Because it’s cheaper than a universal health care program that includes mental health.

@SQUEEKY2 So they DO want them to die. They could have been honest, smh

lack of empathy is a fault common to many of us. And of course people are unwilling to tolerate what they don’t understand

Because they can’t relate.

Do people do that?

@squeeky What? I’m not sure how your answer fits?

The people that want other people to proceed with suicide are assholes that have no empathy for anyone else and just want the thrill of seeing or knowing that a person killed themselves.
Many people on Fluther have lived through the pain of a loved one committing suicide, including myself, and it’s a pain and a hurt that lingers for years.

@JLeslie, people do that all the time, in different ways. Calling someone a “coward” for not trying to work it out. Guilting people by telling them they’ll be devastating their loved ones. Stuff like that.

I didn’t think about the guilt as shaming. I think people talk about the loved ones to keep the person alive long enough that maybe they come through and aren’t suicidal anymore. It depends why the person is suicidal I think.

Obviously, it’s better to address what the person is going through rather than using guilt, but in desperation whatever works, assuming the person isn’t suffering with a terminal illness, or something debilitating that there is a little hope. There are other legitimate reasons too. Generally, I believe people have a right to control their life and death, but sometimes it’s difficult to see things might get better.

I can see what you are saying @Eithne. If a person has a suicidal intent, shaming them for having such will, and does, have a negative effect upon them and might actually push them into doing it. It does nothing toward getting them in a better frame of mind so they do not follow through with actually committing suicide and guilting someone for feeling suicidal can be taken as shaming by the individual.

A lot of things that are construed as shaming are not meant to be and might just be a reflex response to being told something that disquieting, particularly if they are unaware and are taken by surprise by the revelation.

But, I think the negative attitude of the individual who is considering it will make them more likely to take anything said to them in a negative way, even if it was not meant to be. For instance, if asked why they want to commit suicide and, after they answer, the questioner responds with something like “That is no reason to die”. They may mean it in a positive way, a way to get the person who is suffering to look at things again and hopefully realize that all things can be resolved. But the person suffering might take it as belittling his or her problems, calling them insignificant and this would be construed, by them, as shaming.

I hate to say this, but it’s the truth. Many people feel suicide is a cowards way out of life and they don’t respect it. All of us go through really hard struggles like rape, incest, abuse, etc.. but most of us fight for happiness, sanity, healing. So it’s hard to respect someone who takes the ‘easy’ way out of life.

In 2016, there were 44,965 recorded suicides, up from 42,773 in 2014, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). On average, adjusted for age, the annual U.S. suicide rate increased 24% between 1999 and 2014, from 10.5 to 13.0 suicides per 100,000 people, the highest rate recorded in 28 years.

@KNOWITALL I have to disagree. A person should have control of his life, and his death. Rather than the cowards way out I have viewed it as a brave choice to make in the face of all the opposition you face (as you also indicate), at least in the western world.

I would rather have the option to make the call depending upon the situation I find myself in rather than have to suffer needlessly. There are certain aspects of quality and action that I require in order make continued living worthwhile. I would not force my choices on anyone else and only ask that I be accorded the same courtesy.

@rojo I’m a proponent of euthanasia, don’t get me wrong, but often a suicide is hidden from family and friends, sometimes in public places, suicide by cop, jumping off an overpass, od’ing on pills, which sometimes doesn’t work and requires intervention, etc….

If it’s responsible, I can get on board with that, especially for terminally ill people or older folks who pass a psychiatric test on mental fitness to make a decision.

Of course, you’re welcome to disagree, but many people feel the same as I stated above, which is why I answered the OP honestly, I hear it often.

@KNOWITALL It is just sad that a person who did not choose to be born, cannot choose to die without judgements. I wonder why these people feel the need to bash a person who did not do anything wrong to them? They say humans are “civilised”

@Eithne I tend to agree and I never bash suicides, but people are very judgemental. :(

I find it interesting that anyone would assume that suicide is “the easy way out”. The level of effort it takes to maintain any functionality in the face of such pain and despair, day after day after day takes enormous strength and courage.

Ending one’s own life is not an easy way out.

If I can just add here that suicide is never just a singular event. It does not happen in isolation. While the pain and anguish may no longer be a problem for the person who does it, it just transfers the suffering to those who still remain alive. And then there is the guilt involved.

