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Suicide and depression
Aegeri
Tiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered User regular
Tiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered User regular
Suicide is always a difficult concept to discuss, because there are a multitude of reasons and motivations as to why an individual will want to end their life. Of what is known about the general people who tend to commit suicide, between 86-98% of them in most studies have some sort of disorder, such as severe untreated depression, bipolar disorder or similar kinds of hardship in their life. Rates of suicide have also been rising considerably, but the worst affected are those in the young adult age group and particularly men:
There have been two proposed explanations in the general literature for why men commit suicide more than women. The first is that men are more likely to use extremely risky and violent means of killing themselves, but that have extremely high rates of success: Shooting oneself, jumping in front of a train, slitting wrists and such forth. Women are less likely to use violent means and will use less immediately lethal methods, such as attempted drowning, overdoses on drugs and similar. This means that while more young women attempt suicide, far less women are likely to kill themselves than men (I believe that men are two to four times more likely to succeed at a suicide attempt than women are). The other suspected reason is that men are less likely to seek direct help about their mental problems, due to social pressure that generally mean men are not as expressive about how they are feeling. It's probably likely that it's a combination of both factors that may be the best explanation for the disproportionate number of male suicides per year vs. those of women in equivalent age brackets.
Suicide itself though is often viewed, by those left behind in the wake of an individual who ends their own life, in a variety of different means. One common response, particularly in the case of those who commit suicide without a note (although notes are common in about 1/4 cases), is disillusionment about why someone wouldn't want to live anymore. Why couldn't the person have come and spoke to them about it? Was it any part my fault? The other most common response is anger at the individual who killed themselves, often because of the view that someone who kills themselves has done something dishonorable or especially hurtful to those who have been left behind: especially family.
I wonder often, about those who do go through with it, as to if there is a point where someone is so sad that they do not feel as if they have any other option to get out. Often, this can be because of untreated conditions such as severe depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia - but are there just cases where someone is not in a clinical state of depression or similar, where they just feel as if there is no further point to life or living and they just end it all? Does someone who is so sad, consider the people around them that they would leave behind, perhaps explaining why 1/4 (IIRC, I'm not sure on the exact statistics) individuals leave a suicide note? These are frequently apologies, last requests and in some particular cases, attributing blame.
It is often the case that a person kills themselves as a means of revenge for perceived slights from the world around them as a way of inflicting guilt and pain on those who tormented them in life. I view this as rather reprehensible and pointless, there is a better means of doing that and that's to make yourself as successful or more-so than them. On the other hand, some cultures such as the Japanese do not regard suicide from a case of dishonoring yourself or others (the family/business) as the wrong thing to do, perhaps explaining why the Japanese have one of the highest suicide rates in the world.
Perhaps in general, it is increased pressure, stress and a faster lifestyle today than in the past that contributes to rising suicide rates (though the disproportionate number of men, three times as much in New Zealand in a more recent analysis) than in the past.
There have been two proposed explanations in the general literature for why men commit suicide more than women. The first is that men are more likely to use extremely risky and violent means of killing themselves, but that have extremely high rates of success: Shooting oneself, jumping in front of a train, slitting wrists and such forth. Women are less likely to use violent means and will use less immediately lethal methods, such as attempted drowning, overdoses on drugs and similar. This means that while more young women attempt suicide, far less women are likely to kill themselves than men (I believe that men are two to four times more likely to succeed at a suicide attempt than women are). The other suspected reason is that men are less likely to seek direct help about their mental problems, due to social pressure that generally mean men are not as expressive about how they are feeling. It's probably likely that it's a combination of both factors that may be the best explanation for the disproportionate number of male suicides per year vs. those of women in equivalent age brackets.
Suicide itself though is often viewed, by those left behind in the wake of an individual who ends their own life, in a variety of different means. One common response, particularly in the case of those who commit suicide without a note (although notes are common in about 1/4 cases), is disillusionment about why someone wouldn't want to live anymore. Why couldn't the person have come and spoke to them about it? Was it any part my fault? The other most common response is anger at the individual who killed themselves, often because of the view that someone who kills themselves has done something dishonorable or especially hurtful to those who have been left behind: especially family.
