Suicide, what keeping you from offing yourself? (Morbid)

[jonsmith]

Call it big headed if you want, but I know I'm one of the chosen people. Not like the Jews from the Bible, but I mean just one of those people who are actually meant to change the world in one of those massive ways.

I've got all the credentials, I'm extremely fortunate in every way, not allergic to anything, never been in jail, sure, I got arrested a couple of times, but always I got out of it. I'm good with people, and have a calm mind, albeit a bit erratic at times, but, that's among a multitude of other things that actually do qualify me.

Like, I have been protected all my life. I've been in car accidents, and have come out fine. Not a scratch, while everyone else is injured, having back problems, and head injuries, and me, the kid who doesn't wear a seatbelt, and was the only one in the back of the car at the time when the big suv rear ends the car, is dancing around the outside of the car like a sugar addict in willy wonka's chocolate factory.

Aside from that, I don't see Suicide as Selfish, because there are reasons to legitimize it.

However, I will say that, another thing that keeps me from offing myself, and yes, the sensation happens QUITE often, is the fact that, I hae too much good to do for others.

I do good for others anyway, and I take a lot more bull shit than most people, but I still have more good to do. I've lived less than a quarter of the average life span of a human being, so...yeah...

 

[Bohemianne]

...but I know I'm one of the chosen people.

Hahaha brilliant! Me too.

-o0o-

What keeps me going?

Life and current track.
There is nothing inviting about Death.
I am an optimistic beast.

 

[c7_assassin]

Suicide is the cowards way out.

I'm not trying to be an asshole by stating my very blunt opinion, I just fail to see how one can call suicide anything but a selfish and cowardly act.

So call me an asshole (and you'd probably be right to do so), but suicide is for chumps.

v/r

I see it a different way. To me, 'cowardice' is someone living a useless, loveless, parasitic life year after year because they're afraid of death or pain. To me, there's nothing cowardly about suicide. For some people, it may be the only decisive action they'll ever take in their entire lives.

That said, the reason I've never done it, or come close to doing it, is because there are always lots of reasons not to. I haven't hit rock bottom; if I ever do, I guess we'll just have to see.

 

[TeeHeeLawrence]

What? Another one?

Fundamentally, I'm a shallow person, and this carries over to what might be the chief reason I've never indulged in suicide:<p>
I will not kill myself until I've eaten an entire pint of every flavor of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream. The problem (or not, as the case may be) is that they create new flavors faster than I can eat 'em...

 

[jonsmith]

I am an optimistic beast.

Has fallen in love, or has it?

 

[Lamashtu]

Cy/MiG

There’s some things I agree with you on, and some things I just don’t. First off, stating that suicide is a cowards way, then saying it’s easy to give yourself a reason to live seems a bit contradictory. So choosing life is the easy path? And obviously the decision to commit suicide is not an easy path. So choosing the difficult path is cowardice? I don’t want to fight on this really, there’s enough fighting and negativity going on in the world. But I take it as an insult being called a coward. You can call the act selfish, cause it is. You can call it ungrateful, since it’s that as well. But it is not cowardice.

Death leads people to come up with a bunch of philosophies. We don’t know what happens after we die. From boiling in a pit in hell, to reincarnation, to ceasing to exist. Venturing into something we have no real solid evidence about is not cowardice.

Everyone has a perspective, and I agree that the suicidal will have an inward perspective. Depression alters your perspective, sometimes completely. It’s a mental SICKNESS. The chemicals in your brain literally change. And just as a person can sit on a pedestal looking down at all the bad things that are happening to other people. A person can sit on a pedestal looking up as well. No matter which way you look, up or down, it can be depressing. I personally think looking down is more depressing. Depression is often paired with feeling powerless. To see or know all these horrible things happening. Corruption, greed, rape, famine, shootings, poverty, and believing you have no real power to stop or help any of it. You start to wonder what kind of world you were born into. Humans acting inhuman.

Living because you have it better than other people is not a reason. It’s a benefit, but not a reason. I kind of want to end my debate here for now.

