as per request.

[kuangning]

elynne - Let me make my position crystal clear: SUICIDE IS SELFISH. It's one of the most selfish acts that you can possibly commit, because after you're dead you don't have to deal with the consequenses (unless, of course, you believe in any sort of afterlife, in which case you're just putting it off). In thinking about it, I've realized that in my mind, suicide is just as detestable as rape. You leave a trail of victims behind you, who will have to spend the rest of their lives knowing that you were so cruel as to inflict this pain on them, wondering if they could have done something differently and prevented it. They will have nightmares, they may have problems in relationships for decades to come - they may even commit suicide themselves, thinking that your death was their fault. But that doesn't matter to you, does it? You took your one-way ticket; you're safe. You don't care. You gave the world that one last flip-off and left. Nobody else's pain or suffering could possibly be as important as yours.

This is coming from somebody who has been suicidal; who made a half-assed attempt so long ago that nobody but botias knew me at the time. Somebody who made "the perfect plan" years ago, and who dared herself to do it.

If you kill yourself, I won't eulogize. I won't write about what a terrible, tragic waste it is. I'll write about how much your stupid selfishness has pissed me off. And I'll do my best to help take care of the wounded people that you left behind. And if I ever kill myself (which, believe me, I'm in no danger of), I hope that y'all will return the favor, because I make no exceptions for myself.

I'm certain that at least somebody who reads this is going to disagree. If you disagree, please do write about it. This isn't something that should be swept under a rug and ignored; it's something that should be discussed. Suicide is dangerously contagious.




You're absolutely right: suicide is selfish. It's done for yourself, as your way out of something that's too big to face. That being said, though, the kind of emotional pressure that's attempted in "I won't eulogize" and "You leave a trail of victims behind you" simply will not work on someone who's already at the point of seriously wanting to die. It hurts to hear it, yes, but what's one more hurt when you're already hurting that badly? Save your breath for the survivors.

Someone who's ready to die has already come to the conclusion that Nothing They Do Can Make Things Better, and for myself, I know that I have never come to that point without there having been lots of opportunities along the way for someone to change my mind. After I get to that point, it's too damned late. All you get to do is clean up after I crash. Again, speaking for myself: I already know that it will be painful for some people when I die. I also see, though, that my depression is already causing them pain, pain that's not likely to end because I'm not likely to be not-depressed. It's a constant grieving with no end in sight for them, as opposed to what they go through when I die. All of that, and there's still the roots of the depression in the first place, which haven't been dealt with and won't go away on their own.

I wish it were as simple as you make it seem. But the fact is, no-one wakes up one morning and decides it's a good day to die and make their children orphans and widow their spouses. And getting out of the mindset isn't just a matter of thinking, "oh, I can't do this, X will be unhappy if I do." In fact, if X matters to you enough that you think of them, you've probably already tried to turn to them along the way, and things have happened to convince you that you can't turn to them again. You can't burden them with MORE of your troubles, or they simply don't understand, or they just wouldn't care if you tried. That's not blame for X, by the way: they can't solve a problem they don't know exists, and probably aren't trained or prepared to help even if they DO know something's wrong.

That said - X needs to realise that It Isn't About Them. Your friend/sib/child/lover/spouse/whatever deciding to die IS NOT ABOUT YOU. Did they think of you? Probably. But I don't know of anyone spiteful enough to kill themselves to get back at someone else who isn't also too spiteful to have someone close enough to be devastated by their death.

Horrible as this is going to sound, what you had to say simply confirmed something for me. One huge benefit of online relations is that no-one has to know what's happened to you. I'm not suicidal. But one of my rules for myself from the times when I have been, is that I do not say goodbye. I've broken that rule only once, and never will again. No-one will have to deal with knowing I've suicided; I've disappeared off the radar enough times that if I do suicide, it will simply be one more time, and by the time anyone thinks to wonder about how long I have been gone, I'll have been gone long enough that it simply won't be traumatic. I've known people who left instructions that such-and-such group of people were to be informed in case anything happened to them. My standing instructions are exactly the opposite. If you happen to find out what's happened to me, keep it to yourself. I don't usually carry identification with me. When I've made an attempt, I've made sure I had none with me. Don't identify the body. Don't bury me, don't let there be a gravesite, I don't want a funeral or a memorial or eulogies. Let them burn the corpse, scatter the ashes no place in particular. My method of death isn't important. Suicide or murder or accident, the result is still the same. And life goes on.

