Suicide: A weasel's way out of life? (religion, news, Washington)
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I had a case of severe depression due to either a series of infections that eventually affected the brain or the antibiotics that were used to treat the infections. I was not suicidal but if that depression had lasted 6 months instead of 6 weeks I would have been.
At the worst of the depression time would practically stand still. It was difficult driving because my time frame was so off.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
For those who have never been there, it can be hard to wrap your head around depression not just being feeling down or bummed out. Severe depression is beyond that, and while it can be situational, it's most often due to actual chemical or physical changes (in your case) in your brain. Situations can spark it, but generally there was already a chemical imbalance there.
I have had anxiety since I was a child, though I didn't have a name for it until I was in my 20s because I was so shamed for my experience. As an elementary schooler, I'd pull out clumps of my own hair to cope. Teachers would joke that I was going to have an ulcer by 21 and my parents got me a book called "Don't Sweat the Small Things." It was treated like it was a choice that I was always anxious and stressed out by those around me, and what a revelation when I discovered that not everyone exists with a low level of panic every day! I was able to start on medication and learn some coping techniques through therapy that changed my life. If mental illness hadn't been so stigmatized, I wouldn't have spent all of my childhood and teen years in a torture chamber of my own body.
No one shamed me for getting cancer, or thought that I could just buck up and power through on my own. Even with the right medical treatment and care, it still could have become terminal. Why do we treat mental illness any differently?
I think you don't understand suicidal depression at all.
Do you understand that the most powerful instinct that humans are built with is survival? It takes a tremendous amount of pain to overcome that.
No argument that it's a selfish act. But sometimes people just can't take it anymore.
I think this is spot-on.
I'm not sure I believe anyone truly wants to die. What happens is that people reach the point that they don't want to live as they are anymore, and see literally no other way of making the pain stop. When one is that depressed, I'm not even sure I could say it is selfish, at least not intentionally. Someone in that state may truly believe their loved ones would be better off without them.
The ironic thing is, they don't "get out." They get much worse after death.
Since you have raised the question of suicide as a mortal sin, leading to an eternity of suffering (an issue best discussed elswhere, BTW), let me ask you: where do you draw the line?
Does this sinful behavior include people who have suffered multiple strokes, and finally ask their family to give the doctors a DNR order should their heart stop beating? Does it include the terminally ill who reject more hopeless treatments and request palliative care only? What about people who have been kept "alive" by machines for years, with no sign of brain activity? If their loved ones pull the plug, does that make them guilty of murder?
Does it include people whose physical or emotional pain is so extreme that it has impaired their judgment and free will?
I don't know with anything like your assumed certainty, but the God I trust and believe in is not that cruel. For that, I am deeply grateful.
Here we go, suicide - heaven - hell, how predictable!
In fact, while the Bible condemns murder in general, it nowhere condemns suicide in particular. The strange silence of Scripture on the morality of suicide has led some people to either one of two extremes. some read far too much into these passages, seeing suicide as the unforgivable sin though it is not so described. Others minimize the act entirely, arguing that because these suicides are not condemned, suicide is morally neutral or excusable.
Well, I think the truth lies in between. Even though Scripture does not explicitly condemn suicide, the narratives all depict the suicide's fate negatively. Scripture's silence does not mean tacit approval or indifference. The stories (Abimelech (Judges 9:52-54),
Saul (1 Samuel 31:4)
Saul's armor-bearer (1 Samuel 31:5)
Ahithophel (2 Samuel 17:23)
Zimri (1 Kings 16:15-20)
Judas Iscariot (Matthew 27:3-5) were meant to be instructive to future generations, portraying biblical suicides not as examples to be followed but rather as cautionary warnings of how not to go.
From what I've known and learned, many Christian traditions agree that a person will not be judged on the nature of his or her death but rather on the nature of his or her life. Is that so?
I'm sure you understand by now that if you think/focus about wealth/abundance intensely and in its proper context - you'll never end up living the way you fear the most.
Here we go, suicide - heaven - hell, how predictable!
In fact, while the Bible condemns murder in general, it nowhere condemns suicide in particular. The strange silence of Scripture on the morality of suicide has led some people to either one of two extremes. some read far too much into these passages, seeing suicide as the unforgivable sin though it is not so described. Others minimize the act entirely, arguing that because these suicides are not condemned, suicide is morally neutral or excusable.
Well, I think the truth lies in between. Even though Scripture does not explicitly condemn suicide, the narratives all depict the suicide's fate negatively. Scripture's silence does not mean tacit approval or indifference. The stories (Abimelech (Judges 9:52-54),
Saul (1 Samuel 31:4)
Saul's armor-bearer (1 Samuel 31:5)
Ahithophel (2 Samuel 17:23)
Zimri (1 Kings 16:15-20)
Judas Iscariot (Matthew 27:3-5) were meant to be instructive to future generations, portraying biblical suicides not as examples to be followed but rather as cautionary warnings of how not to go.
From what I've known and learned, many Christian traditions agree that a person will not be judged on the nature of his or her death but rather on the nature of his or her life. Is that so?
Great post.
The last thing a person considering suicide thinks about is whether they are going to heaven or hell. They just want relief.
People who look at those who take their own lives as selfish are hypocrites. That's a selfish what about me attitude. Not every mental illness is the same. Not everybody's ability to deal with a chronic illness is the same. Live in pain 24/7 and wonder how your next 30 years are going to be. It's a choice.
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