Opinions on Suicide

Very interesting thread...it also bothers me when people get such strong opinions like that in reference to Kurt Cobain. Yes he was an extremely successful musician at the time of his death. He was also bipolar (or at least struggling with some form of depression), addicted to heroin, had severe physical pain from an undiagnosed stomach condition, and with a history of abuse as a child. If anything, the success was not a good thing for him, because he had nowhere to go but down from there. Nothing to aspire to, which I'm sure many here realize is NOT a good thing when depressed. Even then, it's impossible to see the good things in life when you're that low.

It really bothers me when people criticize suicide too. I think in some ways it's a result of their anger, grief and confusion about it, especially if they knew the individual personally. It's a lack of understanding. The part about those who commit suicide being cowardly bothers me. It's really the opposite, in my opinion. ***Please don't misunderstand that. I am NOT saying it is a good thing in any way***

I do find it interesting that those who have been in that kind of pain and have experienced those thoughts never seem to say those kind of things. So once again, it is a lack of understanding. Try not to get too angry over it, try to help them understand instead.

Anyway, interesting thread and that's awesome that you're learning guitar. I've been playing for nearly 7 years myself. It can really be a good outlet for your emotions, I hope it has the same effect for you.

Short answer, there should be no judgement about someone's decision to kill themselves. It is wrong both to call it brave and wrong to call it cowardly. Nor is it an inherently selfish act-though it may feel that way to the people left behind. Simply put, a person who kills themself is not in their right mind and cannot be held responsible for their act. There is a tendency in our culture (Western) to romanticize suicide, ala Kurt Cobain, James Dean, etc. and this is the real tragedy with suicide-and what prevents our culture from adequately addressing it.
What I know about suicide is that it leaves an immense vacuum behind, which never entirely fills up again. What I know also is that the suicide's family never completely recovers and that the loss causes endless, needless suffering. So to anyone who is considering ending their life, I would counsel them to think seriously of the consequences. It may end their pain but will cause endless pain for everyone else involved. Suicidal thoughts can be dealt with using a variety of therapies-cognitive, pharmaceutical and wholistic, among others. I strongly suggest that if you are considering taking your own life, you find help immediately.** Everyone in your life, whether you believe them or not, will thank you in their own way, for continuing to live and breathe-for you and for them.

**I should add that a person who has decided to commit suicide is no longer CAPABLE of thinking coherently so the person must by all means seek help BEFORE it reaches that point.

I don't think that someone taking their life is a cowardly or weak act. Nor do I think it's an act of strength. I think it is simply an act of someone that sees no other way to escape the pain they are in. It is the only solution that a person is able to see at that moment in their life. Choosing to take that action is simply that - making a choice. It might be an impulsive choice, it might be a well planned choice, but it is that person's choice.

My brother took his life 10 years ago. I understand why he chose that option. Do I wish he hadn't? Absolutely. Do I wish he had found some other solution? Absolutely. Do I regret not being in close enough contact to notice what he was going through? Most definitely. But, I accept that he took the action he thought was appropriate and that he felt was the best solution to his pain.

As with so many other things in life, people who have no experience with something often feel that it's their place to pass judgement on others.

This.

I have often thought about suicide but I know I could never do it the thought of hurting the people I love really upsets me and also I don't think I have the courage to do it.But it does annoy me when people call others cowards for doing it as no one knows what goes on in the persons mind at the time.

Word for word. I will not judge the dead.

To echo what some said........ all the understanding is nice and all, but be careful not to go to far with it. I think the worst you can do to suicidal person is to "validate" them in their feelings.

It is not brave.
It is irrational.
It often comes at spur of moment and if the person made it through, they could have many enjoyable moments in their life. Hell, I wanted to end it all many times. So glad I never did.

so in a way it is a stupid decision. It does not make the person stupid... but I don't see a reason to celebrate or honor irrationality. We can understand how things have been too instense for them to bear and all that.... but I bet many if they were saved would use the word stupid for their choice as well.

as for cowardly, I once read a novel (by author who had history of depression... and sadly later killed herself), where the heroin decides to poison herself over screwing up her relationship and with her friends outside of the door.... she tries to kill herself in the bathroom with gas......... thinking "wow, I am brave" for a moment... until she realizes she chosed the seemigly easier way out, that truly brave thing to do would let her friends in a deal with all the mess she made (which she does in the end...).