 

[Cy/MiG]

Living because you have it better than other people is not a reason. It’s a benefit, but not a reason. I kind of want to end my debate here for now.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to debate, I was just expanding on my original post since my opinion seemed to offend some people terribly for whatever reasons.

v/r

 

[TheTickleMonster]

I see it a different way. To me, 'cowardice' is someone living a useless, loveless, parasitic life year after year because they're afraid of death or pain. To me, there's nothing cowardly about suicide. For some people, it may be the only decisive action they'll ever take in their entire lives.

That said, the reason I've never done it, or come close to doing it, is because there are always lots of reasons not to. I haven't hit rock bottom; if I ever do, I guess we'll just have to see.

The way I see it, suicide is giving up on life. That seems like a cowardly thing to do, to give up on something. Alot of time suicide is caused by fear, fear of living, that's another cowardly thing. So to say there's "nothing" cowardly about suicide, would kinda make you wrong. Life sucks. I say that all the time. Shit happens, you flush it and move on. I think living a loveless, useless, parasitic life takes guts. To be insulted by living the way someone lives and keeps on strugling through it takes guts. Giving up and not wanting to go through all that anymore, that doesn't take bravery at all.

 

[c7_assassin]

The way I see it, suicide is giving up on life. That seems like a cowardly thing to do, to give up on something. Alot of time suicide is caused by fear, fear of living, that's another cowardly thing. So to say there's "nothing" cowardly about suicide, would kinda make you wrong. Life sucks. I say that all the time. Shit happens, you flush it and move on. I think living a loveless, useless, parasitic life takes guts. To be insulted by living the way someone lives and keeps on strugling through it takes guts. Giving up and not wanting to go through all that anymore, that doesn't take bravery at all.

I disagree. But maybe you're misunderstanding me; I think most of us do have plenty of good reasons to keep living even when life seems to objectively 'suck.' I'm not advocating suicide. I think a life that's lived in love and friendship and with purpose and passion is a worthwhile life.

But the decision to end it and save a little bit of human dignity when that dignity is gone is not a cowardly decision. Getting up and going through the motions is something an animal can do. It's instinctual. Human beings are capable of more than that. Sometimes we get to choose when and how we make an exit. That's not cowardly.

 

[tkpatience]

"War and Peas..."

 

[Cy/MiG]

For some people, it may be the only decisive action they'll ever take in their entire lives.

...

But the decision to end it and save a little bit of human dignity when that dignity is gone is not a cowardly decision. Getting up and going through the motions is something an animal can do. It's instinctual. Human beings are capable of more than that. Sometimes we get to choose when and how we make an exit. That's not cowardly.

I think you raise a very valid point and I definitely see what you're saying.

Still, if I was intent on dying I'd at least 'pull a Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino' (or a Robert De Niro in 'Taxi Driver') and go out while trying to do SOMETHING. They're a million ways to die without literally taking your own life, so suicide would be last on my list.

But that's just the way I see it.

v/r

 

[luvgirlsfeet]

i honestly dont know with as many times as I have considered it i still dont know

 

[TheTickleMonster]

Sometimes we get to choose when and how we make an exit. That's not cowardly.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Yes we get to choose when we leave. I however think choosing to leave is cowardly. And it's, as i pointed out before, choosing to make the exit ane end the life is giving up.

 

[The Fallen Angel]

suicide is not something ive ever considered, life is far to short and im enjoying it too much to end it early

 

[Korastus]

But the decision to end it and save a little bit of human dignity when that dignity is gone is not a cowardly decision.

Theres not really any dignity in death. It's a sad, unpleasant, ugly process, no matter how it happens, when it happens, or to whom it happens.
We can live with dignity. We can't die with it.

