Do human beings have the right to commit suicide?

[Ozzieshunni]

I know hun. It's not a nice topic My godmother is still in pain two years on and I think she'll be until the day she dies and can see her angel again

 

[louandivy]

Tiff I can't imagine how difficult that must have been for you and your husband

 

[Tiff]

Thank you

It is really hard. I will say that Suicide is the easy way out. Its living hell for the people left behind.

 

[mum22ttc#3]

Yes! Sorry hun. I know people don't mean to be insensitive in their replies but I was really fighting being upset and didn't check.

Its hard when you KNOW that people have the best of intentions but it still hurts.

I do think that it is how you feel and how you perceive it in that situation too. I was one that said I did find it selfish. I did have someone very close to me try to commit suicide, fortunately she didn't succeed, I hope my posts didn't come across as insensitive, its just my feelings I suppose and my opinions and I can only go on my experiences.

I agree with your last post, for her it would have been the 'easy' way out and it would have been 'us' picking up the pieces having to suffer each day.

 

[Tiff]

It wasn't one person or one thing. I think I'm just overly sensitive to it, but please don't stop posting for fear of upsetting me. I knew what I was going to read coming in here and I don't want the convo to stop on account of me.



If anything hurt I know its my own personal issues with it, not an issue with anyone else. For the record, I do think suicide is very selfish as well.

 

[Menelly]

I maintain people who think suicide is selfish are looking at it only from the survivors perspective, not the person who did it's perspective. For the suicidal person, they honestly and truly believe (in severe mental health cases) that what they're doing is the most selfless act they could do for their families.

 

[hb1]

I understand what you're saying menelly but the selfishness must be considered from both pov - the surviving friends and relatives are not a negligible part of the equation.

We all know so many survivors and the impact on them is huge - which is why it is selfish on the part of the person committing suicide regardless of their thought process.

how about my friends best friend who went home to find his father had murdered his mother and then killed himself - he knew his 18 year old son would come home to find them in such horrific circumstances as well as suddenly dealing with being alone in the world and the grief of his parents' death and the way it happened and potential mh issues effectively imposed on him as I'm sure most people would be pretty much mentally crippled by that - incredibly selfish.

Each case will be so individual it's not possible to make such a generalisation as to the thought process - but easier to generalise that there will likely be people left behind who will suffer greatly

 

[mum22ttc#3]

I maintain people who think suicide is selfish are looking at it only from the survivors perspective, not the person who did it's perspective. For the suicidal person, they honestly and truly believe (in severe mental health cases) that what they're doing is the most selfless act they could do for their families.

But thats the thing, you can only look at it from your own perspective, how you see it, how you feel etc. I can never truely look at it from the suicidal persons perspective no matter how hard I try or even want to as I haven't been there were they have. It might make me wrong or my opinion wrong but thats all I can go own, my experiences and my opinions.
Also just because they thought they was doing a selfless act at the time doesn't mean they necessarily were. I know I've done things before and later realized it wasn't right or could have hurt people when that wasn't my original intention.

 

[Tiff]

I maintain people who think suicide is selfish are looking at it only from the survivors perspective, not the person who did it's perspective. For the suicidal person, they honestly and truly believe (in severe mental health cases) that what they're doing is the most selfless act they could do for their families.

But thats the thing, you can only look at it from your own perspective, how you see it, how you feel etc. I can never truely look at it from the suicidal persons perspective no matter how hard I try or even want to as I haven't been there were they have. It might make me wrong or my opinion wrong but thats all I can go own, my experiences and my opinions.
Also just because they thought they was doing a selfless act at the time doesn't mean they necessarily were. I know I've done things before and later realized it wasn't right or could have hurt people when that wasn't my original intention.

True. I think of the Heaven's Gate cult and stuff like that. They truly believed in what they were doing. But really, did aliens come and get them?

 

[Mummy2B21]

I don't think euthanasia is selfish at all and I would say yes to that.

However suicide as a result of depression ect I believe is selfish as it is something that can be helped through.
This is coming from me a person who has suffered with depression and suicidal thoughts and as much as the thought 'excited' me as lack of a better word I Just could never do it and leave my lived ones in so much hurt and pain when I could get professional help to overcome my troubles.

