Why not kill yourself?

[byates5637]

How did I know you were going to respond this way....

Anyhow I believe the quotes I provided are quite relevant actually, and it's always better to cite, than it is to plagiarize.

 

Damnit i knew i shouldn't have said "god is dead"!

[melrich]

Why should we stay alive? Take a minute and really think about it. Most answers you come up with could easily be proved a fallacy.

 

My answer is simple. Because I find life fun.

 

I am the first to admit that in many ways my life has been blessed.

My problems have never reached the bottom of the well and my highs have been high.

 

So I understand that perhaps there is more that keeps people alive than "life is fun".

 

So then I look at it relatively. Life is incredibly tenacious. I visited 5 years ago the Phillipines. You cannot imagine a worse living hell than the slums of Manila. But people there choose life.

 

Obviously people do commit suicide. But i wonder that those that don't do not sometimes wear their thoughts of the act as a badge of honor. Mention suicide and heads turn. It is bit like screaming "satan" at a chuch service.

 

I sometimes can't help but feel that perhaps no one knows what are the depths of the human condition but those who commit suicide with no hope of failure.

[brando]

Damnit i knew i shouldn't have said "god is dead"!

 

no...you just needed to cite your source.

[byates5637]

I sometimes can't help but feel that perhaps no one knows what are the depths of the human condition but those who commit suicide with no hope of failure.

 

I completely agree with this. Great observation. I have found myself close to suicide several times. To the point where i couldn't go on a roof with my friends because i felt a strong urge to jump off of it and wasn't sure if i could trust myself not too. But i have never actually gone through with it. I think the people that have gone through with it must be suffering on a whole nother level then me.

[Dako]

Good points, melrich.

[TheRedQueen]

I completely agree with this. Great observation. I have found myself close to suicide several times. To the point where i couldn't go on a roof with my friends because i felt a strong urge to jump off of it and wasn't sure if i could trust myself not too. But i have never actually gone through with it. I think the people that have gone through with it must be suffering on a whole nother level then me.

 

Regarding Melrich's point:

 

Yes I agree with this, although I'm sure there are more than just a few reasons for one to commit suicide. There are people who commit suicide solely to seek revenge on a lover who has spurned them. Personally, I think those such individuals are more than deserving to receive Darwin Awards.

[Daddy Bear]

maybe this is relevant:

 

"Anyone desperate enough for suicide... should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try."

-Richard Bach

 

saku... stop pretending that you can remove yourself from the equation. when my nephew Benjamin was 16 he drove out West from Tennessee to within 50 miles of my Southern california home and shot himself in the head. the lives of my brother, his wife and their daughter were shattered; the three of them will never be the same. and you think you're a burden NOW? don't be a fool!

 

btw... you don't have to be dead to give your grandmother one of your kidneys... and do you really think she'd take it if you were?

[brando]

Regarding Melrich's point:

 

Yes I agree with this, although I'm sure there are more than just a few reasons for one to commit suicide. There are people who commit suicide solely to seek revenge on a lover who has spurned them. Personally, I think those such individuals are more than deserving to receive Darwin Awards.

 

I disagree.

[annie24]

"Anyone desperate enough for suicide... should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try."

-Richard Bach

 

I love it! it's what I've been advocating all along.

 

New Zealand is absolutely amazing! It is really God's country. And I say that as an aetheist!

[TheRedQueen]

maybe this is relevant:

 

"Anyone desperate enough for suicide... should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try."

-Richard Bach

 

YES, YES, ABSOLUTELY YES!!!

[TheRedQueen]

I disagree.

 

with what specifically?

[melrich]

There are people who commit suicide solely to seek revenge on a lover who has spurned them. Personally, I think those such individuals are more than deserving to receive Darwin Awards.

 

Yeah I read somewhere once that most suicides are accidents...I don't mean the person didn't mean to harm themselves, they just didn't mean to kill themselves.

 

There is a coroners inquest going on here at the moment into a murder case that got a lot of media. Long story short, guy has affair with woman, woman kills guys wife, guy commits suicide. (Lots of weird stuff going down too).

 

Anyway, this guy had probably good reason to kill himself. Wife's dead, lovers in jail, family falling apart, he's going down for the crime too.

 

The coroner has just found that he tried to save himself. He used a rope around the neck, jumped off a ladder. He ended up his feet 1 inch from the ground and there were signs that he had tried to pull the ladder back toward him.

 

Theory is he wanted to look like he tried. I think that is often the case....but things do go wrong.

[Beyondthesea]

Exactly true. Anyone who spends countless hours and thoughts on commiting suicide could be spending that time trying to better their lives, period.

[melrich]

I posted this once in a thread started by Dako. It fascinates me because I ahve always wondered.

 

I read about a study done once in the USA (I can't recall where I read it so I apologise, I can't attribute but I understand it is quite well known) where the researchers attempted to interview people who had survived jumping off bridges. (Theory being this has a low failure rate)

 

They found a staggering amount of people who had jumped and survived, it was somewhere in the order of 700 to 800 individuals.

 

They asked them a whole bunch of questions but the one that stood out was (I paraphrase), "What did you think about as you were falling?"

 

Again the responses were overwhelming, something like 90%+ said words to the effect of,

 

"What the hell did I do this for?" and wished they could get back up on the bridge.

