Suicide....
Just spent 20 minutes scrolling across a new associate's response to a page on Facebook.... it was a "John Doe's Care Page-" a continuing update of John's care- after he attempted suicide- over 3 years ago.
It's incredibly sad on so many levels.
It's a prime example of just how selfish suicide attempts are.
It amazed me, as I scrolled down, back, back, into history, how many times I saw "thoughts and prayers" in the comments. And I wonder how many people that continue to consciously, continually follow the page have noticed how that doesn't seem to work.
All these different angles of perception and discussion are going to keep from sleep tonight. It's so sad on so many levels.
And to continue on it.... how many here contemplated or thought about, or attempted suicide at one time or another? Me? I thought of it at different times, and seriously thought about it in high school... final decision- nah- because it WAS the FINAL DECISION. I knew it was an option, but that things would have to get REALLY fucked up to choose that....
And, finally, it always bugged me when I'd see a questionaire or whatever asking, "did you ever consider suicide," as a self-check if I was fucked up. I saw it as the opposite and was offended at the questioning....
Pardon my existentionalist moment.... but feel free to add to the discussion, berate me, or whatever.....
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There are different reasons for suicide. At one extreme is teenage angst and a lack of perceived and understood connections between actions and consequences, not just for others, but for oneself. At the other exterme is someone making a rational decision in conjunction with family members that they don't want to have more experiences, due to something like intractible agony or a fatal diagnosis. The latter is generically termed "rational suicide". Lumping all suicide into some stereotypical notion of "selfishness" is denigrating to not just people contemplating rational suicide, but to the depressed, mentally ill and bereaved as well.
Society shames people for even thinking of suicide and this is unhelpful. It probably prevents (or more often, merely delays) a minority of suicides, but does not alleviate human suffering, and in fact, increases it.
Once again we have religion to thank for this. Christianity's notion of a blissful afterlife and an end to all suffering therein, tends to make it into a suicide cult, so early on, it had to develop a strong taboo against suicide to counteract these tendencies (and for other reasons).
mordant
Level 8
Mar 27, 2018
1
I think associating suicides or attempted suicides with selfishness is bullshit. It's a concept that was created to use guilt to dissuade people from committing suicide. Selfishness is utterly irrelevant to suicidal individuals.
Suicide is associated with an illness. It's sad that people feel that their lives mean so little that their death won't affect anything or that their suffering is so horrible that life becomes torture for them. To have no hope, no joy, and no value in living isn't a choice people make it's an effect of severe depression. A lot of the problem is actually our misguided views of mental illness and our inability to understand or sympathize with those who suffer from it. The stigma attached to the condition makes people who need help reluctant to seek it.
JimG
Level 8
Mar 26, 2018
1
I'll have to disagree. I know when I thought about suicide back in my teens, the idea that it affected others was an issue. The way I recall "the message" I received was that however you think it won't affect others- IT WILL. I'm not sure, even on reflection, I saw it as "guilt." But it does affect others. Kids- and adults- DO need to hear that. People, possibly "not as far along" on the mental illness would probably be positively affected to consider the impact of their intentional demise on those around them.
JimG:
@MikaB I'm not referring to people who think about suicide. I am sure that's normal for most people. We tend to be reactionary in thought at least, to situations that seem hopeless. I was addressing legitimate mental health issues. Issues which your post seems to downplay. Have you ever talked to someone who is bipolar? Depressed?
Those people aren't acting out of selfishness. They need treatment and compassion.. Most people who think about suicide don't think the affect on other people would be negative; they really think they are relieving their loved ones of a burden.
Being depressed is normal and natural. Having clinical depression is not something people can pull themselves out of. Having a mental illness isn't being selfish. Selfishness is expecting people to get over it because you don't want to deal with it.
The "you" I'm referring to is in general, not personal.
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards.”
-Albert Camus
WombatLima
Level 5
Mar 26, 2018
2
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