Suicide - Always read the first post please

[Princess Ivy]

*This is the first thread in my campaign of plagerism, please only reply here if you are willing to share your ideas with me, and possibly have them attributed to some of my fictional netheads, i don't expect genuine replies, about genuine circumstances, this is a very tough topic, thats why i'm having difficulty in formulating all of the responses myself.*

Is suicide a genuine way out? Or just a cop out? have you tried it? or had to deal with the suicide of a loved one? Or worked to prevent the suicide of a loved one.

 

[Princess Ivy]

To any admin/mod watching, I've been thinking, this is gonna get hellish confusing, i am still posting real threads, could this please be moved to the critiques or general writers forums? I think that would definatly de-liniate this as a fictional thread and avoid confusion.

 

[The Master™]

Personally speaking... I am not sure what to think about suicide... Some people say it is a cop out and some say it takes a lot of courage to end your own life...

Can't say that I've ever contemplated it or had to deal with anyone who seriously thought about doing themselves in...

I once wanted to know what would happen if I slit a wrist, and researched the most effective way to do it... As it turned out, I didn't go through with it...

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Shifted to Workshop.


Cheers.

 

[Princess Ivy]

thanks babe

 

[Brian G Turner]

Suicide can be different things to different people. A couple of time as a youth, I wanted to hurt myself physically, in response to having hurt someone I loved emotionally. I was never able to enact anything, but there was a dangerous will there.

About 10 years ago, when, after a long downward depression, I woke up one day to find my life no longer had any worth, and that a life with no worth may as well be ended. I gave myself a week to live, and was pretty serious about the intention - a warm bath, and open a vein in the arm (it was only later I got into reading about the Roman Empire, and found out it was the preferred way of the Roman nobility).

In that state of mind you can't talk to people who love you, because you perceive they'll protest you shouldn't - for their sake, not your own.

It took a phone call to someone I trusted who somehow managed to snap myself out of the mindset. After that, I resigned myself to living what at first appeared to be life without meaning - and slowly began a pivotal process of "spiritual rebirth".

From a psychological aspect, the whole experience was quite fascinating.

 

[Devillishgirl]

Minus having a fatal and probably long lasting illness, I can't imagine committing suicide myself. I believe in euthanasia in a situation such as a terminal illness. Suicide because of depression is so much harder for me to grasp. It has never crossed my mind, I love life and I wouldn't ever want to do that to my loved ones. Leaving them behind always questioning why you did it or what they could have done to help....its terrible. I've been on that side...my ex boyfriend and very close friend committed suicide the week I got married. It's always in the back of my mind...wishing I could have one last conversation with him, to ask him why why why. Or I think, if I hadn't been so wrapped up in my life and the wedding plans, I would have noticed something was wrong. There's no point placing blame on myself but I think it anyway. A few years prior to Scott killing himself, my best friend tried three times. It was terrifying. I moved in with her. I started going to work with her, going to the bathroom with her. I never left her alone. Two months of hovering over her taught me one thing...there is no such thing as reason in a suicidally depressed person. There is no talking them out of it. It was only through sheer force of my will that she wasn't left alone long enough to try it. She finally sought counseling and I hope to whatever powers that be, that she never goes through that again.

 

[Seth God Of Chaos]

A few months ago i hit a rough patch i slashed my wrists cut myself, swallowed poison. I actually tried to end my life but looking back now i realise it would have been a stupid thing to do. I would never have met the girl i love or got into music and poetry. I think that if anyone here ever falls into that trap then they should just wait something good will eventually happen.

 

[polymorphikos]

As stupid as it sounds, there is always the chance that things will turn-out better than you expected. I've had several loved-ones attempt or heavily-contemplate suicide, and this has been extended to delusions in which they think everyone wants them to fail, and my mother turned to hard drugs as some way of trying to prove her mother right about something, and elicit sympathy like a cry for attention (it didn't hold, thankfully). But they're all in much better places now. Humanity just isn't very well-designed in some areas.

And Seth, I'm very glad that you didn't succeed.

 

[SDNess]

I get depressed at times...especially recently since I've caught the "lovebug."

But there's no ******* way I would ever commit suicide.

