Suicide is self-expression...Express yourself

This is something of an important question for me, and I've given it a lot of consideration. I don't think I've stopped wanting to die since sometime in second or third grade. As it stands, sucide is simply not an option. It never has been and I don't think it ever will be. I've pushed myself too deaply into the lives a few people and it would fuck them up too much. That's the sort of person I am, my friendships are few but very potent. That, and I think that the point of being alive is to live through it. I have made it my purpose to become "perfect" within a world of shit (you think I'm crazy but I don't care). I'll live for ten thousand years if I can pull it off. My desire for death stopped having anything to do with personal suffering once high school ended. It became my reaction to seeing how people treat each other and our world. I think I would be vastly more comfortable in the next world. Not that I know what it is, but I think I have a sensation of it (once again, you think I'm crazy but I don't care).

So, it's my advice that nobody commit suicide. When the world looks insane and ugly and wicked and death seems like the only sensible way out, just make the decision to make the world your own. Seek wildly after truth and beaty, whatever you may think they are. It's a terribly hard decision to make, but I suggest making the decision to cast down the world as you know it and rebuild it in an image you can hardly help but love. It's a hard decision but I think it's the best decision that anybody in any situation can make (sorry, I'm having a personal opinion moment). In making this decision the world will often tell you that you're crazy. There is an excellent response to this: "you think I'm crazy but I don't care" and then go on remembering that you are a rare bastion of sanity and reason in a wildly delusional and confused world. It works, so sais I, but then again they say I'm crazy.

It seems to me that most people in here are talking about reasons to go on living, so I don't know what your problem is.

So your saying it would be more impportant to live for others for no reason whatsoever so they feel good happy and warm and fuzzy inside L? I mean don't get me wrong living to help others is probably one of the most noble and beautiful lives to live if you really love it. Living soley so your death won't hurt others seems like kind of a cop out to me. As I said anyhow you don't have to make it obvious you snuffed yourself so is it any more painful than all the people who die early deaths if no one knows you killed yourself? People who really believe living only so they don't have to deal with how bad you felt or perhaps how they could have been nice to you but never were and then bitch when you kill yourself thats a crock of shit. Do I condone suicide I guess I do is an emotionally depressing or void life any better than one spent in extreme physical pain or a severe debilitation? L there are people much more emotionally fucked and hurt and suffering than the most debilitated person you have ever met. I really do wish everyone was happy and could get along or that I never got depressed for over a year at a time, its just not so. I've been happy one day in the last two years. I remember it so very vividly because I haven't felt that way in ever so long. I know there are people that suffer worse than me. So what would you say L so be it just go on living a life of shit so a few people don't get hurt? The reason people typically kill themselves is because they are suffering and if the people who care about them so dearly don't see it than can you really be that sure they care or is it just a reflex kind of emotion? I loved my grandfather very very dearly he practically raised me. I have never cried over his death I know he really wanted to die not out of saddness just he was tired of it all, a good bit of people did cry of course when he died but hell I don't think a one of them knew him much at all in his last few years. I will say to an extent maybe you are right about it being a giving up on those people who supposedly cared so much about you. My closest friends rarely see any of eachother anymore. Heck if I even had one good friend I could hang out with on a daily basis I prabably wouldn't be thinking about suicide so seriously but thats not the case and I'm not going to threaten suicide to my friends to make them feel bad and visit me thats just wrong. If you have to threaten killing yourself for someone to consider you worth paying attention to or hanging with, they probably don't even think you are worth it just they would feel bad if they didn't help you out. Anyway yeah when someone dies it hurts, suicide can be made to look like an accidental death I think if your going to off yourself thats the best way to do it. People who make a big deal and say suicide is so terrible and how horrible the people are who do it, though really just encourage it. Nothing you said even remotely hit me in anyway to push me to live, just another sad person filled with anger who probably didn't want to know me anyway.

Would you condone it if it didn't hurt anyone else? I'm guessing based on your posts here and on "Tough Love" that this hasn't been your personal experience, but would you still care so much if you didn't know the person. Take a hypothetical person whose parents were dead or didn't care about him, had no other close family members, and didn't have any close friends. What reason could you give to stop this person from quitting his job under a pretense, telling all his acquaintances he's moving, selling all his worldly possessions, going out on a boat with a 100lb weight chained to his neck, and going for a swim?

By your own admission you've never so much as even thought about it personally. I have, but I've never wanted to do it. To me it's the final defense against despair. No matter how bad my life gets, it is my choice to bear it because I know I have another option. I don't feel trapped because I know I can always leave if I want to. The fact is, I choose not to. I don't have any moral block against suicide or guilt about it, I live because I want to be alive.

I don't think I've had that bad of a life actually, but people with happier lives than mine have killed themselves. If it was my choice I wouldn't want to see anyone commit suicide out of hopelessness. I don't like seeing anyone unhappy. It isn't my choice though. I always wanted to save people from suicide, from depression, from everything else bad in life. I learned that it was impossible. Only the person can save themselves, or not, no matter how much I want them to. It's like addiction in a way. No force on earth can make an addict change until they wish to change.

The fact is that at the heart of the matter, suicide is an internal decision. External reasons such as loved ones don't matter a bit unless the person cares back. That's the survivor's pain then. That the person who you loved didn't love you enough to try, to make it work, that they gave up not only on themselves, but on you. The most that any person can do is to give others a reason for living. Be such a friend that they couldn't imagine life without you. Care for them, don't trap them by showing how much it would hurt if they left you. Fight like hell for them because you know they're suffering, not because you need them around.



