I think there are 2 situations that suicide is suitable, one of which is very hard to get into.. 1 would be euthanasia. I am all for assisted suicide in people that cannot take care of themselves or have a very diminished life due to medical problems etc etc. I see no arguement in ending life if people have to struggle through it due to no fault of their own and there is truely nothing they can do about it, however some people don't mind living like this of course. 2 is a much harder situation to get yourself into...where someone has no ties, to absoloutely anything, no family, no friends, no money no nothing. Basically where no-one even knows your name, like true lonliness, then I can understand why people top themselves, sort of. But then again...you can always help yourself. Alot of the people I know that have attempted, thought about trying, and even succeeding in forcing death upon themselves have often refused help...when it is blatantly given. I think those people are quite selfish...because thats several people wanting to help you because they don't want to see you go or in your present state, and by killing yourself, you're throwing it back in peoples faces.....and making them probably feel guilty for the rest of their lives. I'm sure there are many cases where people have killed themselves over someone else killing themself...
Your particular Bible is missing some bits - "Thou shalt not kill". Suicide is self-murder. From a Statement by the House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in America, Suicide, like murder, is done for a variety of reasons so each case should be looked at. You can't generalise. I've known two, not 'cries for help' cock-ups but taking the easy way out. Pillar of the community, married with family, but cheating on his wife. The girl-friend gets pregnant, wants him to get a divorce and marry her, wants to tell his wife, have it out. Can't face the exposure. Tops himself. Small businessman, again well-respected, his family firm goes down, big debts, can't face the shame. Tops himself. Both left wives, families and friends who could not see the point in the act. The problems could have been sorted out. Instead, the deaths created greater problems and left the survivors to sort them out. Two selfish suicides IMO.
I didn't imply it isn't a selfish act. You hate your family so you commit suicide: selfish. You run into a burning building to rescue someone knowing you will probably die: not selfish. I stand by my Bible statement. The church is not the judge. It was the church that put kill in place of murder.
Man it must be a coincidence that not long after I started this thread my dad had died of alcoholic liver cirrhosis. I was living in uni halls of res when it happened 19th March. Now im considering dropping uni despite me liking it, also my course doesn't interest me that much. Damn it
Sorry to hear that ajiKaBooM! As working in the death care industry and dealing with death on a day to day basis as well as losing several of my friends and loved ones, I'll give you some advice to help make things easier on you during this tough time. Stay in school. You said that you enjoy it so keep at it. While grieving is natural and everyone experiences it in their own way, you'll need someone there to support you and you'll likely find that through one of your mates at school. Plus doing activities that you like to do will help take the focus off of your dad. Find someone to talk to. Don't keep your feeling bottled up until you can't take it anymore. Talk to one of your mates or a family member. Getting pissed (drunk) can help some people deal with it too but don't over do it as you can see what can happen. Remember the good times you had with your father. Old fishing trips, tossing a ball in a park, just general good times to think about to help ease the lose. If he was in chronic pain during the last stages of his life, just remember that he's not enduring that pain anymore. Talk to someone. I can't stress it enough how important it is to talk to someone. Almost every single person you'll meet has experienced a significant lose in their life so they'll know where you're coming from. Your dad had an appointment and he wasn't late for it. Unfortunately it was one of those appointments that nobody will ever be late for.
As selfish as you can get: putting your life in danger without regard for those who love you just to bask in the glory of being a "hero" by those who you save. aj: Condolences mate Really really sorry to hear that. You can always start again next year on something new, when you have finished your grieving.
AJ: I'm very sorry to hear this. Hang in there. Suicide is always selfish, but of course there are situations that it can be more understandable than others. Take the terminally ill cancer patient who doesn't want to suffer. Who can blame them? But in most cases, it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I know because I tried it when I was a teenager. Failure can be a good thing!
I lost my father early in life. It is a real bummer, but your life goes on. Change your course if you have to, but don't change your life by dropping out.
Thats the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Got an example for you: Down Elephant and Castle yesterday, an oldish woman with one of those wheely things dropped all her shopping all over the street. I thought she was a bit of a fool, really, cos her basket thing was empty, but I helped her pick up the stuff anyway. I walked away thinkinking she was still a bit of a fool. I didn't feel good about helping her, I didn't feel bad about helping her. I just helped her because she needed some help. As Freud once said: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"
QED, Wireframe. You helped her because you thought you needed to help her. To not help her would have created in your mind what we call "cognitive dissonance", which is that uncomfortable feeling we get when reality does not match our belief system of how things should be. Do not underestimate how far we will go to maintain our belief systems. It is the very blueprint we make sense of the world with, we perceive and interpret by, we use to explain relationships, behaviour, events, Life, the Universe and Everything. Without our belief systems we would live in chaotic uncertainty. Of course life does not care what we think and has the inconvenient propensity to regularly present us with experiences that do not fit those beliefs. We can either modify our beliefs accordingly, but to do so every few minutes would again make us live in chaos. Therefore we have stacks of psychological defences that will tweak our perceptions of events, and our behaviour, to make things fit our beliefs after all. Only if our beliefs are constantly disproven, and we do not have serious emotional investments in them (i.e. self-worth, sense of knowing what to do, reassurance), are we prepared to reluctantly change them to fit the facts. As such, we will behave in particular ways to maintain consistency between reality and our beliefs of what reality should be like. Frequently this leads to self-fulfilling prophecies. You helped the old lady because your belief system says that old ladies should be helped (nothing wrong with that, by the way). You acted accordingly to maintain consistency between reality and your belief system, and avoid the unpleasant sense of cognitive dissonance, which is basically an experience of uncertainty and "things not being quite right".