Comments

[serendipity.livejournal.com]

I agree that suicide is the ultimate in selfishness. I also agree that someone who is suicidal does not need to be preached to or scorned or yelled at for being suicidal. It's irrational, it's desparate, it's an act of utter defeat. I feel very sad for both the suicidal person and the loved ones left behind.

As a teenager, when many ponder suicide, I knew I could never do it because it would be so painful to my mom and the rest of my family. But that's rational thinking. Fortunately I've never battled with such severe depression that I've been unable to consider the lives I'd destroy by destroying my own.

Just my two cents.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I also agree that someone who is suicidal does not need to be preached to or scorned or yelled at for being suicidal.

I absolutely agree - though, to be honest, sometimes that works when other things don't. It's a difficult thing to try to help or deal with a suicidal person. Sometimes, nothing at all works. Sometimes, a person is simply bound and determined to die, and nothing that is said will make any difference.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I got this great book on ethics, by Robin Wood, who also designed my favorite Tarot deck. And in that book, there's one point that she makes - she doesn't really hammer it in, but it meant a lot to me.

You are just as important as everybody else. No more, no less. You are just as important as I am. To decide that it's more important to you to die than it is for me to have to deal with you committing suicide is very firmly making yourself more important than me.

In LJ/online terms, that's fine. I honestly wouldn't be terribly traumitized if you were to kill yourself. But there are many people who are close to you who would. You have children, yes? That's all I need to say, right?

Do you believe that your right to die is more important than the right of your children to have a live where their mother didn't commit suicide? That's the question at the heart of this. Yes, it's cruel. SO IS SUICIDE. But killing yourself won't be cruel to you; it'll be cruel to those who love you, for as long as they live.

If you make the decision to kill yourself, then that's your decision. But to make that decision and pretend that you have no responsibility for the pain that you will cause those who are close to you, who care about you...

I believe that people who kill themselves do have some measure of spite involved. Otherwise, why not simply leave? I've known people who have simply walked away, dropped all contact, and made new lives. I've known some of those people after they've done so. Whether that's better than suicide is probably debateable; but it's at least one alternative, and there are so many more.

Nobody lives in a vacumn. Unless somebody has no friends, relatives, or anybody who cares about them, then when they choose to commit suicide, they choose to make it somebody else's business. It's just as much about the people that you hurt when you make that choice as it is about yourself. You are just as important as everybody else. To you, it's the last curtain call; to them, it's having you ripped out of their lives, in a painful, traumatic way.

[wiredferret.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem with this discussion is a lack of definition for suicide. We appear to be debating 'actively killing yourself' as suicide. But what about passively killing yourself? What about do-not-resucitate orders? What about declining treatment? At what point do risk-taking activities transition to suicide?

Selfishness...I've been thinking about this a lot this weekend. My grandfather died. I have thought for years that it was selfish the way my grandmother kept him alive.

What if we just say that how we spend our waste our lives is our choice, and that our obligations and loved ones should figure in that somewhere.

I am torn on forcibly treating the depressed to keep them from self harm. Three years ago, we would have involuntarily committed my husband's mother if we could have. A suicide attempt a month is a sign that she needed help. On the other hand, I think that even if you are depressed, people forcing you or guilting you into living is torture, and I'm firmly against torture.

I don't think any of us can judge from the outside what 'valid' reasons for suicide are. We cannot know how much pain someone else is in. Did you know that there is a type of headache that has a 60-85% suicide attempt rate? I can understand that. Should we condemn these people to pain without end or hope? Are they selfish, or just desperate?