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The last thing a person considering suicide thinks about is whether they are going to heaven or hell. They just want relief.
I disagree somewhat. I think it is always there. Though it might simply be, "What comes after?"
I think it is difficult, if not impossible, to truly believe that there is nothing after this life. That doesn't mean that you want there to be something. I still, even today, often go to bed wishing I wouldn't wake up. And that, I want there to be nothing. That I want for me, whatever I am, to be destroyed, as if I was never there at all. Because I just don't care. Why should I care?
But do I honestly believe there is nothing? It makes no sense to believe that there is nothing. Of course, this life makes no sense. My very existence makes no sense. So we are constantly having to deal with absurdities. Often leaping only to what we want to believe at that moment.
As to the people who have either contemplated suicide or attempted suicide, I do want to say this. I tend to have a pretty dismissive attitude about the value of my own life. And in conversations, I sometimes tell people how I feel about life, as if I'm trying to persuade them that I am right to feel the way I do.
But, when it is turned around on me, and someone else begins to talk about killing themselves, or simply wishes they were dead, it terrifies me. And I feel compelled, without reservation, to try to talk them out of it.
I am terrified of losing them, and I am terrified of the guilt that I would feel if I did.
How do I reconcile this? Should I be indifferent if my best friend kills himself? Or my niece? Or sister? And should I feel any guilt if they do?
There is no way out of this dilemma. But with very few exceptions, life really isn't that hard. People just make it hard.
The problem is it does affect the people in their lives. I may not care about Joe Shmoe choosing to die but does his mother? His father? His brothers and sisters? His children? His friends?
I'm watching a friend deal with the crushing weight of her son having committed suicide. I would argue that she is suffering more than her son was and will suffer longer than he did because of what he chose to do. He could have gone into rehab for help and straightened his life out. Hers will never be straightened out. She will carry the guilt, the grief and shame for the rest of her life.
Suicide doesn't end suffering. It just transfers it to the people around the person who commits suicide.
Unfortunately, mental illness does not allow people to see that. My friend who committed suicide this summer truly, with every part of his being, thought the people he loved would be better off without him. When he posted his suicide note, he cast himself as the villain in his own story. It couldn't have been further from the truth! But his depression had caused him to push away family and most friends for the year before he killed himself, and when he finally did it, he was convinced that no one would care.
You have no idea what was really going on with your friend's son. He could have gone to rehab... and still committed suicide. My friend was getting treatment, went to support groups, and was active with veterans groups dealing with PTSD and depression. He also volunteered, fostered animals, and worked in a helping profession. None of it mattered - his depression did not allow him to see all the good he did in the world.
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Originally Posted by dog8food
Tell me precisely who says that? I'm genuinely curious.
Everyone I grew up with, including the pastor at the church my so-called best friend's family took me to without telling my parents in an effort to convert me. What I assume was the youth pastor at this megachurch took me, then 8 years old, into a room and told me my whole family was going to burn in Hell for eternity because we're Jewish unless we got saved. They told me that even bad people go to Heaven if they repent and accept Jesus. It backfired... bigly. Even as an 8 year old, I could see that belief was true evil. Not today, Satan, not today. I can't respect anyone who believes in Hell.
This was in the 90s. I'm sure there are a fair few people in that Southern town who still hold those beliefs.
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Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
Yup. Most religions tell you what to do to enter heaven. Christianity tells you it's done for you. Personally I don't believe I have to do anything else besides accept Christ but once you do it changes you. I don't believe that suicide would exclude someone from heaven. Assuming it is a sin, I believe Christ died for all sins past, present and future. That is not to say I have a get out of jail free card and can do what I want.....well I can but I don't want to because of what has been done for me. I would question whether someone who accepted Christ and then just went on unchanged by the experience really accepted Christ.
I do not believe that my salvation is lost every time I sin and regained every time I confess my sins. Christ died once because once was all that was required. Once for all. I confess because I have fallen short of what I should be. I always will in this body. When I sin I feed my sinful nature and make it stronger. Confession is good for the soul. I fail, I confess, I grow...I'll never be perfect. I'll probably die with some un-confessed sin but it's already forgiven. I continue to confess because I need to admit my shortcomings not because they aren't already forgiven and I need to be re-saved. I am saved.
Thank G-d not all religions rely on a concept of Hell to keep their believers in check and scare nonbelievers into submission. Jesus, as a Jew, wouldn't have believed in Hell in any way that modern Christianity knows it so while I reject him as a false messiah, that's good enough for me.
I disagree somewhat. I think it is always there. Though it might simply be, "What comes after?"
I think it is difficult, if not impossible, to truly believe that there is nothing after this life. That doesn't mean that you want there to be something. I still, even today, often go to bed wishing I wouldn't wake up. And that, I want there to be nothing. That I want for me, whatever I am, to be destroyed, as if I was never there at all. Because I just don't care. Why should I care?
