Is suicide a sin?

[AwdreeHpburn]

Life is scarier than death. To make it through is the heroic thing.

 

Amen brother

[cantthinkofaname]

Its a matter of personal perspective. To me, I really couldnt give a hoot whether it is brave or cowardly, Bravery and cowardice are elements of the living. If you are about to try terminate yourself, that should be the least of your concerns.

[AwdreeHpburn]

Its a matter of personal perspective. To me, I really couldnt give a hoot whether it is brave or cowardly, Bravery and cowardice are elements of the living.

 

True enuff - it was you who was trying to justify it. I was just trying to clarify.

 

 

If you are about to try terminate yourself, that should be the least of your concerns.

 

So............what should be the MAJOR concerns then?

[cantthinkofaname]

Success. Not what the people you'll leave behind will think of you. Not whether it'll hurt. Not whether theres an afterlife. If you truly want to die none of that should bother you.

[Daddy Bear]

The previous poster seems to be saying that it doesn't matter how many people we hurt by our actions, because we'll be unavailable to answer for them after death. Respectfully, after what I went through when my friend Mike blew his brains out on the wall of his motel room, and after seeing what my 16-year-old nephew's equally grisly suicide did to my brother and his family, I find such a statement selfish and unfeeling in the extreme. I hope that no one posting opinions in this thread ever has to go through that agony of burying a friend or loved one whose natural time has not yet come.

 

Furthermore, who among us can prove that consciousness doesn't pass to another plane, where we will be cognizant of/regret/be held accountable for our earthly misdeeds?

 

Death is sad. Killing is wrong. Suicide is devastating.

[Grosse vache]

There is an element of courage to suicide. Do you know just how difficult it is to work against the body's natural survival instinct? Well, it's pretty much the hardest thing there is to do. So to actually get past that takes a bit of courage. Which is why men tend to succeed more than women...they choose more extreme and violent methods than women. Women attempt more but don't succeed because they choose the less aggressive methods.

 

I'm not pro suicide but I'm not anti suicide either. I wouldn't condemn or label those that attempt or succeed as selfish because.....a) I don't know what I would do if I was in their shoes, b) Those people are mentally unstable and are thereforeeee unable to comprehend the consequences of their actions, and c) Well, it's just not a very nice thing to say.

[Daddy Bear]

Sorry, that doesn't wash with me. It takes a lot more courage to face your challenges than to run away from them. You never hear anyone calling the choice to live through the pain the coward's way out.

[AwdreeHpburn]

SB - I am soooo sorry about your nephew! That's awful. I feel for his parents and family. How horrible...

 

I have had three friends - one very close one - commit suicide. Its unbelievably devestating....for those of us who are still here to feel it.

 

Even all these years later.

[cantthinkofaname]

So if suicide is "selfish" and stupid because it will cause others pain; yet you yourself are in pain (presumably depression). Is it really worth staying alive just to keep other people happy?

 

Their pain and anger that follows after a suicide, is that not in itself selfish?

[Grosse vache]

Sorry, that doesn't wash with me. It takes a lot more courage to face your challenges than to run away from them. You never hear anyone calling the choice to live through the pain the coward's way out.

 

Well, I hope you never become mentally ill/unstable and find yourself in a situation you perceive as being impossible to come back from.

[Daddy Bear]

So if suicide is "selfish" and stupid because it will cause others pain; yet you yourself are in pain (presumably depression). Is it really worth staying alive just to keep other people happy?

The lifetime of horrendous suffering that it visits on the survivors is not the only effect of suicide. It also completely and permanently obliterates one's chances of ever recovering and leading a happy life. Death is the ONLY thing that can take that possibility away. There is no joy, no comfort in nonexistence. Depression, on the other hand, is treatable and becoming more so as science and medicine advance. There is always hope - unless you're dead. Do you disagree with that?

 

Their pain and anger that follows after a suicide, is that not in itself selfish?

Assuming that's a serious question, let's shine the light of rabbinical reasoning upon it: if I beat you with a baseball bat (and I'm not saying I want to), would it be selfish of you to feel the pain? The selfishness in suicide is not the awareness of anguish; it's the willingness to transfer it to someone else. Get it now?

[Daddy Bear]

Well, I hope you never become mentally ill/unstable and find yourself in a situation you perceive as being impossible to come back from.

Don't EVEN try to run that game! You have no damn idea what I've gone through, and I WILL embarrass you. The simple truth is that nothing scares me anymore, and I've decided to stand my ground and fight to my last breath. What else you got?

[HarleyHunny]

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem......

 

Suicide is murder (self-murder). As such, it is forbidden by God.

 

Exodus 20:13

Deuteronomy 5:17

[cantthinkofaname]

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem......

 

Suicide is murder (self-murder). As such, it is forbidden by God.

 

Exodus 20:13

Deuteronomy 5:17

Thats all fine and well for you, however, I as an atheist don't need to worry about that. (Lets not turn this into a religious orientated argument - keep it in healthy (rather ironic considering its the suicide forum))

 

Depression reoccurs. I am bipolar and as such, even on meds my moods still tend to fluctuate wildly from time to time, throwing me in long periods of depression.

 

 

The lifetime of horrendous suffering that it visits on the survivors is not the only effect of suicide. It also completely and permanently obliterates one's chances of ever recovering and leading a happy life. Death is the ONLY thing that can take that possibility away. There is no joy, no comfort in nonexistence. Depression, on the other hand, is treatable and becoming more so as science and medicine advance. There is always hope - unless you're dead. Do you disagree with that?

