whom you depend and are at the mercy of treat you like shit and you have nowhere to go. There doesn't seem to be a likely way out.

Where unbearable suffering meets a great sense of hopelessness, the question of suicide resides.

I have in several periods of my life not comitted suicide only because it would leave a mess for others.

I don't consider opting out of life to make oneself a mean person somehow, or a coward. It is simply a choice. The way one does it and how one leaves things is something else, though.

I don't owe being alive to anyone unless I have made some sort of commitment that necessitates my continued aliveness.

 

[Jennywocky]

One thing I don't understand is suicide notes. I mean, if I would suicide it would be because I have no reason to live anymore nor I care about anything or anyone. If there is something you still want to say / do then you obviously care, and still have something to live for.

Or maybe I just don't get suicide.

No, that sounds right to me.

I think this psychology is noted in the case literature -- typically people who have committed to the thought of suicide start giving away their things and might even seem happier for a bit... and then everyone is shocked because they've offed themselves. The thing was, they had come to terms with it so there was nothing else to say or fix. Not much need for a note either.


-----------------------

To tie it in with my answer to the poll, I came very close to killing myself a few years ago, although I'm struggled with depression all my life. (I had another rough patch in my 20's.)

To put it in a nutshell, though, it wasn't that I wanted to die, it's that I wanted to live and never felt that I would be able to. I was more passive as a person, and hemmed in by other people's expectations for me, and it was just too terrifying to even know what to do or how to do it, in order to change my life for the better. I also knew any changes would at least temporarily hurt people I cared about.

Most of the time I struggled with pills, but then I started cutting myself, increasingly deeper. At that point, I realized I'd be dead unless I changed something; and I decided to change rather than die. Not much else to say. The journey after that was scary but it made me a much stronger individual, and today I'm happy to be alive.

Not everyone would be in a similar boat, depression and suicidal urges can have various sources; but for me, it was something I could resolve by making a large-scale life change.

I think sometimes suicide can seem like a "rational" choice for a particular person, especially in cases of terminal illness / euthenasia. It's just that it impacts more than the person doing it, typically, so it's not such a simple act.

 

[ObliviousGenius]

I think Jenny is on the right track. I'd imagine most people go through some kind of turmoil at some point in their lives. I'm 21 and I had a horrible asperger's childhood. Not at one point did I believe that death was the way out. I've had times where I've felt some slight depression but my rational mind explained to me whats BETTER.

I believe a suicidal state of mind is where one wallows in his/her own problems and forgets what's better. From an INTP standpoint, I think some of you all have forgotten that despite our weaknesses we have strengths. Strengths that separate us from normal people. It's not what you don't have, that list will always be more than what you do have. Strengthen your strengths and give yourself the opportunity to come out of your slump.

Remember what your role is and more importantly remember what your role is not. I think this is a way to give your life some sort of purpose or meaning in a world where everyone does the same things and think the same way.

Problems are always bigger than they appear to be because they are the most easily identified. I can't tell anyone not to commit suicide because it's your decision. But it would be a shame if you went through with it, without considering all your options.

OG

 

[Trebuchet]

My terrible episode was at age 19, when my college roommate made what was probably not a very sincere suicide attempt, but it scared the hell out of me when she showed me her wrists. When my college's dean of students swore me to secrecy and told me to keep this unhappy minor from doing it again, I pretty much had a nervous breakdown and spent about three years recovering.

But I never considered suicide, because of the terrible damage her attempt caused me and her family. I believe in the right to die, and if someone chooses that because they just can't continue, who am I to say they had an option? But, yes, suicide is selfish and horrible, and it makes me angry.

 

[intpz]

I couldn't say I thought about suicide much... I think about what's gonna happen, how to get a job I can stand, etc., but not about suicide. However, if I could get a job on a minimum wave (which is low around here, and the prices of food are high) and keep working it 'till I'm 30, I'm not sure what I'm gonna think. I want quality in life. Fuck my country.

