Suicide

I dont know what I would do in the same position, so I cannot be the one to say what is right or wrong.
Although most suicidals are looking for help, support, etc. and can be helped I have a hard time with those looking for Dr. K for a good reason.
If we could be allowed under terminal illness situations to clean up our path, have time with our loved ones and go peacefully instead of living through pain and suffering for all involved I think it could be a more humane way of handling it.

Well, it would certainly require some careful planning not to place an unreasonable burden on those left alive, wouldn't it?

bandylu2- I believe that a person has the right to control his own life. One aspect of this is the ability to end it, if he/she so desires.

When I was going through a life threatening illness, I made plans to commit suicide if the situation became untenable. Fortunately, for me, it never came to that. In the future, if my life ever takes a turn where the quality of it is unbearable, I would be prepared to take my own life.

Yes, I have heard the saying that, "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem". In that case, if I knew a person were depressed, I would certainly assist in getting that person professional help, and not simply walk away while he kills himself.

There is a time though, when you need to walk away. I had a friend with a bright, but mentally ill son. He had threatened suicide many times, and each time the woman moved heaven and earth to get him help. It reached the point where a good part of her life was spent intervening in the messes that he created. The woman was positively frazzled, but would not give up on her son. Eventually he took a drug overdose and died.

Accident? I don't think so. This young man was on a collision course with death. It was only a matter of time.

Yes, roger, it would. And that's what bothers me. On the one hand, this man took the time to put up plastic bags all over his office walls so as not to mess them up; on the other hand he went off without letting anyone know and shot himself. The guilt that his loved ones must feel at not knowing or helping or doing something must be unbearable.

As quinn said, I don't necessarily think euthanasia is a bad thing -- when one is terminally ill and suffering tremendously I think maybe a little help is okay. But in a case like that at least your family knows you are about to die and has a chance to adjust to it (as much as they can).

Phoenix, that's why I have mixed emotions. I can see both sides and I do believe people have the right to control their own life or death to a certain extent. But I also think they have the responsibility to their family not to do it in such a way as to lay guilt and doubt on them. On the other hand, I suppose if one is so depressed as to kill onself, one is not in any shape to worry about those he is leaving behind. Difficult question.

Most suicides are mentally ill.
"Heart problems" are known to bring about major depression,
biologically.
That means, not psychologically.
Of course, he could have been Bipolar, as well as having heart problems.
I doubt it was business-related.
Alot of businesses aren't doing well.

jeanbean, don't be so sure about the business. It was his own company -- one he'd run for years and years and over the past year or so it was going down the tubes. My husband has his own company, too, and the pressures can be almost unbearable (on top of personal financial worries, you worry about your employees too as if they were part of the family).

bandylu2- The problem is, that there is no way of committing suicide that won't affect other people. To many, it would seem an abandonment, a rejection. Could you imagine what would happen, if someone you loved told you that he planned to kill himself?

I think that if a person leaves his affairs in order, that is all that rightly needs to be done. I think that if you REALLY love and are close to a person, you can sense what is going on. In some cases, couples can rationally discuss the impending suicide of the other person, but I think that level of communication, unfortunately, is very rare.

Of course, you are right Phoenix. In many ways it's just the same as natural death -- the people left behind are going to feel all manner of emotions including possibly guilt and anger. I suppose there is a case to be made for suicide as just one more cause of death along with cancer, accidents, etc.

Jeanbean- I disagree. MANY suicides are a result of depression due to mental illness, but not all. Are you familiar with the people who killed themselves after the stock market crash in 1929? Sure they were depressed, but in many cases, there was more to it.

My husband tells of a formerly rich uncle who committed suicide after the crash. He had lost all his funds. He committed suicide so that his wife and family could have the proceeds of his insurance. During that period of history, his story was not unique.

What about a person in intractable pain, caused by a condition that will not improve? In a case like that the choices would be to bear the unbearable pain, be drugged like a zombie, or to take control of one's life and end it all.

bandylu, I know just what you mean. My cherished aunt killed herself when the progression of Lou Gehrig's disease became too much to bear. She enlisted the help of her oldest daughter, but refused to acknowledge that anything was going on to her youngest daughter, who was 19 at the time. My cousin (the 19-year-old) _knew_ what was happening, just by putting things together, but out of respect for her mother, didn't force the issue. She never said goodbye -- just goodnight.

It was a horrible suicide that went wrong, as the dosage was not designed for someone who had already consumed a vast amount of narcotics in her lifetime. My aunt woke up in the morning, screamingly furious to be alive, and everything had to be done again.

It was about as wrenching as it could possibly be for everyone involved. I would like to see a society and a set of laws that would allow for something more humane.

So sad, sozobe. So sad. I feel especially bad for your younger cousin to be left out of such an important happening.

OK.
A business-going-badly could be a risk factor.