 

[Carsomyr]

I agree with c7, he basically said everything I was going to say, but more eloquently worded than I would ever have been able to. xD

Methinks the people here who are saying it's "cowardly" are dealing far too much with absolutes. The world isn't black and white, and some people actually have arguably legit reasons to want to end it. Not everyone who thinks about suicide is an annoying emo who writes poetry about how sorry they feel for themselves, and not everyone is attention-seeking with it. I've met a lot of different types, and honestly, there is a point where life just gets too miserable. I'm mainly thinking about people who have become sick and know they will live with chronic pains and/or handicaps for the rest of their lives, but to some extent I'm also thinking of people who have absolutely hit rock bottom socially and mentally. For the latter I would still heavily advice against offing yourself, because with time things can improve, but I wouldn't blame them for considering it.

Having been pretty close to rock bottom myself and knowing just how bad it is possible to feel, as well as having seen it in others... Sure, it's possible to argue that it's the "easy way out", but to flip the coin I'm sure most of the people who have an opinion on this actually have no clue what it feels like to be heavily depressed or being in massive pain - especially not for a prolonged period of time. "Suicide is the coward's way out" is what I would call a "fake axiom", it sounds good in theory but it doesn't really work well when applied to real life situations. Basically what I'm trying to say is that you can't judge all the cases the same way, or put them in the same category. If you do (I'm not saying anyone has gone to that extreme in this particular thread) it merely shows your ignorance on the topic, or at the very least it hints a bias based on introverted opinions rather than empathy for others.

 

[TheTickleMonster]

Theres not really any dignity in death. It's a sad, unpleasant, ugly process, no matter how it happens, when it happens, or to whom it happens.
We can live with dignity. We can't die with it.

I agree, there was something i wanted to say about his comment of it being a way to die with dignity but couldn't think of how to put it, so thank you.

 

[Libertine]

Shakespeare said it all.

Here's Hamlet debating the same question.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?

To live, or to die? That's the question. Is it nobler to put up with all the troubles that luck throws your way, or to fight against all those troubles by simply putting an end to them once and for all? To die, to sleep, to be nothing—a sleep that ends all the heartache and shocks that life on earth gives us—that’s a happy ending to wish for. To die, to sleep—to sleep, maybe to dream. Ah, but there’s the catch: in death’s sleep who knows what kind of dreams might come, after we’ve gotten rid of our earthly existance. That’s certainly something to worry about. That’s the consideration that makes us stretch out our sufferings so long.

After all, who would put up with all life’s humiliations—the abuse from superiors, the insults of arrogant men, the pain of unreturned love, the inefficiency of the legal system, the rudeness of people in office, and the mistreatment good people have to take from bad ones—when you could simply take a knife to yourself and call it quits?

Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.


Who would choose to grunt and sweat through a dreary life, unless they were afraid of something dreadful after death, the undiscovered country from which no visitor ever returns, which we wonder about without getting any answers from and which makes us stick to our old familiar problems rather than rush off to seek unknown ones? Fear of death makes us all cowards, and our natural boldness becomes weak with too much thinking. Actions that should be carried out at once get misdirected, and stop being actions at all.

 

[Saeria]

Some would believe that death is a transcendence into something greater than we are capable of understand as living beings, others would say that the "heaven" people experience is simply that final rush of endorphins and seratonin floating around in the brain before the brain activity ceases. Either way, death is an experience we know nothing about until it happens and well, after that there's no turning back to tell all your friends about it. Suicide, then, is the act of placing oneself into the ultimate unknown. I'm too chicken to go into something like that blindly before I have to. Plus, I still have this feeling there's something beautiful I'm supposed to share with the world in order to fulfill my purpose. I gotta stick around until the job is done.

 

[Bohemianne]

Well, I'll take it from the mythical Sisyphus. In this life, there is happiness in a meaningless task like pushing a boulder on and on until exhausting the last remaining life energy, than to plunge just as that in a very uncertain realm called death.

The fruitful struggle to caress the edge of gods' sixth sense of humor is enough to satisfy one's lifetime.

Hehe... absurdity speaks. In a forum like this, please don't take me seriously. 😱

Here's Hamlet debating the same question.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?

