How many of you have ever seriously contemplated suicide?

[HamYai]

STD, your remark

really struck me as rather profound. Beautiful, even. As good as anything I've read in a good while.

I tip my hat to you.

Thank you. Anyone who has been there will know the agony ( and I DO mean agony) of even contempalting it - let alone the potential physical -to you - and the mental - to those you leave, agony if you do it.

Yeh, and telling someone who's thinking about suicide that they're weak doesn't work, not even as reverse psychology. If they're seriously contemplating it, they generally already feel worthless, and they're not going to be encouraged to prove you wrong.

Anyway, I thought about it quite a bit while I was in college. Lately, the thought has popped into my head, thinking about how I'd do it... and how my family would blacken my name if I did it. They're already delusional, trusting their own presumptuous perceptions of people and things over the horse's mouth. Even if I left a very detailed note of my reasons, they'd make up their own to make me look like a coward and a hell-bound weakling. (And it's their judgmental self-righteous attitude towards me that makes me want to give up.)

People (me included) are scared of it. It's almost unthinkable.

Yet people do it daily.

Easy to look down from an ivory tower and say "I don't understand it".

Maybe they who say that should, but that will never be.

So glad I got over it and have moved on. It's almost like a "near-death" experience (which it was, in a way).

I see things differently now.

Thanks for your comments, guys.

 

[Rubenesque]

Oh and I've witnessed the devastation of those who have been left bereft because of suicide, and on the whole, I think it's way more difficult for them to deal with than when they lose people through natural causes... because along with missing them and being heartbroken at never seeing them again, they're also left feeling guilty... that they couldn't do anything to make that person feel better!

 

[D_Botchely Boneher]

No, no. When I asked to keep religion out of it, I only meant I didn't want any windbags telling us we're all damned to spend eternity in hellfire, having tea with Mussolini with pitchforks in our buttocks.

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

Well, I just think the condition of our environs doesn't exactly do wonders for our collective psyches. I mean, hell, half the time when you think you've caught a break you have to watch for knives in your back from someone trying to sucker you into fixing their problems.

 

[westy30004]

ezra...ever seen "Beetlejuice"?

 

[D_Botchely Boneher]

Denise, sweetie pie, you said you sometimes wished there was a hell so these people could be punished for all of time simply for doing something you find objectionable.

Punishing someone for wanting to be free is heinous, surely? Would you not rather people associated positively out of love and sympathy than negatively out of fear of punishment, etc.?

 

[Rubenesque]

Denise, sweetie pie, you said you sometimes wished there was a hell so these people could be punished for all of time simply for doing something you find objectionable.

Punishing someone for wanting to be free is heinous, surely? Would you not rather people associated positively out of love and sympathy than negatively out of fear of punishment, etc.?

yet you're willing to punish those who love you because you want to be "free"

is that not equally heinous?

Oh... and don't patronise me!

 

[lucky8]

This is a crazyass topic to talk about

 

[westy30004]

i agree lucky8, but it is much better than the political ones....imo

 

[Phil Ayesho]

The "selfish" accusation is also difficult to comprehend...

I did not call it selfish... I called it self absorbed.

There is no doubt that killing oneself is an act of self absorption.
Misery, itself, is predicated upon dwelling on your own internal state to the exclusion of the external.

Anyone unhappy with life is simply far too busy thinking about how they WISH it were, rather than simply accepting how it is... they are far too busy obsessing over their OWN experience to be interested in the experience of others.

I do not think that this is indicative of "selfishness" per se... I think it is indicative of Obsessive Compulsive disorders of the mind...

Life is not a gift. For the overwhelming majority of people, nay, even animals, for the overwhelming majority of the time, it is a degrading, miserable experience. Who wants to live in a world with Interest Rates? Not I! I joke.

You make an unsupported assertion... a bullshit one at that. PROVE that statement...
I have been to some of the more shitholish parts of this planet and you know what the people who live there do?

They laugh.
They tell jokes, they delight in their children. They marvel at the stars.

