Do you think suicide is coward's way out?

If so, why do you think it's cowardly?

 

I lost a family member to suicide (cousin)

I've also lost young family members to cancer and watched them struggle to live another day.

As much as "experts" try to explain suicide, IMO, unless you've been to the point of trying it, I don't think we can even fathom what would drive someone to it.

 

I have no view to the heated topic title. What i will say on this. I always remember and probably always will remember a story in a uk newspaper of a young boy who commited suicide.

He had a vast intelligence which he explained in his suicide note. He took a look at the world and didnt like the inhumanity of man. The destruction and violence on a daily basis in this world we live in. From someone so young, he had views decades ahead of his time. This world as he put it, would never change and he wanted no part of it.

 

Most people call it cowardly. I guess this is because they compensate for their fear with an ad-hoc pride. Suicide is a result of stress. (And stress is a result of missing opportunities/tools of adapting to an environment/condition.) The suicide trigger is like when a rat/cat is cornered and decides to jump at its attacker. Automatic suicide (without mechanical action) was observed when biologists presented live mouses to carnivorous birds, and these mouses seeing no escape, simply died on the spot without the bird making a move.

If you are a human, suicide is a lot more problematic for you, because you are unique in the ability to anticipate future events. For a human suicide, a completely neutral and calm emotional state is necessary, to the point of a self-convincing auto-suggestion, because the death process WILL create a reality out of every possible negative interaction you may imagine with other people. ... But in the process of getting to a suicide arrangement, the people in your life will rack up a sky high pile of negative "confrontations" with you to make that impossible. ... So, there is no low-profile emergency exit, "they" are waiting for you there and you won't like it.

 

I don't think you can have a one size fits all answer. Some suicides are definitely cowardly. They do it only thinking of themselves and only because they don't want to face life.

Others have good reasons. I think assisted suicide for terminally ill patients is an option that should be available to them. When they know they only have so much more time to live and that it is going to be filled with pain, I think they should have the option of ending their lives with dignity and without pain.

 

I totally agree. The only form of suicide that is totally unacceptable is murder suicide or suicide committed by basically forcing someone to kill you (i.e., pulling a gun or pretending to pull a gun on a cop with the intent of being shot).

Now, THAT is cowardly!

 

Does that work? I thought cops don't aim at your body, but where you have no vital organs. And cops use rubber bullets only, not real ones, right?

 

Um..... are you being serious?

Cops, along with anyone else that takes a defensive firearms course, are taught to aim for center mass because that ends the firefight the quickest. They are taught specifically NOT to aim for parts where there are no vital organs like arms, legs, lower torso etc.

Cops use rubber bullets for crowd control and they're BIG bullets fired from a big gun; usually either a 12 gauge shotgun or a 40mm grenade launcher. If they use their sidearm, it is usually filled with the most lethal bullets they can get.

40mm grenade launcher.



Suicide by cop, as Sadanie correctly claimed IMHO, is a very cowardly and disgusting way to commit suicide. Basically the person is to lazy / scared / stupid to kill themselves, so they have someone else do it for them. I've met police officers who have had to kill people in the line of duty. It affects them deeply.

 

Those people I will never criticize. They had to have been living in such a black, hopeless and painful world that we couldn't possibly relate to and death was their only answer to find peace.....

But those who feel this is the only way should try to think of their family and not do the job in the house. If they're determined to do this, they should leave a letter explaining why, so the family don't live w/guilt for the rest of their lives, feeling they were somehow at fault.....

No one knows what they were living with - they shouldn't be judged....

 

Why do you ask?

Or you could decide to fight. Normal to go through periods where the flaws in humanity are obvious and good things are not quite so obvious. You could shut the shop, or you could decide to fight. If you really need motivation, consider that you may be the one who changes the world. Consider that if you don't try, who ever will. Or your child may change the world with your support. Or you may impact on someone you don't even know and he may take it forward.

When I'm up against it (and that is usually when I consider my options and take stock, it's never when things are going well ) I learned at an early age to say to myself...."This too will pass"...and dig in.

Of course you have to make your own luck sometimes by working and facing obstacles and strategising your way around them and sometimes it is out of your hands and all you can do is your best. But the worst of times does pass, better days are coming. It doesn't do to take life too seriously.

I agree with all of this I don't really plan to put my family through what we went through when my parents passed on. There is no good reason to make them watch that and I know if they have to watch it they will suffer more than I will when I take a header over the nearest bridge, after putting my affairs in order.

A young Nordic guy did that here, he went missing and they found a lot of blood in his house and thought he'd been murdered. Then unrelated (we thought) someone drove head on into a lorry on the motorway. Turned out the boy was working here and fell out with his girlfriend, tried to murder himself in the house with a knife and failed. He then went out to his car. He did die, eventually. It was pretty unfair on the driver of the other vehicles, I thought. The lorry driver survived, but I'm sure he wasn't unscathed and will never forget that.

 

Whats your rush? You know for certain allahs waiting in paradise with all your virgin bimbos?

Suck it up and move on.
Nothing is so bad you have to kill yourself over.
If you think it is you should tell a doctor so you can get some good drugs.

