Man documents his life/death before suicide

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I don;t agree with this glorification of the willful destruction of ones own life, your life isn;t just your own, it impacts so many other people, I can understand the suicide born out of empathy for other people but I wonder how the people who are directly effected by events like this, is this actually is this what they would have wanted?

On a broader note awareness of suicide seems to be linked to increased risk (look up suicide clustering etc), and so while I would try my hardest not judge the person that committed act because i can have no understanding of what they are going through, I'd rather not live in a society where killing yourself is considered an acceptable thing.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Have you ever considered the idea that people who take their lives feel they're a burden on their friends and family?

That pretty much negates the 'selfishness' accusation - if they were really selfish they'd be enjoying being a burden.

only1stevo wrote: »

and was most definitely a coward.

I don't think he was courageous but the whole suicide = cowardice argument is ridiculous, anyone who has ever dealt with a suicide knows that.

UCDVet wrote: »

Okay - I understand it.
I just completely disagree with it.

That's a much better qualification of your opinion though than saying you just don't understand why someone would object to another person deciding to end their own life.

Good post above too btw, but the act of suicide itself was decriminalised in 1993 in Ireland, I'm not sure if you were aware of that. This is why we don't say someone "commits" suicide, because the act itself for the individual isn't illegal. I've been using the phrase "commit suicide" myself for nigh on 20 years, so I understand what people mean when they say it, but those in professions where they work with people who are suicidal or people who have died by suicide, prefer that the term "died by suicide" is used. I don't really care for the term myself, but apparently it's purpose is to destigmatize those who choose to die by suicide (I know, they're suicidal, what someone else calls it is the last thing on their minds), but there you go, some people feel the language is important, I myself am more concerned with the person.

That's the important thing here, and I would like to make it absolutely crystal clear, so that people that think as you do can understand this - I am not suicidal, I don't suffer from suicidal ideation or mental illness. I don't agree that anyone should ever feel the need to take their own life. Now you might see that view as hypocritical and think "Eh? But you just said you'll be taking your own life, but you don't agree with suicide?". It's an issue that's more than just about me, and from my own personal point of view, I'd sooner see them come up with a viable treatment for dementia and the multitude of other illness based scenarios before I feel I was left with a choice of being a bed ridden vegetable for the next ten years, or choosing to take my own life at that point.

I have in my life encountered people who have chosen due to their economic circumstances to take their own life, or due to emotional circumstances such as the breakup of a relationship chosen to take their own life, or even due to circumstances that have compromised their mental health such as bipolar disorder, chosen in their compromised mental state to take their own life.

These people need help BEFORE they feel that suicide is the only alternative to the situation they find themselves in. It's all very easy and neat and tidy to say "Suicide? Yep, rights of the individual and all that craic". That's objective thinking, and tbh I hate it being applied to human beings in certain circumstances, especially to human beings experiencing difficulty, or misery, or any sort of pain in their lives that deteriorates or limits their quality of life.

My thinking is more subjective, and we HAVE to be subjective when it comes to individuals, because subjective thinking is more about the individual as a whole being rather than just our own personal cause du Jour so to speak. I certainly wouldn't encourage anyone to take their own life, nor as much as I have wanted to sometimes, will I ever assist in anyone taking their own life. I will assist in them finding preventative measures or alternatives to choosing to take their own life. In the case of terminal illness or if a person finds themselves in need of assistance to take their own life, I still would defer to a health professional (not least because of the fact that I haven't a bulls notion about anatomy and would probably end up jabbing thru the skin with the neddle and leaving the person in severe physical pain, rather than finding a vein and completing the procedure properly. Health professionals are years at this injection shìt, on a daily basis, chances of them fcuking it up are slim. Me on the other hand...).

That's why IMO we actually NEED the stigma around suicide. Because we as a society should never encourage the idea that it's OK or perfectly understandable for someone to take their own life, or to assist someone else in taking their own life. It's NOT OK, and it shouldn't be "understandable". Destigmatize mental illness, destigmatize terminal illness. Find cures and viable treatments for physical illness, but do NOT say it's OK for a person to die.