I wonder often, about those who do go through with it, as to if there is a point where someone is so sad that they do not feel as if they have any other option to get out. Often, this can be because of untreated conditions such as severe depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia - but are there just cases where someone is not in a clinical state of depression or similar, where they just feel as if there is no further point to life or living and they just end it all? Does someone who is so sad, consider the people around them that they would leave behind, perhaps explaining why 1/4 (IIRC, I'm not sure on the exact statistics) individuals leave a suicide note? These are frequently apologies, last requests and in some particular cases, attributing blame.
It is often the case that a person kills themselves as a means of revenge for perceived slights from the world around them as a way of inflicting guilt and pain on those who tormented them in life. I view this as rather reprehensible and pointless, there is a better means of doing that and that's to make yourself as successful or more-so than them. On the other hand, some cultures such as the Japanese do not regard suicide from a case of dishonoring yourself or others (the family/business) as the wrong thing to do, perhaps explaining why the Japanese have one of the highest suicide rates in the world.
Perhaps in general, it is increased pressure, stress and a faster lifestyle today than in the past that contributes to rising suicide rates (though the disproportionate number of men, three times as much in New Zealand in a more recent analysis) than in the past.
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I think about dying every day of my life and it never registers as a bad idea, in fact it is a rather comforting thought that there is a way to make all the stresses of life just go away. The only thing that keeps me from doing it is the thought that whatever is after death might actually suck more than what is going on now.
Why would I want to kill myself? I was with a girl for over 6 and a half years. I entrusted absolutely everything to her, no one has ever known me better than she did. I knew she would always be there, no matter what, I knew she was the one, I knew I could trust in her. She had promised me as much, and I didn't just whole-heartedly believe her, I honest to God knew that it was absolute truth. Then one day out of the blue she kicks me out of her life, and never gives me a reason, at one point admitting she didn't even know why she was doing it.
It wasn't so much the pain of losing this girl, it was the fact that there was no explanation for it. In short what I knew to be true turned out to be false. This is probably difficult to understand.... I'm not sure how to analogize it. The sky is blue, correct? It always has been, and forever shall be blue. This is the truth and you don't just believe it, you know it. Imagine tomorrow the sky was green. Imagine tomorrow suddenly up was down, white was black, etc. These are ridiculous, crazy things that could never possibly happen. But if they did happen, what affect would it have on you and your perception of the world?
Personally, I can not grasp how I could possibly hold a belief in anything. All the evidence in the world does not change the fact that we live in a world of infinite possibility.... and as time goes out to infinity, all possibilities must become reality (or else they would be impossibilities). The universe, for me, and the entirety of life is totally random, and completely meaningless. There is no stability in anything.
Quite frankly I'd rather be dead than live a life where everything I hold true and dear to me is meaningless.
Now I'm fairly certain someone on this board who does not have any mental illness will be able to, with the cunning use of rational thinking, tear this post apart for how silly it all is. Unfortunately for someone in my mindset that just does not have any affect. Now matter how irrational I realize what I've written is, it doesn't change the fact that I feel that way. It is almost like being able to think outside of the illness but still being trapped within it, and all the while impossible to convince that the mental illness induced logic is wrong. It's a very strange concept that I think would be difficult to grasp for someone who isn't experiencing it first hand. It in and of itself is yet another reason I do not think death sounds like a particularly bad idea.
I don't mean to be glib. It's a mental health issue, so obviously I would love to discuss it, but I'm not sure what the question of discussion is supposed to be.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
There isn't much going by way of depression help for youths in New Zealand, other then those helplines or whatever, but I don't think anyone takes those seriously. You'd need to actually go to the doctor or something to get medication. But with the New Zealand view that guys need to be staunch and express like, no emotion you need an intervention or something to get people to take anti-depressants. It's probably not that good. I blame rugby, damn that sport for making everyone think you need to show no emotion.