 

[Ozzieshunni]

Some depression cannot be helped at all.

 

[Mummy2B21]

Can suicide be admirable??? For example, in 9/11, those people jumping out of the buildings...for some reason, I feel like they were, almost heros, doing that. I mean, they could have stayed, and perished in the fires and smoke...but, they chose to do it on their own terms, faced with that situation. To me, that is admirable. I am sure others will feel differently, but I admired them for doing that. I don't think I could. I would be too scared.

I know what you are saying but to me those people did not commit suicide. They didn't have a choice, suicide is a choice IMO. They could not take the pain of the heat, remember that was jet fuel , so they really didn't have a choice in the matter. Someone very close to me died in 911 and to me none of them committed suicide , they just didn't have an alternative..

I definitely agree with you here! I wouldn't consider it suicide, and my heart breaks for them. So sorry

It was also reported that some of them wouldn't have been able to see where they were walking un the thick of the smoke and actually fell out of the windows. 9/11 was just an awful tragedy it still haunts me 10yrs on.

 

[Mummy2B21]

I believe there are other ways to cope with depression than suicide. There is a lot of help out there for those willing to take it, or maybe not so willing I.e being sectioned if there mentality is so bad for them to want to commit suicide.

 

[Ozzieshunni]

My godmother's daughter's depression was biological. They saw every specialist, did every treatment. She killed herself. There was NOTHING they could do.

 

[miaplus2]

Not all depression has this magic cure people always mention, I'd love to find this cure I've searched for, for so long.

 

[louandivy]

Depression, like so many other things, is just NOT a black and white issue. You cannot say 'oh i know this person and this person who were clinically depressed but they sought help instead of killing themselves' - one persons experience of depression is just their own, you cannot get into people's heads and know how they feel. If it was that easy to just seek help then surely it wouldn't even be considered a serious problem? I feel the same way about addiction too, there is such a stigma attached to certain areas of mental health, like it is your fault if you happen to have a mental illness that does not sit comfortably within Western society's morals.

 

[moomin_troll]

I haven't read every post so I'm more then Likely repeating but everyone should have the right to die when they want to especial when ill. But when someone kills themselves and their body is left for someone to find or jumps infront of a bus, train ect I think that's horrible

 

[mum22ttc#3]

I haven't read every post so I'm more then Likely repeating but everyone should have the right to die when they want to especial when ill. But when someone kills themselves and their body is left for someone to find or jumps infront of a bus, train ect I think that's horrible

I agree in a sense. The thing is though whenever someone kills themselves i.e suicide there will always be a body to find by somebody else?

Euthanasia though when terminally ill IMO is totally different, nobody will just find them, it will be prepared for in a rational state of mind and alot of the time the family will be aware and even be apart of the planning.

 

[mum22ttc#3]

Depression, like so many other things, is just NOT a black and white issue. You cannot say 'oh i know this person and this person who were clinically depressed but they sought help instead of killing themselves' - one persons experience of depression is just their own, you cannot get into people's heads and know how they feel. If it was that easy to just seek help then surely it wouldn't even be considered a serious problem? I feel the same way about addiction too, there is such a stigma attached to certain areas of mental health, like it is your fault if you happen to have a mental illness that does not sit comfortably within Western society's morals.

Sometimes though all you have to go on is other people who you know, unless you have experienced it yourself then sometimes that is all you can go on.

Like you say, one persons experience is their own and for me, that is the person that is the one that may have had to pick up the pieces if everything had gone to plan. I don't for one minute think that it was easy for her to make that decision, to end it all and make that what I would class as the 'selfish' decision, but at the same time no matter how hard I try to understand I'm never going to completely understand unless I was or will be in that position. I am also not at the time going to think that it is easy for me to explain to my children why someone very close to them has chosen to take her own life, how do you even try to comprehend that in your own mind let alone try to explain it to a 4 and 8 year old?

 

[Ozzieshunni]

I think that it's hard to fully make an opinion unless you've been through a suicide of a close relative or friend.