I don't want to see anyone suffer needlessly, but I'm not going to don a blindfold to ease my conscience either, and that is effectively what you are doing when you say it's OK for another person to take their own life. It might be harder on you to help that person to find alternatives to taking their own life, and your efforts might be worth sweet fanny adams, but from my perspective, at least it's better that you tried, rather than just gave up all hope and gave up on another human being, or just as bad- gave up on yourself.

1shot16 wrote: »

Because it destroys family and relations.I dont think youd understand until its your best friend who you shared everything with gone just gone.It changed me and others in a way no one can change.

Your friend doesn't owe you anything. Your selfish desire for a friend shouldn't outweigh his ability to choose his actions.

Moving destroys families and relations.
Drinking destroys families and relations.
Careers destroy families and relations.

I still believe in your right to decide what to do with your life. If that means leaving the country and never talking to your friend again - that is your choice. If that means suicide and never talking to your friend again - that is your choice.

And, finally, stopping suicide doesn't stop death. It all ends the same. It's just a question of whether you should be able to decide....and I hardly see why your friend should have more of a say in that than you.

Cathal Cloch wrote: »

On demand for an 18-year-old who just broke up with his/her BF/GF of three weeks?

Na. You haven't thought about it outside your own selfish needs tbh.

Think.

Think.

You're building a strawman...

I support suicide and assisted suicide. That hardly means I support all cases of suicide and assisted suicide. I am in favor of driving, but I don't think toddlers should be able to drive.

Now, an 18 year old who really and truly wants to kill themselves will. Nothing anyone does will stop it. In Ireland, as others have pointed out, it isn't technically a crime (although assisting someone in doing so is). Should their be some reasonable form of regulation on assisted suicide? Sure.

Should a doctor be able to give a sad 18 year-old a suicide pill for no reason other than his being sad? No, I don't believe so.

Do *I*, personally, think suicide is the best option to a breakup? No, it probably isn't.

But, at the end of the day, if the person is an adult, baring extreme mental illness or retardation, I support their right to live their own life. They don't owe their parents, they don't owe their friends, they certainly don't owe society or the government a lifetime of servitude.

I might not agree with why they want to kill themselves, or why they want someone to help them do it. But I don't agree with most of what people do....and I don't expect most people to agree with what I do. That's the beauty of free-will and freedom.

So yeah - suicide on demand/assisted suicide - sure, have some reasonable regulations. Just like we have reasonable regulations on voting, driving and marriage.

Czarcasm wrote: »

And without your equally supercillious post, I wouldn't have learned a new word today.

I like learning new words. It's not even lunch time and I've learned the word "ridiculous", and how to use it in a sentence. Thank you April!


Regards,
Your favorite turtle,
Donatello.


So, who's up for pizza?

Or should we just get back to discussing the issue of suicide and assisted suicide now?

Oh snap, girlfrien'. :cool:

kiffer wrote: »

The problem with stigmatising suicide is that it makes it hard for people to talk about it...

For example the stigma in Ireland meant for years people who died by suicide were recorded as dieing of other causes so as to save the family the shame of the suicide.
People have a lot of trouble coming forward and saying "I've been so distressed that considered killing myself in a serious manner" and the more stigmatised suicide is the harder it is for people to admit to it and get help.

Feeling suicidal is a mental health issue.
A young person that chooses to kill themselves over a break up has much larger mental health/illness problems in the background.
Someone on their last legs choosing to avoid an undignified and painful death might do so with rational well thoughr out reasons but someone choosing to die over a break up needs to know feeling so bad that you feel you have to die means you need to go get help.

I agree with everything you said kiffer, except for the fact that stigmatising suicide is what makes it hard to talk about it. That's putting the cart before the horse. I would contend that the act of suicide itself is hard for people to talk about, because nobody (quite understandably IMO) actually WANTS to talk about suicide. That's where the stigma comes from, and you can't force anyone to talk about something that unsettles them or makes them uncomfortable if they don't want to talk about it.

I personally don't and would never encourage anyone to talk about suicide, it's really not a pleasant subject and it harps back to the days of the over the fence gossip fodder more than it will actually encourage anyone to talk about their mental health.