 

Here are the words of two survivors,

 

Survivors often regret their decision in midair, if not before. Ken Baldwin and Kevin Hines both say they hurdled over the railing, afraid that if they stood on the chord they might lose their courage. Baldwin was twenty-eight and severely depressed on the August day in 1985 when he told his wife not to expect him home till late. “I wanted to disappear,” he said. “So the Golden Gate was the spot. I’d heard that the water just sweeps you under.” On the bridge, Baldwin counted to ten and stayed frozen. He counted to ten again, then vaulted over. “I still see my hands coming off the railing,” he said. As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped.”

 

Kevin Hines was eighteen when he took a municipal bus to the bridge one day in September, 2000. After treating himself to a last meal of Starbursts and Skittles, he paced back and forth and sobbed on the bridge walkway for half an hour. No one asked him what was wrong. A beautiful German tourist approached, handed him her camera, and asked him to take her picture, which he did. “I was like, ‘ * * * * this, nobody cares,’ ” he told me. “So I jumped.” But after he crossed the chord, he recalls, “My first thought was What the hell did I just do? I don’t want to die.” /QUOTE]

[melrich]

Exactly true. Anyone who spends countless hours and thoughts on commiting suicide could be spending that time trying to better their lives, period.

 

But that is what I am saying. Most people don't want to commit suicide. They want someone to see and acknowledge their problems.

 

They'll act out commiting suicide when things get desperate. But still they invariably don't want to die.

[TheRedQueen]

Very insightful Melrich

[TheRedQueen]

But that is what I am saying. Most people don't want to commit suicide. They want someone to see and acknowledge their problems.

 

They'll act out commiting suicide when things get desperate. But still they invariably don't want to die.

 

But the key word here is Most, there exists I'm sure, an ever-so-slight minority that has reasons to commit suicide that go beyond our realm of understanding.

[melrich]

But the key word here is Most, there exists I'm sure, an ever-so-slight minority that has reasons to commit suicide that go beyond our realm of understanding.

 

Absolutely. I think there is a scale.

 

It is very common for people to think about it.

It is far rarer for people to attempt.

It is extremely rare for people to attempt a low fail option.

[annie24]

But the key word here is Most, there exists I'm sure, an ever-so-slight minority that has reasons to commit suicide that go beyond our realm of understanding.

 

A college friend of mine had a sister that committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in SF. The first time she tried, she survived, and broke every bone in her body. As soon as she was healed, she jumped off again, this time killing herself.

 

My friend was very angry. She was like, "how selfish of her! she was as gorgeous as a model, long blonde hair, 18 years old, going to a famous university on a tennis scholarship, how could she do this?"

 

And then I told her, with someone who has so many outward things going for them, perhaps she was very disturbed, deep down. She probably had some very serious problems that she hid from the world.

 

-------------

 

This reminds me of a guy I knew back in high school. His name was D, probably one of the nicest guys I ever met. We were in a club together, and you could always count on D to help you if you were on a tight deadline. He was very sweet, pretty quiet, very good looking. I found out that he committed suicide while home from college.

 

Apparently, he heard his parents talking and yelling at each other. He overheard his dad telling his mom that he didn't want to pay for D's college anymore because he wasn't sure if "the kid was even his."

 

Shortly after, he hung himself in his room.

 

I was just so sad. D was such a wonderful guy, and I never knew he had such problems. I wish that I had the chance to tell him how awesome he was and how admired he was.

[TheRedQueen]

There is a wonderful non-fiction book by Calvin Trillin called, Remembering Denny, and it is about a guy who outwardly seemed nothing less than perfect, who ultimately killed himself. I would strongly suggest this book to anyone who is interested in this topic.

[Dako]

My friend David was picked on by the other kids. We were in all the same classes and had fun together. He had a crummy home life and just wanted to enjoy school. He hung himself in his room. The kids at school thought it was funny.

 

My aunt Jeannie was depressed about her life. She did it the back bedroom of my granny's house. She never complained up until she wrote a note and did it.

 

Bill was a brilliant kid who was always teased for being a nerd. He was a sweet guy and got a fine scholarship to UC Santa Barbara. As soon as he had a chem lab class, he made a batch of potassium cyanide, wrote a letter and sat on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific and died.

 

The others are too personal to write about, but they all were successful in the end.

Many people do it without fanfare.

[CHINOOKA]

If ou are in pain, and it seems hopeless suicide can seem like an optioin. I guess people freak out when someone kills themselves. Please don't do it on my shift. lol but seriously, it is murder. And in our society mnurder is viewed as wrong. maybe what the law doesnt like it there is no one to punish becasue the victim and the perpetrator are the same person.

[shes2smart]

is that from Star Wars?

 

Probably not, but I'm not 100% sure. I saw the movies...probably 2 times for the first set of three, and once each for the second set of three. Enjoyed them on several different levels....but I'm not one of the really hardcore, can-quote-every-line-and-took-my-life-philosophy-from-the-films kind of fans.

 

It's most likely my own twist on M. Scott Peck's discussion of evil in "The Road Less Traveled."

 

He was addressing a simliar question about if God is good, why is there evil...something along those lines.

 

I read it in 1992, so details are hazy, but the basic idea of the conclusion of that portion of the book has stuck with me. He says that evil as a force for mass change ultimately fails. After all, it was evil that placed Christ on the cross for all the world to see.

[doyathink]

People who want to die do it without notice! They don't post a note to the world and wait around for a reply! They usually go quietly and some leave behind notes.

 

People who do post the note and wait for a reply are the one's who are resorting to desperate messures to get someone's attention. They feel so much pain and emptiness that they want help and some sort of releif.

[Dako]

Doyathink either way, it's a bad situation.