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Most non-terminally ill people who attempt suicide aren't making a rational choice to die at the time they attempt it.
by staticautomatic 8y ago
Most non-terminally ill people who attempt suicide aren't making a rational choice to die at the time they attempt it.
- throwaway34985 8y agoAnecdotally in my experience there are three categories of people who wish to suicide: 1. People with a terminal illness. Enough said. 2. People acting on impulse and/or not getting proper help. Sure they need some crisis intervention to offer a chance for them to receive proper help. 3. People who have been getting proper help for a long time. They simply lose hope. They view the long time they have been getting proper help as seeming proof they will never feel life is worth living. They dispassionately read coronial reports and suicide methods, carefully put their affairs into an orderly state (in particular financial arrangements for dependents), acquire the required resources to execute a painless while assured lethal plan that imposes no safety risks to others, then go off and do it. I was in the latter group, but I messed up by saying goodbye to my wife after a little wine (combined with Effexor) and that resulted in the full force of the law whack the shit out of me (and the fact it's obvious you're in this latter group means they take it far more seriously than if it seemed a fleeting impulse). Anyway by any objective measure the third group are making a rational choice to die. It should not be the community's right to dictate they should indefinitely live in pain.
- staticautomatic 8y agoIt sounds like you still want to die. Is that the case?
- throwaway34985 8y agoI am currently hopeful given a new treatment that's care-focused. I'd also add that discontinuing antidepressants (with the associated emotional blunting, at least in my case) means I am more empathetic to the impact on my wife and kids. It's when there's no hope you want to leave the world. Especially when you have means that are painless, assured and safe to everyone around you. Plus you can use logic like financially your kids are better off with you dead due to testamentary trusts and the lack of your resource consumption (I had a startup exit, so retired long ago). While I still hate living, I'm not actively planning to die at present.
- staticautomatic 8y agoThis is purely for my own curiosity but did you try electroshock? It seems to have no effect on some people but work wonders for others.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y agoI submit that people are far too willing to judge the choices of others as irrational.
- staticautomatic 8y agoOh yeah? How many people have you spoken to about what was going through their minds when they attempted suicide? Did it sound mostly rational to you?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y agoWhy would it? I lack the context to understand their problems. I may feel like I understand, since I've been suicidal myself, but that's from a perspective of not currently being suicidal.
- staticautomatic 8y agoRegarding this particular question, my opinion is that context, in the form of problems that suicidal people face, is often a separate issue from the suicidal impulse itself. Lots of people face problems that might make them consider killing themselves, and perhaps rightly so. But in the moment of attempting it, the thoughts that go through most people's minds-- the thoughts that either permit or motivate them to actually carry it out-- tend to be "irrational." Suicide as anger/punishment, for example, is "irrational," as is (usually) the belief that people who love you would be better off without you.