Nobody Signed Up For This

[MilkMoon]

"Suicide is the cowardly thing to do"

"It's going to get better/ be alright" - "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger"

"It's a permanent solution to a temporary problem"

"Life is a gift"

"It's against God's will"

Instead of writing an essay, let me list all my points in response to the typical comments above against suicide:

1. How do you know what the person is facing to be able to call them a coward? What do you know of their life, their losses, their mental state? If someone was about to be murdered and/or tortured, what else do you want them to do? Sit back and take it? For what? To prove to the world that they are brave? A world that doesn't care, and never will? Isis women's international cross-cultural exchange tells of a woman gang-raped in Uganda saying " “I was tortured, raped, beaten and my son and husband killed. My home was destroyed, -everything. I have suffered too much. Now I hear of war coming from Congo. Well, I have my poison

capsules ready. If they approach my village, I will swallow them and die. I can’t live through more war”. [14]." If she did eventually end up committing suicide, would you blame her? Or call her 'coward'? Are you in that situation to even have the right to do so?

2. Suffering can make you stronger depending on the degree. Minor to mild suffering can make you stronger. More intense suffering (war, loss, sexual abuse, poverty, etc) can bring you depression, PTSD, mental, health, and emotional disorders, etc. Severe suffering can even cause insanity. And it doesn't always get better, believe it or not. War veterans suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for years, and victims of child sexual abuse get flashbacks and emotional disorders for decades afterwards. Others might remain poor their whole lives. People with Cancer, AIDS...incurable. How about them? Are you going to make them stay in hospital beds, slowly dying, with nobody around them to support them? For what? They're going to die anyway, if they want to end the pain and torment sooner than later, that's their decision.



3. The reply to this would be the same as in my second point. Suffering or sickness isn't always temporary. It seems ignorant to think life always gets better. Sometimes it gets worse. Think of the people in Japan, or in Haiti (who were poor to begin with), who lost everything from their savings to their families. Would you blame them for committing suicide? Even those who have absolutely nothing left and would be doomed to living on the street for the rest of their lives? Is that temporary?

4. A gift? For some, this might be true. However, think of people all over the world. The poor, the sick, the homeless, the lonely... those who have nothing to live for. For them, death is a gift. Death means peace, rest, ease. Life means suffering, pain, loss, and work. If life is a gift, it's a pretty bad one to receive. For me, my definition of gift is something that brings happiness, or something that somebody wanted that I gave to them. I look around me, I look at other people from young to old. I can see some of the happiness and good, but most of it is covered by the shadow of all the blackness and cruelty, and I have to say, that of all the things life is, 'gift' is not one of them. Some people don't want to be alive, and don't receive happiness from it. Thus, life is not a 'gift' at all.

5. God's will was to make the world, and look where that led us. Gods' will was to place a tree in the garden of Eden. God's will is to send people to hell for not believing in him. God's will is find suicide unforgivable, but not murder. I couldn't care less what God's will is, to be honest with you. He obviously couldn't care less about the plight of people down on planet Earth, much less the suffering they went through that led them to suicide. I mean, didn't he make the world like this in the first place for reasons unknown, knowing that it would turn out this way?

Yes, suicide can be selfish at times, like poet Sylvia Plath committing suicide with her two children in the next room. And I do agree that there are times when the problems faced are temporary. But I'm not talking about 'Oh, someone just broke up with me, I'm going to go commit suicide now' suicide. I'm talking about suicide-suicide. Where the person is undergoing this huge amount of suffering, has nothing left, and wants out.

For those people, I have but one thing to say. Nobody ever signed up for this. Nobody asked to be alive. If they have nothing left, and want out, then it is their right. It's their life. They can take it away if they want.

Because it's pointless to live simply for the sake of being alive.

[CARLA]

Well thought out and I agree on many points. Yes it is their life and I have no problem with anyone taking their life. It is the pain they leave behind for family, friends that in most if not all cases left with awful guilt about the suicide.

I personally think most sins are forgiven in the end just my belief. There is a bit of heaven and hell right here on EARTH each and every day. Just have to make it work anyway you can, and some can't.

[jallytony]

CARLA;1373713 wrote: Well thought out and I agree on many points. Yes it is their life and I have no problem with anyone taking their life. It is the pain they leave behind for family, friends that in most if not all cases left with awful guilt about the suicide.

I personally think most sins are forgiven in the end just my belief. There is a bit of heaven and hell right here on EARTH each and every day. Just have to make it work anyway you can, and some can't.


i think God make us live in the world,and we should be strong enough and optimistic to face everything that would happen in our life,life is bitter sometimes,but anyway it is sweet,try to be brave,there are many people suffered from life,we need to learn how to face it

[gmc]

It's only a sin if you were brought up in the judeo Christian tradition. (I don't know claim to know about islamic attitudes) In the early days if the church life was so bad that if you believed on death you went to paradise there would have been mass suicides all over the place. Imagine being a slave in imperial rome if death was an out to a hellish life many would take it. The reality is most christian doctrine was crafted to control it's followers not to give them freedom to think for themselves. Personally I've always found the notion of original sin and all it's add ons absurd.

Terminally ill people opting for assisted suicide has been much debated here recently with a local msp proposing a bill aiming to give terminally ill people the right to die as she herself has a degenerative disease it makes her a powerful advocate.

[jones jones]

You have made several valid points here MilkMoon. For non christians such as myself, "the will of god" doesn't enter the equation. As you so rightly said, there is a great difference between "living" and simply "being alive."

In my experience, and without going into detail, believe me I do have experience, many ... not all ... but many people who commit or attempt to commit suicide, are not lucid or thinking clearly at the time.

There are many different reasons why earthlings commit suicide and many different ways to do it BUT there is only one decision needed to make for every one ... "I have decided to take my own life." Of course it takes no guts to kill yourself and of course in many, but not all cases, it could be cowardly, but believe me, MAKING that decision does take guts and it is NOT cowardly.

Mental illnesses such as Major Depressive Disorder, Dysthymic Disorder, Bipolar Disorder), Anxiety Depression, Panic Attacks and others, are still considered by many people as something one does not discuss in polite company and by many others as "imaginary" ilnesses. As a result, sufferers brought up in such families are reluctant to talk about their problem or even to consult their GP out of the stigma attached.

Of course these are not the only reasons why suicide becomes an option - there are many others, but the point I am making is that at the time the decision to commit suicide is made, most of these people are in a mental state in which they can see no other way out.

My own stay in a psychiatric "facility" did not cure my mental illness but it did end my desire to commit suicide over anything except maybe a terminal illness. And I have the interaction with my fellow "inmates" to thank for this and certainly not the legion of white clad earthlings who staffed the clinic.

But at the end of the day I still reserve the right to end my own life when and if I decide that I am in too much pain or that I am simply alive and not living.

With apologies to Bill Cosby I say: "My old man may have brought me into this world, but I will decide when I am gonna be taken out!"

[gmc]

That's why attempted suicide is seen as a cry for help. If you actually want to kill yourself you just do it.

But at the end of the day I still reserve the right to end my own life when and if I decide that I am in too much pain or that I am simply alive and not living.


You might need help though that's the nub of the assisted suicide question. The holy rollers are determined not to have a rational debate about it. Most people would be in favour if the decision was one taken well in advance.

Used to be the same with donor cards - didn't matter if I carried one or not my wishes could be overruled by immediate family.