It's like that pretty much everywhere, more or less.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I wonder if that's similar to like when I was a kid (or last month after I read ghost stories, whatever) when I would be thinking very clearly "Ghosts aren't real, there's never been a ghost under my bed no matter how many times I thought there was and isn't it curious that I'm only scared like this at night? Clearly it's me and there's nothing actually out there" while on a different level, one that felt deeper and more primordial, one that didn't really use words so much as emotions and images all I could think was "OH GOD THEY'RE GONNA GET ME!" Maybe it's all related, I dunno.
And just out of curiosity for that graph, it says it includes "Self-inflicted injuries"; is that only intentionally self-inflicted injuries?
lookathat.
wimmen can' even kill themselves 'proprietly.
i guess that's why we're the superior sex, YEEHAW
most of all, most of all
someone said true love was dead
but i'm bound to fall
bound to fall for you
oh what can i do
My wife works in the suicide prevention field and there's alot of discussion about this fact (not the superior sex thing). Basically, women attempt suicide at a higher rate than men. However, the genders tend to choose different methods. Women are more likely to use pills or alcohol, which is not a very effective method, which means that though they attempt at a higher rate they don't succeed as often. Men are more likely to select a more effective method, like a gun. I don't have a citation for this on hand, but I could find one easily enough.
I know that you were making a joke, but I did want to mention the facts.
For AbsoluteZero (and any others reading this who are contemplating suicide), I don't have much to say other than platitudes, but please don't do this. You say that the worst part is that there was no explanation for what happened to you, for what that girl did. I've had 3 family members kill themselves in the past years, and my family never had an explanation for any of them. Two aunts and an uncle removed themselves from our lives, and we'll never know why. Don't inflict that pain on others just because someone did it to you.
And please consider contacting the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X
However im reminded of a couple things. First and old friend of mine suffered from some very bad mental problems. He heard voices, lots of them. Eventually he couldnt handle it anymore and jumped off a 5th floor parking garage. He survived, with numerous medical issues to this day. He no longer hears voices and is a much happier person.
The other story i think of is a man caught smearing his own crap on the walls of a subway car. When asked why he was doing this he responded by saying that he didnt want to do it, but it disgusted the voices in his head so much they would leave him alone for a while.
There are fates worse than death in my opinion.
And I guess men just honestly want to die.
I'm sorry if that sounds insensitive but I've seen a lot of suicide around me both with notes and without. All it does is devastate people. My life is fucking awful too but so is just about everyone else's nowadays. Suicide is a violent act usually aimed to hurt those who you feel slighted by. "She doesn't love me, let me slit my wrists and make her feel guilty" or "my sister isn't raising her kids the right way" (a 50 year old family friend actually had the audactity to kill himself and leave THAT little nugget in a suicide note. What kind of judgmental fuck do you have to be to not only judge your sister's parenting abilities but also make her feel like this supposed "failing" on her part led you to do this?)
I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but I think they are probably exceptions. Look at the various methods of suicide. Hanging? Public and dramatic. Pills? Usually someone finds you, dramatic, sometimes not even a suicide attempt but rather a cry for help. Shooting yourself? Messy and dramatic. Slitting your wrists? Messy and dramatic. Jumping off a building or in front of a train/bus/whatever? Public, messy, and dramatic. And so on.
Sure, people sometimes decide that they don't want to live anymore, or that the world is too tough for them or blah blah blah but usually there's an element of "fuck you" in the gesture of suicide too, and frankly I think it's a very prevalent part of the action.
I fail to see the point here. Offing yourself is by its very nature a dramatic act. That doesn't mean that people necessarily intend it to be.
I have very little sympathy for people who do this. Want to throw your life away? Great! Keep it to yourself. What you do with your life should not be dependant on what I do with mine. It is immoral to try to reduce people to acting in ways that suit you, which is exactly what the threat of suicide does.
Uhm, how would you like me to respond to this? I believe most people attempting, threatening, or succeeding to commit suicide do necessarily intend it to be dramatic.
