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>, I can only hope that people as a whole start seeing it as a complex issue and the stigma of mental issues and stress can lessen so that people can get help

>, I can only hope that people as a whole start seeing it as a complex issue and the stigma of mental issues and stress can lessen so that people can get help Possibly inappropriate - but why do people immediately link suicide and mental illness? Why do we stand in judgement declaring it wrong to decide ones own fate? Am I not the master of my own existence and do I not have the right to make a decision on it without a bunch of hand wringing from other people refusing to countenance the possibility that I am still of sound mind? Living is a choice, just as death is. (apologies if this is distasteful, I'm mostly interested to hear responses)

adamc 8y ago
I think we link it because, most of the time, it is linked to mental illness -- typically depression. It's not an issue of "rights" but of whether you are really functioning competently. Sure, there are cases where someone makes the decision to commit suicide because of a terrible terminal illness (e.g., bone cancer). But that is not the norm. FWIW, I say this as someone who has had severe depression and been suicidal.
chatmasta 8y ago
Suicide is inherently a selfish act, and I think that’s where the perception of it being “wrong” comes from. Sure you have the right to decide your own fate, but you should consider that you affect other people. In taking your own life you’re also fucking up the life of everyone who cares about you, forcing them into a state of grief and possibly causing them to blame themselves for what was ultimately a selfish act on your part.
- choko 8y ago
  Isn't it also a little selfish to expect someone to live out their life in misery simply because you would feel bad if that person ended their own life? I have people in my life who have been struggling with mental illness for many years. If any of them decide that they no longer have the will to fight, I would not think less of them (or call them selfish) if they decide to end their own life. If I did, I would be selfish.
  - sb8244 8y ago
    Both of these things are selfish, by definition, right? Suicide is an act performed by a person to remove them from a world they don't want to be in any longer (self focus). Being upset at a person for doing so is putting your feeling above theirs (self focus). Selfish is inherently a negative word, though. Maybe self focused or self motivated is still accurate and less negative.
  - dghughes 8y ago
    It would be upsetting because it's more than likely not their choice but people assume it is. Depression is like a broken bone it's a physical problem with a person's body beyond their control they need help to fix it. People who have open-heart surgery have a 40% chance of developing depression it's not that all their life they were dealing with depression this is a sudden change. That's terrifying to see depression develop so quickly like a virus suddenly changing a person almost overnight. If a person impulsively and mortally harms themselves because they couldn't control their actions due to chemical imbalance in their brain (depression) that would certainly be upsetting. Knowing a person's actions were out of their control and they could have been helped or healed that's quite sad. We need to help people not accept it or mock it since it is just as much a medical problem as a broken bone, and it can be treated.
    - CuriouslyC 8y ago
      In most cases, depression isn't an illness, it's a result of life circumstances and the way you think. Think of it like obesity - it's a mismatch between ancient genes and the modern environment. The genes are fine, the environment we've created is what's fucked. There are cases of depression that result from health issues, but these definitely aren't the majority. This is just a hypothesis society has put forth to avoid taking a long hard look at itself.
- jm__87 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure if you told that to anyone who was suicidal, it would only quicken their departure. These people need some compassion and medical treatment, not more guilt.
  - sb8244 8y ago
    The interesting thing to me is that it probably doesn't apply to most people either, although it seems like it should. Humans are very resilient and while we do miss and long for those that go before us, we can overcome them not being here anymore. We're able to adapt and move on. I think you could get into an exception if there's mutually held debt or something similar that actually does affect a person long term.
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- randcraw 8y ago
  Bourdain's daughter just lost her father. I can't believe anyone could rationally and deliberately choose to inflict that much pain on someone they love. That's why I would infer that Bourdain was not in his "right mind" when he acted to leave this world. And that's why I would consider his suicide to be "wrong". Of course, I can't possibly say whether it was just, somehow. I just can't imagine how it could be. Frankly, unless he had a hidden medical issue (like Robin Williams), I also believe Bourdain probably could have restructured his life in some way to make life better and worth living again. I'm pretty sure most mental health pros would agree that most suicides arise suddenly, emotionally, and irrationally, and can be productively prevented if the impending signs are identified early and addressed with help. Personally, I believe that suicide is never the best and only option anyone has -- barring an irreversible medical/physical condition. I think the reason we see more tolerance for suicide today is we expect less from people in general. Forty years ago, society presumed that each of us had a continuing duty to other people -- family, friends, community, and country. This duty clearly proscribed certain behaviors which would hurt others or would fail to live up to other social duties, like voluntary military service in time of war, or working VERY HARD to overcome difficulties in marriage when children were still present in the home, and would suffer from the breakup. (I've been there. It's not a delight.) I'm very saddened by Bourdain's passing, and I'd rather not judge him. But I regret even more his loss to his daughter and his friends. The act of suicide is a terrible legacy.
- loosetypes 8y ago
  I can’t help but compare this to those angry with George R. R. Martin. Is it inherently selfish for him to not finish his book series? Maybe, but I don’t know if it’s the place of a reader to be arbiter. My only secondhand anecdote of Anthony Bourdain - and it’s hardly even that - is from the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu community. Apparently he would train at Ralph Gracie’s on Howard when in SF. No commentary aside from this is often a deliberate attempt by an individual at bettering one’s self.
- acjohnson55 8y ago
  Suicide isn't anymore selfish than wanting someone to continue living so I can feel better. How do you balance the pure inner torment of a suicidal person against the surmountable grief of those they left behind, multiplied by their number? There is no objective balance. I don't blame anyone who chooses suicide. Who am I to tell them to "man up" and deal with the torment? But I think we should do everything in our power to make staying a viable option.
- Jach 8y ago
  On the contrary, it goes against man's (and other life's) natural tendency to love himself, to want to keep existing, which is most selfish but fine and necessary. Suicide stems from being insufficiently selfish. The additional problem you're highlighting is that suicide is also an injury to the common good. That sort of thing is somewhat orthogonal to the selfish/altruist dimension though we conflate them a lot. Lastly, and this is probably more relevant to the history of it being wrong (at least in the west), it spits in the face of god.
- trophycase 8y ago
  You're telling someone who finds their life to be so unendurable that they need to be more considerate? Hell yeah it's selfish. And for a lot of people that do it, it's one of the few times they've done something for themselves. Everybody should have a right to die, and in a world where lives are constantly getting longer and society more oppressive with its demands, the right to die should be fundamental.
  - chatmasta 8y ago
    What about the argument that your rights are inalienable until they infringe upon the rights of others? Do people who care about me, or the people who invested so much time and money in raising me, not have a right to keep me in their life? By taking your own life you force people who care about you into a state of grief. I do not believe anyone has the right to force emotional distress onto another person. I understand that from the perspective of someone who is suicidal, they might feel that they have nobody who cares about them, or that the people who do “would be better off” without the suicidal person in their life. But that thought alone is misguided and certainly not a justification for engaging in such a selfish act. Regardless of how the suicidal person feels, the people who care about them will be harmed by the suicide.
