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.