When you are miserable... you are only thinking about your OWN suffering... hence the self centered nature of the argument against suicide.

Sure life has suffering... so the fuck what?

That you argue that that makes life miserable only reveals that YOU feel that life OUGHT to be otherwise... or even could be otherwise...

It can't.
Get over it and get over yourself.


You should offer examples of people killing themselves for NON-selfish reasons... but there aren't many...

A man killing himself because he has inoperable cancer and is unwilling to bankrupt his family in a vain cause might be doing it for nobel reasons...
But is the man is killing himself because he doesnlt want to have to face the year of pain and suffering that comes with dying of cancer... then he is killing himself for a self centered motive.

What did uncle Arthur Schopenhauer say?
I concur.

Schopenhauer was an ass.

His argument is idiotic... the animal being eaten is not suffering that experience its WHOLE life.
You can not measure the value of a decade of life by the last half hour.

The argument is the same as saying you might as well not read anything nor write anything since it always ends in a period anyway.

...And there is no comparison of the lives of snails and deer to human beings...
Who is eating YOU?
No one.

You have a mind capable of stellar abstraction and nuance.
YOU choose to symbolize your experience of life as either feast or famine.

You can CHOOSE to see life as a wonderous knowing of reality...albeit brief and painful,

Or you can choose to see it as this piece of shit you were given with the knowledge it would be taken away.

Given that you have the choice... choosing the latter seems the stupid selection.

Fuck Schopenhauer

D.H. Lawrence said:
"I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
Without ever having felt sorry for itself."

Richard Bach wrote:
"“Anyone desperate enough for suicide...should be desperate enough to go to creative extremes to solve problems: elope at midnight, stow away on the boat to New Zealand and start over, do what they always wanted to do but were afraid to try.”


You are free to kill yourself if you choose... I could care less... make room for someone who appreciates their life...

And I am free to conclude that doing so makes you a self absorbed ass.

And guess who gets the last word on that?

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

Thank you. Anyone who has been there will know the agony ( and I DO mean agony) of even contempalting it - let alone the potential physical -to you - and the mental - to those you leave, agony if you do it.



People (me included) are scared of it. It's almost unthinkable.

Yet people do it daily.

Easy to look down from an ivory tower and say "I don't understand it".

Maybe they who say that should, but that will never be.

So glad I got over it and have moved on. It's almost like a "near-death" experience (which it was, in a way).

I see things differently now.

Thanks for your comments, guys.

My body literally won't allow me to kill it. It's frighteningly bizarre sometimes. Trying to overcome that was the most painful thing of all.

One of the last times that I recall was when I was a sophomore in college. I was in the shower and just tilted my head back, closed my eyes and opened my windpipe, and let the water flow down. I figured if I didn't drown, I would atleast collapse and bust my head open. If that didn't kill me, I'd be in the hospital and atleast then the people around me would stop looking down on me and treating me like I don't matter. You know, maybe appreciate having me around for whatever I may be worth.
I got light-headed and lost my balance. In less than the time than it took me to fall, I coughed the water out of my lungs, caught my breath, opened my eyes, came into focus and grabbed the top of the shower door with one hand and gripped the wall with the other. My body, like I said, would not let me destroy it.
But somehow, when I stood up straight again, my senses felt keener. I could see more clearly and hear more detail in the sounds around me. That was the moment when I considered giving up on giving up.

 

[D_Botchely Boneher]

westy, I have indeed. Why do you ask?

Stapled, I agree with you more than you realise. I do believe self-consciousness and the disposition to dire misery is inherent (and I'd imagine most people do, including yourself), but it in no way logically follow (for me at least) that any resistance to any more of oppression and degredation is folly and futile. If people are going to live, I'm glad for them, and want them to be as happy as they can be. No doubt we're happier for no longer living in a slave society, for example. I like to think had I been around at the time I would have had the courage and decency to fight slavery, though I don't doubt that the ultimate relief from misery can be found only in non-existence.

If we want to talk about a pleasure in misery, and a relativity of the psychic states, that's another thing altogether.