    - trophycase 8y ago
      > I do not believe anyone has the right to force emotional distress onto another person. But the person who is already under emotional distress should continue to endure theirs? Is your position really that you have a right not to be emotionally upset by others? How does this position account for any form of conflict at all?
- lifeformed 8y ago
  > In taking your own life you’re also fucking up the life of everyone who cares about you, forcing them into a state of grief and possibly causing them to blame themselves for what was ultimately a selfish act on your part. People who kill themselves are extremely aware of this. Consider that as an indicator of how much distress they are in, not how selfish they are. They're in so much pain that they would inflict grief upon their loved ones to get out of it. If a person is being physically intensely tortured, and they kill themselves to stop the pain, are they being selfish? They are under so much distress that their only option is to end it all. They would MUCH rather not be tortured and not have to die. Suicide is jumping out of a burning building because you don't want to burn. It's not something you do because you're upset.
oldsklgdfth 8y ago
I agree with the position that you are the boss of your own life. But I also believe that it is at the very least considerate to self-limit your freedoms to a point where they do not adversely affect the ones around you. My conclusion for my suicide is "bad" is because it causes pain and suffering to the ones around you. I relate suicide to stress that cannot be managed. If you feel like you need to die, then you are completely free to do anything. So why not do that? Remove that stress, till you don't feel like that's the only answer.
sgift 8y ago
Because in the overwhelming number of cases there is a direct link. The count of people who decide that "enough is enough" is dwarfed by all the people suffering from mental illness that see no other way out, but could get help if society as a whole was willing to give it.
eurticket 8y ago
Agree, it could be simple and logical doesn't have to be a mental condition
Pigo 8y ago
I suppose because it's much more common that it's someone dealing with a debilitating mental illness than a Hunter S. Thompson type who is just hitting the reset button because he's done. I don't get offended by much, especially if it's a question that comes from an honest place. Death is the only thing we all share, so I think it's natural to have a lot of questions about it.
karmelapple 8y ago
What about when you have an 11 year old daughter? I am in favor of a right to die, because I saw my mother struggle with cancer. What she went through seemed truly awful. However, having a terminal disease is very different than having a temporary lapse in judgment about whether to continue living. Someone raising a child likely does not truly want to be gone from the Earth. We don’t know for sure, but with his known addiction history, this was likely an unintended consequence, the one he cannot take back.
protonimitate 8y ago
I see what you're getting at, but I think the reason that suicide is linked with mental illness is because it goes against our very nature as living beings. If I recall correctly, a majority of people who have 'failed' suicide (for lack of a better term) have stated that they immediately regretted attempting once it hits the point of no return. This is just an assumption, but I think the will to live greatly outweighs the desire to take your own life. Of course their are outliers (I'm thinking of Samurai Suicides performed in front of audiences) but I don't know if there's any resources that talk about their mental health. If anyone as any counter points I'd love to hear them - but for the most part I think suicide stems from mental instability or an otherwise inevitable physical death (terminal illness, old age, etc). One other reason it may be linked with mental health, is the fact that if mental illness is not a factor - what is driving these decisions? I can't imagine that people come to the logical 'master of my own existence' that you mention. It's a very interesting subject, when you take the horror an tragedy out of it. Also curious what other species have high suicide rates, or if its a primarily human affliction (don't have time to dig around on this right now).
- oldsklgdfth 8y ago
  I'm gonna stray away from talking about mental illness, cause I'm not a doctor and there are a lot of grey parts. Suicide is about giving up. There can be a number of reasons for throwing the towel in. For seemingly normal people, I tend to think it's because they feel like they have failed in a way that is irredeamable. Like the samurai guys, that have disgraced themselves and there is no way to go on without their honor. It is all in their head as expectations they have created. Aside from clinical cases, I would say that most people throw in the towel because they feel like they failed and it's over. Expectations manage them. If you feel like you have nothing to live for, you can live for anything. Change thos expectations. I'm not trying to be reductionist, this is obviously a serious issue and it many people struggle with it. But that the hedge fund manager that is "living the dreams" and wants to end his life out of that toxic environment and maybe we won't think about giving up anymore.
  - ebiester 8y ago
    There are different reasons people attempt or commit suicide. That said, do we blame someone who succumbs to cancer when they die? That somehow they failed at trying harder? For some, depression is an episode or collection of episodes in life. For others, it's a chronic condition. He lived decades (from other accounts) with a chronic condition and succumbed to it. Sometimes, toxic environments contribute and I don't want to suggest otherwise, but for those with chronic unipolar depression, it is a condition that people die of. It's sad, but so long as we understand that it's illness, we can get over the polemics.
stult 8y ago
Surely the mental anguish that drives someone to take their own life qualifies as a mental illness. We are not talking about someone who chose to die rather than continuing a painful fight against a terminal illness. Maybe it's rational to take your own life if you are suffering so deeply from depression. Maybe that's a choice we should respect. But that respect doesn't mean that the underlying suffering isn't an illness we should recognize as such and try to treat.
- wavefunction 8y ago
  >We are not talking about someone who chose to die rather than continuing a painful fight against a terminal illness I am afraid you don't understand chronic depression. At all.
  - atmanthedog 8y ago
    Actually, I thought the post you were responding to was quite insightful. Depression can be chronic, debilitating and painful, but it definitely is not terminal. Terminal implies that there is a highly predictable progression of the disease that inevitably results in death. I think the parent was trying to say we can easily see why terminal patients consider suicide, as they have a fairly determined remaining life, but we should also extend that same sympathy and understanding to those who have conditions which are chronic and painful, but not necessarily determinative of remaining lifespan.
Maybestring 8y ago
>Possibly inappropriate - but why do people immediately link suicide and mental illness? Because suicide is almost always preceded by years of mental health problems.
niftich 8y ago
People seek to draw a link between suicide and mental illness because the drastic outcome of suicide stretches one's comfort with the notion of informed consent. The widespread societal taboo against suicide supposes that no rational person free of undue pressures would consent to ending their own life, therefore anyone who commits suicide must have been pushed to do so by serious factors that impaired their ability to properly consent. This line of thinking effectively re-defines 'mental illness' to be that unknown variable that pushes outwardly functional people towards a choice that surprised the observer.
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dominotw 8y ago
> Am I not the master of my own existence Not really, humans live in societies. Your existence is not purely yours. Maybe it applies to Gaint Pandas that spend all of their lives in solitude.
ianai 8y ago