 

[Beholder]

http://suicidenote.info/

 

[snafupants]

My terrible episode was at age 19, when my college roommate made what was probably not a very sincere suicide attempt, but it scared the hell out of me when she showed me her wrists. When my college's dean of students swore me to secrecy and told me to keep this unhappy minor from doing it again, I pretty much had a nervous breakdown and spent about three years recovering.

But I never considered suicide, because of the terrible damage her attempt caused me and her family. I believe in the right to die, and if someone chooses that because they just can't continue, who am I to say they had an option? But, yes, suicide is selfish and horrible, and it makes me angry.

The aspect you need to appreciate about suicidal depression is the almost inherent solipsism to the complicated and acute psychic pain. The suffering is so overwhelming that it's hard to fathom other people, as reprehensible as that seems. You just want to end the hurt.

 

[cheese]

I think the claims of cowardice often come from assuming the suicide is a thoughtless overreaction to a temporary situation. Escapism, rather than a considered decision after trying every other avenue and finding improvement in none. Of course this isn't always the case, but I'm not sure what the majority of 'cowardice'-accusers would say if they mentally walked through the whole process (years of depression and effort to manage without any success, constant fears about betraying or hurting family, etc) in an attempt to understand.

Suicide's horrible, but I always feel worse about the state they were in that caused them to want to not live anymore, than the fact that they died. Once you're dead, you're dead, and you're safe. At that point I care a lot more about who's left behind.

Calling emotional bonds 'emotional dependence' is unnecessarily negative colouring, I think. Makes relationships sound pathological rather than normal to pretty much every human. You can't go with the arguments from nature we all love to use on this site without acceding to that as well. Community is normal and important, and suicide is a terrible mutilation of that. You shouldn't have to devalue it just to prove your point about suicide being ultimately up to the individual.

Suicide comes from horrible suffering, and those who loved the victim of misery suffer horribly for the rest of their lives. Whatever anyone decides to do, and whether it's 'right' or 'wrong', neither group lives a very happy life for the time they're alive.

I know the general thrust of that line of reasoning is the supposed hypocrisy in those trying to keep their loved one alive through appealing to selflessness (from a place of selfishness), and I do see that.

Still, when the emotion involved on both sides is that powerful (and therefore dangerous), it's a little hard to bring in petty things like hypocrisy. Also I think a lot of the time the family/friends think it's a genuinely bad idea (in a basic, fundamental way) for the victim. It's not purely selfish, I think.

I do think suicide shouldn't be illegal. Assisted suicide is so easily exploitable though. If I were a policy-maker it'd be hard to touch that one right regardless of my beliefs.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Life it seems will fade away
Drifting further every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters, no one else

I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free

Things not what they used to be
Missing one inside of me
Deathly lost, this can't be real
Cannot stand this hell I feel

Emptiness is filling me
To the point of agony
Growing darkness taking dawn
I was me but now he's gone

No one but me can save myself
But it's too late
Now I can't think
Think why I should even try

Yesterday seems as though
It never existed
Death greets me warm
Now I will just say goodbye

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV2NKk1ATew

 

[rattymat]

In some ways, killing yourself is actually pretty brave. If you have all truly considering suicide, you would probably agree that you would be too afraid to go through with killing yourself. Thus the act of killing one's self requires overcoming this fear.

 

[nexion]

I would say that proper suicide requires losing completely the will and instinct to live. That is indeed very difficult and I would say brave.

 

[Namesmith]

I've contemplated suicide, but in a detached way, as a mental exercise. I've never really considered it because I always "felt" I had a purpose that I needed to fulfill, a mission, if you will.. Perversely, any suffering I experienced was necessary to fulfill the mission, and to shield others.

Are those INTP traits?

 

[snafupants]

I would say that proper suicide requires losing completely the will and instinct to live. That is indeed very difficult and I would say brave.