*bolded emphasis added for what especially hit me hard here...*

Seriously, THANK YOU VenusHaley for this reality check.

for everyone here too.

While I think it's a terribly sad thing, just like any death, it's their choice. I do agree that it takes a lot of guts to "pull the trigger". I've been very close to it and I almost did it but I couldn't. I honestly beat myself up over not even being able to do something so 'simple'. While I'm past suicide (for the most part) I think that to call someone a coward is utterly wrong. I can see how you would see that but if someone's hurting that badly the last thing I can see helping (if they've expressed their thoughts of suicide before actually doing it) is to call them a coward. That could make them want to do it more. To prove you wrong and I've seen this happen first hand. To call them that afterwards is just disrespectful. You may be able to truck on but not all can and can't be expected to live up to your standards. Life and Death mean many different things to many different people. Look at history.

I also get very angry at the people who call those who do selfish. You're selfish in my opinion. To commit suicide is to be in some serious pain. Do you really want to make that person live on through that pain? Would you do that to a terminally ill person? While bi-polar or skitzophrenia(sp?) won't kill you per say, it can be like living with death hanging just around the corner. And while you may miss them and be angry with them initially, they're not sad, they don't feel that terribly deep hurt anymore.

While I completely advocate mental help over killing yourself...some people don't see that option. It's very sad but I can't judge. It's happened in my family more then once and I can understand why they did it. We're all human and some people just don't seem cut out for this world they find themselves in.

That's my 0.02 cents. It was a bit long but that's how I feel.

In response to what VenusHalley said, I agree. I didn't mean that people who commit suicide are brave, what I was trying to say is that it just proves how very desperate they were, because it's not "easy" to end your own life. When people kill themselves, it's usually because they just could not see any other way out. I don't think it is right, I don't think it is honorable or brave, but I definitely don't think it makes that person a coward or a bad person. It just means that for them, it seemed like the only option. So I do t think it is anyones place to say that that person was selfish or cowardly when they don't even know what was going on the persons mind. But I respect all of your opinions so much, because I know that most of us have been there, and thankfully all pulled through. Thanks everyone, its interesting to read everyone's opinions and reasoning, especially coming from people who really know how it feels.

As I said bad decision does not mean bad person. Having a weak moment does not mean the person was weak..... and I wish people could see past their weak moments and make it out alive. I don't have a solution that would apply to all sadly. What we can do for ourselves is to try to find the light that will keep us on the right track. Something to keep us from making irreversible decisions.

My mother took her life when I was 19.....it took me a long time to figure out why.

Suicide is a logical idea to the mind. The mind is our helper when we have a problem. We have problems because we don't know it all.

We also have problems because we've been told a lot of junk by society that we think is true because we've been told it since we were babies.

But some of us have more problems than solutions and seemingly no way out. Suicide is a logical way out, but it's an IDEA of a way out, it does not include all of the consequences of suicide.

My mom had three failed marriages, she was a recovering alcoholic, obese, and had failed at every nursing job she had and ran out of potential employers. That's enough to keep her wrapped up in her mind confused. On top of that is a lifelong negative self image that makes it a habitual thought.

Who hasn't thought that death would be easier than life? I have. When do we think something like that? When we are tired of problems upon problems.

That thought is the mind coming up with an idea of how to solve the problems. It's not much different than a decision to murder someone else or wishing someone else was dead. It's simply obvious that to die ends a certain set of problems.

But like any idea, it doesn't speak for the whole of life. My mom ended her problems, sure, that part of the idea of suicide worked. But what her logic didn't see was how that impacted the lives of those that adored her. She was my best friend and really the only person that "got" me. Now she's gone.