1. The universe is largely void and hostile to life. 2. Sure, there may be times where a person may rationally chose to die. That doesn’t negate the fragility and value of life for its sake. Two things can be true. Some people may have a rational reason to wish to end their lives, and some people who would end their lives would do much greater harm to themselves and loved ones than good. 3. It is my firm belief that we may use #1 to evaluate the worth and even ethicality of choices and actions. Those actions which solely promulgate life or enhance its existence are ethical. Those actions or choices which violate the former are unethical. Actions or choices which solely diminish the life or lives of others or outright end lives are unethical - unless that termination of life ends suffering larger than the benefits of life. That’s a very fine line.
- oldsklgdfth 8y ago
  I don't believe there is a valid rational reason to justify suicide. But I'm open to being wrong. This have been explored philosophically in the school of existentialism, see Camus and his work. EDIT: i guess a valid reason is significant physical pain and suffering that has no hope of being cured.
  - ianai 8y ago
    That’s one point I have personally experienced. I’ve faced the reality of 30-31 migraines per 31 days a month. Luckily medical treatment is helping cut that number back significantly (though every day is a careful balance). But those medical treatments have been around less than 10 years. There’s even a class of headache, cluster headaches, which are also known as suicide headaches. Not every chronic pain can be dialed back.
    - oldsklgdfth 8y ago
      Chronic pains is evil. I would be more inclined to associate that with euthanasia, than with suicide. Not to sound insensitive, but it's more comparable to putting down your old suffering pet in my mind.
    - cc-d 8y ago
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TheCondor 8y ago
If you ignore the feelings and needs of everyone around you, death is just another choice. I’m not an expert on it, but there is a certain impulsiveness to it that suggests to me that it’s not just another choice. Terminally ill people often or maybe frequently get things in order and prepare things, almost going out of their way with limited time to take care of things for their loved ones. These things frequently take their loved ones by surprise and there aren’t exhaustive preparations. This will be more inappropriate, but AB had a marriage dissolve because he had to travel 250+ days a year and be away from a wife and young child. As a husband and parent of two, I find that staggering, we aren’t talking about someone without financial resources that does whatever job they can to support their family, he probably didn’t need to work. To me, it’s not even a thought, I’d do a different job or somehow rearchitect my life to keep my family near. IMO, there was clearly some priority issues or something going on. If he had this supreme rationalism and simply chose to end things, where was that when he fathered a child that he didn’t spend time with? Or was this a new found clearity he discovered? Im not try to sound accusatory but I think there might be a lot of other differences in his life if this was a healthy and rational choice. RIP Anthony and I hope his family and loved ones find peace and comfort.
youdontknowtho 8y ago
Mental illness is defined in terms of mental processes that interfere with your life. Suicide is the definition of a mental process that interferes with successfully living your life. That being said, I agree with your point. One should be the master of their own existence from a certain viewpoint, but we aren't. Humans are social creatures and define our lives in terms of those relationships. Even if you are a solitary hermit, you define your life in relation to the people that aren't around. I'm not trying to be clever there. I can see where suicide can be considered the most rational response given the right social or societal context. See any number of ritual suicide practices in human cultures. Again, even the physician assisted suicide that we debate so often make sense in the context of maintaining some notion of dignity in one's familial or social group. When you add human suffering to that situation it becomes a moral imperative, I think. That's just me though.
jm__87 8y ago
Do you really think Anthony Bourdain wanted to die and hurt the people who care about him? Suicide is what people do when they simply cannot go on any longer - this says nothing about whether they wish they could keep going or not.
- ShabbosGoy 8y ago
  I always thought of the act of suicide as making a statement. It really is the highest and ultimate statement one can make about their life and circumstances. It’s more than just giving up and not being able to go on any longer. The act itself has a lot of symbolic meaning.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 8y ago
    As someone who's tried, that's bullshit. It was about escaping the unbearable pain. That's all it was: running away from an agony so extreme it encompassed every aspect of existence.
jdietrich 8y ago
> why do people immediately link suicide and mental illness? There is a very strong relationship between suicide and mental illness. If someone decides to end their own life, it is overwhelmingly likely that they are suffering from some form of mental illness. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12701661 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12701661 >Why do we stand in judgement declaring it wrong to decide ones own fate? Most people who survive a suicide attempt do not ultimately end their own life. Most people who have suicidal thoughts eventually stop having those thoughts. If you think that you'd be better off dead, I don't think that you're in any way morally wrong, I just think that you're probably factually wrong. You might think that you want to die, but if you go on living, it is overwhelmingly likely that you'll change your mind. To use an old cliche, suicide is a permanent response to a temporary problem. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00048670601172749 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0004867060117274... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032715302767 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016503271...
- smn1234 8y ago
  agreed! Is mental illness a cause or a result of treatment for "depression?" Being sad and unhappy is natural... does medication create the illness?
  - ctrl-j 8y ago
    > Being sad and unhappy is natural... And is not an accurate description of depression. If you think depressed people are just sad/unhappy - please read more on this debilitating disorder.
    - smn1234 8y ago
      Maybe the definition of depression is different, society to society. I'm certain a good amount of earth's human population has at one point in the course of their lives felt hopelessness, for whatever amount of time. The majority of those with access to TV who've also seen some American media have likely felt they're missing out on the riches and opportunities that can be had that they're not fortunate to. Is the definition of mental illness and depression and their treatments and factors the same across cultures? To me it seems (opinion) that the only constant is... if you feel sad: there's a pill for that. People in bad situations work hard to get themselves out. It's human pride, it's our nature. People don't just kill themselves. Are those who do "weaker beings" or have bigger struggles than those who haven't? There's another factor at play here, in my opinion, and it's the medication.
berberous 8y ago
There is an excellent documentary called "The Bridge" about people committing suicide by jumping off of the golden gate bridge in SF. Given the height of the bridge, it takes 4 seconds before you hit the water, and some people survive it. They had interviews with people that survived it -- and they basically all said that as soon as they let go, they realized it was a mistake. That all of their problems were solvable, except for the one they just made. I do recall one man who did not survive, who seemed at peace during the video of his fall -- he was one who I think perhaps did not regret the act, but was the extreme outlier in that regard. If you are 85 and dying of painful cancer, I can also see it being an act that makes sense, made to decide one's own fate. But MOST people seem to grow out of their suicidal phases, and realize it was the wrong choice, driven by bad thought patterns. In the same way that people try to help addicts or people with eating disorders try to obtain better thought patterns, suicidal ideation seems to me to be largely a broken thought pattern we should help people overcome, not an individual decision one should respect.
- ThrowawayP 8y ago
