Your view on suicide.

[Esper]

With every right, there is the reverse-right. There is free speech, and there is the right to remain silent. It is using your right, your freedom to any degree you want. As such since there as been established through court cases, that there is a right to life; then there is a right to death, and people should be able to commit suicide, if they so please.

No. That's faulty logic and dangerous. People don't have a right to harm themselves like this.

Suicide for people who aren't terminally ill is a bad solution and people who feel suicidal need our help because clinical depression is a medical condition that affects how you think and impairs your judgement. When you're thinking clearly you're free to contemplate suicide, but of course if you did that you wouldn't be thinking clearly and we would know you needed help. It's a catch-22, but a good and necessary one to keep people from harming themselves.

 

[antemortem]

Interesting response guys! Thanks!

However, Minzy (K-Pop ftw!), it's not always a temporary problem. That's the mistake everyone makes. Not all the times it's that severe, but, in some cases it is. It's not always about the other people, if the person is scarred by it so much so that they can't live normally anymore, it's too far. Everyday you have to wake up to the 'scar'. No amount of counseling, psychiatric help, or just talking it out will work.

Although, that's only for extreme cases.

Once again, don't take this personally.

But when you say that, are you saying that just ending it all to ease the pain is just? Really, I couldn't imagine not trying just a bit harder to get over what's ailing me, because if I went through the entirety of the life I'd already lived, one incident, no matter how life-twisting, would not falter me. However, that's just me. I can't speak for millions of others.

 

[yaminokaabii]

Suicide? I believe suicide is only ever right if there are absolutely no other options. If the suicidal person can not ever be truly happy again. If they can't even bring joy to others, be strong for others. If they truly can't see any more light in the future.

The meaning of life is whatever you perceive it to be, and to me, it is happiness. If there is even one single tiny inkling of hope, no matter how small or how unattainable, you should reach for it, because what is left after death? You don't get a second chance at this life. (Please don't shoot me with religious beliefs.)

But if you really can't see any end other than death, if you really can never be happy again, if you can't reach the meaning of life, then I say, feel free to depart this life. If it is the only option.

However, about the depression conversation - note that there is a big difference between never being able to feel happiness again, and thinking that you may never feel happiness again. Depressed people may believe their situation is the first, but if there is hope, clutch it. Wait and hope.


tl;dr Suicide is your very very last resort ever because death is a complete end to your life. I believe you should only do it if you can never be happy again ever.

 

[droomph]

But when you say that, are you saying that just ending it all to ease the pain is just? Really, I couldn't imagine not trying just a bit harder to get over what's ailing me, because if I went through the entirety of the life I'd already lived, one incident, no matter how life-twisting, would not falter me. However, that's just me. I can't speak for millions of others.

True. Though sometimes it's not just debt, a break up, or the coppers are gonna getcha. Depression is not just one thing. It is waking up every day forever knowing your life is meaningless. You know people love you, you know you still have a life to live, but it's just day after day of wanting and boredom.

I had depression for a month. It was horrible as it was. Now imagine what two months, half a year, a year would feel like! It's not just "one incident", Minzy. It is just as bad as any other disease, mental or physical. You wouldn't call a person with cancer a "pussy" for having cancer, right?

 

[Eruption]

I can't put myself in the shoes of any suicidal person because I don't feel like I've even had the weakest reason to consider suicide happen within my lifetime. I've never had to go through any sort of bereavement or personal loss and nothing emotionally scarring has really happened to me. If I was being perfectly honest, I'd say the worst things to happen to me have involved relationships and being sixteen, I think it would be ridiculous to be depressed for longer than a really, really brief period about that nevermind contemplate suicide.

I feel in most cases you would need to the cause for suicide to have impeded your life significantly (lose function in most limbs, be traumatised by an event so much it led to you just curled up in a corner everyday struggling to eat etc etc.) to even start out-weighing your loved ones who then have to deal with the loss of you. I figure as long as there's someone else still in your corner fighting for you then you shouldn't give up except in really extreme circumstances.

As I've said though, I can't even comprehend what someone must go through to resort to suicide so don't think too much of my opinions.

 

[Zoachu]

I've had psychosis since I was 10. It sucks. I tried suicide once, but I survived and went to a hospital (Thank you Sheppard Pratt). And I've been living with it since my parents think I'm lying even though I have been officially diagnosed with clinical depression, psychosis, anxiety, and bipolar disorders. I also have problems trusting people. I have a therapist I've been going to for a year and I still don't trust her enough to tell her anything.
I may be just 13, but that doesn't mean that you can't go through stuff like this. People say it's all a lie since I'm young. It seriously pisses me off because... what kind of person would even consider lying about this?

But I'm totally against suicide. If any of my friends ever feel horrible like that, I remind them how beautiful life is and how it will get better. It'll take a while but it definitely gets better.