And there's the thing. In those people to whom a mental health scenario applies, which comes first- ill mental health, or suicide? Ill mental health comes first. So you have to encourage people to talk about their mental health first, before it becomes a problem, before it leads them to consider suicide as their only alternative.

Statisticians getting funky with the numbers and people trying to dress up suicide in fluffy language are only exacerbating the problem by making suicide in circumstances such as mental health excusable. It's really not excusable that someone should get to the point where they consider suicide as their only alternative, and that's why I personally have no time for applying statistics to individuals. Statistics help us only to record and quantify instances of an issue, they don't help to do anything about the issue on an individual level.

If suicide becomes an acceptable method of treating mental health issues in society, then funding for research and treatment of mental health issues is considered unnecessary expenditure by our Government (remember that €35m the department of health had ringfenced for suicide prevention? Whoosh. Gone. And barely a whisper about where it went), because people's apathy and acceptance of suicide in society has effectively "solved the problem" for them.

The HSE and Government came up with the "A Vision For Change" policy in 2006. It's now 2013, and things have gone from bad to worse. How many more people will have to see suicide as their only alternative before society takes the blinkers off and realises that suicide isn't the problem, but it's fast becoming the acceptable solution to ineptitude. This shouldn't be acceptable to anybody.

Czarcasm wrote: »

That's why IMO we actually NEED the stigma around suicide. Because we as a society should never encourage the idea that it's OK or perfectly understandable for someone to take their own life, or to assist someone else in taking their own life. It's NOT OK, and it shouldn't be "understandable". Destigmatize mental illness, destigmatize terminal illness. Find cures and viable treatments for physical illness, but do NOT say it's OK for a person to die.

I've always kinda known that barring illness or an accident taking me, I'd like to decide myself when I shuffle off. I suspect I'm not alone in this. It's not depression talking here either. I know this would be hard for a lot of people to get their heads around but people differ. We don't ask to be put on this earth, and some of us want to at least decide when we leave it.

1shot16 wrote: »

Because it destroys family and relations.I dont think youd understand until its your best friend who you shared everything with gone just gone.It changed me and others in a way no one can change.

Wow, someone commits suicide and you immediately think about how it affects *the family and friends*, not the sheer amount that the person who killed themselves was suffering to the point where suicide seemed like a release from that suffering. *That* is selfish. That is self-centred.

Imagine if you were terminally ill, your condition is going to deteriorate and become worse and worse, you grow more and more dependant on those around you and you might feel you're going to lose all your dignity towards the end. You don't want that, you'd rather go out as you were, die as you were, make your peace, say your goodbyes and be remembered for who you were then, not the shadow of yourself that you became. But you can't have that because your friends and family can't see that and want you around for their own needs because they don't want to see you go, even though you don't want end your life that way. You're suffering throughout all that just for them, for *their* gain and they don't see what they're asking as selfish? That's crazy.

I've said it before, but anyone who sees suicide, especially in this circumstance, as selfish are hugely ignorant of the issue and are incapable of seeing the larger picture. Yes, suicide can be a hugely destructive thing for the whole family, nobody doubts that, but it doesn't have to be, like in this circumstance if you got to say your goodbyes and make your peace with everyone. If you loved the person enough you'll see where they're coming from, so to ask them otherwise is what's so selfish.
What right would you have to ask someone to suffer for your own benefit?

April O Neill wrote: »

I've always kinda known that barring illness or an accident taking me, I'd like to decide myself when I shuffle off. I suspect I'm not alone in this. It's not depression talking here either. I know this would be hard for a lot of people to get their heads around but people differ. We don't ask to be put on this earth, and some of us want to at least decide when we leave it.

Of course April. I completely agree with you. I AM one of those people who will decide when and how I go. I try to explain it to people as we fight against nature every day to prolong life, we should be able to give two fingers to nature to decide how we want to die too.

My wife doesn't accept this, she understands it, but she doesn't accept it. I don't need nor expect anyone to understand it or accept it. They have every right not to accept it and if they have no wish to understand it, I'm ok with that too. As far as I'm concerned it will happen.

I don't WANT to die, I have things to do, places to be, and people to meet. I have a full life. But if the quality of my life deteriorates to a point where I no longer find it viable, I will then be exercising my decision to die on my terms rather than leave it to nature.