  > They had interviews with people that survived it -- and they basically all said that as soon as they let go, they realized it was a mistake. That all of their problems were solvable, except for the one they just made. That fails to explain those who attempt suicide more than once. EDIT: I found an informal estimate from this article (http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/25/in-defense-of-psych-treatment-for-attempted-suicide/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/25/in-defense-of-psych-tre...) by psychiatrist Scott Alexander: "It is somewhat harder to find good studies on what percent attempt suicide again. By eyeballing some other statistics and trying to fit them together, I believe it is greater than 25% but less than 50%. One textbook whose studies I have not been able to verify says that 30% of untreated and 15% of treated suicide attempters try again."
  - okmokmz 8y ago
    The same reason that drug addicts who have been sober for long periods of time regularly relapse. Many people have more than one moment of weakness or crisis in their lives
- 8y ago
WhompingWindows 8y ago
I don't believe you are the master of your own existence. Did you decide what to eat this morning, or rather is it the product of your habits and cultural forces and family choices and genetically based preferences? IMO free will is an illusion, and this is part of the reason why stigmatizing mental illness is so pernicious. We say "get over it, everyone gets depressed" or we say "omg, I'm so OCD lol". Not really, though, these are complex neurobiological disorders that scientists don't understand well and doctors don't have great treatments for. If you're severely depressed or schizophrenic, your capacity to lead a normal life is vastly reduced, you can't even go through the daily rituals/motions that everyone else does. You become separate from society, and peoples' saying that you're rich, you're doing well, get over it: that makes it all feel worse. Add on top of that potential drug use, increasing suicide rates in society (we know they are contagious, it spreads like a virus), and of course the more advanced age of these recent celebrity suicides. So, are severely mentally ill people truly capable of living normal lives? Are they capable of making clear, level-headed decisions? I highly doubt that they were truly masters of their own existence if they decided they'd rather stop existing than suffer more illness.
alexhutcheson 8y ago
This blog post from a psychiatrist is a good read for people interested in this debate: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/25/in-defense-of-psych-treatment-for-attempted-suicide/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/25/in-defense-of-psych-tre...
- Ntrails 8y ago
  This was a super good read - thanks!
fiblye 8y ago
I didn't say that it's only a result of mental illness, but lifelong depression is definitely a big factor. Few living things who are physically healthy and with no history of suicide ideation just decide to die just because. Generally there's some underlying cause, whether it be a longterm plan to do so or some sudden stressor.
lolsal 8y ago
Here is at least one data point regarding a suicide that was probably not mentally ill: http://martin-manley.eprci.com http://martin-manley.eprci.com - It's a fascinating story and first-hand account.
pokemongoaway 8y ago
Because it demonstrates a trade-off made for short term that causes long term suffering in others, especially loved ones. Dying does too, but if we make a reasonable effort to not die, then we are making a responsible effort to not hurt those who depend on us - if just due to having know us. It's promoting a generally bad fix, so should be looked down upon. Euthanasia is more benign I think.
tbiteteitb 8y ago
We, as humans, have an instinct to survive.
Sangermaine 8y ago
>Am I not the master of my own existence No, in many ways and cases you aren't. As comments below note, one of those ways is through mental health issues. While I do agree that people should ultimately have the right to choose, it's simply incorrect to think that it's a simple matter of rational choice. There's very good reason to believe that, in most cases of people seeking suicide, they are not of sound mind. This idea that you are the perfect and complete "master of my own existence" is one of the most pernicious and persistent fallacies people hold.
floatingatoll 8y ago
Medically-assisted suicide is a thing with professional support and evaluations and guidance, in regions where it’s defined and legal. Unassisted suicide is usually assumed to be mental illness based on the circumstances — randomly in a hotel room during a filming does not read as “rationally premeditated after careful consideration and psychological evaluation” to most of us.
ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
I understand this way of thinking. I think it is logical to die in a lot of scenarios, and that is why we don't call the right to end your life "suicide" in all cases, like when you have a terminal disease. But consider this analogy. If "suicide" was a just a judgement, and not a temporary insanity, then people who came close to suicide wouldn't ALL glad that it did not happen. You would have a significant portion of people who look back and say... I really wish I had taken my life back in 95', that was a really hard year. But that is so extremely rare, its easy to lump the majority of suicidal thoughts into the temporary delusions category. In some cases people have been contemplating suicide for decades before they do it, which is a common sign of depression. But that is significantly different than wishing that they had done it in the past.
dredmorbius 8y ago
Suicide is an extreme, profound, desperate, and undeniable act. It leaves a corpse, and corpses cannot readily be swept under rugs as with other vital statistics. (Much the same holds for murder vs. other crime rates, though both may be influenced by trauma medicine advances. David Simon talks of this in The Audacity of Despair, on YouTube.) For much this reason, suicide is seem as a definitive marker of individual, and social, dysfunction. It is the title and subject of Emil Durkheim's foundational work on sociology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Durkheim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Durkheim https://youtube.com/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw https://youtube.com/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw
funkjunky 8y ago
I'd take it a step further and ask why we always consider depression, anxiety, drug abuse, etc. as an individual's "mental illness", when many of these illnesses seem to be inexorably linked to the broader societal sicknesses we find ourselves living under. Economics, politics, technology, cultural norms, community (or lack thereof), health and wellness; all of these things are directly or indirectly affecting the mental health of the population at large. Even if we double down on mental health treatment for individuals, it is ignoring the larger, more complicated issues that are likely at the root (of at least a significant contributor) of these problems. And yes, I think it is a perfectly valid choice for someone to check out if that's what they want to do. Mental health or whatever aside, if you don't want to live anymore, for WHATEVER reason, I don't see why anybody else has the right to try to stop you.
p3llin0r3 8y ago
I find it extremely distasteful, but this is an Internet forum and a fair question. Do not recommend bringing this up in casual conversation! This question will probably lead to ended friendships if you approach someone who has been suicidal in the past, or has lost someone to suicide. Also it's pedantic in a really ignorant and dumb way, and not nearly as clever as you think it is. There are examples of people taking their own life due to physical maladies which I can COMPLETELY understand, and choosing to end your own life kevorkian-style is understandable to most people: Robin Williams had dementia. His mind had basically completely gone before the end, his wife spoke of the rages and lack of understanding of what was happening around him. But many people choose to end their own life when they are young, healthy, and in a pit of despair that they feel they will never escape. Depression is a mental illness which symptoms of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts. So there you go. That is why. Depression is a mental illness. We as a society have deemed having no value of life, including your own, is aberrant behavior. I would argue that "deciding to commit suicide" for no other reason than you are tired of being alive, or want to "decide your own fate" is completely psychotic. Also, saying "It's your choice" and doesn't affect anyone else is just insanely wrong. As I've grown older and lost people around more at a higher rate, it is ASTOUNDING the hole left behind when you lose a loved one.
dang 8y ago
I appreciate that you raised the question sincerely, but it's generic enough and baity enough that I detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17264518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17264518 and marked it semi-off-topic.
- Ntrails 8y ago
  No worries - I got hella interesting links out of it so I felt entirely sated :)