Can you provide a sufficient explanation as to why people would kill themselves in convoluted, public ways if not to basically leave a message for the world? It's not "necessary" to jump 70 feet to kill yourself, so I assume any unnecessary effort put into a suicide is done for some purpose. People don't climb 60 extra stories for no reason especially if the end result is your own death.
And one post back you're judging people who did off themselves as selfish assholes, note or not.
Uhm, I'm talknig about those that threaten suicide.
What I'm saying is that suicide is an immoral act. That's what my first post dealt with. I am then saying that threatening to commit suicide is a wholly separate immoral act. A lot of people threaten suicide without the intent. When I say "want to throw your life away? Keep it to yourself," I am being facetious. A lot of people that talk about it don't mean it. Some do. Some use it to guilt others.
edit: Wait, I reread your post and fear I may have misunderstood your point. What is your point?
Yes, but the nature of how they do that is for the most part unrelated. It strikes me as an entirely irrelevant point. That paragraph doesn't support your argument. Pills are a rather undramatic way of commiting suicide, especially considering the alternatives, yet it is I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong) one of the most common ways of doing it as a cry for help.
It may not be 'necessary' to jump those extra stories, but killing yourself via jumping is if you get it wrong the worst way to die. Every one of your nerves firing, you screw that up and your going to be waiting an excruciatingly long time for the pain to stop. The public methods of suicide are things you couldn't do in private. Most people don't own freight trains or skyscrapers. Pretty much all other forms of suicide are done in the privacy of ones home, or in isolated areas.
Under this paradigm how can one successfully off themselves without being harshly judged?
Actually this might start falling under the active/passive euthenasia argument going on as well.
I think people need to realize that the world sucks and that kids are exposed to the world sucking quite early. This "don't ask don't tell" culture of sticking one's head in the sand and pretending hard issues will just fade away if they are ignored is ruinous and almost definitely lends itself to teenage suicide. Teenage depression is a given. I think a little more emotional support, even on a general and blanket scale, would go along way. A teen depression hotline just doesn't cut it...this world needs to be more proactive in tending to the mental and emotional needs of adolescents.
They can't. Not by me. Didn't I just argue that, by its nature, suicide is an act usually meant to harm other people and that threatening to commit suicide is an act usually meant to control other people? Harm perpetrated against someone else and an attempt to control someone else are rarely things that should not be judged harshly.
I have no idea how this relates to the euthanasia debate. I support a person's choice to end their life in that regard. I do not consider euthanasia and suicide to be the same thing. So if you are asking me for exceptions to my harsh judgmentalism, it would be any instances that would fall under the scrutiny of a euthanasia debate.
Oh really? So you never hear about how so-and-so was found in his garage dead of carbon monoxide, or how so-and-so was found hanging in his closet, or how so-and-so was found with his wrists slit?
When I say "public" I mean two things, but really I mean one thing. I'll explain. The two things I mean are "public-at-large" or "family/friends/lover(s)". But what I really mean by public is "those who the sucider has felt slighted by." Some people feel slighted by the world, others by those around them. I'm not sure, but maybe there's a correlation between the method they choose and who they feel put down by. What about all those people who run into schools shooting the place up? Those people feel a terrible anger, no doubt, against the world. I would say the method is very telling.
My pojnt is that those "private" suicides are relatively public. Trust me, I've known like five or six...I've honestly lost count at this point. People find bodies and the manner in which they are found are either made public or at least made known to those close to the person. Unless the person goes missing and commits suicide in a forest or a mountain, then there is no suicide that isn't public. And even running away is a similar gesture.
My father-in-law felt guilty because that night they had had an argument and he had stormed out, being unable to deal with it any more, and he didn't find her before it was too late this time.
My husband felt guilty because she had called him that night and told him she was sure my father-in-law had left for good, but he was so drained from doing this with her over and over that he didn't get out of bed this time and drive the 2 hours out there to be there to stop her.
Fortunately, she at the very least chose a night when her 9-year-old daughter was spending the night with a friend to do it. However, she did leave the rest of us with the task of raising this kid who has minimal self-esteem to start with and of course (like any kid in that situation) felt that it was somehow all her fault.