The will to live governs the species rather than the individual; only through the dictates of nature, directed at the species, is the individual infected with the will to live; nature makes mistakes, thus the individual is subordinate to the species. So when the individual perishes, by his own hand or otherwise, the species nobly continues on its merry yet delusional way. Imagine the will to live governing the inconsequential movements of the individual. Why would nature chose the fallible and capricious individual as the vehicle for her obstinate plans? In a world this threadbare of joy and pleasure, such a plan would only last a few generations; nature's designs are far too precious to jeopardize on one depression-prone and only ostensibly reasoning, and reasonable, entity. Folks often need to craft specious moral arguments to offset the ethical flimsiness of their contentions against suicide. The Bible appears to provisionally vindicate rather than unequivocally chastise suicide, and there aren't really any fiats against suicide in conventional religious dogma and scripture. Overall, suicide is completely permissible because there's a dearth of rules outlining human existence, and nature and circumstance can often render human ontology unrelentingly hellish and unrewarding.

 

[MichiganJFrog]

I have thought about it on and off again since I was 13. The closest I ever came to it was seven years ago, after I lost my job, and I held a scissors blade up to my wrist for a minute or so. My therapist had me check into a psych ward the next day. I haven't thought about it in a while, though.

 

[Roni]

Reminding someone on the point of suicide of the pain they'll cause others can seem a bit cruel - adding emotional blackmail to whatever else they're dealing with - but it can actually help.
Suicide is a rational decision, but the "facts" informing that decision may be heavily tainted by depression, extreme stress etc.
Most of us, most of the time, have effective tricks for reducing the impact of overwhelming pressures - eg "I'm too tired for this now, I'll face it tomorrow after a good night's sleep."
For the suicidal this is broadly true as well, although the process will take a bit more work. The trick is to buy enough time.
Anything that stalls the act of suicide, including apparent emotional blackmail, is a start.
So are other apparently illogical tactics, like installing direct-to-counsellor phones at popular suicide spots, or fencing them off completely.
It may be that the one little thing that led to the final impulse really does seem better in the morning. As long as they're still alive they still have the option of dealing with the rest.

 

[Pilot the Cannibal]

I have never contemplated suicide/considered it. It might be a selfish decision, maybe not, that's not why I would never do it. Committing suicide is like giving up. Life is a challenge that only gets harder; and no matter how much your life sucks, committing suicide is like giving up. If you commit suicide, then life has beaten you. If you hate your life, why let it beat you?

I think that a lot of people will threaten to commit suicide, but just be doing it for attention or as a cry for help; or, they'll commit suicide by accident by O.D.ing. I suppose that, as irritating as those people are, I can understand their motivation because they won't actually end up dead (or at least, they don't THINK that they will.)

However, as for the other, smaller percentage of people; maybe 10-20 percent of people; who commit suicide without telling anybody, with the full intention of death; I don't understand it. I've got more respect for them than the aforementioned people, but I still don't really get it. It's like quitting before you know you've lost. Everyone's going to die eventually; why wouldn't you want to do the best you have with the time you've got? If you enjoy life and the people around you, why would you want to leave that? Conversely, if you hate life and the people around you, wouldn't you want to do your best to get back at them? It sounds mean, but it's logical. If your life sucks, you can always make it better. If you hate others, you can make their lives worse. Either way, being is better than not being because you have control and power over the universe; not much, but sum. Suicide is like giving up that power; giving up the power to your own life, as well as the power to make an impact on the world; whatever you want that impact to be.

So, no, I have never considered suicide because it simply isn't logical. It seems like the most unproductive thing you could possibly do.

"But in the end, one needs more courage to live than one needs to kill oneself." ~Albert Camus

 

[Deleted member 1424]

Am I the only one disturbed by the gross presumptions pervading this thread?

Spouting halfthought, simplistic clichés as if they were profound wisdom...

Typical kneejerk western responses.

You know nothing.

 

[Moocow]

Am I the only one disturbed by the gross presumptions pervading this thread?

Spouting halfthought, simplistic clichés as if they were profound wisdom...

Typical kneejerk western responses.

You know nothing.

Go on?