 

[HamYai]

Brave or weak... I dunno, but I do know it's incredibly selfish. It's probably one of the most self centred things a person can do isn't it. Talk about "I'm alright Jack, and the rest of you can get fucked!"

Expand upon your argument/statement please.

I've heard it said that suicides were selfish since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.

I've always accepted it as a staement of fact.

My guess is that you have, too.

Explain why I am selfish if I don't want to be alive under my particular present circumstances anymore.......

"I don't wanna die.
But I ain't keen of living either"
Robbie Williams - "Feel".

 

[Rubenesque]

I think I just fell a bit in love with Phil LOL

 

[westy30004]

ezra....one of the characters "on the other side" (some beauty contest winner) had killed herself and was a civil servant for all of eternity, she even referred to it being a well known belief...I wonder where that theory came from...

I haven't seen that movie in years....how do I remember that scene?

 

[mista geechee]

Dangerously pessimistic to whom? Why do these kinds of values frighten so many? An appropriate shame for their enthusiastic, mindless, tail-wagging philoprogenitiveness, perhaps? The creation of life is surely a moral abomination, no?

I don't think life as a "curse" as such. That implies too much to go into here. I think life is horrible, and any ruggedly dogmatic empiricists wouldn't have too much difficulty backing that up.

Why haven't I committed suicide already, you ask? Well, there are certain things I'd like to do first. Getting laid, for example, may seem trivial to those who've been copulating ever since those first sticky, awkward backseat encounters aged 12, but to me I'd say it's acquired additional meaning. I'd like to travel and see some things. I'd like to have a genuine friendship. I'd like to learn another language. I think once I've done these kinds of things I'll be spent.

I may be an attention whore on this site. That's a value judgement. In life, I'm not. I barely speak to anyone about anything, let alone something as weighty as this. So stuff that down your platitude-spewer, you dispeptic gasbag!

It's fascinating that this post has gotten so many views already. I hope it continues.

you obviously view life as something bad. or in your words , "horrible" . but then you say you want genuine friendship..etc..etc and all the other great things that the human experience has to offer , then kill yourself once you've done that. you seem to put to much emphasis on sex and probably have no life.

so , again i ask , why havent you done away with yourself yet ? you obviously have a terrible disdain for life. so why take part in what you hate?

or do you just want to see how many people fell sorry for you and will offer positive reinforcement ?

oh and i didnt know that referring to me in terms of an unhealthy digestive system had anything to do with the discussion.

 

[westy30004]

Phil...i really enjoy some of your posts,while others set me off....you need to be in talk radio or something.....

 

[Rubenesque]

Expand upon your argument/statement please.

I've heard it said that suicides were selfish since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.

I've always accepted it as a staement of fact.

My guess is that you have, too.

Explain why I am selfish if I don't want to be alive under my particular present circumstances anymore.......

"I don't wanna die.
But I ain't keen of living either"
Robbie Williams - "Feel".

Do you have people in your life who love you? Who care about you? Would miss you desperately and feel utter desolation and devastation if you were gone? Would they feel guilt for the rest of their lives whenever they thought about you because they couldn't make you happy enough to want to live?

If you choose to make people who love you feel like that.... that's selfish. "I can't cope with this pain a second longer, you have it!"

 

[dansk1]

Ezra Pound --- extended and reoccurring suicidal thougts can very likely be attributed to a chemical imbalance. SERIOUSLY. Nothing to be ashamed of.. And, VERY treatable. Do yourself a favor. Make an appointment with a Psychiatrist (not a Psychologist). Psychiatrists can write prescriptions for medication. And, find the right one. Psychologists only provide counseling. Look up highly recommended doctors in your area. You deserve to live with healthy mind for a balanced life. And, it's possible. Really.

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

In some cases, the person can feel so justified in their choice that you simply can't argue with them. Obviously, things can get so bad for some people that they feel their only choice is to give up. I'm just not one of those people anymore. And I'm glad to hear that you don't see it as a futile struggle either.