 

This assumes though that you keep having access to food and shelter, and there are no bigger demons planted in you than yourself.

Why do people take death so seriously?

Oh, and leave a few functional parts of you for us though, they are fun. I have some scattered parts around too that were not deleted but I can't find them now. I want reassembly but it seems to be illegal/unauthorized.

 

What if the virgins gang up on you in heaven? Polygamous wives routinely gang up on their husbands (just ask a mormon).

 

OK. This is REALLY convincing. Even if it is a rubber bullet, out of that 40 mm, I would not want to try it out.

 

Why do people gang up on rescued suicide victims?

 

Wow this is such an interesting thread. What do you get after you succeed with your suicide?

 

Yes, it does work. . .
In fact, I can remember one instance about 15 years ago in CA where a man diagnosed with a mental illness (bipolar) pulled out a fake gun and got shot by the police in broad day light.

This prompted at least one good change: the police began to receive intensive mental health training and how to deal with desperate people who may be suicidal (dangerous to self) . . although they appear dangerous to others

And don't tell me that you don't hear almost every week incidents of "shoot first, ask later?"

 

I read an article the other day lambasting a police officer in Arizona for his supposed "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude. He has been involved in six shootings in his career. The latest incident occured when a man was threatening his neighbors with a gun. When the police arrived, he met them at the door carrying a baby. He would not cooperate with police and reached for something behind the door. That is when the officer killed him while the guy was still holding the baby. Two objects were behind the door; a handgun and a shotgun. They believe he may have been trying for suicide by cop.

Now, before anyone freaks about the danger to the baby, there wasn't any. The officer shot him with a scoped rifle from about 15 yards away. You can't miss at that range.

 

Two people close to me committed suicide.

A friend from high school was turned from an athlete training for the Olympics to a hopeless cripple in constant pain in a car crash...his first words in the hospital were, "Please kill me."

My cousin's wife left him. To gain an advantage in the divorce, she accused him of molesting their children. In 24 hours, he lost his marriage, his children, and his job as a teacher, a career he had been working toward since he was ten years old. He washed down a bottle of sleeping pills with a fifth of Bourbon that night.

 

Most cases, yes. If a person is physically suffering, then it is excusable.

 

It depends on the state of mind of the person committing suicide.

You can't really say that one is brave or cowardly if they kill themselves while in a state of metal polar-ism (manic or depressed). They are neither brave or cowardly, just ill.

Suicide bombers would have to be evaluated on a case by case basis. You'd have to know if they were mentally unstable to begin with(organically), fundamentally believe in unrealistic religious ideals (delusional), or made a sober minded rational decision which has nothing to do with religion or mental illness.

It's hard to argue that a sober minded suicide bomber who sacrifices himself in a time of war is a coward. To forfeit your life is the ultimate sacrifice which requires selflessness and a true adherence to principals with care about those who you fight for.

But, someone who commits suicide in a manner that takes innocent people with them, is a truly disgusting person. It angers me to hear about American troops being killed by suicide bombers, but then again... I understand... I might do the same if I were in their shoes, ultimately there are no rules in warfare. But there is simply no honor in killing innocent bystanders.

 

Depends what kind of suicide we are talking about. If someone is in great pain, or terminally ill, then suicide should be option available to them, and they should get help tio die if they need it.

Most people who commit suicide would have found themselves in a dark place and can't see a way out. The story Jarlaxle told us about his cousin is truely sad, and I don't consider the cousins actions to be selfish at all.

But when someone kills themselves because they ran up huge debt, and instead of telling their family, they take their own lives and leave their wife or husband with the debt, that is selfish.

As someone who suffered depression for about five years in my teens, and attempted suicide twice, I know how hard it is to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Every day is a battle. But there IS a light there, it might take weeks, months, years before that light appears, but it IS there and you just have to be patient and wait for it to appear.

 

Goal = escape stress.
Sometimes suicide is the only answer one can come up with to match that goal.
I'm bi-polar I used to face suicide on a daily basis. Too chicken of pain to use a knife or a rope, makes guns dangerous to have around. Gun is an easy out. Argument through the temple side to side or up through the jaw?

Regardless suicide is a selfish act. You only look at the consequences to yourself. You don't look at the consequences to the ones left behind, the ones who have to live with your decision, and the ones who have to clean up the mess afterward.

 

Here's the interesting paradox about the cowardice of suicide. The actual act of killing yourself is not easy to do. Even if you are extremely depressed, going all the way through with it is very hard for most people. That's why so many people attempt it but don't succeed. You really have to be extremely committed to the process to override all of the psychological and physical barriers that nature designed to keep you alive. You have to be determined to force your way through all of the fear and discomfort in order to reach your end goal.

However, if you do manage to do this, you have only proven that you had the ability inside you all along to conquer all of the problems that made you want to kill yourself in the first place. Because that was all you ever had to do to fix your life; commit and persevere. But you made the wrong choice about where to apply those actions. You chose to commit to self-destruction instead of self-healing. Even though you still had to work just as hard to succeed.

This is why suicide is cowardly. It's taking all the principles of success and using them to run from your problems instead of face them.

 

Some problems aren't of your making and have to be endured to live. Easier to die, no more problems.