It makes me sound selfish, but her destructive (both self and otherwise) behavior was having such a profound effect on the family that I was almost glad to have it over with. I'm convinced that her daughter is better off now with us, and in many ways I am glad that MY daughter (who was weeks old at the time) will never remember her at all.
I think there really is a connection between suicide and euthanasia, because they're both related to relieving someone's suffering. Mental suffering and anguish is no less real than physical suffering.
I just want to say for anyone else reading this who might be suffering from depression or some other undiagnosed ailment— psychiatry is, by nature, almost more art than science. We just don't know how the brain works well enough. However, psychotherapy and medications absolutely can make an incredible difference.
I'm a bit antsy to say in this thread, but jumping off a tall building is one of the most effective ways to kill yourself. If you land on your head over five stories, you're basically dead. I think you are severely limiting the reasons people commit suicide. Can I ask if you've ever had depression?
Sure. I'm quite depressed right now, in fact. And sometimes I may fantasize about dropping through the world like a brick. The question is: so what? If I communicate this to someone else, what am I really trying to do? Saying "I'm going to commit suicide" can only, in my opinion, be a dramatic gesture meant to scare and control people. Saying "I'm severely depressed" communicates that you have a problem and need help. When you start talking about specific ends, you're not looking for help, you're looking to effect people. It's a classic blackmail maneuver in ANY context: "I'm going to do this, unless..." When you tell someone that you want to commit suicide, there is an implicit ultimatum. You are basically trying to get them to act. And the act itself works the same way. Look, I can't speak to every single individual's motives, but human motives are both nuanced and complex. And the fact is, most suicides are public and are dramatic. It's usually not possible to have an private, undramatic suicide. So I have a hard time believing that a willingness to publicize the depth of your depression is not a part of the act.
And you didn't address my point. If you land on your head after a five-plus story fall you are basically dead, as you say. Ten stories might do the trick. Twenty cuts every possibility of being saved out except God or Falcor whisking you away at the last moment. So what are the other fifty floors for, if not a dramatic gesture?
I'm not saying that people don't feel like killing themselves because of depression. However I do believe the act is usually a method of lashing out. You must agree that at least some cases support this claim. I believe that most people kill themselves as a method of communicating with a world (or a group or a person) that they feel unable to communicate their grief/pain/anger/anguish with.
Sometimes people are all alone, poor, and just worse off being alive (In their own reasoning), so they do what seems logical.
It is also possible that some people just want to die. Not to lash out at people who hurt them, but just simply they are tired of living for one reason or another.
It's probably not right to generalize about the reasons most people commit suicide, but I know when I have done it, it's mostly to stop dealing with the what feels like the weight of the world on my shoulders (Then I realize it wouldn't solve anything, and create more problems for the few people I do care about.)
And I believe that most people kill themselves because they feel bad all of the time and they will never feel better. If you're depressed, you must understand what that feels like. Unending unhappiness. You have to do something to stop the pain, or what's the point in living?
Some people find out that it really is just a physical problem with their brain, a problem that can be fixed. Some people don't. I don't consider those people in any way dramatic.
The last time we had this thread, it tackled pretty specifically the 'morality' issue of it and the sum of a few dozen pages of posts was that people who attempt -- and especially those who attempt and succeed -- are not thinking clearly. Depression, with or without suicidal intent, is a distortion of one's thoughts; do you go around slamming the mentally retarded for bringing their handicap into the lives of those around them?
Those who attempt and especially those who attempt and succeed are not coming from a rational place. If their need to lash out at the world that was unwilling to help them [their perspective] defines the details of their final actions, so-the-fuck-what? It's not something you can criticize people's individual actions about. It's inane. There is no room for you to erect a soapbox on their shattered lives.
Now, I don't even think that all suicides with 'extraneous' elements take their inspiration from vengeful fantasies. More often, it seems like they're modeled after the suicides they've seen in the media or around them ... people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, people shooting themselves through the roof of the mouth ... if you take the etymology all the way back, yes, there's probably an element of visibility mingled with the want for assurance of success, but again -- what the fuck does it matter?