Disclaimer: Since I'm not all-seeing and all-knowing, everything here is obviously my own opinion. Despite any change of person, I'm not trying to tell anyone else how to go about life, just stating my feelings. This is hopefully completely unnecessary, but better safe than sorry.

Snow, I dont think anyone here doesn't have compassion for a person in a situation like that. In fact I think we've all made the statements that there definetly are those who simply can't help it, life really has fucked them over. I think most of our comments about it being a cop-out are directed towards those people who have no clue what hardship is, they just think because they lost a job or something their life is over.

Then help them, don't tell them it's okay if they end it all. If you can help somebody who's hit rock bottom, do it by all means. But I'm not going to glorify and eulolgize and justify the actions of a person who commits suicide.

ADDENDUM: I'm sorry if my stance on this issue offends anyone, but this is my take, take it with a grain of salt. For all our sakes, I won't discuss the issue any further.

[Edited on Jan 03, 2003 by SilentType]

Dead or alive, It's all our fault.

Remember that when you sneer at a stranger.

Remember that when you sit in complaceny. .

Remember that as we die.

Are you too dead to feel our guilt?

Those who take their life were more alive then most will ever be.

They were sick from being around the dead that walked.

Fuck that. Life isnt THAT bad no matter how bad it is or gets

Just seems like quitting to me

I always thought that suicide was a stupid idea all across the board, but that's just my opinion. Being someone who is completely willing to play devil's advocate with my own opinions however I tried to come up with a few instances where people who have taken their own lives have left behind a positive impact. immolation Now this apparently is not to be considered suicide the term is self-immolation. If you've ever seen the movie Waking Life there is a part where one of the characters commits self-immolation, just before he ignites himself he says "let my own lack of a voice be heard" So I guess taking your own life could be considered a form of expression and we really have no right to judge people especially when we know no nothing about them or their situation, however I still feel that there really is no justifying the taking of ones life and no matter how I try to look at it it still seems like a horrible waste.

Thanks Remarek4 least someone understands it can be done in a way to minimalize damage or outright prevent all damage. My only fear is that my best friend would actually hire a detective to find out what happened to me. And as for the would have done anything to help those who are suicidal its not easy to bring up in conversation and even when you do most people have no clue how to react. I've been there and tried to get understanding and help I remember one person told me there had to be a 1001 organizations to help with it only thing I ever found were stupid in as written for those with an IQ of 80 or so books and christian organizations that believe if you accept thier religion all will be fine(personally I'd rather die very horribly than be christianized). It is an important decision and I do try and talk about it when I can, just most dont' talk about it they just preach or scream at you, neither does anything but end the conversation and leave yet another person upset. There may be hope beyond the limbo my life is in now but I just don't see it. I guess though for my part I don't understand why people feel so upset at the idea of you dying but have no real interest in being a part of your life rather fucked up paradox if you ask me. There have been many times when I would have offed myself ie when I broke up with a girl I was with for 3 years cause I could feel she didn't love me(she had been seeing someone else for two weeks at the time I discovered later). I didn't kill myself cause I knew it would crush her. Altogether I've probably endured over a decade that I would have rather been dead for the sake of others feelings, no real reason beyond that. Living another decade let alone possibly century if medicine keeps progressing doesn't exacty thrill me. Its kinda like being sentenced to a life of torment for the sake of others. Anyway end of thread for me as well, as I said it never seems to accomplish anything by talking about it just gets others upset and ends friendships, now I will almost definitely never meet any of you see only negative comes from it hence almost impossible to really prevent it.

Since I started this thread and I am really interestend in what you all have to say.I just want to comment on what I think.
It takes a great deal of negative emotions and courage to do so.But you also hurt everyone you know on some level.The problem is the people you hurt usually don't step forward when theres warning signs,they only critize afterwards.
So anyway I think about , how I would,when I would on an hourly basis.I've tried and it didn't work.I won't get in to it.But because I surivied it I feel its my duty to stay here.Which sucks really.
I was just curious about everyones thoughts.I think alot of posts on this subject are truly intellgent and introspective.But to those that just judge the ppl that have done it,calling them selfish.Think about it.Everyone has their cracking point ,what right do you have to judge them.Maybe you should've tried to understand them more.Even if you did.You don't have the right to judge them or their actions.
This thread was just a test of the emergency broadcasting system.
Thank you all for your input whether I agree with or not.

it is strange to me that people think that they understand the mind of a suicide, and yet still consider them selfish. people and other things are programmed on a very basic level to survive. when that subroutine is overturned, something has going horribly wrong; they are in deep pain - deeper than most of us can imagine. they want to do away with the self in the most immediate way possible. not to play semantics, but isn't death the most selfless act there is?

put yourself in the position of the person clutching pills or a gun and try to feel that kind of agony. i can't imagine what it would be like to take it one step further and pull the trigger or swallow the pills.

Cop-out or honor aside, it is still just about the most selfish act a person can ever commit.

It's as selfish as moving away and never seeing or contacting your friends and family again.

[Edited on Mar 15, 2003 by scar]

I have lived in this town for 5 years, my parents came to visit me for one weekend, my sister for a week. Granted I have been home a couple of times to visit them but I always make the phone calls and the effort to keep in touch, I have to ask myself would I really be THAT missed. I mean I know they would be upset but then life goes on...I am not close to anyone, anywhere. I don't think its selfish when actually it would actually create a better standard of living for other people

Woah, blast from the past.

I dunno, I could probably juggle chainsaws for a decade and still count on one hand the number of suicides that made things better for others. The one thing for sure though is that no one who goes through with it is going to feel selfish or altruistic afterwards.