 

Assuming that's a serious question, let's shine the light of rabbinical reasoning upon it: if I beat you with a baseball bat (and I'm not saying I want to), would it be selfish of you to feel the pain? The selfishness in suicide is not the awareness of anguish; it's the willingness to transfer it to someone else. Get it now?

 

No it wasn't a totally serious question, and yes, I am aware that it goes far deeper than that. And no, it is not the willingness to transfer it to others, it is the willingness to escape from pain. Yes, I've had people close to me commit suicide - and from my experience, you get over it. It may take a while, but you get over it. Never was I angry about it. Never did I blame anyone else for it other than the suicide-ee. Like I said before, suicide is a personal option that everyone should be totally entitled to, regardless of the aftermath. You were not given and option whether you'd like in, so why cant you choose out? I will not be belittled by anyone regardless of the fact that I have tried to kill myself before. At the time where I have been my most suicidal, and attempted it, my mentality and my perception denied any real care for anyone else, now however, now is slightly different: I am alive because of one person, whom I know, if I die - she'll die. I don't want her last thoughts to be that of anger (the anger, is inevitable).

[Grosse vache]

Don't EVEN try to run that game! You have no damn idea what I've gone through, and I WILL embarrass you. The simple truth is that nothing scares me anymore, and I've decided to stand my ground and fight to my last breath. What else you got?

 

No, you're right. I don't. And you don't know what mental "torture" people who commit suicide are going/went through. I'm not looking for an argument. I'd just like you to acknowledge that it isn't always black and white and that it's not very nice to label people with such severe mental health problems as cowards. Sometimes that's the only possible way they see out of their "mental torture". It doesn't make them cowards or selfish. It makes them mentally ill and misguided.

 

You wouldn't label someone with the same intensity of physical pain a wimp would you?

[Daddy Bear]

I've had people close to me commit suicide - and from my experience, you get over it.

 

I am alive because of one person, whom I know, if I die - she'll die.

 

You contradict yourself, my friend. My brother, whose son shot himself in the head at 16, would no doubt take exception to that first statement.

[Daddy Bear]

Grosse vache: You're putting words in my mouth. I didn't say it was cowardly to kill yourself. The point I made was that many other people do see it that way--and why? Because even though it takes a certain amount of bravado to leap off a bridge, courage - real, honorable courage - won't ever be found in people running away from their difficulties. What I called it, however, was "irrational". That's not very far from "mentally ill and misguided" (to use your own words), is it?

 

you don't know what mental "torture" people who commit suicide are going/went through.

Don't I? Just out of curiosity, what makes you say that? The fact that I don't endorse it?

 

Maybe you missed part of this thread...

 

For the record, I've slashed my wrists twice, taken a handful of Darvon, run a tube from my car's exhaust pipe to my driver's door, and twisted a wire coat hanger around my neck in the dark times when I had no faith. Yet here I sit, able to function well enough to monitor ENA's Suicide Forum for cries of desperation from others who have nothing to grab on to and are considering throwing their lives away

[Grosse vache]

You have been implying that suicide is selfish in your posts (If that isn't what you meant to do then fair enough) and other people have said that suicide is the cowards way out. I haven't directly been targeting you or singling you out. My posts apply to everyone.

 

What I mean when I say that you don't know what mental "torture" people are going through in those dark times is that only they know. No one can know how they really feel or what they're thinking. We can have an idea but we don't really know and everyone is different and copes differently. I'm sorry that you went through those bad times but just because you made it through it doesn't mean that everyone can or, rather, believes they can.

 

I just think that people are so quick to harshly label suicide victims (and thats what they are, victims) and it's just not very nice because we don;t know what's in their head or anything really. It's like people claiming that those who self harm are just attention seeking. It makes me sad.

[cantthinkofaname]

You contradict yourself, my friend. My brother, whose son shot himself in the head at 16, would no doubt take exception to that first statement.

 

Nope, no contradiction there

Note I said "in my experience", as in referring to me, and me alone.

[Daddy Bear]

I'm not "implying" anything; I'm saying it flat-out. Is suicide an act of giving? NO. Does it take other people's feelings into consideration? NO. Spend some good quiet time with the survivors like I have, and maybe then you'll understand.

 

just because you made it through it doesn't mean that everyone can or, rather, believes they can.

Nobody knows the thought process better than I do. I know how firmly they believe they can't make it through. Is it true? NO. That's why I'm here; to show them they're wrong and to give them a model for a better way of thinking. I don't look down on them--I'm one of them.

[Daddy Bear]

Nice try, cantthink, but you said "you get over it" - not "I get over it." And I'm damn sure that if you lost your only son, it would affect you the rest of your life, too.

[Dako]

I agree with you, somebloke.

It's impossible to circle the drain yourself and not feel empathy for others in that mode. I realize despair makes us feel like the only person who understands, but it's not true.

 

The victims of one suicide are often many.

[Daddy Bear]

Arigato, Dakosan. I know you speak from the heart.

[Grosse vache]

I spend time with "survivors" pretty much everyday actually. I also deal with the attempts, the self harm, the family members, and everything else that goes with it.

 

I think you come accross as overly harsh, but I suppose that's your perogative. I don't think telling someone who is suicidal that they are selfish and to think of other people besides themselves is going to help but hey, what do I know. I'm not one of them.

[Dako]

Different personalities see suicide differently.

One person may feel compelled to end it for reasons of ego, another might choose to stay for altruistic considerations. Some suicidals respond to bluntness, and some need gentle understanding.

 

I respond to being told to consider my friends and family.

I don't want to be selfish, so it works for me.