adamc 8y ago

I think we link it because, most of the time, it is linked to mental illness -- typically depression. It's not an issue of "rights" but of whether you are really functioning competently. Sure, there are cases where someone makes the decision to commit suicide because of a terrible terminal illness (e.g., bone cancer). But that is not the norm. FWIW, I say this as someone who has had severe depression and been suicidal.

chatmasta 8y ago

Suicide is inherently a selfish act, and I think that’s where the perception of it being “wrong” comes from. Sure you have the right to decide your own fate, but you should consider that you affect other people. In taking your own life you’re also fucking up the life of everyone who cares about you, forcing them into a state of grief and possibly causing them to blame themselves for what was ultimately a selfish act on your part.

choko 8y ago
Isn't it also a little selfish to expect someone to live out their life in misery simply because you would feel bad if that person ended their own life? I have people in my life who have been struggling with mental illness for many years. If any of them decide that they no longer have the will to fight, I would not think less of them (or call them selfish) if they decide to end their own life. If I did, I would be selfish.
- sb8244 8y ago
  Both of these things are selfish, by definition, right? Suicide is an act performed by a person to remove them from a world they don't want to be in any longer (self focus). Being upset at a person for doing so is putting your feeling above theirs (self focus). Selfish is inherently a negative word, though. Maybe self focused or self motivated is still accurate and less negative.
- dghughes 8y ago
  It would be upsetting because it's more than likely not their choice but people assume it is. Depression is like a broken bone it's a physical problem with a person's body beyond their control they need help to fix it. People who have open-heart surgery have a 40% chance of developing depression it's not that all their life they were dealing with depression this is a sudden change. That's terrifying to see depression develop so quickly like a virus suddenly changing a person almost overnight. If a person impulsively and mortally harms themselves because they couldn't control their actions due to chemical imbalance in their brain (depression) that would certainly be upsetting. Knowing a person's actions were out of their control and they could have been helped or healed that's quite sad. We need to help people not accept it or mock it since it is just as much a medical problem as a broken bone, and it can be treated.
  - CuriouslyC 8y ago
    In most cases, depression isn't an illness, it's a result of life circumstances and the way you think. Think of it like obesity - it's a mismatch between ancient genes and the modern environment. The genes are fine, the environment we've created is what's fucked. There are cases of depression that result from health issues, but these definitely aren't the majority. This is just a hypothesis society has put forth to avoid taking a long hard look at itself.
jm__87 8y ago
I'm pretty sure if you told that to anyone who was suicidal, it would only quicken their departure. These people need some compassion and medical treatment, not more guilt.
- sb8244 8y ago
  The interesting thing to me is that it probably doesn't apply to most people either, although it seems like it should. Humans are very resilient and while we do miss and long for those that go before us, we can overcome them not being here anymore. We're able to adapt and move on. I think you could get into an exception if there's mutually held debt or something similar that actually does affect a person long term.
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randcraw 8y ago
Bourdain's daughter just lost her father. I can't believe anyone could rationally and deliberately choose to inflict that much pain on someone they love. That's why I would infer that Bourdain was not in his "right mind" when he acted to leave this world. And that's why I would consider his suicide to be "wrong". Of course, I can't possibly say whether it was just, somehow. I just can't imagine how it could be. Frankly, unless he had a hidden medical issue (like Robin Williams), I also believe Bourdain probably could have restructured his life in some way to make life better and worth living again. I'm pretty sure most mental health pros would agree that most suicides arise suddenly, emotionally, and irrationally, and can be productively prevented if the impending signs are identified early and addressed with help. Personally, I believe that suicide is never the best and only option anyone has -- barring an irreversible medical/physical condition. I think the reason we see more tolerance for suicide today is we expect less from people in general. Forty years ago, society presumed that each of us had a continuing duty to other people -- family, friends, community, and country. This duty clearly proscribed certain behaviors which would hurt others or would fail to live up to other social duties, like voluntary military service in time of war, or working VERY HARD to overcome difficulties in marriage when children were still present in the home, and would suffer from the breakup. (I've been there. It's not a delight.) I'm very saddened by Bourdain's passing, and I'd rather not judge him. But I regret even more his loss to his daughter and his friends. The act of suicide is a terrible legacy.
loosetypes 8y ago
I can’t help but compare this to those angry with George R. R. Martin. Is it inherently selfish for him to not finish his book series? Maybe, but I don’t know if it’s the place of a reader to be arbiter. My only secondhand anecdote of Anthony Bourdain - and it’s hardly even that - is from the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu community. Apparently he would train at Ralph Gracie’s on Howard when in SF. No commentary aside from this is often a deliberate attempt by an individual at bettering one’s self.
acjohnson55 8y ago
Suicide isn't anymore selfish than wanting someone to continue living so I can feel better. How do you balance the pure inner torment of a suicidal person against the surmountable grief of those they left behind, multiplied by their number? There is no objective balance. I don't blame anyone who chooses suicide. Who am I to tell them to "man up" and deal with the torment? But I think we should do everything in our power to make staying a viable option.
Jach 8y ago
On the contrary, it goes against man's (and other life's) natural tendency to love himself, to want to keep existing, which is most selfish but fine and necessary. Suicide stems from being insufficiently selfish. The additional problem you're highlighting is that suicide is also an injury to the common good. That sort of thing is somewhat orthogonal to the selfish/altruist dimension though we conflate them a lot. Lastly, and this is probably more relevant to the history of it being wrong (at least in the west), it spits in the face of god.
trophycase 8y ago
You're telling someone who finds their life to be so unendurable that they need to be more considerate? Hell yeah it's selfish. And for a lot of people that do it, it's one of the few times they've done something for themselves. Everybody should have a right to die, and in a world where lives are constantly getting longer and society more oppressive with its demands, the right to die should be fundamental.
- chatmasta 8y ago
  What about the argument that your rights are inalienable until they infringe upon the rights of others? Do people who care about me, or the people who invested so much time and money in raising me, not have a right to keep me in their life? By taking your own life you force people who care about you into a state of grief. I do not believe anyone has the right to force emotional distress onto another person. I understand that from the perspective of someone who is suicidal, they might feel that they have nobody who cares about them, or that the people who do “would be better off” without the suicidal person in their life. But that thought alone is misguided and certainly not a justification for engaging in such a selfish act. Regardless of how the suicidal person feels, the people who care about them will be harmed by the suicide.
  - trophycase 8y ago
    > I do not believe anyone has the right to force emotional distress onto another person. But the person who is already under emotional distress should continue to endure theirs? Is your position really that you have a right not to be emotionally upset by others? How does this position account for any form of conflict at all?
lifeformed 8y ago
> In taking your own life you’re also fucking up the life of everyone who cares about you, forcing them into a state of grief and possibly causing them to blame themselves for what was ultimately a selfish act on your part. People who kill themselves are extremely aware of this. Consider that as an indicator of how much distress they are in, not how selfish they are. They're in so much pain that they would inflict grief upon their loved ones to get out of it. If a person is being physically intensely tortured, and they kill themselves to stop the pain, are they being selfish? They are under so much distress that their only option is to end it all. They would MUCH rather not be tortured and not have to die. Suicide is jumping out of a burning building because you don't want to burn. It's not something you do because you're upset.