 

[littlemissattitude]

I sat and held the hand of a friend all night once, and talked and talked and talked to him, so that he wouldn't pick up a knife and try to off himself. His grandmother, who had pretty much raised him, had died shortly before that, and he was depressed about that. He was also using at the time, which didn't help matters any. He actually had a knife in his other hand at one point, but I finally convinced him to put it down.

I don't consider that I worked any miracles that night. He might have been - literally - deadly serious, or it might have just been his tendency to be a drama queen. But I wasn't going to take any chances.

 

[Foxbat]

So far, I've known three people who have comitted suicide and they all had one thing in common: those of us that were friendly with them never suspected for a moment that it was going to happen. Sure they had troubles but nobody realised how badly they were suffering.

My grandfather was an official in the Red Cross many many years ago and he taught me one important thing about people - if you come across a road accident with lots of people screaming - look to the silent ones first. I believe that the same can be applied to potential suicides.

 

[Maryjane]

I drank for many years and towards the end of my drinking career and a couple of abusive relationships the thought of suicide was never very far away. The only thing that prevented me from doing it is that even though I have not been with the catholic church for many years I still had a healthy fear of what if there is a hell. I decided I didn't want to find out because I was already in one as it was. I quit drinking and after a period of sobriety I began to go realy strange instead of getting better I was fnding myself doing things that were crasier then when I was drinking, I was on what they call a manic hi even though I didn't know that yet, not until I hit a low that just took everything out of me, left me devistated and empty Like there was nothing inside the shell of my body, dead. Now suicidal thoughts changed to getting urges to slice, shallow cuts not to kill yourself but to feel, feel something, anything was better then the dead feeling I had inside. Then I retreated from the world, hid in my apartment with the door locked, all the drapes pulled shut and the phone off the hook. When darkness fell was when the fear set in. Scruched up in the corner between the bed and the wall. just trembling in terror, of what I still don't know to this day, except possibly a feeling of some type of impending doom. I looked at the wall and I was tearified at what I saw, there was blood driping down the wall from the ceiling to the floor. Shortly after that I was diagnosed as being bypolar. I hope this short narative is of help to someone.
I quite agree with you Foxbat, that is usually the case. Actually they could on the outside apear normal even happy and content with life. The suffering doesn't set in till they are by themselves at home, suffering in silence. The noisy ones are lucky because they are usually noisy because they instinctively know their in a crissis and seek atention and with the proper atention it can save somones life. And there is some that just do it like they were seeking to win a popularity contest or something. Get your picture taken with cuffs on and two big burly cops on each side and you become an instant urbon hero status or something

 

[Blue Mythril]

I'm a bit of a blend of opinions on this topic. I've been depressed many a time, and I have contemplated suicide. i can understand how people can hit so low they go beyond actual feeling (depression counts as feeling) in most cases, this is the danger point. Most people can't actual commit suicide if they are still under the influence of some emotion. In fact, of the many who try and then botch it, the majority say they regretted trying, most whilst they still believed that they were actually going to die.
(if that sentance makes sense.... )

This is something my step-sister and I debate quite often. She is a social worker, and one of the things she has been taught is that, when dealing with a client, they must inform them that suicide is an option.. How viable is a different matter, but they are still trained to present it as an option.

I'm well aware there are more contexts for suicide than there are languages. Its a difficult concept and, thoughout the ages, has been performed for more reasons than the more personal reasons associated with many suicides these days.

See, I do see suicide as having, in many circumstances, aspects of selfishness. I think that was one of the only things that kept me from throwing my life away during hard times: I felt passionately about teen suicide and selfishness (having seen the way it has affected many friends and families in the community) and was always keenly aware that no matter how s**t things were for me, they would be ten times worse for those I left behind.

I think thats the crux of the 'selfish' argument. Even in the case of adult male suicide, when shame and family are more important factors than personal dissillusionment or depression. Whereas, in say the case of a man who can no longer support his family, or for whatever reason believes that his family are better off without him, the damaged caused by the loss of a father/ husband/ partner is worse than whatever they had to face. There was this charity organisation/ volunteer thing I was interested in wherein young people would volunteer to help take children from troubled/ disadvataged backgrounds on a camp or holiday. One particular pair had walked in to find their father's body after he had killed himself. the note made quite clear that he thought he was being entirely unselfish in this, yet those poor kids were seriousl messed up afterwards.