I mean Christ the ridiculousness of saying that people who throw themselves off heights are selfish on the basis that the height they chose was inefficient in its grandiosity and must certainly belie a hidden motive is just
ugh.
Personally I'd go the carbon monoxide route (charcoal burning, not car exhaust). It's clean, there's no audience, and I don't think it's terribly dramatic. I suppose death is dramatic in and of itself but that can't be helped. *shrug*
Edit: My point is a person wishing to exit life, as it were, isn't always just some kind of an attack on his/her survivors. It may simply be that this person has grown tired with life and would like to move on. Kind of like if you lived in a house impossibly infested with rats... it might hurt your family and friends if you moved away, but your house is infested with fucking rats and there's no end in sight. Moving out of that house would carry no malicious intent towards those who it might hurt, I should think.
Let's get away from motive for a moment. The fact is, suicide is dramatic. It causes drama. There is no possibility for it not to cause drama. It always has and always will. And there are levels to the drama it causes. You would have to be severely impaired - i.e. medically "retarded" - to not realize that your own death would have severe reprecussions for those around you.
Suicide is a method of communication, or at least that is an ulterior aspect to it. It is not possible to kill oneself without sending a message and that message usually is "I just can't deal with this/it/you/the world anymore." Whlle I might agree that some people do not actually aim to lash out, it IS a method of lashing out whether it is primarily intended to be or not. That's the FUNCTION of suicide. It ends life and affects others around you.
There is no such thing as no audience. Death doesn't work that way. We all witness each other's existences and so we all witness each other's deaths, including the manner in which death occurred. You are correct that killing oneself alone in a garage has a different immediate audience than someone who jumps off a roof or in front of a train, but you are wrong in suggesting that any suicide has no audience. They all do, even if the moment of death isn't witnessed.
It's not ONLY an attack on the survivors but I'm willing to bet that nine times out of ten resentment and a desire to guilt people is one contributing factor to committing the suicide. I haven't meant to suggest that to lash out is the ONLY motive but it is a CONTRIBUTING motive quite often. How often do you see a suicide note that says "it wasn't [his/her/the world's] fault" and how often do you see suicide notes talking about the inability to deal with shit? I'm sorry but leaving a note that people can't respond to where you blame some one or some thing is basically forcing that person into guilt. Or trying to. And the people that don't leave notes? They just add a sense of wonderment to the whole thing. Like it or not I think people have a moral obligation not to commit suicide for this reason alone. I'm not really concerned with all that personal duty Kantian bullshit but the fact that suicide has such a destabilizing effect on everyone around the subject is enough for me.
Saved this for last:
It doesn't surprise me that this is your opinion and you're right that my opinions are somewhat vitriolic. Boo fucking hoo. I'm not going to shed a tear for people unwilling to endure life's tragedies and throw away their lives and ruin the lives around them, which I have seen happen at least a half a dozen times. Suicide has an immediate and lasting severe impact on everyone connected to the person.
Depression may be the distortion of someone's thoughts, but I don't have to mollycoddle someone willing to harm others in ANY context. Do I go around slamming the mentally handicapped? If they go around perpetuating harm on others, I damn well would. You don't get a free pass just for being impaired.
I find your third paragraph hilarious because you are agreeing that many do it to lash out. "So-fucking-what?" I think I've covered that. My right not to be burdened by your depression trumps your right to try to destroy my mental well-being with some kind of last-ditch attempt at a guilt trip.
As to your last point, that's my perception. Maybe I'm cynical but I think there is a gesture involved in climbing to the roof of a skyscraper and hurling yourself off it. If an artist went up to the roof of a 100 story building to paint something, people would consider the act significant. Why is doing the same thing an insiginificant act when you commit suicide. Just because someone isn't "thinknig clearly" does not mean psychology goes completely and forever out the window. We can still analyze their actions and their motives and derive truth from them.