Peace~ Stay happy guys.

 

[Autistic Lucario]

I have more respect for those who commit suicide because they at least had the courage to go through with it. As for the people who egg them on, tease them, and give them a hard time during their hardships, I have no respect for them and I consider them cowards.

I was contemplating suicide for over a year, and no medicine did anything to help. Neither did the whole "grow up" nonsense. I found the answer myself because I wasn't satisfied with the answers I was given. I pulled myself out of that stage. Then my life got better.

People don't just want comforting words when they're depressed and don't know what to do, they need a plan. A real course of action that they can use to pull themselves out of the Depression Pit and get on with their lives.

 

[zenlor]

In my own opinion, suicide is not right. "Thou shalt not kill." If you're not allowed to kill others, why kill yourself? Your body, your choice? Nah. Not always. You have a lot of problems? Then, work hard to solve those problems and try to seek for others' help if it is needed. Suicide is not the solution.

 

[Her]

I have more respect for those who commit suicide because they at least had the courage to go through with it.

in foresight, i apologize if i go i over the top. feel free to talk to me about it if you think i've gone too far or something

How is it courageous? To say that something it is courageous means that it is noble too. How is suicide noble? I mean, putting aside 'heroic' suicides, there is nothing courageous or noble about it. It's cowardly, in fact. When my dad killed himself, I doubt he saw beyond his own tiny little world of self-pity and saw just how much his suicide would affect his family. How is it courageous to kill yourself and be responsible to so much pain? There is no courage involved in killing yourself. There is only self-pity or hate involved, or a mixture thereof. Again, I'm not talking about the 'heroic' suicides, people who have willingly given their lives in a dangerous situation in order to save the lives of another or more. I just can't see how anything positive could be attributed to suicide, that's all.

 

[NintendoQueen]

Suicide is something that can NEVER be justified.
No matter how depressed or upset someone is, there is always at least one other person that loves/cares about that person. If someone who wants to commit suicide thinks "Things will be much better when I'm gone!" "No one cares about me!"---that is all not true. There are people out there who care, and will be upset once they are gone.

Recently a girl that many of my mutual friends knew killed herself, she claimed that she was depressed and that she didn't have many friends. Once she killed herself, so many people were very upset and hurt by this. If these people were upset, then they care for her.

I just think it's silly and pointless to commit suicide. No matter how bad things can be, there is always at least one other person watching out for that person.

 

[Mew~]

I think it's terrible putting yourself in a position like that. There are always reasons, yes, but I do believe there are resolutions, whatever the problem. In certain circumstances those actions always lead to consequences, for others- by that I mean, for people who cared about you.

You always hear about there terrible suicides, self-harm stories. Speaking for myself, I've had a pretty awful start at life, and I've had terrible days, but I'd never think about doing anything as stupid that that.

Though there are other situations. If a person is in pain, and I mean a lot of pain, beyond help, I think it would be best to end their life/own life.

 

[Dakotah]

Suicide is something that can NEVER be justified.
No matter how depressed or upset someone is, there is always at least one other person that loves/cares about that person. If someone who wants to commit suicide thinks "Things will be much better when I'm gone!" "No one cares about me!"---that is all not true. There are people out there who care, and will be upset once they are gone.

Recently a girl that many of my mutual friends knew killed herself, she claimed that she was depressed and that she didn't have many friends. Once she killed herself, so many people were very upset and hurt by this. If these people were upset, then they care for her.

I just think it's silly and pointless to commit suicide. No matter how bad things can be, there is always at least one other person watching out for that person.

You are assuming, of course, that anyone who is contemplating committing suicide is thinking rationally. A rational person would know that they are loved and know that they have friends that care for them, but for a person who has suicidal thoughts, this isn't always so obvious. Rather, the opposite is often true.

Also, not everyone who contemplates committing suicide does so because they think they are alone in the world. There are many cases where people who commit suicide do so because they do not wish to place a burden on their families. These are people who are faced with a severely painful existence due to a terminal illness. In this case they know they have loved ones, they know they are loved, and it is because of the love they have that they do not wish to cause suffering to their loved ones. There are many people who give instructions to their family and to their doctors telling them not to resuscitate them should their heart stop.

 

[Gabri]

Permanent, easy, exaggerated, dumb solution to temporary problems, definitely.

There are only two permanent, irreversible things in this whole universe: Time and death. The world may be ****ty but killing yourself won't make it any better.

 

[YungKnowledge]

I had a cousin who has done it. I have a friend who talks about doing it a lot. Honestly I have thought about it only briefly when I was have a difficult time almost a year ago. But my family helped me and that what I'm trying to do with my friend. I think if people would just talk they would be able to get those feeling under control.