But do I honestly believe there is nothing? It makes no sense to believe that there is nothing. Of course, this life makes no sense. My very existence makes no sense. So we are constantly having to deal with absurdities. Often leaping only to what we want to believe at that moment.
Just for an opposing opinion, it's really hard for me to reconcile that there is anything after life. My faith is very present-focused and the afterlife is not something my synagogues have historically talked much about. The idea of an afterlife isn't comforting.
Even when going through chemo losing friends in their teens and twenties left and right when my mortality was in stark focus, it never crossed my mind to be concerned with the afterlife. That seems to be very heavily rooted in Christian tradition (which probably stems to atheists and agnostics of a Christian background) but not necessarily those from other backgrounds.
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.
Yes. That is a warning sign to seek help quickly. When a person with depression starts to think that the loved ones would be better off without them, they are pretty dam close to the ledge. It is a sense of responsibility to loved ones that keeps many with severe depression from actually committing the act.
Yes. That is a warning sign to seek help quickly. When a person with depression starts to think that the loved ones would be better off without them, they are pretty dam close to the ledge. It is a sense of responsibility to loved ones that keeps many with severe depression from actually committing the act.
This whole thread turned more towards fighting for the rights of those depressed or against the rights of those depressed. But the original OP thread starter the OP stated: "And now the loons want to legalize medical suicide because the process of dying is too much for them. Weak." The push for medical euthanasia should not be tied to depression; unless it has physical reasons to cause that depression.
There is nothing looney toons about treating people with dignity and wishing them a painless, peaceful, ending to their life. All I want is having the opportunity to go to a lawyer, when of sound mind, and sign a statement that when certain criteria are met; that our medical establishment can painlessly end my life. I do not want to make my loved ones suffer watching me die; I want to go out with dignity when I can no longer care for myself and there is no hope for recovery. I do not want the medical establishment to take everything I have worked for my whole life. I also do not want to force euthanasia on anybody - I simply want that right for myself and others that feel the same way. If we treated our pets like we treat humans they would lock us all up.
About being "Weak"; not planning for the end is weak.
This whole thread turned more towards fighting for the rights of those depressed or against the rights of those depressed. But the original OP thread starter the OP stated: "And now the loons want to legalize medical suicide because the process of dying is too much for them. Weak." The push for medical euthanasia should not be tied to depression; unless it has physical reasons to cause that depression.
There is nothing looney toons about treating people with dignity and wishing them a painless, peaceful, ending to their life. All I want is having the opportunity to go to a lawyer, when of sound mind, and sign a statement that when certain criteria are met; that our medical establishment can painlessly end my life. I do not want to make my loved ones suffer watching me die; I want to go out with dignity when I can no longer care for myself and there is no hope for recovery. I do not want the medical establishment to take everything I have worked for my whole life. I also do not want to force euthanasia on anybody - I simply want that right for myself and others that feel the same way. If we treated our pets like we treat humans they would lock us all up.
About being "Weak"; not planning for the end is weak.
There really are two separate issues here, and they're quite different. One is the rights of the terminally ill to determine for themselves the terms of their death, and the other is that of people whose lives could be saved and lived well if their depression were treated. Two completely different scenarios, two completely different best outcomes.
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 must confess before my bout with depression I always wondered why suicidal individuals did not do something to change their life completely. Move to another environment and try that.
There really are two separate issues here, and they're quite different. One is the rights of the terminally ill to determine for themselves the terms of their death, and the other is that of people whose lives could be saved and lived well if their depression were treated. Two completely different scenarios, two completely different best outcomes.
When I was 22 and indestructible; I had a drill sergeant at Fort Knox KY that was drunk and kept pointing a loaded 45 at his head. Over about a very long twenty or thirty minutes I talked him into giving me his gun. He had pointed at me several times before I finally got the gun to unload it. I don't know if it was depression or just an attempt for attention? Seems a little foolish today the chance I took that night almost fifty years ago.
Around 60 thousand Americans died from over dose last year. Some of those were suicides and some were not - very hard to determine the motivation for the dead doing the drugs that they crave.
Yes; there is more than one or even two scenarios. I just don't like how we treat our elderly in pain today. We can do so much better.
Seems to be on the rise everywhere. Famous people have been doing it, and then silly people tweet things like "everyone has a right to take away their own life, because they never had the choice to enter it."
I think it's despicable. Particularly when there's a family involved, and especially with children. Animals don't even kill themselves out of depression.
And now the loons want to legalize medical suicide because the process of dying is too much for them. Weak.
You obviously have no idea what it's like to live with depression or know someone who does. I can assure you, it sucks the life out of them. So until you can actually identify with these people I would refrain from calling them loons.
I don't see how suicide is cowardly when no one asks to get put on the earth anyway. Also, a lot of people are born into terrible circumstances that they also had no choice in.
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Weak.