HELL YEH IT SELFISH!! because they don't think what there family is going to be like they will miss him and that and that selfish and the parents mite get so depressed they ahve to top themselves so yeh it is!! NexxoTranslate: Hell yes, it's selfish! Because they do not think about how their family is going to feel --that they will miss him and such-- and that is selfish. The parents might become so depressed that they end up killing themselves too. So yes, it is!
There is always hope, therefore, suicide is a selfish act. I personally think that anyone who commits suicide is rather a weak person, although, I've never been in that situation myself, not I'm not exactly an expert, but it's an easy way out for a complicated problem.
Thanks for the messages. I believe life does go on, as someone suggested. It helps not to forget the person tho
Carrying on with your life does not equal forgetting those who died. In a way, it can be a form of remembering them.
This is a tough one for me to decide, a good friend of my family commited suicide 3 years ago after post natal depression that turned into something that she couldnt handle. Ive had arguments in my head over whether it was selfish or not(she left her then 7 year old son and 19 year old daughter behind). Part of me believes it is, as its kind of the easy way out of life, and you leave all your love ones with the pain and anguish and crap rather than yourself, but in her case and people like her I belive she genuinely felt her family would do better with out her being a burden on them, as it had got to the stage where she required constant care, and she was well aware of it, and the note and what she did before hand all reinforced this. I think I have to go with the majority of people that say it depends on circumstances
Difficult topic. I have only knewn one person who killed herself. Her parents and brother (only sembling) died in a car accident. She took her life a few days later. Her world just completely changed.. and she couldn't take it at that time and did something.. 'stupid', I guess. But every case is different, so it's really hard to discuss it. I do have understanding for people that don't have a decent live because of medical problems (terminal, or not) and don't want to continue living (euthanasia). Offcours then you can argue when it is 'ok' and when not. But those people have real arguements that they don't want to continue on living.. " Euthanasia, heal from life " Oh and yeah. I'm also aware of the 'Every act is selfish-fact'. But since everything we do is selfish, then there is no 'selfish'. So we need to change the meaning of selfish. Selfish needs to be something 'wrong', helping people shouldn't be called 'selfish', even if we are rewarded with feeling good about ourselfs.
This is a difficult one. I believe there is no right answer, as every case is different. I'm going to say something that I may regret, but I feel the time is right. I have never attempted suicide, but I have been thinking about it a lot over the past 4-5 months. I can tell you that it is not something that I take lightly, and often when I think about it I see my sister and my father crying. I believe in my heart that I quite possibly would have done it by now if it wasn't for thinking of my family and friends. However, to automatically say that a person is selfish for commiting suicide is the wrong way of looking at it. I am sure that the vast majority of people who have killed themselves thought very long and hard about how it would affect others. A person will commit suicide when they believe that the problem is bigger than their ability to cope. It does not matter if others believe that the problem is small or easily overcome, all that matters is how greatly the problem effects THAT person. Everything is relative... I believe that you should blame the disease and not the person. Depression is every much a disease of the mind as alzheimers, or parkinsons. It can readily take control of the persons thoughts and choices. Sometimes it will take control even to the point of making them choose to die. Would you blame your grand father with alzheimers for forgetting your name? The mind is very complex, and there is no true way. I have been working hard to help myself through this, and have encountered many obstacles. I want to live! but strangely, despite my knowledge of depression and the desire to live, my heart still sometimes tells me to just go away and not come back. The sadness can be overwhelming, and I do not wish it upon any of you. I hope this perhaps helps some of you to understand a little better. It is difficult to talk about, but if it helps anyone come forth and seek help, then it was worth it. I guess thats all I have to say...
To say that someone commits suicide out of selfindulgance, depression or after a lot of rational consideration is like saying someone drinks Sprite to quench their thirst. It is a gross oversimplification of human behaviour that is multifactorial and different for everybody. Just because the outcome is similar, does not mean that similar factors triggered it. So unfortunately you cannot just stick a label on it saying "selfish/not selfish". Depression, by the way, is not a disease any more than, say, alcoholism is. Of course there are physiological factors, but also substantial cognitive and behavioural ones, and as with alcoholism, it is through behaviour that one gets out of the spiral. Calling it a disease only disempowers you.
Here's the very real reminder of how short life really is. Larry was one of my best friends who I always seemed to get into trouble with when I hung out with him. In fact, all of us "creekers" (those of us who lived on Davis Creek) were very close and were always in trouble in some way or another. Sadly though, Larry will never get the chance to cause any trouble or mischief again because on March 16, he decided to end his life with a gun to his head. Gone forever but not forgotten. A little over seven years has passed since then and I can tell you that it seems just like yesterday when I was told the news. :EDIT: The cemetery where Larry is buried is one of the cemeteries that I work at. I have six "parks" under me. When I step outside of my office door to smoke while I'm there, I can turn around and see his grave. Suffice to say, I really don't enjoy working there.