 

[Dakotah]

I had a cousin who has done it. I have a friend who talks about doing it a lot. Honestly I have thought about it only briefly when I was have a difficult time almost a year ago. But my family helped me and that what I'm trying to do with my friend. I think if people would just talk they would be able to get those feeling under control.

And therein lies the problem. Where some people who contemplate committing suicide don't feel there is anyone they can talk to do discuss what's bothering them. This is so often the case in instances where children are committing suicide after prolonged harassment and bullying by other children and even teachers. They cannot see, in their minds, how anyone could empathize with them, and in most cases, they're fearful that should they speak up to someone close to them, that they'd face even more harassment and bullying. Especially if you're being bullied for being perceived to be gay and you happen to live in a deeply religious family that is very negative towards homosexuality.

Convincing someone who is contemplating suicide that there are people they can talk to is probably the most difficult thing to do. It may sound easy, but it isn't.

 

[Nick]

I don't really have much of an opinion on it. The only thing that I know is that I pity those who do it. Good people who are pushed over the edge by the difficulties that they face in their everyday lives. I don't think it's the solution to any problem, regardless, but until you've been suicidal yourself or completely understand the mindset of someone else (which you never will), you don't have any right to criticize. Though I do agree with Katalyst. I also can't stand it when people call others selfish for committing it.

 

[Kylie-chan]

Usually the average person might also be unaware that attempting to commit suicide is illegal (in the United States at least, not sure about other countries).

The legal status of committing suicide is generally one of the furthest things from your mind when you're contemplating it. When you're dead, it can't affect you anymore. Laws matter little relative to the things that could trouble a person so severely that they should wish to die.

I think suicide is something people who have never been clinically depressed or in severe physical (yes, physical)/emotional pain like to make judgments on without understanding. To provide context for what I am about to say, I am a person who has attempted to commit suicide, has serially self-mutilated (which is one of the few things I would consider 'regrets' in my life), and wished many times for things to simply end. I'm glad I failed, but I was severely depressed for nearly eight years. That's a significant part of a decade, and my adolescence, that I spent miserable and in despair. It's a lot of pain to deal with for a long time. Inside, I always believed that it would end. But I wasn't sure how it would end. I was depressed for so long that I didn't know if I could withstand it long enough to see the end. Perhaps the end would only come from ending it myself, and, indeed, I tried. Either way, I firmly believe that the only way I could survive with my sanity relatively intact was through my strong conviction that surely something so terrible would one day end. It's a constant, chronic, all-pervasive pain; you can dull it, legally or illegally, but you cannot simply ignore it. It's an acute, aching despair. And your sense of self-worth utterly plummets. Willpower kept me hanging on, but having been there, I cannot fault anyone for committing suicide. I cannot consider it weak to kill yourself when it takes such strength to endure depression on a daily basis. Some people say it takes cowardice to kill yourself. I disagree. It takes desperation and a belief, no matter how wrong, that there is no other option.

Last year I underwent surgery to remove a brain tumour that would've killed me within the year if it had been left there, and the upheaval I experienced as a result of this was enough for me to finally work through a lot of my issues from the past; I was able to cease taking antidepressants in August 2011 and haven't looked back, despite occasionally struggling with the past since then. Every day I consider myself lucky: that I didn't kill myself, that the tumour didn't kill me, that I am alive to enjoy being happy again. I hope I am never depressed again, because quite frankly if you've never felt it, it's unimaginable.

In response to NintendoQueen and those who talked about finding someone to talk to:

Always I've had people who have loved me, but sometimes that isn't enough to make you feel less alone, because loneliness isn't just about who cares about you. It's also about your ability to connect to, relate to, or confide in other people. Someone who has numerous friends can feel isolated from the entire world: alone in a crowd, as it were. When I became depressed at age ten as a result of a number of things, I felt utterly alone and separate from children my age, because I was suffering in a way most of them could not understand, and it was a feeling I was inclined to keep to myself -- it was my vulnerability, my weakest point. Mental illness is heavily stigmatised in society, and children will single out those who are different and relentlessly bully them. This made me feel weird and alien, and I did not desire for anyone else around me to know something was 'wrong' with me. As I grew older, I wished that nobody would worry or be burdened by me. Indeed, people do commit suicide to cease being a burden, whether genuinely or just perceived.

There are many social factors in why a seemingly popular person may feel unable to seek help. 'Emo' became a popular image in the middle of my depression and many depressed adolescents were confused for attention-seeking whiners with first world problems. That made me feel alone, too: that my depression could be perceived as weakness or dysfunction and might cause me to be further rejected by others. Depressed people also typically withdraw from those around them due to a lack of energy, due to feeling different to others, due to not wishing others to see them like that, due to their poor self-esteem. My mother knew I was depressed but didn't take me seriously when I confessed to her that I was suicidal. It's the worst feeling, to not be taken seriously when you want to kill yourself, and it makes you feel utterly alone. Who else could I tell? I told people on the internet, but I had nobody to go to offline. Many people, and some communities, see suicide as something you shouldn't talk about, that you should 'man up' and push those feelings aside. And it's difficult to tell your innermost feelings to all but the closest people around you... who can be the hardest to face because of all of this.