oldsklgdfth 8y ago

I agree with the position that you are the boss of your own life. But I also believe that it is at the very least considerate to self-limit your freedoms to a point where they do not adversely affect the ones around you. My conclusion for my suicide is "bad" is because it causes pain and suffering to the ones around you. I relate suicide to stress that cannot be managed. If you feel like you need to die, then you are completely free to do anything. So why not do that? Remove that stress, till you don't feel like that's the only answer.

sgift 8y ago

Because in the overwhelming number of cases there is a direct link. The count of people who decide that "enough is enough" is dwarfed by all the people suffering from mental illness that see no other way out, but could get help if society as a whole was willing to give it.

eurticket 8y ago

Agree, it could be simple and logical doesn't have to be a mental condition

Pigo 8y ago

I suppose because it's much more common that it's someone dealing with a debilitating mental illness than a Hunter S. Thompson type who is just hitting the reset button because he's done. I don't get offended by much, especially if it's a question that comes from an honest place. Death is the only thing we all share, so I think it's natural to have a lot of questions about it.

karmelapple 8y ago

What about when you have an 11 year old daughter? I am in favor of a right to die, because I saw my mother struggle with cancer. What she went through seemed truly awful. However, having a terminal disease is very different than having a temporary lapse in judgment about whether to continue living. Someone raising a child likely does not truly want to be gone from the Earth. We don’t know for sure, but with his known addiction history, this was likely an unintended consequence, the one he cannot take back.

protonimitate 8y ago

I see what you're getting at, but I think the reason that suicide is linked with mental illness is because it goes against our very nature as living beings. If I recall correctly, a majority of people who have 'failed' suicide (for lack of a better term) have stated that they immediately regretted attempting once it hits the point of no return. This is just an assumption, but I think the will to live greatly outweighs the desire to take your own life. Of course their are outliers (I'm thinking of Samurai Suicides performed in front of audiences) but I don't know if there's any resources that talk about their mental health. If anyone as any counter points I'd love to hear them - but for the most part I think suicide stems from mental instability or an otherwise inevitable physical death (terminal illness, old age, etc). One other reason it may be linked with mental health, is the fact that if mental illness is not a factor - what is driving these decisions? I can't imagine that people come to the logical 'master of my own existence' that you mention. It's a very interesting subject, when you take the horror an tragedy out of it. Also curious what other species have high suicide rates, or if its a primarily human affliction (don't have time to dig around on this right now).

oldsklgdfth 8y ago
I'm gonna stray away from talking about mental illness, cause I'm not a doctor and there are a lot of grey parts. Suicide is about giving up. There can be a number of reasons for throwing the towel in. For seemingly normal people, I tend to think it's because they feel like they have failed in a way that is irredeamable. Like the samurai guys, that have disgraced themselves and there is no way to go on without their honor. It is all in their head as expectations they have created. Aside from clinical cases, I would say that most people throw in the towel because they feel like they failed and it's over. Expectations manage them. If you feel like you have nothing to live for, you can live for anything. Change thos expectations. I'm not trying to be reductionist, this is obviously a serious issue and it many people struggle with it. But that the hedge fund manager that is "living the dreams" and wants to end his life out of that toxic environment and maybe we won't think about giving up anymore.
- ebiester 8y ago
  There are different reasons people attempt or commit suicide. That said, do we blame someone who succumbs to cancer when they die? That somehow they failed at trying harder? For some, depression is an episode or collection of episodes in life. For others, it's a chronic condition. He lived decades (from other accounts) with a chronic condition and succumbed to it. Sometimes, toxic environments contribute and I don't want to suggest otherwise, but for those with chronic unipolar depression, it is a condition that people die of. It's sad, but so long as we understand that it's illness, we can get over the polemics.

stult 8y ago

Surely the mental anguish that drives someone to take their own life qualifies as a mental illness. We are not talking about someone who chose to die rather than continuing a painful fight against a terminal illness. Maybe it's rational to take your own life if you are suffering so deeply from depression. Maybe that's a choice we should respect. But that respect doesn't mean that the underlying suffering isn't an illness we should recognize as such and try to treat.

wavefunction 8y ago
>We are not talking about someone who chose to die rather than continuing a painful fight against a terminal illness I am afraid you don't understand chronic depression. At all.
- atmanthedog 8y ago
  Actually, I thought the post you were responding to was quite insightful. Depression can be chronic, debilitating and painful, but it definitely is not terminal. Terminal implies that there is a highly predictable progression of the disease that inevitably results in death. I think the parent was trying to say we can easily see why terminal patients consider suicide, as they have a fairly determined remaining life, but we should also extend that same sympathy and understanding to those who have conditions which are chronic and painful, but not necessarily determinative of remaining lifespan.

Maybestring 8y ago

>Possibly inappropriate - but why do people immediately link suicide and mental illness? Because suicide is almost always preceded by years of mental health problems.

niftich 8y ago

People seek to draw a link between suicide and mental illness because the drastic outcome of suicide stretches one's comfort with the notion of informed consent. The widespread societal taboo against suicide supposes that no rational person free of undue pressures would consent to ending their own life, therefore anyone who commits suicide must have been pushed to do so by serious factors that impaired their ability to properly consent. This line of thinking effectively re-defines 'mental illness' to be that unknown variable that pushes outwardly functional people towards a choice that surprised the observer.