I also believe that life is precious.

This is a very complex concept and though, as you have guessed, I am very pro life, I will never state that such an opinion can apply to every case. However, I am pro-life for a variety of reasons...

I guess thats where I'll end my little wander.

 

[Maryjane]

Hey I'm a social worker to, I got most of my education and experience first hand. I have been around recovery programs, maned the phones for AA for nearly four years in the city of Barrie, I worked in street centers and I am now working for Depatment of Mental Health. I seen all kinds of people and after you been around them for a while and using your own experiences you can come pretty close in reading people, on an average of 1 to 10 I would say a 9.

 

[Kraken]

I agree with Foxbat and Maryjane.
One of my brothers ran away earlier this year and left a suicide note. We knew he wasn't happy at school but we had no idea it was that bad. We don't know whether he changed his mind and was coming home on his own or if the neighbour who found him just stumbled on him by chance: he won't talk about it even now, six months on.
We are a very close family and he didn't feel he could tell us. You feel so helpless.
The police psychologist said that he did it that way because 'he didn't want to worry us'. I can't see that as selfish: messed up, yes, but he was thinking about us, however much I hate the solution he came up with.

 

[Maryjane]

Different people have different mental pain threshholds, the pain threshold for some is less or more then others, it varies in each indevidual but to each the pain they feel reaches an unbarible moment where all they see is dispair, pain and hoplessnes in their lives or just don't feel anything at all. The warning signs of depression in some is well hid or well downplayed. It doesn't show on the exterior.They don't think about it as being selfish they just think the world is better off without them, that they are a burden to family and friends so they suffer in silence and it's the silent sufferers that are the ones that slip though the cracks of our awareness that they were even in any kind of crissis to start with. The noisy ones usually turns out that they to are suffering as well and even atempt suicide but all they realy want is atention not realy die. Some of these can sometimes end up in tragedy, they mess up on their planed atempt for atention and realy end up dead when that wasn't realy their intention. It's to bad but I know some people who should be receiving some type of support are usually the ones that seek atention and it don't get taken seriously or they just slip though the cracks in the system and in desparation they make a planed suicide in such a way that they will get rescued just in time and pop goes the weezle the ambulance got delayed in rush hour trafic or something.
For the silent one there is no planing, just off themselves spontaniously when enough is enough and a convinient time and place presents itself

 

[TGirlPaula]

I have seen the noisy ones up close, a total of four times.

Three times ended up in attention-getting. Such things work to the benefit of the one doing them because they are most often accompanied by a guilt trip.

The fourth I saw was expert at "playing chicken" with 911/999. He got loaded on pills and liquor, called for help, then fell over and hit his skull on the corner of a dresser and died immediately.

I have talked with lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors, clergy, and I have concluded that they are correct: one cannot be held responsible for another's suicide.

No guilt trip can be given to one who has no reason to accept it. It took me a long time but on the last attempt I said "do as you will." I had finally learned that stopping a multi-attempt suicide is like interfering with the motion of the planets: if ya do, be ready to take the consequences for intrervening.

 

[Esioul]

Read the bit of Anna Karennina as she journies to the station, and how she jumps in front of the goods train- it's terrifying.

 

[Maryjane]

Suicides and atempted suicides is usually someone in a desparte state of mind and some can be helped through the use of psycotropic medications and recovery programs but to many don't get the treatment and go on thinking the whole world is craping on them and just look for a way out, get out of hell because such a phsycological state of mind is like being in hell and these are the casses that can be a disapointing. Even with professional treatment administered to a person that has already gone beyond the event horizon of a black hole ends in disapointment eventually. When you work with people that's part of the parcel to expect winning some and loosing some and unfortunatly it's usually the loosing some that is dominant especially where street drugs are involved. If the person does not respond to the help you offer then you are wasting your time so move onto the next one that you may be able to be of some help to. Not enough time to waste on winers, either do it or get off the pot. I had to do that to some people and it's not an easy thing to do.