For a sample, here are some of the things I told myself:

- 'You're a terrible person for wanting to kill yourself and waste your life. Only an ungrateful, disgusting person like yourself, with your life circumstances and people who love you, would reject all you've been given. If you're so pathetic then you should get it over with and kill yourself after all.'
- 'People will judge and reject you if you tell them what's wrong.'
- 'It's selfish to commit suicide. You're a selfish, repulsive (insert appropriately insulting noun here).'

Suicidal people are hyperconscious of the judgment of others, often to the point of imagining it, and the perception that suicide is cowardly and selfish, and let me tell you, it makes it worse, it makes it so much worse. It makes you despise yourself for those impulses and keep them to yourself as a shameful thing, and it makes them worse; it makes you want to kill yourself, purge the world of yourself, escape those feelings of self-loathing. It's a never-ending cycle of increasing self-hatred. People who are suicidal are regularly told that they are selfish. To someone who is emotionally vulnerable and quite likely already has horrible self-esteem (it's difficult to want to kill yourself if you love yourself), that's one of the cruellest things you can say, as if it didn't already go through their mind a thousand times. People who have things to live for, like parents with dependent children, are judged for killing themselves like that. But let me tell you -- you value your ability to live on your own terms, you could at least not deny them that ability, and consequently, to stop living on their own terms.

You know what I felt as I tried to kill myself? Not relief, shame and fear, and guilt because of all the suffering an end to my sadness might cost.

So, yeah, in conclusion, there are a lot of reasons why it's difficult to reach out to others when you're depressed. And when you're depressed, you need understanding, not to be dismissed or judged, not to be told what you're doing is shameful or stupid or ignorant of those around you. That in itself is ignorance.

Finally, I would discourage anyone suicidal from committing suicide. Life is precious and beautiful, and I'm glad that I can finally appreciate that wholeheartedly. I hope that anyone feeling alone is able to overcome those instincts and reach out to those around them, and remember that depression ends, that one day you can appreciate happiness for yourself. It took me eight years, which is a long time (probably longer than most cases, to be honest), and if you'd told ten-year-old me I would have to endure for nearly eight years, I don't know if I could've done it. But I did, and as a result of all I've been through, I'm able to appreciate my happiness more, and it's rewarding enough to make it worth it.

Sorry if this post is a little incoherent. I wrote it in fragments and while feeling very tired, but I wanted to offer my perspective.

 

[Guillermo]

Permanent solution to a temporary problem, which in itself causes more problems and destroys those around you. Personally I don't see the point of it, but for the people here saying they think it's wrong or unjust of someone to off themselves, take a look at yourselves. None of you are in any position to tell someone else whether they should live or die, whether they're wrong or right and why? A lot of the time you don't know these people that commit suicide, you haven't walked in their shoes and you don't know everything that could be messing with them physically, psychologically or emotionally.

 

[mew42003]

It is a permanent solution to temporary problems. As someone who has contemplated it several times; it is not worth it at all. Life is always changing. Don't be a helpless victim to your past (there's a reason it is called "the past"). Remember that anything can happen at any given moment with or without your consent/knowledge. Embrace the constant change that life brings and keep your eyes set on tomorrow. That's my 2 cents.

 

[pastelspectre]

I don't think suicide is cowardly, stupid or anything. I don't think it's courageous at all. Honestly I can understand why someone would want to commit. Whenever they wake up, they see nothing to look forward to. They just wake up wishing they were dead. When someone is depressed, this is my point of view, they feel they have no one to talk to. They're alone. They put up walls, letting no one get in them. They act like a zombie every day, when they get up they just do the same thing every day. I haven't been officially diagnosed, but I'm sure I have severe clinical depression. And that's what I feel every day. And honestly I can for sure understand why anyone would want to suicide. Because they feel there's nothing to look forward to anymore. That no one cares about them, that they're worthless, their depression gets so severe that they can't think clearly. They can't think rationally.

So they think suicide is the only option. They think everyone would be better off without them. And then they commit. And everyone gets upset, some people grieve over their death. It's just the opposite of what the committed thought. Honestly I don't think suicide is the right option, not at all. I may be 14 but I've had thoughts of suicide many, many times. I won't say if I've attempted it or not. But.. suicide is not worth it. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, saying everything will get better because a severely depressed person can't see that. They don't think anything will get better. They'll think they will be depressed forever. But, they won't.

Anyways, I don't think suicide is right. I don't think it's stupid, courageous or cowardly. I just don't think it's right.