Is suicide cowardly, brave, depends or just meh?

[flylowgethigh]

The pain someone is going through is nothing...

The pain someone is going through is nothing...

... Compared to the pain you will leave behind in the people who love and care for you.

{Caution: Buzzkill ahead.}


My best friend suck started a shotgun loaded with 00 buck over a bitch a few years ago. I really had no warning but he was leaving signs to other friends that in retrospect we may have seen. I wish I had done things differently in retrospect - but he is gone and I have a hole in my heart that won't heal.

Just think of his friend guy who found him on the porch, brains all over the ceiling, his dog laying there next to him. His Catholic Mother in shambles, sister freaked after seeing a piece of hairy scalp we missed on the cleanup. His asshole brother now realizing his little kickdog is gone and maybe he should have been nicer. Me, devastated and had to help clean up his stuff.

He came by my place the previous Sunday after looking for her all weekend, and I wish I had grabbed a few bengis and took him to the strip bar. Two days later he was gone. RIP Birddawg.

Yes, suicide is cowardly. Hell if you want to die jump in a volcano somewhere, go scuba diving off Cozumel and just keep diving till you narc out, whatever ... but people will still grieve but NOT have to clean up your mess while they grieve. If you had life ins, they won't get it. Oh, and a valid will would be nice too.

If you are depressed and really want to end it, here is an idea - go rob a bank. If the cops shoot you, mission accomplished and they will clean up the mess. If you get the money, maybe you are not so depressed anymore and want to live again.

JK, don't do that.

26222]My best friend killed himself in 2003, i thought there was no warning at the time but when i look back he did give quite a few warnings it's just that everyone dismissed him as being silly or dramatic as he had a similar sense of humour too.

He told me the day before he did it, if i want to contact him call this number, and left the number.
I still have the number
I don't know what the final trigger was but i think it might have been coming down from ecstasy combined with the loneliness of New Years eve for him.[/QUOTE]

 

[armedoldhippy]

suicide by cop is hard on them. ditto pulling out in front of a semi or train. better to take your car/motorcycle for a final spin & miss a bridge, or hit a wall at around a hundred or so. line from old song _"fifty ways to leave a lover" lol...

 

[YukonKronic]

suicide by cop is hard on them. ditto pulling out in front of a semi or train. better to take your car/motorcycle for a final spin & miss a bridge, or hit a wall at around a hundred or so. line from old song _"fifty ways to leave a lover" lol...

Somebody still has to find that body and tell the loved ones and clean it up. Disappearing leaves no closure for the survivors. There’s no good way to kill your self. It will ALWAYS hurt.
I have a cliff I like to walk next to. It’s my daughter who keeps me walking back from it.

This is obviously a serious subject and I’m glad to see many of the people here approach it as such. It is heartening to hear contradictions to the idea that depressed people are just fucked and should rid the world of their misery.

I hope that people offering opinions on this have learned about WHY people give up. Some of you seem to understand how personal and confusing it is and some seem to have blocked their sense of empathy for fellow humans.

Recognize that suicidality has MANY causes and usually it takes years of more problems stacking up and nothing but dismissive demeaning or outright abusive and neglectful responses to their pain from people who SHOULD be there to help.

I mean friends family and doctors. TAKE THE TIME TO ASK HOW SOMEONE IS DOING AND LISTEN AND CARE about their answer.

It’s easy to say “Life is hard. I had to take care of myself. That’s survival.” But you may be failing to see how hard life could have been for you if YOUR mind or body decided to try and kill you regardless of how hard you worked to survive and how much you feel you could offer the world... if it only wanted you.

It ain’t brave. It ain’t cowardly. It just is and it Hurts. That’s how the consequences of choices between two bad options often function.

Apparently I feel verbose now that I smoke less. I’ll just cap it by saying that if somebody obviously has Armour up towards concern over their mental state it’s likely that they need someone to be brave enough to find a way through that armour to help them.
And ya getting through armour can be a war.
If we love someone... we’ll go to war for them. Even at our own expense.
At least then even if you fail to help the void your loved one leaves may be a little less painful knowing that you really did do everything you could.
Knowledge is power. Without understanding why people are hurt we cannot soothe them.

Ramblings of an opinionated, experienced, and sometimes over-expressive survivor. Hope some of you hug somebody that needs it today.

