Suicide

[cidbahamut]

It's been on my mind an awful lot lately and the way we as a society approach suicide is pretty fucked up.


We chastise people for bringing it up at all. The conventional thought is that anyone who talks about wanting to kill themselves but has yet to actually follow through is just looking for attention. As a society we scorn that, whether the person's motive was to seek attention or simply to try to work through their suicidal tendencies. So instead of being able to actively discuss their feelings, the person has to deal with this social stigma. But here's the thing, not being able to talk about suicide means people have to bottle it all up and let the impulse and underlying causes continue to fester. Without an outlet for it, the problem just compounds upon itself until eventually the person breaks down and makes good on those suicidal impulses. Once that happens the tune changes to scorning the dead for being selfish or cowardly. It's a laughable response really. It takes a lot to push a person to consider suicide as an option and even more to build up the resolve to actually go through with it. Suicide as I see it is a path to relief from unbearable agony. Humans are for the most part fairly resilient creatures. We can endure a lot of pain both physically and emotionally, but there's always a breaking point and it isn't necessarily the same for everyone. Most of the reason we're able to endure pain is because it is fleeting. Tremendous pain can be endured because it is fleeting. A sustained moderate pain can be adapted to. When the tremendous and unbearable pain becomes sustained, one's ability to endure steadily erodes until eventually the person breaks. On a very basic level we are wired to avoid pain, so when it gets past a certain point and there are no other options for relieving that pain, death becomes the last and only path to peace. It's not an easy choice to arrive at, and the willpower required to act on it is nothing short of phenomenal. Yet society scorns it as the actions of a weak willed individual who gave up. It's not giving up, it's being pro-active in carving a path to a solution to one's own ordeal. Giving up is just continuing to live for the sake of continuing to live because taking one's own life is too difficult. We have this twisted notion of suicide being inherently wrong. We think the suicidal person owes it to the rest of us to continue living, but we never stop to give consideration of why they want out. Does that person really owe us so much that they ought to continue existing in a state of tortured agony just because we would miss them? Is that really what's best for them? Not everything that brings on suicidal urges has an actual solution either. It's all well and good to say the person just needs to work through things, but what do you do when part of the equation is beyond the control of that person? There's a limit to what each of us can endure before we break.

[Icemage]

Re: Suicide

Is this an empirical discussion, or did something in particular bring this up? Just laying some ground rules before we venture into some potentially dangerous topical waters.


Icemage

[Jarre]

Re: Suicide

Sadly with the cost cutting in the UK of NHS budgets, over 1 year waiting lsits to see a mental health proffessional and the lack of mental health beds and the fact people who are in need of help get dumped on the police who have to detain them in a cell due to teh lack of beds suicide in general is on teh increase. The cost of living, painfull cuts all over the place and the lack of support as well as peoples attitudes to people who need help, the stigmatism of havign a mental health condition which depression is a one of the most common that every person will suffer with at one aprt of their life, int eh Uk we are at crisis point as a moderator of a depression forum and a sufferer myself I have seen it from both sides of the line and seen the cries for help from people when the health service and family and friends turn their backs on them. sometimes people see it as the only way out. in 2011 6000+ people commited suicide and over half could have been prevented if the support structure was their for them. I understand your cautiousness Icemage, but as long as people don't turn it to a slagging match or taking the piss then some people might learn something or even understand some issues.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Suicide

There's this perception that needing to talk about matters of mental health or even things that were once stigmatized as such is a sign of weakness. Loss via suicide is a tough matter to deal when you factor in the powerlessness one experiences when theycan think back through what might have been signs in hindsight.

I lost a friend to it in the last days of high school then alost lost a family member to it years, the latter had no signs - it was pure impluse. She had found out she had been cheated on twice over by her husband and he left her for the second woman. The first found his father's gun and the second ODed and had her stomach pumped. I let her have it, because the scars from the prior loss were still only a few years old. Old enough for it feel like it was only weeks ago. It haunts you. She DID have a moment of weakness. She was right to feel upset and betrayed, but he wasn't worth dying over. Her husband proved himself to be scum.

I just remember the first time going from anguish to acceptance to a resentful hatred until the scars faded several years later. It took a lot if time, too. Its a difficult emotional territory to tread, the person taking their lives is so hurt they can't fathom their death having the impact it likely will.

That aside we have a lot in culture that stigmatizes suicide and poor mental health. TV and movies show mental health at extremes, not reality. They show suicide as a shock that fades within days, not something that haunts for years. Having problems is portrayed as something soft, rich people can deal with because they have money and nothing better to do. Strong people internalize, shut up and work through it by magic. My family certainly thinks that way because they're brainwashed by talk radio. Murica, rugged indivudualise, something something bootstraps etc. Apparently I was just supposed to get over insomnia and anxiety attacks with raw work ethic or a bible.

Affordable access to mental health care and de stigmatized mental health issues is the answe, but politicians, shock jocks and Hollywood make their money on the stigma. Homosexuality was declassified 40+ years yet reparirative therapy hacks still exist in 48 states because there's money in it. It going to take more years than many of us have to deconstruct that. Its my hope we can erode the stigmas in time, but there being industries behind this stuff it's going to take lots of time.