Call it "unintended consequences" and she doesn't have a chance to learn from the shortcomings of her idea of dying equalling happiness. This was a logical choice for her, not a gift of love from her to herself or to others. That makes it look selfish but the path to true selflessness is arduous and she didn't arrive at the destination of self-acceptance.

But I did and in part through her failures, I learned and now I share. Her suicide forced me either to escape the fact that she's dead or try to sort out what happened. This fact of her death made me face life and 23 years later, I know I solved the riddle of her death.

I love my mom and she lives in me. I only wish she could've grown to see what she couldn't see but I can't change the past so I don't worry about it. I'm free of it in that I can freely share it with others and not sink into a pit. Life happened, and I choose to learn from it.

She wasn't courageous, she was confused and her mind told her finger to pull the trigger to solve what? To solve her need to escape her mind. She didn't see that her problems were not her problem but that her confusion was her problem. She didn't see the cause of her confusion. Her problems were the manifestations of her confusion. Suicide solved her problems but didn't solve the confusion. Instead, that was passed onto her loved ones.

Ron

I won't agree with the idea that those who do are "brave". My belief is that they did it based upon a view they saw of life at a certain time in their life.

I will never, ever forget a time in my life a few years ago. I was extremely depressed. Nothing I saw around me made any sense or aroused any emotion within me. All I could see was complete grayness - nothing out there, no people, no earth, just nothingness. Felt almost as if I was being sucked into a bottomless hole of nothingness.

It was during that one moment in time that I finally understood how a person could take their own life. When there is nothingness, a person no longer even realizes or is aware that there are people in the world who like/love/care for them. "Nothingness" is empty and void.

Had I not experienced other depressive episodes and still had just the very barest brain thread of realization that I needed help - it is likely I wouldn't be here today. TG that I live with family members who had experienced depression themselves and I was able to cry out for help.

Please don't judge those who make the choice to give up. And please don't think that "I should have seen the signs" - because more often than not, you won't. The person kept so much inside.

Just my 2 cents...

I have suffered from depression for years, and my second husband committed suicide 16 years ago.

I can't imagine the amount of anguish my husband went through as it was a very rough period in both of our lives. I don't see him as weak or cowardly, but I don't see him as brave either. He was trapped in his own inner turmoil and he made decisions based on it. If he stayed true to himself he would've lost just about everything in his world, and that was unbearable to him. Suicide to him was simply the most attractive option, because otherwise he would have to either live a lie or start his life all over again at 32.

I have been hospitalized three times for suicidal ideations. Those were times when I didn't have any friends, work was intolerable, relationships were going badly, and I was really lonely. Why didn't I go through with it? Something had kicked in inside my head that I really needed help, and **** the consequences. I could lose everything afterwards but at least I still would be alive.

No, I don't judge anyone who has committed suicide. I don't know the extent of their own personal hell, but I can understand going to the breaking point.

knowing several people who killed themselves, I HATE, and I mean HATE people who say things like "cowardly" when talking about suicide. They obviously were in a very bad state and overwhelmed to a degree that is, for me, scary and to call them "cowards" is disgusting.
I don't have an "opinion" on suicide, I have a feeling on it, it's a feeling of sadness and sympathy.

..Ron, this is a heartbreaking true life story....it's your story...his-story, real history....and you have linked it to the present with your magical mind and your enormous heart.

There is not much I can say to give it justice, I cannot make your words mean any more than you already have, but because I know you mate I must share a thought or two.

Been on the pyschotherapeutic circuit half my life...20 years, becoming ever more tangled up in the clumsy often awkward totally mis-informed approach of many who have attempted to tackle my own wrestling with the ultimate anomaly.
suicide...
you have so delicately put such essential balance into this issue for me through your personal experience and your words.

I am indeed grateful my friend.

James

I disagree with that. I don't believe everybody who commits suicide is mentally ill. It's a bit like saying everybody who murders is mentally ill. We know that's not the case so why different with suicide?

