Why is it acceptable to choose when to die when you are suffering from physical pain, but not mental pain?
I was getting ready to write one of my usual long-winded responses, but I scrolled through the entire thread and discovered that everybody agrees with me. How refreshing!
Stigmatization, yes. But there's a nuance to it. We all accept the fact that some physical pain cannot be cured. Typically it's an end-of-life issue anyway, so that makes it all the more bearable for friends and family, and in some jurisdictions even the authorities, to say, "Okay, go ahead and skip the remaining few months of your life which would be unbearable agony. We're going to lose you soon enough anyway."
Most people operate under the (generally unconscious) principle that
mental pain can be cured. After all, we have an entire industry of psychotherapy, with an arsenal of drugs at its disposal, that exists to convince us that it can cure our mental pain. A lot of people scoff at psychotherapy, but it's usually accompanied by an admonition to "suck it up," "grow up," "stop being so silly," "learn to deal with it like I did," "you'll get over it if you'll just muster up some patience," "wait until you have children and then you'll know what real mental pain is," etc.
Couple that with the fact that mental pain is not typically an end-of-life issue and in fact is rather common among the young. Nobody wants to lose somebody they love, whom they expect to keep loving for the next forty or sixty years, to something they don't believe is half as painful as the foolish, fragile young person says it is.
Why is mental pain seen as something less serious when in all actuality, mental and emotional pain leave the deepest scars?
Most people simply don't believe in those scars. They think it's just self-indulgent whining. "When I was your age I had to walk five miles back and forth to work every night after school. I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself. You need to be more grateful for this wonderful world my generation built for you."
Or my father's favorite line, "Shut up or I'll give you something real to cry about."
Since my friend killed himself, people have been screaming and crying things like "Why, God, why?" and "God, he's so selfish" and "Well, you know he had a drug problem so what did you expect?" and I feel just disgusted.
People do grieve, and when they're in that much pain over the loss of a loved one they themselves become selfish and say cruel things. One of the nicest things you can do
for yourself right now is to be
gracious and let all of this go, because these people are hurting and being irrational. Mind you, "grace" does not mean either forgiving or forgetting. It means
ignoring. It won't help you or them, and it certainly won't help your dead friend, to get into an argument over this bullshit. Just step carefully around it like you would step around any shit you encounter.
All anyone can seem to focus on is how "selfish" his death was. Yet, I still don't understand the difference between assisted suicide for terminally ill patients.
As I already said, it's because they don't put physical pain in the same category as mental pain, and also because it's a whole lot easier to make peace with someone dying who's 85 years old, than someone who's 15 or 25 or 35 or 45 or whatever your friend's age was. You don't expect to have a lot more years with someone who's much older than I am (66). You do expect it with someone who's much younger than I am. Especially if his only problem was something that he could have fixed by just getting some of those wonderful drugs they advertise on TV all the time. Or getting more exercise. Or spending more time with friends. Or going to church. Or joining Habitat for Humanity. Hell, even I would have told him to get a dog, if he didn't already have one.
But now I can't seem to see why no one can understand how debilitating and humiliating depression . . . .
People just don't take depression seriously. They don't even approve of having a word for it! Sure, a lot of people suffer from it, but they don't admit it, even to themselves. They either learn to live with it, resulting in a life of reduced quality, especially for their loved ones, or they self-medicate with alcohol, sex, street-racing, etc. Tobacco has some modest success, why do you think it's so popular? Or other recreational drugs. Caffeine and marijuana can both give temporary relief from depression. I'm sure cocaine can too, although I'm one of the people whose metabolism does not react to it positively or negatively so I can't speak from experience. Probably the opiates too, at least for some people.
I assume you're American because of your comment on voting for assisted suicide. In our culture emotions are a taboo subject. We Flower Children (and older wannabes) tried to change that and we actually did make a little progress, but there's a hell of a long way to go. Most Americans refuse to admit that anyone can
feel so bad that he would rationally rather die.
. . . . and addiction is.