[DakAttack]

Re: Suicide

I can respect suicide. There are some things you can never escape from, such as chronic pain or bi-polar disorder. Medications for these may not work, or may occur with unbearable side effects. If you want out, you're entitled to your way out.

[Etra]

Re: Suicide

I can respect suicide. There are some things you can never escape from, such as chronic pain or bi-polar disorder. Medications for these may not work, or may occur with unbearable side effects. If you want out, you're entitled to your way out.

Just don't take others with you. My only stipulation.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Suicide

Is this an empirical discussion, or did something in particular bring this up?

The latter, obviously.

[Icemage]

Re: Suicide

The latter, obviously.

In that case, my general opinion follows the well-known Wiccan Rede. I'm not Wiccan by any stretch of the imagination, but it sums up my feelings on the topic succinctly.

"An it harm none, do as ye will."

If you've got dependents who will suffer because you're no longer around to take care of them, that's a problem. If you're planning to take someone else out with you, that's DEFINITELY a problem. But people should have the right do decide what to do with their own lives. If for some reason you feel that ending things is a better alternative, and can overcome the natural survival instinct, then with the previous caveats in mind, so be it. This is particularly true when someone has a terminal or potentially debilitating chronic illness.


Icemage

[Melody]

Re: Suicide

Honestly, I see suicide as a selfish way out. In my strong opinion, when you think about suicide you're only thinking about the way to off yourself. The people who care for you and namely your family/future that gets left behind. I will say this much, if escape really isn't an option I think I'd look towards a chemical induced coma instead of death outright. Stab the body and it heals, wound the heart and it last a lifetime.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Suicide

Speaking as someone who has been suicidal, you are not of the belief that there actually are people who care about you. All the times when I have been suicidal, I have been completely convinced that there is not a single person on the planet who would care if I was gone or who would miss me. You think so lowly of yourself that you consider yourself a burden to those around you. Their lives would be much better without you. They could move along without you holding them back. Etc.

To someone who is contemplating suicide, you don't feel selfish at all. You're going to kill yourself to relieve not only your pain, but the pain of the people who have to deal with you and your misery all the time. People who have never struggled or been to that low point in their lives don't understand how it feels to believe that you are worthless, useless, unloved, and unwanted. They don't understand the mentality so they throw out words like "selfish." They tell you "just smile, you'll feel better," or "just do something that you enjoy, that should make you happy again." Only it doesn't work that way. Every movement hurts, not your body but your soul. Getting out of bed is a huge struggle. Continuing with life is an uphill climb every day, and sometimes you just can't do it. Sometimes something so innocuous that any "normal" person wouldn't find so terrible can make a depressed person feel like their very soul has been sucked from their being. It's like being an air mattress, and someone coming along and deflating it. All the wind has been sucked out of you.

It is true what was said earlier in the thread about Hollywood glamorizing it. It's not glamorous. It's not a "get over it in one week" thing. It's a lifelong struggle for most. People treat you like total shit for even mentioning that you have any sort of mental disorder because they think that you just want attention. Actually, attention is the last thing I want, most of the time when I feel that way, I want to be left alone because I don't want to burden people I care about with my problems. Even though I know that sometimes, that's the only way to work through them. I have a private blog for that very reason, just so I feel like I have an outlet when I don't want to burden my family or friends.

Suicide is terrible and it's painful for those who experience it. It's painful for the person who does it, because they got to the point so low where they felt it was the only way to relieve not only their own burden, but their friends'/family's burdens as well. (Their burden being the suicidal person) It's also painful to the people around them because not only do they question themselves, they will never get a satisfactory answer most of the time after it happens. And the worst thing is that all it takes is communication sometimes, just one person letting them know that they actually do legitimately care and they're not just paying lip service can make the difference. But so many suicidal people get to the point where they truly and actually believe that no one cares about them. So it isn't about "saving themselves" at the sake of others, it's about saving everyone, including themselves, from him/herself.

That's why I can't really listen to people saying it's selfish. Because if you understood what suicidal people go through, you'd know why it's not, really.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Suicide

In a small group, loss of any (adult) individual is a large hit to the group's skill set/capability and knowledge, and quite possibly an important store of genetic diversity as well. Luckily(?), suicide is more of an urban phenomenon.

Still, it's troubling that people can think "My life is my own and I owe nothing to the rest of humanity." The greater good should be greater than any of my private good, and more good than any of my private misery. People sort of have an obligation to stick around and find ways to contribute, unless they are objectively truly useless and without further potential.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Suicide

Stab the body and it heals, wound the heart and it last a lifetime.

Exhibit A in "Why a person might contemplate suicide".

[Malacite]

Re: Suicide

Exhibit A in "Why a person might contemplate suicide".

Yeah I remember being told once that usually when a man commits suicide it's to make a statement, for a women it's a cry for help.

I tried to numerous times over the years, especially after my best friend/ex-fiance broke things off and basically left me mentally and emotionally crippled. It's not that I didn't know doing it would hurt those I care about (particularly her) but that I just didn't care. It's not a pretty place to be in, feeling like there's nothing to live for, that nothing you do matters and there's just no reasonable way out.

[Jarre]

Re: Suicide

Actually malacite it can be a cry for help by a man as well there is no splitting of sexes for the reason its down to teh iundividuals circumstances and how they are dealing with the issues in front of them.