Are you really arguing that the depressed are somehow above the obligation not to fuck up the lives around them? Misery loves company is some kind of moral duty and fuck everything else, you have the right to upset everyone else just because you are chemically imbalanced? No. It sounds like you're trying to absolve handicapped people from anything and everything and I think that's utter horseshit. I have no obligation to help push people with cerebral palsy around in a wheelchair so why should I have an obligation to endure anyone's depression? Furthermore, LOTS OF PEOPLE ARE DEPRESSED. Maybe your suicide will push someone else into one. People are not islands, Oboro, but we do all exist in a sea and every action has very real and usually very profound ripple effects, especially something as violent as a suicide.
I can't really take your post seriously though since you agree that lashing out may be a part of it and you seem to defend a mentally-crippled's person right to do so. "So-fucking-what?" my ass.
What if you have no one? Is it still dramatic?
If you (literally) are not connected to anyone, which is very difficult except in the rarest situations, then no, unless you're giving a big "FU" to God which is also possible. Feeling disconnected and actually being disconnected are two things. I mean, there are people I don't talk to anymore that I know would be severely affected if I were to do something drastic like this.
I think being dramatic is the default with suicide, yes.
Ethicists almost all agree that people with diminished rationality are less morally culpable for their actions.
And I, too, would agree.
I would not, however, agree that they are "not" morally culpable. There is some culpability and I think it is absurd to even put forth the position that any impairment immediately justifies any action. That may be an unfair characterization of Oboro's point but that is how she is coming across more or less.
Are you suggesting that a person should be forced to live through unending suffering just so that another person does not have to deal with a relatively brief period of grief and/or guilt?
I honestly feel like I have no right to talk about suicide. My life is nearly perfect, any hardship I've ever had to face pales in comparison to the most minor grievances of the lives of others. I know it's a very old, very tired argument, but I'm glad that I've grown to the point that I can be pretty stoic about most any pain I have to go through, simply based on the principle that there are so many people out there who have it infinitely worse.
I find suicide particularly odd. It just seems strange to me that people dissatisfied with their lives would, after failing to change their lives, seek to end them. It seems limited in scope, imagination, if you will. I've always figured that if I got to the point where I'd want to commit suicide, then my immediate reaction would be to just start everything over. Reroll, as it were. I don't think people realize how entirely arbitrary their responsibilities are. Sever every contact, leave my job and my house and possessions I didn't need, and go find some other life to live. I'm only screwing over as many people as I would be if I killed myself, and otherwise, I'm wasting the breadth of possible experience. The amount of things you'll never see and never know are already quite enormous, why would you want to raise that number? And, if you're particularly optimistic, then maybe you'll find something that actually will make you happy. Even in the case that you are mentally damaged to the point that you cannot feel anything but unhappiness, I would think you're wasting perfectly good unhappiness. To follow off of the analogy that someone made earlier, if your house is full of rats and there's no way that's going to change, perhaps you could become a rat breeder, or you could learn to make delicious soups from rats, or any number of potential rat-based activities. The world is full of nigh infinite possibilities, and killing yourself is ignoring them all.
I understand that my thoughts are more than a little unrealistic, and like I said, I couldn't possibly understand the mindset of someone who would commit suicide, because my life is nearly perfect. However, maybe I can offer a little bit of an alternative viewpoint?
Yes, I am. Or come up with a coping mechanism that doesn't involve some final act.
You really can't make lemonade out of a big pile of mental-illness lemons. Being unsatisfied with your life is only part of it. Were I to "re-roll" as it were, that wouldn't change the fact that I have a mental illness. It is going to follow me everywhere for the rest of my life. Sure, there's therapy and various treatments available, but the entirety of it is a very YMMV situation. We just don't know enough about how the brain works. We don't even know the exact mechanics of how and why anti-depressants work (or don't). Successful treatment can take years, and it isn't a permanent solution. Like I said earlier, there is no cure.
The other side of the coin is that, while there are a multitude of experiences to be had in life... for those of us who do not believe in any kind of afterlife, it is probable that when you are dead you won't care nor have any memory of life for, existing only as a corpse, you would lack the ability to have memories, feelings, or any of that other fun stuff that comes along with being a living human being.