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

If you really do need to check-out then better to fly down to Cape Town in Saaaaf Effricaa - and go shark diving covered in shrimp paste - instantly reprocessing your bodies nutrients thru the food chain - and - NO MESS - what the sharks don't get - the bottom feeders will -

*oh - some might want to take some pain killers/hash/'erb etc - before the event - will lead to a nicely stoned shark -

 

[shellybelly]

It can be tough on folks left behind but I believe it's a personal choice.

 

[EsterEssence]

Suicide is your final act of this lifetime. I had a couple friends who decided to end their life, because their body was no longer viable, from sickness, and pain. There are 20 something deaths a day by veterans that saw, or did things, or came back with no arms or legs, who can no longer calm their minds and feel suicide is the only way out. I don’t think they were cowards. They just couldn’t deal with their own circumstances.

 

[Jammal]

If the pain is that bad who are you too judge?

People often don't share their pain and sorrow, and for good reason, most people are cold and heartless, if you try to seek help you'll only isolate yourself and cause unwanted drama for others.no one cares anyway, just laugh it off, dark humor is worth living for.

 

[Bobby Boucher]

Meh has to be the most appropriate response of the three. Things really just are what they are.

I can look back at all those hours I spent trying to kick the chair out from under me like a goofy episode of Seinfeld.

Buddhism really helped me.

I don't get sad. Or angry. Or lonely. Or bored. I can be all of those things now without ever truly budging on inch. Mono-rhythmic. My life is brimming with sentiment, but never sentimentality.

And I'm a total idiot.

 

[CosmicGiggle]

one sad thing about potential threatening suicides is that they can also use their pain to manipulate peeps into enabling them to not take the necessary actions to escape their situation.

..... no one wants the stigma of a mental illness label or the meds that go along with it.

 

[Hank Hemp]

Good old Armed

Good old Armed

it depends on the circumstances involved. are you facing an incurable disease which will destroy your family through bankruptcy in a futile medical battle that will be lost? are you willing to destroy their chance at a future so you can live in excruciating agony for a few more months? are you that damn selfish/selfcentered/special? really? i had a friend that was in his late 60s, owned a construction co. here. he noticed that he was letting important details get by him that was hurting the family business & its employees. he had cared for his parents as they withered away & died from Alzheimers, not even knowing him or their other children in their last years. after getting the diagnosis from his doctor, he called all of the family together for a long weekend of cook-outs, horseshoes, swimming etc. (he did NOT share Drs diagnosis.) after the weekend was over, he went out on his back porch where he spent most of his spare time to relax, and shot himself to spare his remaining family the despair & troubles that come from dealing with such a situation. i say he was a brave man facing a horrible end that refused to inflict it on his loved ones. you are, of course, welcome to see it differently. do not, however, expect to change others minds...

Say what you will about Armed, he'll always bring the sun shine won't he?

 

[flylowgethigh]

Mr. Yukon has some good insight.

 

[pinkus]

I think for Joe Stack, it was Courage.

His beef was with the IRS - and he settled it accordingly.

He's the guy who flew the small plane into the Dallas IRS building.

Pretty sure they were highly coercive & made his life hell.

An Austin building. Taking others out, or attempting to is fucking cowardly. There was THAT.

 

[Brother Nature]

It's gotta be hard. I've had too many friends leave that way, some are easy to rationalize, some are not, but it hurts those left behind regardless. It must be hard to be in so much pain that suicide seems to be the only form of release. I don't really know any other way to look at it from my perspective as anything other than sad, but objectively it can be logical depending on the circumstances.

 

[Teddybrae]

So I 'm wondering whether you are burdened by thinking that you could have made a difference if you'd rung him?

If so, Man, you've got to think that HE DID what he did. A call from you MAY HAVE made a difference. But it MAY NOT too. You can never tell. And you will, obviously, never tell.

Now, I 'm wondering too whether you've vibed onto his state of mind pre-suicide? And you need to get it out!

I 'll bet my left testicle that yr friend was overwhelmed by a sense of Mystery. Mystery that he was alive in the world, Mystery about how he got to his place in Life, Mystery about Death.
I 'll bet he had thought himself into a mortal state of Ambivalence ... didn't care if he lived or died. Could see as clear as a bell that in the Cosmic scheme of things his life did not matter.

There are some people who get totally sucked into mortal ambivalence. It's a honey-like space for them. They talk about it before hand but for the untrained listener they seem to be talking riddles ... or even magic stuff.