I know in my sons case he had been speaking and riding the bus with his friend 45 minutes before his friend hung himself. There was no indication; they were laughing and joking on the ride home. They planned on getting together in a little while and go skateboardiing. My son went home, got his skateboard and went back over there only to be stopped by the police from entering the home. That is how short a time it was. It must have been something he had been planning for a while and he didn’t want anyone to know.

It happened eighteen years ago and to this day he blames himself for not seeing it coming. It is an anniversary he dreads every year, the day his friend killed himself.

The boys mom was thrown into a bout of severe depression that lasted several years affecting both her home and her professional life. She didn’t eat, she didn’t sleep. She cried. She was convinced she should have known, he was her son and they had been together since his birth. How could she not have seen it? She is still convinced it was her fault.

His sister came home and found him hanging in the tree and had to call 911. She tried, oh she tried, to get him down. She couldn’t. She held him up so the rope was not tight around his neck until the emergency crew arrived and cut him down. That fucks a person up. She too blamed herself. Had she been home he wouldn’t have done it. If she had arrived a few minutes earlier maybe she could have held him up and they could have revived him. How could she not have been able to tell her brother was hurting bad enough to end his own life.

She had her four year old son in her arms when she saw her brother through the patio window. He saw it too. He never got to know his uncle, except through photographs.

And you know why he did it? Because the school and the courts were bullying him. He was not a bad kid, just a kid with problems but every time he had a difficulty, the school thought the courts should be involved and he had acquired over $1000.00 in fines. In his note he said he hoped the courts would drop the fines so his mom and dad would not be burdened with the cost of his misbehavior.

Hell of a reason to hang yourself.

Wow sad story there @rojo and suicide that way I feel is very wrong, I am totally for it for those suffering from a painful terminal illness.

I agree @SQUEEKY2

There are so many circumstances, though, that could make continuing to live unbearable, though, @rojo and @SQUEEKY2. I knew a woman who was in a terrible car accident when she was in her 50s. Her husband and two children were killed. She survived, but came out of it with crippling pain that never went away. She was able to get around, and even work. In terrible pain. All day, every day. And grief. Unbearable grief. She held on for eight years before she succumbed and overdosed.
Just one example. This is not an area where there are any cut and dried answers.

You might be surprised @canidmajor but I do see the point you are trying to make, but would it have made a difference if she had an easier more affordable access to mental health programs to help her through it?
The reason I am agreeing with you if an accident ripped Mrs Squeeky away from me I sure as hell wouldn’t want to carry on, I just hope I would have access to programs that would help me through it.

The major point I am making is that being in so much, unending, physical pain is exhausting. It’s beyond difficult to come back from such overwhelming grief if you are in so much physical pain. Counseling, support, all those things just can’t really take old if you are physically so overcome. Circumstances like that are, unfortunately, more common than one would think. It is heartbreaking, but not incomprehensible.

My experience is people who want to end their life have suffered quite a bit for a long time. I’m not sure how they can be called cowards, they often have braved years of pain either emotionally or physically or both. The exception to that is an accute event. A death, a break up, sudden total financial ruin has also caused people to want to die. Some sort of very traumatic event. It’s the latter that worries me most.

Gloria Vanderbilt has spoken about seeing her son hanging on the side of the building from her apartment terrace, and then “he let go,” and dropped to his death. It seems he couldn’t deal with his girlfriend, and Gloria has some suspicions about a medicine he was taking unrelated to his break up. Gloria has said she wanted to jump right off after him, and the only thing stopping her from not killing herself was her son Anderson. I think most would agree, her older son’s death is tragic. He likely would have made it through the break up, or switched medicine (I don’t remember what it was for) and gone on to have a good life. He wasn’t a coward, there was something accute going on.

The people who have suffered for a long time, I think usually family members are able to understand the person suffered a long time and the family has compassion What I will say is the family members are often left with some guilt. They are left wondering if they could have done more to help the person. That part does affect the family. I’d say probably all parties often wind up dealing with guilt.

It weirds them believing in God without proof but, needing to feel really depressed to believe in it.

The thing is; to do jokes is cool.
People laugh off the joke; but then there is this shy boy who hears and sees all of this situation and thinks; “well if I do a shit joke too, I will be sociable!”.

Usually, just teenagers shame suicide or male; is not it interesting?

I just finished a book about male psychology.
They like to do jokes. That is all. The reason? They just feel better doing it.
Wow.
Cool.

Everybody do what everybody is doing because they want to be accepted; common sense. :\