Sometimes suicide is a stupid decision. But say someone's jailed for life with no chance of escape. I could understand someone in that position taking their life. Likewise somebody who's terminally ill. I also believe someone who attempts suicide is very brave. For one, nobody knows what happens when we die and nobody knows where suicides end if there is an afterlife. Secondly, if you screw up a suicide you could end up disabled or damage you internal organs, or die an agonising death.

Thank you, my kindred spirit!

This has been a topic in my life forever. My mother committed suicide when I was 8. She did this in front of her two children which were 8 and 6 years old at the time. This is not a person who is in their right mind. I just can't believe that anyone who were to take their own life can be in their right mind.

Ok, so no one can judge another person, and especially not about suicide. I have a probably unpopular view, but I think while it is the wrong choice, it is still every person's choice. I don't think the law or the government can simply outlaw it. That is just ridiculous. Instead of demonizing people who attempt and commit suicide, can't we just help them?? Can't people in general and professionals in particular be committed to helping others and making the world a better place? Why does the act have to be selfish or wrong? It is what it is. It causes immense pain for the person attempting and those left behind as well. I hope no one ever commits or attempts suicide again, but I will not, WILL NOT judge them!

Because we don't live in a compassionate world, people want to die. You're totally right, love can save people that don't want to live.

Great quote about suicide....

http://www.profound-self-help.com/suicide.html

Here's the question being answered:

I completely agree that you should in no way criticize or look down upon people who choose to kill themselves, and coming from me; that says a lot. To date, I have lost three friends and two family members to suicide, and even saw one come back after being on life support for 2 days. The thing that I have trouble figuring out is if people have a right to life, do they have the same right to death? I cannot even imagine being so deep into a depression that I cannot find "the light" at the end of the tunnel, so I cannot speak to "never ever killing myself, no matter what". What I can speak to, however, is the feeling of helplessness time and time again after those we love choose to end their life so suddenly. It leaves you so incredibly angry at literally everything, and leaves you with so many unanswered questions. Any thoughts?

I just posted online my mom's last "happy" letter to me before her life imploded, resulting in her taking her own life...

This are photo images of the letter http://www.profound-self-help.com/mo...py-letter.html

In the 2 months between this letter and her death, she had dropped 100 pounds from the effects of stress.

I offer the letter as a human face on the subject of suicide as too many people judge those that are suicidal as selfish. They are selfish but not because they choose it....they are selfishly trying to find a way to happiness, to find a way out of confusion. No one else can do that for ourselves but ourself.

In a loving, non-judgmental, world, these people wouldn't have a problem.

Suicide is what it is. For someone that is at the point of comitting suicide, it is all they can see. All other attempts at help have failed and there is just no more fight left in. Yes suicide hurts those left behind, but those who do comit suicide could no longer take it.

I attempted once and failed. i am at that point again.
that doesn't make me any less of a person

You're right, you're not less of a person. The whole issue has nothing to do with being more or less of a person. It has everything to do with a life in thoughts, and thoughts are simply there because we don't understand life but want to. We only think about that which confuses us.

And too much confusion too long leads to suicidal thoughts as a way to end the confused feeling. Drugs, sex, alcohol, hopes, dreams and religion haven't killed the confusion but an overdose, a gun or a bridge can.

It's all logic, but the problem isn't about life, it's about confusion. Knowing this, a suicidal person can seek clarity. But clarity is rare in society because with clarity you realize that society is mentally ill and reproduces mental illness in all of us, leading us to these suicidal tendencies.

Clarity about this ends suicidal thoughts. The soul wants to live which is why we don't all kill ourselves. Something in us wants to live and is still looking for a way to do it happily. Even the idea of suicide is a "happy" thought. Look deep into this and even suicide is an idea of happiness, proving that we are driven to be happy, not driven to die. No happy person wants to die. Suicide isn't the problem and isn't the solution to the real problem.

What do you see in your feelings?