Suicide.Is it the cowards way out?

If I want to kill myself I will. Pills, gun, or bridge. My decision.

tiger too

Hardly. It’s a bad way of getting out of tremendous pain and suffering ONLY BECAUSE the individual doesn’t see the better ways out.

If I was hooked up to a bunch of machines I would want a bunch of pills that would knock me out and kill me.

Sometimes. Sometimes not.

If it was inevitable I was going to die, I’d want a “suicide pill” to make it quick and painless. Like the doomsday comet coming at the earth; I’d rather take a pill first.

Suicide is the ultimate selfish act that wreaks unimaginable sorrow and pain on the family that remains. I’ve lost two family members to violent suicide, and while they were indeed in horrific pain at the time, the pain they left behind was much worse.

@Harp That photo will forever be one of the most horrific of all time.

What… ??? It is selfish for someone in pain to take their own life?

Isn’t it selfish to have to deal with pain you haven’t experienced so you feel better?

Holy crap.. My last comment is a mess. I was emotional.

My cousin, who suffered from chronic back pain as the result of a car wreck in his teens, killed himself in the shed. His wife found the body. They had a 3 year old and a 1 year old. There was no life insurance and no money. His father was in the hospital having quadruple bypass surgery and his mother is still on antidepressants years later – she’s a shadow of who she used to be.

I’m still angry at him for what he did to his family.

@syz

I’m sorry to hear that.

It’s a BAD way out, usually, but hardly a coward’s way out. I can’t phantom how scared I would be at “the moment”. It takes tremendous guts to pull that trigger with the barrel in your mouth.

While it might be that those who commit suicide are in a black whole of emotional pain (and I am not talking here of those who are on their death beds and want a way out of their physical pain), the wake of their action in taking their life is enormous. They cannot imagine or are just unable to think about all those who love them whose lives will be so deeply affected. I am watching a family now deal with this kind of loss, and I find it hard to believe that the person who killed himself couldn’t know how horrible it would be for his family—his wife and children. :“What was he thinking?” has become a popular refrain.

I think this act is the most selfish and cowardly thing a person can do. And truly, passive aggressive, in its most powerful form.

It is much harder and, I now realize, hugely praiseworthy, to turn oneself into an institution to get help and prevent yourself from doing yourself harm. You save not only yourself, but all those who love you, and even those who may just know and like you. Or even those who don’t know you that well, and don’t care for you. All are damaged in a suicide.

I am still undecided about this, simply because the usual pat answer to something that is hardly the same for everybody is usually wrong. It would depend on the circumstances, I would think, and therefore would be different for each individual case. Yeah, a wishy-washy answer, I know, but there are very few absolutes in life.

My Dad committed suicide back when I was 21, and although I understand his reasons; being a shell of his once former self due to terrible diseases that left him bedridden, seeing what it did to my Mom, well, I can never forgive him for being such a selfish fuck.

It seems that the person committing suicide makes people suffer after the death, but isn’t the VICTIM suffering BEFORE the death? Is it the way we look at things?

My father shot himself in the driveway of the house in which I grew up. I would have been less enraged if he had shared his needs, desires and distresses with my sibs and me, all adults and all reasonable people. And he should have said “Good bye.” He had Parkinson’s but would have had an easier time if he had been willing to give and receive love.

His emotional paralysis and need to be all-powerful were equal contributors. And my mother’s irritation at being socially limited didn’t help.

I have know people with more severe cases of Parkinsons who have behaved very differently.

It was the secrecy and the need to control everything that I found so difficult. The ripple effects go on for a long time and probably affect some members of the next generation.

@Mr_M, sometimes if the person killing themselves would try to relate their pain and fears to their family, rather than simply going BLAM, maybe things would go better for everyone. And if suicide is the only answer, what is wrong with discussing it with your loved ones first? I agree with gailcalled, ending your misery does NOTHING for those left behind to deal with your splattered remains. At least give it a try, and give people a chance to relate their feelings. Suicide is the ultimate FUCK YOU it seems, sometimes. And telling the people you love to fuck off with no way to answer is indeed selfish.

As I said in my very first post, I agree that suicide is a BAD solution. But the victim usually feels the people he leaves behind are BETTER OFF without him. The suicide victim won’t have “normal” reasoning like you and me. If they did, they wouldn’t kill themselves. It’s not an “FU”.

You’re NOT going to ask your loved ones “will you be better off if I was dead” and expect them to say “yes”. To say “yes” is telling the loved one “You are worthless” (which IS how he feels and why he commits suicide).

Yes, it is. In my opinion – but if only for the loved ones around who will have to deal not only with the death, but with the implications of suicide. On the other hand, due to mental illness, sometimes the mind has lost the ability to form proper judgements about their situation/predicament, and will consequently make the bad decision to end their life. I think that may be why friends and family feel tremendous guilt as a result: because they conclude the individual was helpless to make the right choices and chose badly (ie death), and if they were around more or more supportive, could have prevented it. It’s a tough call regardless. I see the arguments for both sides.

I don’t think people who commit suicide should be judged.

@casheroo : Has anyone related to you ever done it? It’s not a simple question. Six weeks before my father decided that life was not worth living, he put on a nice suit and got driven to NYC. He was the CEO of a corporation on the Amex and he ran a public shareholders’ meeting. No tremors, no shakes, no nerves. It was a metaphor about his priorities.

@casheroo: I don’t think the issue is judging if we’re talking about people in our lives who we care about who make that decision, because suicide affects everyone, not just the deceased. By that thinking, I believe it is easier to understand why others would consider someone a coward for commiting suicide. In judging them (poor choice of words, in my opinion) the loved ones are trying to make sense out of chaos, which is exactly what suicide is (creates it, and doesn’t resolve the previous chaos). These people are left to pick up the pieces, and obviously the person didn’t consider them when they made their choice.

There will always be these phrases associated with suicide: “If only I/Why didn’t I…” and “He/She should have”…

Eh, I would say in most cases it is the cowards way out because you are avoiding dealing with the real issues in life by ending your life. However if you kill your self because you have disappointed your shogun and it is the only way to retain your honor on the battlefield. Then I would say that’s pretty intense and not very cowardly. But I suspect no one on here has a shogun to answer to or family honor that they must upkeep via Seppuku

I’ve been to two funerals of friends who have committed suicide, so yes I do know people but I am not related to them.
I’ve attempted suicide. I know what it did to my family.
Personally, and I’m not trying to offend anyone that has had a family member commit suicide. But, I think people are selfish when they make a suicide of a family member about themselves.
To answer the original question, no I do not think suicide is the cowards way out. I do not think all people who commit suicide are cowards. I do not know all the circumstances to which led to it. Of course suicide never makes sense, that’s obvious. But, the person felt it was the only thing they had left to do.

@casheroo i can see your point, however don’t you think its selfish to not think how your suicide will affect the people who love you. particularly their family members?

I’m too chicken shit to even consider suicide. I do think that it’s extremely selfish. There are so many resources to get help with emotional/physical/you-name-it pain now that it seems unlikely that suicide is the only answer. But that’s just my opinion.

no. its the SELFISH person’s way out
they look at their lives and whats horrible in it.
not the fact that them committing suicide would be something horrible in their loved ones’ lives.