To live, or to die? That's the question. Is it nobler to put up with all the troubles that luck throws your way, or to fight against all those troubles by simply putting an end to them once and for all? To die, to sleep, to be nothing—a sleep that ends all the heartache and shocks that life on earth gives us—that’s a happy ending to wish for. To die, to sleep—to sleep, maybe to dream. Ah, but there’s the catch: in death’s sleep who knows what kind of dreams might come, after we’ve gotten rid of our earthly existance. That’s certainly something to worry about. That’s the consideration that makes us stretch out our sufferings so long.

After all, who would put up with all life’s humiliations—the abuse from superiors, the insults of arrogant men, the pain of unreturned love, the inefficiency of the legal system, the rudeness of people in office, and the mistreatment good people have to take from bad ones—when you could simply take a knife to yourself and call it quits?

Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.


Who would choose to grunt and sweat through a dreary life, unless they were afraid of something dreadful after death, the undiscovered country from which no visitor ever returns, which we wonder about without getting any answers from and which makes us stick to our old familiar problems rather than rush off to seek unknown ones? Fear of death makes us all cowards, and our natural boldness becomes weak with too much thinking. Actions that should be carried out at once get misdirected, and stop being actions at all.

 

[love feet]

there are days when i fear death but there are times when i do not know what keeps me here at all
I am Very conflicted!!!. 🙁 !!

 

[Skipadeedoodah]

Cy/MiG

There’s some things I agree with you on, and some things I just don’t. First off, stating that suicide is a cowards way, then saying it’s easy to give yourself a reason to live seems a bit contradictory. So choosing life is the easy path? And obviously the decision to commit suicide is not an easy path. So choosing the difficult path is cowardice? I don’t want to fight on this really, there’s enough fighting and negativity going on in the world. But I take it as an insult being called a coward. You can call the act selfish, cause it is. You can call it ungrateful, since it’s that as well. But it is not cowardice.

Death leads people to come up with a bunch of philosophies. We don’t know what happens after we die. From boiling in a pit in hell, to reincarnation, to ceasing to exist. Venturing into something we have no real solid evidence about is not cowardice.

Everyone has a perspective, and I agree that the suicidal will have an inward perspective. Depression alters your perspective, sometimes completely. It’s a mental SICKNESS. The chemicals in your brain literally change. And just as a person can sit on a pedestal looking down at all the bad things that are happening to other people. A person can sit on a pedestal looking up as well. No matter which way you look, up or down, it can be depressing. I personally think looking down is more depressing. Depression is often paired with feeling powerless. To see or know all these horrible things happening. Corruption, greed, rape, famine, shootings, poverty, and believing you have no real power to stop or help any of it. You start to wonder what kind of world you were born into. Humans acting inhuman.

Living because you have it better than other people is not a reason. It’s a benefit, but not a reason. I kind of want to end my debate here for now.

Incredibly well put.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to debate, I was just expanding on my original post since my opinion seemed to offend some people terribly for whatever reasons.

v/r

For whatever reason? Really?

You cannot possibly understand why someone would want to take their own life, so clearly you have never been in those shoes. Until you stand there and are faced with that choice, you absolutely cannot judge those who have already done it, regardless of the path they chose. You can try to fit it into a nice, neat little box of reason and logic that makes sense to you, but someone on the brink of suicide is past the point of listing pros and cons. They are on an emotional downward spiral, lost, afraid, alone, confused and obviously their perception is so distorted that they can't see another way out.

I have dealt, very closely, with suicide in my personal and professional life, and if there is one thing I can tell you it's that the moments before someone attempts or commits suicide, they are not thinking, "Whew - this is WAY easier than the bullshit I'd have to deal with if I decided to live." It's the most horrific, painful, shameful moment in their lives. It's a loneliness and an agony you can't even imagine. Please, do not minimize what suicidal people go through by calling them cowards. In their shoes, you have no idea what you would do.