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dominotw 8y ago

> Am I not the master of my own existence Not really, humans live in societies. Your existence is not purely yours. Maybe it applies to Gaint Pandas that spend all of their lives in solitude.

ianai 8y ago

1. The universe is largely void and hostile to life. 2. Sure, there may be times where a person may rationally chose to die. That doesn’t negate the fragility and value of life for its sake. Two things can be true. Some people may have a rational reason to wish to end their lives, and some people who would end their lives would do much greater harm to themselves and loved ones than good. 3. It is my firm belief that we may use #1 to evaluate the worth and even ethicality of choices and actions. Those actions which solely promulgate life or enhance its existence are ethical. Those actions or choices which violate the former are unethical. Actions or choices which solely diminish the life or lives of others or outright end lives are unethical - unless that termination of life ends suffering larger than the benefits of life. That’s a very fine line.

oldsklgdfth 8y ago
I don't believe there is a valid rational reason to justify suicide. But I'm open to being wrong. This have been explored philosophically in the school of existentialism, see Camus and his work. EDIT: i guess a valid reason is significant physical pain and suffering that has no hope of being cured.
- ianai 8y ago
  That’s one point I have personally experienced. I’ve faced the reality of 30-31 migraines per 31 days a month. Luckily medical treatment is helping cut that number back significantly (though every day is a careful balance). But those medical treatments have been around less than 10 years. There’s even a class of headache, cluster headaches, which are also known as suicide headaches. Not every chronic pain can be dialed back.
  - oldsklgdfth 8y ago
    Chronic pains is evil. I would be more inclined to associate that with euthanasia, than with suicide. Not to sound insensitive, but it's more comparable to putting down your old suffering pet in my mind.
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TheCondor 8y ago

If you ignore the feelings and needs of everyone around you, death is just another choice. I’m not an expert on it, but there is a certain impulsiveness to it that suggests to me that it’s not just another choice. Terminally ill people often or maybe frequently get things in order and prepare things, almost going out of their way with limited time to take care of things for their loved ones. These things frequently take their loved ones by surprise and there aren’t exhaustive preparations. This will be more inappropriate, but AB had a marriage dissolve because he had to travel 250+ days a year and be away from a wife and young child. As a husband and parent of two, I find that staggering, we aren’t talking about someone without financial resources that does whatever job they can to support their family, he probably didn’t need to work. To me, it’s not even a thought, I’d do a different job or somehow rearchitect my life to keep my family near. IMO, there was clearly some priority issues or something going on. If he had this supreme rationalism and simply chose to end things, where was that when he fathered a child that he didn’t spend time with? Or was this a new found clearity he discovered? Im not try to sound accusatory but I think there might be a lot of other differences in his life if this was a healthy and rational choice. RIP Anthony and I hope his family and loved ones find peace and comfort.

youdontknowtho 8y ago

Mental illness is defined in terms of mental processes that interfere with your life. Suicide is the definition of a mental process that interferes with successfully living your life. That being said, I agree with your point. One should be the master of their own existence from a certain viewpoint, but we aren't. Humans are social creatures and define our lives in terms of those relationships. Even if you are a solitary hermit, you define your life in relation to the people that aren't around. I'm not trying to be clever there. I can see where suicide can be considered the most rational response given the right social or societal context. See any number of ritual suicide practices in human cultures. Again, even the physician assisted suicide that we debate so often make sense in the context of maintaining some notion of dignity in one's familial or social group. When you add human suffering to that situation it becomes a moral imperative, I think. That's just me though.

jm__87 8y ago

Do you really think Anthony Bourdain wanted to die and hurt the people who care about him? Suicide is what people do when they simply cannot go on any longer - this says nothing about whether they wish they could keep going or not.

ShabbosGoy 8y ago
I always thought of the act of suicide as making a statement. It really is the highest and ultimate statement one can make about their life and circumstances. It’s more than just giving up and not being able to go on any longer. The act itself has a lot of symbolic meaning.
- SAI_Peregrinus 8y ago
  As someone who's tried, that's bullshit. It was about escaping the unbearable pain. That's all it was: running away from an agony so extreme it encompassed every aspect of existence.

jdietrich 8y ago

> why do people immediately link suicide and mental illness? There is a very strong relationship between suicide and mental illness. If someone decides to end their own life, it is overwhelmingly likely that they are suffering from some form of mental illness. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12701661 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12701661 >Why do we stand in judgement declaring it wrong to decide ones own fate? Most people who survive a suicide attempt do not ultimately end their own life. Most people who have suicidal thoughts eventually stop having those thoughts. If you think that you'd be better off dead, I don't think that you're in any way morally wrong, I just think that you're probably factually wrong. You might think that you want to die, but if you go on living, it is overwhelmingly likely that you'll change your mind. To use an old cliche, suicide is a permanent response to a temporary problem. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00048670601172749 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0004867060117274... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032715302767 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016503271...

smn1234 8y ago
agreed! Is mental illness a cause or a result of treatment for "depression?" Being sad and unhappy is natural... does medication create the illness?
- ctrl-j 8y ago
  > Being sad and unhappy is natural... And is not an accurate description of depression. If you think depressed people are just sad/unhappy - please read more on this debilitating disorder.
  - smn1234 8y ago
    Maybe the definition of depression is different, society to society. I'm certain a good amount of earth's human population has at one point in the course of their lives felt hopelessness, for whatever amount of time. The majority of those with access to TV who've also seen some American media have likely felt they're missing out on the riches and opportunities that can be had that they're not fortunate to. Is the definition of mental illness and depression and their treatments and factors the same across cultures? To me it seems (opinion) that the only constant is... if you feel sad: there's a pill for that. People in bad situations work hard to get themselves out. It's human pride, it's our nature. People don't just kill themselves. Are those who do "weaker beings" or have bigger struggles than those who haven't? There's another factor at play here, in my opinion, and it's the medication.

berberous 8y ago

There is an excellent documentary called "The Bridge" about people committing suicide by jumping off of the golden gate bridge in SF. Given the height of the bridge, it takes 4 seconds before you hit the water, and some people survive it. They had interviews with people that survived it -- and they basically all said that as soon as they let go, they realized it was a mistake. That all of their problems were solvable, except for the one they just made. I do recall one man who did not survive, who seemed at peace during the video of his fall -- he was one who I think perhaps did not regret the act, but was the extreme outlier in that regard. If you are 85 and dying of painful cancer, I can also see it being an act that makes sense, made to decide one's own fate. But MOST people seem to grow out of their suicidal phases, and realize it was the wrong choice, driven by bad thought patterns. In the same way that people try to help addicts or people with eating disorders try to obtain better thought patterns, suicidal ideation seems to me to be largely a broken thought pattern we should help people overcome, not an individual decision one should respect.

