This isn’t a question.

Okay.

I disagree. I think sometimes suicide feels like the right choice but there is always another option. You have a choice. You are never alone.

It is certainly one of the available choices, but it is always the wrong choice. Even chronic pain can be relieved if treated properly.

“What’s the dumbest thing you can do?”

I don’t think suicide is the right answer for anyone suffering emotional pain. It is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Some people say it takes courage to commit suicide, but it takes courage to live.

On the other hand, many people “live” but they are dead inside, or they engage in self destructive activities, slow suicide.

So far there are quite a few less than bright answers showing up. To you, it may sound more proper and nice, to say there’s another way. But uh… let’s just TRY to look at quality over quantity for a moment. You can’t possibly think there is no situation in which an ill patient has reached the point of no recovery and can only look forward to more pain and misery. If six weeks on life support with tubes in every orifice sounds like fun to you, I guess you’re even more of a fetishist than me. But most people would much rather you just pull the plug. Otherwise you’re just letting them suffer.

@Piper_Brianmind That is exactly why I specified ‘emotional pain’. I’m not saying euthanasia is out of the question.

@Piper_Brianmind I think what you are talking about is what the poster meant by “notwithstanding cases of euthanasia.” Aside from this situation where someone is in constant pain or total misery due to a terminal illness, I think suicide is a selfish decision. I do understand that when a person is suicidal they believe they are either doing others a favor or no one will care, but the fact that those left behind will suffer endless emotional pain as a result of the suicide does not change.

@augustlan I know. I wasn’t referring to you. For emotional pain, I suppose it’s debatable. Some emotional pain can be quite debilitating, paralyzing. For me, when I experienced this, it was obviously always temporary (though sometimes long-lasting nonetheless), but I don’t doubt there are more severe cases (why would insane asylums exist otherwise?). Once someone has reached their emotional brink, next to go is their mental brink, and after that, physical. Once the quality of life has diminished to an irreversible extent, people definitely get to talking. But I wouldn’t say there is a definite answer there. No one has the right to take a human life, whether it seems fit or not.

I knew a guy years ago with a severe form of bone cancer. He had no insurance, no family to turn to, and no way out. He was going to die, and he killed himself in order to gain some control over the situation. He decided when and where he would die. I respect him for that. He died with dignity, at a time of his own choosing.

So yeah, sometimes, suicide is the solution to a problem. But not if your boyfriend/girlfriend dumps you, it’s immature and silly to kill yourself over an emotional issue.

People think suicide is their only answer. They’re desperate, needing something more, something they can’t find, or something they can’t see. They’re stuck in a situation, or lacking that self confidence. Feeling like they’re the only ones in that situation. Feeling like they’re left in the cold with no one, with nothing. They don’t realize that there are people out there that do care. They’re so down, so confused, so hurt and numb that they can’t see past their own thoughts. They think it’s the way out of their problems, a way to ease the pain.
Is it?

@Piper_Brianmind: the way the question was phrased before made me think this was a cry for help, not necessarily a question. That’s why my question was “less than bright.” I was worried about to convince someone not to take their own life.

@Piper_Brianmind This question seems to be about “casual” suicide, not euthanasia, which is totally different subject.

Suicide is for the weak.

I believe so. There are many people suffering in this world that need not. Of course, it has to be viewed as a last resort. Once it’s done there’s no coming back.

When I think of Suicide. As a exercise, not a goal.
I think of the family and friends that would suffer, due to be offing myself.

I quickly conclude, I would rather suffer then put the burden on them.

I have to think that people that do commit Suicide have some sort of chemical imbalance.
That imbalance can also be brought on through trauma and pain.

So the question should be. People that commit suicide or attempt to, are they of conscious mind?

I’m a firm believer that suicide is never an option for a way out of something unless it is an extreme circumstance, like euthanasia for example. One of my first cousins and also a very good friend of mine both committed suicide and I saw the painful impacts it had on their families and friends. This might not be a very popular opinion to voice here but I’m going to take a chance and say it anyway – I think that committing suicide is a very cowardly and selfish act under most circumstances. I’m required to take annual classes on suicide prevention in the military so I do have an understanding about what suicide is and what it is about. Someone should exhaust every single possibility for help before even thinking about the act of suicide.

Like many, I think suicide is not a very good answer. I love life, since I think it’s the only gift I’ve got. However, I’ve experienced the unrelenting, unimaginable, apparently endless pain of depression—a time when suicide seems like it might be the only way to stop the pain. When it gets bad, it can seem like there will be no end, ever.

And it is an unreasonable pain. It is there for no reason at all. It’s just there. You can have a wonderful life, and yet feel like it’s all worse than any hell you ever could have imagined. That makes it even worse—feeling so bad, and having no way to explain it. It is beyond reason, and nothing logical or experiential, and nothing anyone says makes a difference.

I don’t recommend it.

Anyway, I can see that driving me to check out, as much as I think that’s the stupidest thing I could ever do. It’s one thing thinking, when healthy, that no amount of pain would ever make you willing to give up life. It was something entirely different in that depression.

I do think that when the pain is unmanageable, unrelenting, and endless, that suicide is a reasonable response. It might not be my response, but I would not take it away from someone else in that situation. The tricky thing is knowing whether all hope is gone. How do you know when there will never be any relief, save death? In times like that, it is easy to delude yourself. Really easy not to be able to come anywhere close to seeing things the way others do.

Suicide never makes sense when you’re outside, looking in. Inside, however, can be another story entirely.

Historically, there have been cultures where suicide has been considered a respectable way to go out when shamed, dishonored, or suffering from some irreparable loss. Feudal Japan and Ancient Rome are examples.

I disagree that it’s “weak.” It requires a great deal of courage and resolve to take your own life. Hallmark/Lifetime television rubbish claiming that “there’s always a way out ” notwithstanding, I think every man has the right to judge for himself whether life is worth living, and on what terms he will live it:

”Let them see a man, that is a man indeed, living according to the true nature of man. If they cannot bear it, let them kill me. For better were it to die, than so to live like them.”
—Marcus Aurelius

And incidentally, although I’ve never been suicidal, I find that it’s occasionally a very heartening thought—they can do nothing to you, society can not force you to play its games, since in the end, if you can’t live your way, you can always kill yourself.

It is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Living on our own terms sound honorable.