Now you're getting into dangerous territory with many Americans, if not most. The people who don't approve of drugs (even though in an act of astounding cognitive dissonance they may take them themselves) have no sympathy for people who do take them and get in trouble. "I told you so," is all they have to say about that. And for people who do approve of drugs, for someone to become so badly addicted that he contemplates or actually commits, suicide,
he's a traitor to the cause. He set the legalization movement back five years.
Yes, it is sad he took his life, but he died on his OWN terms. Isn't that the same as assisted suicide?
Assisted suicide is perceived as something for people who are either very old or have a disease that's universally acknowledged as hopeless like cancer. Hardly anyone who intellectually supports assisted suicide contemplates it being applied to someone who is less than eighty years old and has no high-profile deadly disease.
And seeing as he did have a drug problem which probably would have killed him if he kept at it . . . .
As I already said, the drug problem is going to alienate half the American population who think he deserved it, make the pro-legalization crowd downright angry, and make his own family and other loved ones feel guilty that they couldn't help.
. . . . then why is it "selfish" that he chose to go when he wanted to?
People call it selfish because he hurt them. It's that simple. They think he placed his own feelings above theirs. Whereas he probably felt that he was causing them a lot of pain so he was being kind to them.
Who gets to decide when it's "acceptable" or "okay" to take your own life?
Some of these questions have no answers. All we can do is make rules and hope that on the average the results are the best we could have achieved.
But in our culture it is generally not believed that a depressed person should be allowed to make the decision regarding suicide. For starters, depression makes you irrational so, by definition, your judgment sucks. If it has anything to do with drug addiction, then your judgment
really sucks. That is a big part of the rationale behind assisted suicide. You have to convince a hard-headed professional who doesn't know you well enough to be emotionally attached to you.
Why is it selfish when someone, who is in such great pain that they can't even express it to the people they love, takes their life?
It's been pointed out that people who commit suicide because they hurt
do not want to die. They just want to stop hurting. If he could find a way to tell his family, maybe they could help find a better way to end the pain. Unfortunately if his family has already been yelling at him about the drugs they're probably not going to be any help.
This is an excellent illustration of why drugs should be legalized. People are much more vocal, aggressive, hopeful and helpful with family members who are hooked on alcohol or tobacco. There's no stigma of illegality involved. They can take him to a professional and he'll give him some help and send him home. You do that with an illegal drug addict and he might get locked up in a dismal government-run institution. He'll certainly lose his job and could even end up being prosecuted!
And why if someone is sick with cancer can they kill themselves and everyone calls them brave, but if someone is sick mentally and they kill themsleves they are called cowardly and selfish?
Because Americans don't believe in mental illness.
Why is mental/emotional pain seen as such a "weakness" or "taboo" in society?
It's our legacy of English culture. They don't talk about anything personal.
A few years ago I heard a Jewish woman talking about going to visit her girlfriend in England when they were younger, during a college break, on the spur of the moment without calling her first. She showed up at her house and her mom let her in and served her tea and crumpets. She kept asking "Where's Abigail?" and the mother just kept giving vague answers. She eventually learned that Abigail had run away from home three months ago. As luck would have it (or perhaps Abigail found out that her friend had come out) she walked in in the middle of tea. Her mother said, "Good afternoon dear. We're just having tea. Would you like some?"
When she got her alone, the Jewish girl said, "My God! In my house, if you spend a few minutes longer than usual in the bathroom, the entire family gathers outside the door asking, 'Are you okay? Is something bothering you? Are you feeling all right? Is there something you need to talk about? We're here for you, you know. We'll just wait until you come out and I'm sure we can work this out'."
Abigail answered, "Well then as you can see, we English folk are nothing at all like your people."
Americans are more like the English than like the Jews. Even American Jews, after a generation or two, become more like the English.
I'm not like that. (Perhaps it's because I have a Jewish wife.
) I talk about how I feel and I nag people until they tell me how they feel.
This is like so many other problems. We can only work on them one heart at a time. But by all means, join my campaign. You've seen the dark side of the American way. Help me fix it.
Oh crap. I wrote one of my usual long-winded responses anyway. Well I hope there's something in there that you find helpful.
Keep in touch. We care. Well at least I do!