Is suicide a stupid option?
- Thread starter Saint
- Start date
Suicide does not always achieve the desired result; it is not always carried out successfully; it is often motivated by inaccurate information or clouded perception.
It may be bungled, prevented, wrong or crazy. In the scenario outlined above, the motivation is correct, but the method is messy and will probably cause much unhappiness for the very people it's intended to spare. So, in that sense, it's not the most clever. Of course, given the current benighted legal situation, the subject may have been denied better methods.
Stupid is an inappropriate term.
It may be bungled, prevented, wrong or crazy. In the scenario outlined above, the motivation is correct, but the method is messy and will probably cause much unhappiness for the very people it's intended to spare. So, in that sense, it's not the most clever. Of course, given the current benighted legal situation, the subject may have been denied better methods.
Stupid is an inappropriate term.
It's not stupid if you are making an informed decision. I would avoid jumping on anyone.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
There's already at least one thread on this topic. There's no point in having two. It will degenerate into the same old argument.
For who?
And are we talking about mere attempts at suicide, or the successful carrying out thereof?
If the latter then I would say it is a moot point, from the point of view of the deceased.
I would say that it is neither stupid nor clever - it is merely final.
Those who commit suicide sometimes don't ever consider what that does to their friends and family. Sure they can just off themselves but that sometimes leaves behind many people who really wanted that person to stay here with them.I'd say that if you had some sort of disease that you knew you were dying and were in a great deal of pain, I'd talk it over with those people I know and trust to hear what they say. While the opinions of your family will help you understand what they feel and think it also allows them to understand your point of view just as well.
I think it depends on the quality of life for all concerned. We recently lost someone to cancer. The healthcare professionals provided what they called "comfort care," which was basically a morphine induced coma. I don't know what to make of it. I suppose it depends on the individual circumstances.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Actually quite the contrary. Many people who are in sound physical health but miserable emotional and psychological condition blame their family, friends and coworkers for their misery. So they regard suicide as a double victory: A) It puts an end to their misery and B) It punishes the people who they believe caused it by making them feel sad and guilty.
Nonetheless, this overwhelming fog keeps them from considering the wider consequences of their act. Every year several people here in the D.C. region commit suicide by jumping on the Metro tracks right in front of a train. (Only about half of the Metro within the city of Washington is a true subway, and in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs it's almost entirely aboveground, so this isn't hard to do.) I've read interviews with the drivers of those trains and they made me cry. Some of them simply can't bring themselves to ever sit in the cab of a train again because the sight of that person streaking down past their windshield, with no time to halt a train going 60mph, is burned into their retinas. People don't think about what their suicide will do to these men and women, not to mention the families who depend on their income. Naturally there's a big campaign to convince people not to commit suicide this way--after all it also turns the day into a grisly mess for thousands of commuters. Why not put posters above the outdoor sections of tracks with a weeping little boy or girl saying, "Please don't turn my daddy/mommy into a killer."
It's one thing for people to deliberately punish their families and friends. But why do it to a total stranger?
At some point we have to acknowledge the fact that a person's life belongs to him and he should be allowed to make the important decisions.
I am vehemently opposed to the nanny-state laws that forbid us to drink large sodas, eat tasty transfats, use recreational drugs, ride motorcycles without helmets, etc. No one but I can do the cost-benefit analysis comparing the pleasure I derive from an activity against the risk--which is almost always less than 100% and almost always discounted into a future time when I might have already died from some other cause.
So naturally I also believe that it is I who must be allowed to decide when the pain, sorrow and indignity of being bedridden, losing my cognitive abilities, and having my estate dissipated into the coffers of "elder care" corporations, is worse than the pain my loved ones will feel when I'm gone. Especially since I'm gonna go sooner or later and they will feel that pain anyway! Sure, let's have one last family get-together when we can all say our last words to each other.
But once that's over, let me die, dammit! Don't be so selfish! Don't prolong my physical or psychological suffering in order to postpone yours for a few more weeks.
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They would be put into a mental hospital to help them with their problems, not into a jail.
BeFreeAgain
Registered Member
I agree with you. You can do whatever you want with your life as long as you don't jums on someone else and kill him. 
It's your decision.
It's your decision.