I know about these things because I have been trained to deal with suicides ... even suicides in progress!

Give yrself a break. HE did it. You have accrued NO BLAME!

My best friend killed himself in 2003, i thought there was no warning at the time but when i look back he did give quite a few warnings it's just that everyone dismissed him as being silly or dramatic as he had a similar sense of humour too.

He told me the day before he did it, if i want to contact him call this number, and left the number.
I still have the number
I don't know what the final trigger was but i think it might have been coming down from ecstasy combined with the loneliness of New Years eve for him.

 

['Boogieman']

I lost family and friends to heroin overdoses, not exactly suicide but it definitely still hurts. A few I knew had a problem but some I had no idea.

 

[Green Squall]

This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I think its cowardly, especially if you have family. However, this doesn't apply to someone who is suffering from terminal cancer.

I noticed an old highschool classmate and buddy in the obituaries a couple months ago and although I don't know for sure, I think it was suicide. I'm pretty good at reading people and always felt he was depressed. All I know now is that his family is absolutely destroyed. 32 fucking years old with the rest of his life ahead of him.

I'm in no way a depressed person and I love life, but I did have unwanted suicidal thoughts when trying to wean off of my antidepressant. Holy shit that was the scary. Even though I don't need the poison, I'm physically addicted to it.

 

[Lrus007]

to me life is a gift. i would not disrespect the gift.
also deep down, i feel you go to a bad place if you take your life.
i do not fear death i welcome it. but i could never kill myself.
i have a DNR dog tag and listed at all the dr's ect.
if its my time to die let me.

 

[Capra ibex]

So I 'm wondering whether you are burdened by thinking that you could have made a difference if you'd rung him?

If so, Man, you've got to think that HE DID what he did. A call from you MAY HAVE made a difference. But it MAY NOT too. You can never tell. And you will, obviously, never tell.

Now, I 'm wondering too whether you've vibed onto his state of mind pre-suicide? And you need to get it out!

I 'll bet my left testicle that yr friend was overwhelmed by a sense of Mystery. Mystery that he was alive in the world, Mystery about how he got to his place in Life, Mystery about Death.
I 'll bet he had thought himself into a mortal state of Ambivalence ... didn't care if he lived or died. Could see as clear as a bell that in the Cosmic scheme of things his life did not matter.

There are some people who get totally sucked into mortal ambivalence. It's a honey-like space for them. They talk about it before hand but for the untrained listener they seem to be talking riddles ... or even magic stuff.

I know about these things because I have been trained to deal with suicides ... even suicides in progress!

Give yrself a break. HE did it. You have accrued NO BLAME!

Thanks Teddy, but no i'm not thinking that i could have made a huge difference by call or burdening myself, i just shared the story because it was my only close real life experience with the subject i'm talking about.

I do wonder about it sometimes but not to the point of blaming or burdening myself, i tried to be a pretty good friend to him regardless if he was being a good friend back a lot of the time.

 

[shithawk420]

It's the person's choice.if the family cared enough they would be there for them no matter what.my family don't give a shit about me.my father dared me to swallow a bunch of seraquil and I did.i was choking and almost died.its a personal choice.if you got good family then yeah.family should work it out.but my dad dared me to kill myself.i nearly did.i think it was a Clint Eastwood movie.dieng easier than living.i don't have any friends anymore whoever wants to kill theirself then go ahead.

It was only a few months ago my cellmate wanted to play the symphony card and tried hanging himself for attention.i told him not to do it then said it's none of my business.i knew he wasnt gonna do it so I said ok.do it.hes right.it was none of my business.he didn't do it btw

 

[bushed]

I dont think suicide can be as easily defined as any of those things.

My partners step dad chucked himself of a cliff leaving two teenaged children behind. He was one of the kindess, loving, family people ive had the pleasure to meet. He got struck down with mental illness that was probably miss diagnosed and he received the wrong meds. It changed him completly, no one expected it. Seemed lije a huge waste. The coroner ruled his death as by mental health not as suicide, suicide is not covered in life insurance policies here.

My cousin who was always hot headed hung himself in prison last week. Got into crime early and was aways wrecked on alcohol. Spice in the prison population seems to have been a factor and seems to bring on mental health symtoms. His irrational temprement that brought him to this end was always there even as a baby.

Two very different people who had different reasons to end it all with the link being mental ilness. Try to look out for people and not be judgemental this downfall could happen to anyone.