Suicide: Should A Person Have The Right To Kill Themselves?

BY THE WAY....

Does anyone here besides me know WHY some Religions have made it a SIN to commit suicide?

AboveAlpha

 

This. Couldn't agree more.

 

I have to disagree.
If there's a market, there's potential profit.
Think of the train driver who has to live with the thought of the person he's just run over because they chose to die in front of his train.
My way sees the end of that, and the start of painless suicide, with the bonus of profits for businessmen,
Just wait until the dude is asleep, inject them with the same stuff dentists use to knock out their patients, and off you go from there.
The guy never wakes up and a poor train driver never has a sleepless night.
Everybody is happy.

 

"Suicide: Should A Person Have The Right To Kill Themselves?"

this lady ( Chantal Sébire ) was in server pain due to cancer.... headaches, ect... she died while trying to fight in the courts for the right to die





the better question is.. do WE have a right to force others to suffer

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It seems that Depression is not %100 survivable. Also, I don't want to give you the impression that I am merely talking about depression.

However, it still remains that suicides don't turn to suicide as their first response. Not even close unless the situation is just that intense. Many do try and deal with their problems.

As for depression being a disease, I'm not sure if that's it's true scientific category or a figure of speech. Either way, it sounds very hard to truly remedy. Medicating things like this is an extremely controversial issue. These medications have often been found to be either nonspecific in their exact functions or they add to the problem in some way. Psychiatry, itself, is a shaky profession because it's been implicated as a virutal front for the medication industry. So while things like depression or deep emotional problems seem like they can be cured with a visit to a doctor and some effort on the subjects part, I do not think it is that simple...unfortunately.

Well...I know people do take the easy way out sometimes, but I'm not sure if, in relation to those who kill themselves for considerable reasons, it's disproportionate. Especially when there does seem to be a certain bias that suicides, in general, take the easy way out.

I do consider that much...though I wonder, at times, who can be blamed for the selfishness. If a person died of cancer, are they selfish? For some, suicide is a condition they try to fight, but the weight just piles up on them. As I've said before, suicide just isn't the sort of thing you jump into as an escape hatch. You have to feel backed up into it.

But also, if you've ever really read true crime reports and investigations (the actual kind...I got hooked on these for some reason) you'll always notice that in the case of murder or death or any case really, the first story that emerges is the generic type. In the case of suicide, it's usually the suicide just decides to kill themselves out of the blue and the rest of the family is severely grieved and distressed and confused and you almost believe they are the real victims. But all things have history and when you dig, you see these people have had long instances of battling either personal thoughts of suicide, or large instances of environmental conflicts that may or may not include high stress in the relationship, itself. Not to say that this is always the case, but I feel that most peoples reactions to these things are that classic cookie-cutter prejudice and coming from a society that was once dominated by the religious taboo on suicide (for millenia, extending out of Europe) people just don't give suicides, themselves, as much attention as they do the survivors and they wind up seeming offenders rather than victims themselves.

Just saying...human pain cannot be underestimated, especially in our times. In China, their is remarkable suicide rates from people being severely overworked because China's main industry is selling cheap industrial labor to the world at the cost of it's own people. Before them, it was the US, and before them it was India and Britain. All these socieites witness both inflated cases of suicides and premature deaths from the type of burdens these people faced, and that's only one instance of the external abuse that can cause these types of things. Another dirty little secret is the meidcation, itself, may bring depression, apathy, and thoughts of suicide to a person.

It's a real mess the deeper you look into it...

 

No, I think people who commit suicide should be given the death penalty.

 

The very reason legal voluntary euthanasia is important.

 

I've seen the peace and sense of completion in loved ones after medical voluntary euthanasia, and the torture left after suicide (in a healthy person). The two could not be more different. I believe it's this, rather than old taboos, which make us respond as we do to suicide.