The way I see it, suicide is giving up on life. That seems like a cowardly thing to do, to give up on something. Alot of time suicide is caused by fear, fear of living, that's another cowardly thing. So to say there's "nothing" cowardly about suicide, would kinda make you wrong. Life sucks. I say that all the time. Shit happens, you flush it and move on. I think living a loveless, useless, parasitic life takes guts. To be insulted by living the way someone lives and keeps on strugling through it takes guts. Giving up and not wanting to go through all that anymore, that doesn't take bravery at all.

What is the worst, most horrible thing that has ever happened to you? For me, I have my days when I'm sad and life is shitty and I catastrophize and say, "OMG NOTHING WILL EVER GET ANY BETTER AND EVERYTHING WILL BE TERRIBLE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!" and I cry and sleep and so on and so forth. That having been said, nothing REALLY terrible has ever happened to me. And for that reason, I am able to say, "Eh, shit happens. The sun will come out tomorrow. There are plenty of fish in the sea. Everything happens for a reason" and all the other shitty one-liners we tell ourselves when life puts a flaming bag of dog shit on our porch. However, what if something truly horrific happened to you. What if you lived through things that nightmares are made of? What if, despite all your most valient efforts, nothing. got. better. Everyone has their breaking point. Unless you've been there, you cannot judge.

Theres not really any dignity in death. It's a sad, unpleasant, ugly process, no matter how it happens, when it happens, or to whom it happens.
We can live with dignity. We can't die with it.

 

[His Divine Shadow]

The thought surfaces not-infrequently for me. Why I don't comes down to two things. One, I'm far too weak-willed to do the job. As I see it, there's a certain piece of self-preservative instinct one has to overcome, and I cannot. Two, it would make too many folks unhappy, and if I dislike one thing in this life more than any other, it is generating unhappiness. So, I keep trundling along.

 

[Cy/MiG]

You cannot possibly understand why someone would want to take their own life, so clearly you have never been in those shoes.

That's a terrible assumption to make.

If I'm in the wrong for generalizing suicide as cowardly, then you are also in the wrong for assuming you know me when you absolutely do not.

Until you stand there and are faced with that choice, you absolutely cannot judge those who have already done it, regardless of the path they chose.

When I was a teen, I contemplated suicide and could have easily gone through with it. Then I came to and allowed logic to take over.

10 years and a hell of alot of expierences later (many which could be percieved as 'traumatic'), I'm still here.

So there goes your 'don't knock it until you try it' angle.

You can try to fit it into a nice, neat little box of reason and logic that makes sense to you, but someone on the brink of suicide is past the point of listing pros and cons. They are on an emotional downward spiral, lost, afraid, alone, confused and obviously their perception is so distorted that they can't see another way out.

Yes, you're right, they're very emotional.

And people often make bad decisions when they're overly emotional.

It's usually better to keep a level head than follow all and any emotions on a whim.

Now granted, some people can't help a suicidal state of mind, but there is an obvious difference between somone who suffers from depression or bipolar disorder (or a similar disease) and the average Joe who offs themselves because they lost their job (or some other equally bad reason).

I have dealt, very closely, with suicide in my personal and professional life, and if there is one thing I can tell you it's that the moments before someone attempts or commits suicide, they are not thinking, "Whew - this is WAY easier than the bullshit I'd have to deal with if I decided to live." It's the most horrific, painful, shameful moment in their lives. It's a loneliness and an agony you can't even imagine.

Again, a bad assumption to make.

Please, do not minimize what suicidal people go through by calling them cowards.

Fair enough. I am generalizing as I usually do.

Although I don't understand how my opinion on the subect is somehow minimized simply because I lack sympathy/empathy.

In their shoes, you have no idea what you would do.

Yes I do, because I'm alive.

In any event, I'm not saying that I'm right and you're wrong, because I am often wrong and could very well be in this case.

I just choose not to justify suicide (because it's a terrible choice to make) and so I call it like I see it.

v/r

 

[McNoodle]

Nothing has kept me from offing myself. I simply choose to do it slowly and painfully rather than abruptly. Just because you haven't committed suicide doesn't mean you haven't given up. Rationilization is a crazy thing isn't it?