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He cruelly did this act without any regard to the feelings of family and friends.
Sorry, I must disagree with you here. From what I've read on this subject, people who commit suicide often feel they're doing their family/friends a favor by ending their life. Like your friend, the great majority of people who commit suicide often suffer from mental illness: schizophrenia, bipolar disease and depression. They are so horribly tortured living in this world, that they simply cannot continue living life on this level.
One of the reasons we attend funerals/memorial services is to comfort the living. Losing a beloved family member or friend to death is difficult enough...losing them to suicide is usually worse. If you don't think you can be charitable enough to give support to your friend's family, then perhaps you should stay home.
Of course he should have a memorial service but you should not go. With an attitude like yours it would be dishonest and not helpful to his friends and family who saw that he had value.
Material wealth does not bring happiness or even comfort. You have no idea how much he did or did not suffer. His family's resources would have played no part in that. Depression is a result of a malfunction in the brain that the sufferer has no control over. To argue that he did not suffer because his family had money is so blatantly ignorant.
I hope your friend is at peace now and free from all the pain that plagued him in life.
I would go to show support for the family. Suicide is very hard on the family and being able to show that support will help the family. Just put yourself in their place. Memorial services aren't for the ones that passed on but for those left behind.
I agree that you should not go if you can not keep your thoughts/feeling to yourself. If you can, go, if not, spare the family (and others) your opinion. They need comfort, not judgment.
I also agree that the family probably does feel relief mixed in that his pain and suffering is over and he is at peace.
Mourning and memorials are entirely about the people left behind. If you do not feel a certain individual is "worthy" of a memorial, then do not attend, and don't mourn the loss of that person. But, I can assure you, someone (likely, many people) out there are mourning the loss of that person, regardless of their flaws, foibles, and method of departure. And those people will likely want to attend a service to greive with other like-minded people.
As i said, it's not about the dead, it's about the people left behind.
A good friend of mine committed suicide unexpectedly Friday. He was severely mentally ill, but came from a reasonably well-to-do family, never had to work, never experienced any financial insecurity of any kind. He made an invalid suicide attempt in February by shooting himself in the eye with rat shot which resulted in numerous, expensive eye surgeries.
Over the years, he was a bad drug addict and alcoholic, and eventually deteriorated to the point where he had to be supervised to eat, bathe, etc. He was just 27 when he died.
I have a hard time bringing myself to go to the visitation of such a man tomorrow. He cruelly did this act without any regard to the feelings of family and friends. His family has put up with his garbage for years. His friends did what they could with him, but he gradually became a burden at almost infantile levels.
Do you believe that a suicide when life is so materially easy is even worthy of acknowledging with a memorial service?
Emigrations,
First I want to acknowledge your confusion about knowing what is the appropriate thing for YOU to do regarding your friend.
I thought certainly I had read the name of this thread wrong as only a person can commit suicide. That would be a human being. Suicide is an action, not a person.
Do you have a list of what one must accomplish or be in life to be "worthy" of having you attend any service for another? Likewise, when it is your time to die, do you have a list of who can be allowed to pay their respects to you and anyone you leave behind?
Looking forward to a continuing dialogue to try to understand your thinking better.
you think whatever you want of him but someone will mourn him. honestly to me suicide isnt exactly bad. its someone making a conscious decision for their destiny.
I do believe he deserves a memorial service, if not for him, but for his family. You said he was severely mentally ill. Maybe his demons became too much for him and he couldn't take it anymore. He may have been a very tortured soul. His family needs to say good-bye no matter what, and they need to grieve his passing and their loss.
It is not up to us to judge. We can't begin to know what another person is thinking or feeling or going through. Someone with severe mental illness should have had treatment. This is a very sad situation. My thoughts go out to his family, and I hope he's finally found some peace.
His family deserves one, if for no other reason than to bring closure, but having a celebration of his life under these circumstances seems weird. His family did the best they could under the circumstances and stood by him long after most families would have disowned him due to his legal and drug issues. These issues were there even before his mental health went downhill.
He played music frequently at the church he grew up in when sober, but often would show up intoxicated or play after having too much. The church pitied him and tried to help by letting him hang around, but without much avail. He had some legal issues as well (a DUI, weapons charge with the DUI, some possession charges) but nothing violent or anything that wasn't fairly run of the mill.