 

I understand that suicide can be hard on loved ones...but that is ultimately incidental. A person who wants to commit suicide wants to release themselves from a level of pain, torment, or anticipated pain or torment they do not find themselves adequate to deal with. We tend to see physical pain as the only acceptably unbearable kind of pain, but I think psychological pain plays a very big part as well. A family who was told a soldier killed himself rather than endure significant trauma and the results of that will still grieve and must face the implications of this death, but they will understand. But because some do not consider the situations and emotions facing a suicide as credible to that end, it gets downgraded and the sucide ultimately made to look weak, selfish, ireesponsible, etc.

And no one seems to consider what would happen if the suicide lived...and his conditions just got worse and worse. They have the prejudice that life is automatically better than death and they base it on themselves, not the person. I think this lack of empathy or understanding is why suicide is seen as and treated differently. Perhaps there is something else there, but I haven't been able to pin it...perhaps it is the revultion to the pain and darkness that comes from or is revealed by a suicide. Something that would be naturally abhorent to the living... I don't know...

 

The thing is that we have partial socialism. We have invested huge ammounts of money in a person just entering the workforce. Even if this wasn't the case the parents have usually put a lot of time, effort and money into each child. So the young person then just deciding to kill themselves is quite selfish. Cases of non-curable and fatal illness is a separate issue, of course.

 

I'm not sure, but I think what you are trying to say is that each person owes their existence to something or someone and so to end your life is to sort of default on that investment that was placed into you by parents and/or society?

That's a good point. There is a certain investment by society and the people around such a person in that person whether it is based on upbringing or just social commitments. But I don't think I can still blame the suicide since that investment of emotion and effort- at least on the part of the people close to him- is, like all investments- a risk. If you meet a girl, marry her, and then she decides to leave you after 10 years, it is her right, but it can be devestating because of the time, effort, money, and emotions that you poured into it. The closer the relationship, the more we are willing to invest in that relationship or trust, but also comes that much greater the risk. It's really hard to a person that really gave it their all, but that is life. Each person is free to do what they want. In a sense, it reminds me very much of those arguments where responsibility was the moral used to bash those who sought a divorce. The harm to the children, the wife and/or husband, the society in general...much loathe was placed on the person that wanted divorce.

As for the suicide being considered in the sense of a loss of investment on the part of society...I suppose you can see it like that. It would definitely be true. There is waste...but is that the basis by which suicides should be held to account for? It does make me interested to know how much the government spends on each person, though. I see it more as an investment in the public versus individual people, however, so that might be one misunderstanding. The governments investment is in society, in general, and so the loss that would be represented by suicides might not even blip on their radar- especially in relation to some other money-sinks. But it is a perspective. Do you think suicides place a considerable burden on the public, or are the really more relevant to the immediate relations?

 

The one thing I would say about depression is that to the person in it it makes perfect sense. That, in the end, is the problem with it. The person that is depressed is unable to fight the water tight logic they face. The more they fight against depression the more it wins.

Other people, at least others who have little empathy for depression, do little to help. Exposure to social situations usually leaves the depressed sure of the meaninglessness of human experience, and attempts at intimate social relationships are usually clumsy, and the depressed person withdraws at the smallest mistake.
Established relationships become convoluted and full of hidden spiteful or pity driven intentions. Everywhere they look they only find more and more reasons to fall deeper and deeper into the pit.

Most medication simply disconnects the victim from strong emotion. Since many in the worst throes of depression are spending huge amounts of energy fighting strong negative feelings this does provide many relief. It does nothing to counteract the destructive logic underlying it. Some, disconnected from strong emotion can see the simplicity of ultimate escape and kill themselves. This is why medication without counseling is NOT a good idea.

However I would caution anyone who experiences or is involved with a person experiencing depression; it is rooted in selfishness. It exist because the person in it cannot accept the individual existence of others, instead everything revolves around themselves. To beat depression a person has to accept the reality of other peoples feelings, thoughts and concerns. They need to believe other peoples concepts of positive reality are valid.

To accept help they have to believe help exist.