ThrowawayP 8y ago
> They had interviews with people that survived it -- and they basically all said that as soon as they let go, they realized it was a mistake. That all of their problems were solvable, except for the one they just made. That fails to explain those who attempt suicide more than once. EDIT: I found an informal estimate from this article (http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/25/in-defense-of-psych-treatment-for-attempted-suicide/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/25/in-defense-of-psych-tre...) by psychiatrist Scott Alexander: "It is somewhat harder to find good studies on what percent attempt suicide again. By eyeballing some other statistics and trying to fit them together, I believe it is greater than 25% but less than 50%. One textbook whose studies I have not been able to verify says that 30% of untreated and 15% of treated suicide attempters try again."
- okmokmz 8y ago
  The same reason that drug addicts who have been sober for long periods of time regularly relapse. Many people have more than one moment of weakness or crisis in their lives
8y ago

WhompingWindows 8y ago

I don't believe you are the master of your own existence. Did you decide what to eat this morning, or rather is it the product of your habits and cultural forces and family choices and genetically based preferences? IMO free will is an illusion, and this is part of the reason why stigmatizing mental illness is so pernicious. We say "get over it, everyone gets depressed" or we say "omg, I'm so OCD lol". Not really, though, these are complex neurobiological disorders that scientists don't understand well and doctors don't have great treatments for. If you're severely depressed or schizophrenic, your capacity to lead a normal life is vastly reduced, you can't even go through the daily rituals/motions that everyone else does. You become separate from society, and peoples' saying that you're rich, you're doing well, get over it: that makes it all feel worse. Add on top of that potential drug use, increasing suicide rates in society (we know they are contagious, it spreads like a virus), and of course the more advanced age of these recent celebrity suicides. So, are severely mentally ill people truly capable of living normal lives? Are they capable of making clear, level-headed decisions? I highly doubt that they were truly masters of their own existence if they decided they'd rather stop existing than suffer more illness.

alexhutcheson 8y ago

This blog post from a psychiatrist is a good read for people interested in this debate: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/25/in-defense-of-psych-treatment-for-attempted-suicide/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/25/in-defense-of-psych-tre...

Ntrails 8y ago
This was a super good read - thanks!

fiblye 8y ago

I didn't say that it's only a result of mental illness, but lifelong depression is definitely a big factor. Few living things who are physically healthy and with no history of suicide ideation just decide to die just because. Generally there's some underlying cause, whether it be a longterm plan to do so or some sudden stressor.

lolsal 8y ago

Here is at least one data point regarding a suicide that was probably not mentally ill: http://martin-manley.eprci.com http://martin-manley.eprci.com - It's a fascinating story and first-hand account.

pokemongoaway 8y ago

Because it demonstrates a trade-off made for short term that causes long term suffering in others, especially loved ones. Dying does too, but if we make a reasonable effort to not die, then we are making a responsible effort to not hurt those who depend on us - if just due to having know us. It's promoting a generally bad fix, so should be looked down upon. Euthanasia is more benign I think.

tbiteteitb 8y ago

We, as humans, have an instinct to survive.

Sangermaine 8y ago

>Am I not the master of my own existence No, in many ways and cases you aren't. As comments below note, one of those ways is through mental health issues. While I do agree that people should ultimately have the right to choose, it's simply incorrect to think that it's a simple matter of rational choice. There's very good reason to believe that, in most cases of people seeking suicide, they are not of sound mind. This idea that you are the perfect and complete "master of my own existence" is one of the most pernicious and persistent fallacies people hold.

floatingatoll 8y ago

Medically-assisted suicide is a thing with professional support and evaluations and guidance, in regions where it’s defined and legal. Unassisted suicide is usually assumed to be mental illness based on the circumstances — randomly in a hotel room during a filming does not read as “rationally premeditated after careful consideration and psychological evaluation” to most of us.

ghostbrainalpha 8y ago

I understand this way of thinking. I think it is logical to die in a lot of scenarios, and that is why we don't call the right to end your life "suicide" in all cases, like when you have a terminal disease. But consider this analogy. If "suicide" was a just a judgement, and not a temporary insanity, then people who came close to suicide wouldn't ALL glad that it did not happen. You would have a significant portion of people who look back and say... I really wish I had taken my life back in 95', that was a really hard year. But that is so extremely rare, its easy to lump the majority of suicidal thoughts into the temporary delusions category. In some cases people have been contemplating suicide for decades before they do it, which is a common sign of depression. But that is significantly different than wishing that they had done it in the past.

dredmorbius 8y ago

Suicide is an extreme, profound, desperate, and undeniable act. It leaves a corpse, and corpses cannot readily be swept under rugs as with other vital statistics. (Much the same holds for murder vs. other crime rates, though both may be influenced by trauma medicine advances. David Simon talks of this in The Audacity of Despair, on YouTube.) For much this reason, suicide is seem as a definitive marker of individual, and social, dysfunction. It is the title and subject of Emil Durkheim's foundational work on sociology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Durkheim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émile_Durkheim https://youtube.com/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw https://youtube.com/watch?v=nRt46W3k-qw

funkjunky 8y ago

I'd take it a step further and ask why we always consider depression, anxiety, drug abuse, etc. as an individual's "mental illness", when many of these illnesses seem to be inexorably linked to the broader societal sicknesses we find ourselves living under. Economics, politics, technology, cultural norms, community (or lack thereof), health and wellness; all of these things are directly or indirectly affecting the mental health of the population at large. Even if we double down on mental health treatment for individuals, it is ignoring the larger, more complicated issues that are likely at the root (of at least a significant contributor) of these problems. And yes, I think it is a perfectly valid choice for someone to check out if that's what they want to do. Mental health or whatever aside, if you don't want to live anymore, for WHATEVER reason, I don't see why anybody else has the right to try to stop you.

p3llin0r3 8y ago

I find it extremely distasteful, but this is an Internet forum and a fair question. Do not recommend bringing this up in casual conversation! This question will probably lead to ended friendships if you approach someone who has been suicidal in the past, or has lost someone to suicide. Also it's pedantic in a really ignorant and dumb way, and not nearly as clever as you think it is. There are examples of people taking their own life due to physical maladies which I can COMPLETELY understand, and choosing to end your own life kevorkian-style is understandable to most people: Robin Williams had dementia. His mind had basically completely gone before the end, his wife spoke of the rages and lack of understanding of what was happening around him. But many people choose to end their own life when they are young, healthy, and in a pit of despair that they feel they will never escape. Depression is a mental illness which symptoms of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts. So there you go. That is why. Depression is a mental illness. We as a society have deemed having no value of life, including your own, is aberrant behavior. I would argue that "deciding to commit suicide" for no other reason than you are tired of being alive, or want to "decide your own fate" is completely psychotic. Also, saying "It's your choice" and doesn't affect anyone else is just insanely wrong. As I've grown older and lost people around more at a higher rate, it is ASTOUNDING the hole left behind when you lose a loved one.

dang 8y ago

I appreciate that you raised the question sincerely, but it's generic enough and baity enough that I detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17264518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17264518 and marked it semi-off-topic.

Ntrails 8y ago
No worries - I got hella interesting links out of it so I felt entirely sated :)