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It’s also a disease you can manage and get better from.
On average it takes about four months to get over it a failed suicide attempt. That’s the time it usually takes people who truly wanted to be dead from they attempted suicide until they don’t want to kill themselves anymore.
It’s sad how many people throw away the rest of their lives when the time they really wanted to be dead would have been less than half a year.
And while you’re all are still alive, read “A Long Way Down” by Nick Hornby. It’s a really undepressing novel about suicide and depression.
Do also keep geting reborn with a headache and promise yourself never to play russian roulette again?
Pardon me for not taking the chap who wrote “About A Boy” entirely seriously.
My bad.
I think suicide is a legitimate choice. I don’t necessarily recommend it and I’m not sure it’s ever the best option but I just don’t know. A lot of peoples’ reasons for living can suddenly seem empty excuses and how do you TRUELY argue that. If one is appealing to instinct, gut feelings, or even love to find meaning in life then who is that person to say those things hold true for another?
The best thing I can say is it’s not something to take lightly, either in it’s acceptance or dismissal.
Suicide can be a selfish act, but most everything is in the end. It is just as selfish to want someone in pain to keep enduring it for the sole purpose of letting others go living their habitual lives thinking things are fine. That’s caring not for the person but for what the person can give. In fact it’s technically more selfish to want another person to live for you than to choose not to live for another.
And it’s self-centered to think that ones reason for living is good enough for another. That said I’m open to well reasoned “proofs” that life is worth living.
I like this response. I feel that suicide is way too often seen from the viewpoint of “oh it’s cowardly and terrible”, which causes people to be unable to empathize and support people that ARE going through hard times and do want to die.
If someone comes to you and tells you that they want to commit suicide, and you respond with “You coward, you would just be inflicting pain on all of your family”, I would assume that a lot of people would take that rather offensively. That take on suicide shows whoever wants to commit suicide that you don’t even care about what they’re going through, and you only care about yourself and how convenient it would be for you if they were to keep living, despite their EXTREME pain.
The issue of suicide is definitely not a one sided thing. People tend to try to make things into black and white, but really, it’s important to see both sides of suicide, so that at the very least you could understand the other side, and therefore behave accordingly, whether you agree or not.
Two of the historical figures I most admire died by suicide: Socrates and Seneca. In each case there was no disgrace, and in Socrates’ case, it was a choice he made for the highest of motives.
Japanese kamikaze pilots comitted suicide for the noblest of motives.
Death is inevitable, and in some cultures, this translates into the manner of your death being your greatest legacy.
Michael Monsoor could’ve cleared the area.
He chose to dive on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers’ lives.
He committed suicide.
Are you ‘it’s-weakness-and-cowardly’ going to tell his parents that he was a weakling and a coward?
Didn’t think so.
Of course, Gild and I are playing semantics here.
Well said justtysen and peleschramm.
I composed a similar response but ended up scrapping it because it didn’t make the point as clearly.
I agree with you guys in response for people who are terminally ill it might be a chosen response to their terminal illness but on the other side, suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain. I don’t think someone in this position has time or the mental clarity to think about others as their chaos (for them) is much worse than most people can imagine and I don’t believe it is a choice as much as the only way to void how they feel, not thinking that if your dead you don’t feel or maybe that is what they think.
Really? They sacrificed themselves for their government (or “living God” Emporer). But what exactly was their government trying to accomplish in the Pacific war? I’ve never had a good picture of Japan’s justification for their role in that war. They certainly weren’t doing China any good…
Kamikaze pilots volunteered for “suicide missions”, for what they believed was the protection of the home island. Not a whole lot different from being an infantry soldier in WWI, just a little more specific on the “willing to die” part. I’ve read that the Kamikaze thing, as used in WWII, was more or less invented at that time. Though ritual suicide had a long tradition in Japan, that military variation was new, and linked to older forms of ritual suicide and the samauri code of honor to make it more palatable.
To me, such an act doesn’t even fall into the suicide category. With seconds to react, and the possibility of many being killed, jumping on a grenade might be the “best possible outcome” under the circumstances. He didn’t choose to die because of clinical depression, medication side effects, or other, personal issues.
John, I was fishing for well meaning absolutely certain about everything teenagers. Never thought I’d catch a big ol’ fish like you. 