 

Could not have put it better myself.

 

This is what I alluded to in another thread. there is always a payoff, for the depressed person. I realise that's not what you necessarily intended to say here, but it is in fact, part of the reason many stay depressed. the logic is worked around the payoff.

On the contrary, I think people sometimes do far too much to 'help', and that's also part of the problem. The minute we say to someone, via word or action, 'it's not your fault, you have a disease, and I'll do whatever I can to help you', you give license to that person to keep exploiting the payoff.

 

Wanted to mention an example known to me personally.

Middle aged woman, one child. Was raised in a way which promoted a sense of entitlement (spoiled, in other words), and to this day has two elderly parents who ask "how high?", when she says "jump". Anyway, whenever she finds work requires too much of her, or after any protracted time in sole care of her sole child, she succumbs to an episode of chronic fatigue, always precipitated by weeping complaints of "I'm not coping". Whenever this happens, people rally to her side and take over all the 'onerous' chores, and she takes to her bed for anything from a few days to a week.

The point here is that if she was a mere mortal, like the rest of us, she wouldn't have the 'luxury' of taking to her bed for days on end whenever the going got slightly rough. There would be nothing in it for her. And here's the REALLY interesting thing ... when she recently had a year of no active support (parents on long overseas vacation and friends a little tired of having to carry her constantly - with no reciprocation), she had a really good year - with not a single episode of 'can't cope', no depression, and no chronic fatigue. Anecdotal, to be sure, but worth looking at.

 

Well-written thoughts...

But I wonder...is depression the problem or the symptom? It would seem that depression is probably the end phase of a list of traumatic experiences. For instance, sustained abuse can lead to depression, and depression can often lead to apathy. Depression might not be rooted in selfishness, but might actually be disengagement from the environment at which point a person withdraws into themselves to the point of becoming very selfish or self-oriented- this being not necessarily from a willingness to accept help or accept other people but fear of other people- fear of their criticisms, opinions, condemnations, or for simply being seen as troubled or broken in some manner.

There was once a study by an old sociologist who believed that suicide resulted from the lack of personal connections. The apathy-enducing drugs as a solution of any kind- especially when concerning suicide- seems a bit sordid to me. I wonder if it is the therapy that helps the most- the suicide is granted a private, personal, assured connection with someone. A safe, uncriticizing, completely empathetic connection. (I have heard of a woman on no less than 27 different drugs because she had to take one drug to offset the condition of others drugs that offset the condition of other drugs. A frightening tale...and, seemingly, the definition of insanity)

 

No, you hit it on the head.

Empathy for depression means knowing what is really going on. Sympathy however is mostly destructive, it leads people to enable the depressed person, (who, incidentally is not going to truly appreciate the effort.).

I think we both understand this in the same way.

 

I think some depression is due to childhood abuse. Almost everyone has unpleasant memories associated with childhood though. Depressed people go one of two ways on this stuff--

1. I am a victim and always will be. -or- 2. I deserved it because I am a worthless/bad/pathetic person.

The first choice is the one you describe. Some jump into the role of victim and every corner has a horrible threat behind it.
The second choice leads to an almost fearless nature and often leads to antisocial and self abusive behavior.

Both are symptomatic of depression though. I think depression is the problem just as much as it is a symptom. Its about how people in it process their own vision of reality. If a person gets used to looking at thinks a certain way its hard to change it, the brain gets hardwired to it.

Therapy is the best tool to cope with it, but its an ongoing kind of problem similar to addiction. So therapy can give the needed first push out, but support groups would seem a better long term solution.

The last thing I would ever suggest to a person is to try beating depression by taking a bunch of pills.

 

Obviously. Do what you like.

I suppose you don't want me taking a lethal dose of heroin then jumping out of a plane without a parachute - once I reach a ripe old age, of course.

 

Not at all. I consider advanced age a medical 'reason' for suicide. It's not like you weren't going to die any minute anyway, so may as well go out on a high ... so to speak