I saw him Thursday, and while he was complaining about an ex-boyfriend, nothing struck me as unusual. He picked another friend up from the airport about two hours before jumping off the bridge. He was talking about a biking event next weekend they were planning to attend, told me to contact him for any auto maintenance I need, nothing seemed wrong. The bridge he jumped off of was only about ten feet above fairly deep water and lots of kids jump off it for a thrill and swim the fifty feet or so back to shore. He was an Eagle Scout, so I'm assuming he knew how to swim. He was badgering me to get him liquor all last week, so I wouldn't have been surprised if he didn't go to the nearby liquor store, buy some vodka, and then jump. Where he jumped makes me think it was an attention getting stunt gone wrong.
What frustrates me to no end is the person had the very best medical care that was available and gave no indication anything was out of the ordinary. He had numerous inpatient stays in area mental institutions and was forwarded to more advanced units as needed. He was on numerous medications, had numerous types of therapy, etc. Nothing worked and he put his family through emotional hell and a lot of financial pressure with the hospitalizations, therapies, surgeries, etc. He never worked, and for the last several years, mostly sat around the house. It wasn't like he was a successful guy that killed himself for no reason - this was pitiful, but not surprising. All he had to do was put forth some effort. He could have gone back to school, learned a trade, anything. He had numerous second chances. Many of us don't get those extra shots.
He had friends but he went from being normal, to just bumming money or a ride, to requiring supervision. People don't want to supervise an adult man that isn't disabled like he is a child. I was telling some mutual friends after this happened Friday night that he wasn't innocent like a child dying in St. Jude's, nor did he die through no fault of his own. The whole situation just disgusts me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mtn. States Resident
Emigrations,
First I want to acknowledge your confusion about knowing what is the appropriate thing for YOU to do regarding your friend.
I thought certainly I had read the name of this thread wrong as only a person can commit suicide. That would be a human being. Suicide is an action, not a person.
Do you have a list of what one must accomplish or be in life to be "worthy" of having you attend any service for another? Likewise, when it is your time to die, do you have a list of who can be allowed to pay their respects to you and anyone you leave behind?
Looking forward to a continuing dialogue to try to understand your thinking better.
MSR
There isn't a list, but there are certain things most people view as dishonorable and undeserving of respect, suicide, especially for seemingly few concrete reasons, being one of those things. No should be barred from attending the services , but is it wrong, per se, to find a suicide not deserving of my attendance? I'm not saying those who do go are wrong in any way. All I'm trying to ask is if many people find my position rational.
Last edited by Serious Conversation; 07-17-2013 at 09:39 AM..
I can see that it would be very normal to feel saddened by what you saw as a "wasted life," but all the anger your posts indicate . . . it is as though you feel he wasn't worthy of the support he had from his family, church, community -- especially the financial support.
Clearly, this was a person with mental health issues.
I see this as a sad story about a young man who had serious behavioral health problems and couldn't pull things together enough to enjoy a productive life.
Of course he "deserves" a memorial service, if only to consider who he was before all his demons overcame what rational thoughts and functionality he was capable of clinging to as he grew up.
PS: no offense intended, EMIGRATIONS, but your words indicate you don't seem to understand very much about mental illness. People struggling with debilitating mental illness cannot just "pull themselves together."
[quote=anifani821;30529059]I can see that it would be very normal to feel saddened by what you saw as a "wasted life," but all the anger your posts indicate . . . it is as though you feel he wasn't worthy of the support he had from his family, church, community -- especially the financial support.
Clearly, this was a person with mental health issues.
I see this as a sad story about a young man who had serious behavioral health problems and couldn't pull things together enough to enjoy a productive life.
Of course he "deserves" a memorial service, if only to consider who he was before all his demons overcame what rational thoughts and functionality he was capable of clinging to as he grew up.
PS: no offense intended, EMIGRATIONS, but your words indicate you don't seem to understand very much about mental illness. People struggling with debilitating mental illness cannot just "pull themselves together."[/quote]
Nor does this person seem to have any compassion.
You sound as if this person killed himself to deliberately offend YOU.
What you think is of no significance. You were not in his head and have no idea what he was thinking.
You sound like a very BITTER person.
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