I am trying to see both sides. When I was 12 my sister's boyfriend committed suicide by shooting himself in his car parked in front of my parent's house. My sister was 17 at that time. This had an enormous impact on our family. My parents felt very guilty. My sister just recently started to talk about this all. She is now 45. Then three years ago my friend's brother killed himself at the age of 27. His parents are still trying to find who is to blame for his suicide.

Of course it is very hard for the ones who are left behind. I tend to say I would never do that to my family and friends. But how can you be sure? How do you know what you would do in a situation that you just cannot handle and for which you see no solution at all. At this point in time, I feel that this will not happen to me because I have my husband and friends who will always support me. But these things can change.

My Aunt committed suicide in 1976, she had suffered from terrible depression for many years and had undergone ECT and had many hospital stays. She also had many attempted suicides. Finally she used a gun and that did it.

Had she lived in this era I believe she could have been treated sucessfully with modern antidepressants but she did not. Her suffering was in my view no different that a person who is physically ill maybe worse because in my family you were to pull youself together. Everyone one thought of her depression as just problems she refused to deal with and not as an illness and they never gave her a break.

Although I loved her dearly and regret losing her I do believe her misery was such that she was right to take things into her own hands. Her life was miserable and her pain and suffering equal to any I have ever seen.

urs53- I cartainly can understand the pain and suffering that loved ones go through when some one they care about committs suicide. The most difficult thing for people to internalize is that is is NOT a matter of fault. Each person, in the end, is responsible for his own life.

It is a shame that your sister had to carry around thisanger/sadness/blame within her for all these years. It still might be a good idea for her to see a professional who specializes in grief to finally help her to exorcise this devil inside of her. She needs to be able to let it all out, and finally put it behind her.

I have worked in the mental health system for 35 years at psychiatric hospitals, mental health clinics and, for the past fifteen years in a large urban hospital emergency room.

The biggest piece of my work in the ER is to assess people's need for hospitalization. By far the largest sub-set of people I see are either verbalizing suicidal ideation or have made a suicide attempt or gesture.
Depression and suicide are complex issues not easily summarized.

Although after the fact of a 'successful' suicide we can often, with the benefit of hindsight , discern critical factors or 'flags' (as in the case described above) nevertheless the vast majority of men with prostate cancer do not commit suicide nor do the vast majority of those with troubled businesses commit suicide. It's when factors like these produce, or come together with, signs and symptoms of clinical depression that we should be most concerned.

Unfortunately the person in these circumstances may resist seeking help for their depression and sometimes they are quite adept at minimizing and even masking their depression.

Apart from the person whose suicide flows from a psychosis,
or occurs while they are intoxicated or is an impulsive gesture that backfires, the 'successful' suicide is almost always profoundly depressed and feels without hope. For him/her going on with their life feels like agony. Most of these people can be dramatically helped if they receive treatment.

I think it is mistaken to make moral judgements on those who commit suicide - ie. that they are cowardly, or running away, or cruel to their survivors etc.
Having said all that however, I am most sorry for families and loved ones and friends of people who take their life.

Suicide devastates families. Those left behind often torment themselves with 'what if's' and 'if only's and hold themselves responsible.

Thank you *jjorge for your post. As the sister of a brother who committed suicide when he was 19 years old, I appreciate your words. He was depressed and under medical care, but as anyone who's ever dealt with this situation can tell you, even that isn't always enough. Someone who's determined that taking their own life is the only way out will find a way...

A person who is suicidal is drowning in a world that is hard for most to imagine. They just can't see anyway of reaching the surface, and the emotional pain and suffering they are going through is incredible for them. My brother actually had his doctor convinced that he was doing better before he shot himself...my parents thought so, too. Because I was also quite young at the time, those "red flags" you speak of only became apparent to me in retrospect, but now I know them well and have shared them with others who feel they may have a loved one who is suicidal...It's like you can't see the forrest for the trees until after the fact, then it's all right there in your face.

A family that is left behind does suffer greatly, and for years the questions, "why? and what if?" plagued me, but I don't ask anymore. Now I mostly feel a soft kind of sadness for my brother, knowing all that he's missed out on in the years he's been gone. So many things from not ever knowing his niece and nephew to just the tons of other things that have happened in the world that I know he would have been interested in.

I generally only talk about this when it will be of help to someone else who is either contemplating suicide, or of help to someone who has been left behind because of it...The reason is the stigma that so many people attach to the word suicide. Although my family and myself never went to such lengths, I understand perfectly why the wife of the man bandylu refers to told mourners at his funeral that he'd died of "natural causes". Nobody ever wants to talk about it because suicide is such a taboo subject, and if they do, they want to place blame, which is an unfair burden to put on anyone's shoulders. We all have something deep inside of us that will push us over the edge...luckily, most of us never have to find out what that is.

There will always be an empty place that cannot be filled, but I believe that what my brother did was what he perceived to be his only choice, his only way out of his own personal hell...a hell that no one who wasn't in his shoes could understand.

And, Phoenix...I understand the personal choice of wanting to die with dignity, and believe that is a person's right, but I do hope that all other avenues have been explored before that final, irreversible step is taken.