Co-worker commited suicide - Page 5

+1, I agree completely.

Disagree. As far as I can see, the fundamental cause of these incidents is the stigma surrounding mental health treatment, not the stigma against suicide.

Just tell a judge or a doc that you might be thinking of killing yourself and you can kiss fundamental rights away, possibly for life. Do this and the system instantly treats you like a mental incompetent and can involuntarily commit you, depending on the whims of whatever judge/doctor pair you run into.

And these are the people that are supposedly trying to help you... Not exactly the best way to encourage people to come in with their minor issues before those develop into major ones.

Well there are pretty good reasons for that. Tolerance for suicide ain't exactly an optimal trait for society, especially in prehistoric times. Kind of hard to remove two hundred thousand years of conditioning in a few hundred.

Then again, I'm not too sure the stigma against suicide even should go away. A healthy societal stigma against suicide may even help keep suicide rates down as long as it's coupled with a strong approval for mental health treatment.

Not really sure if cancer is a good comparison. Many incidences of cancer are directly related to poor choices on the part of the person with cancer. Notables include skin (excessive sun exposure), lung (smoking), esophageal (drinking), and mouth (drinking and smoking) cancers.

I don't believe the selfish argument is meant to persuade the suicidal to not commit suicide. Suicide is inherently irrational, and Rather, it explains/justifies why people some people view suicide as a "Bad Thing (tm)".

Well, such notables as Seung-Hui Cho, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold would have done well to have offed themselves early on. They would have done better to get the appropriate psychological treatments, but hey, suicide beats murder/suicide any day of the week.

You are blending things that dont belong together. I dont know about prehistoric times but suicide was not only tolerated in pre-christian era, some forms of it were even encouraged. Under Rome suicide was qualified as a crime essentially for fiscal motives. Even the first christians were, for a long time, attracted by this easy and fast way of gainning access to the promised land. Since the Sennheiser headphones were not invented yet they provoqued the barbarians to be put to death. And on and on..... until the medical science found out that the felo de se was indeed a sick man.
So what you see as a conditionning originating from «la nuit des temps» is in reality much more recent than what you think.

Doctor Marvin first day at the cancer center and facing his first patient:

«So you're sick you pathetic looser....»

My point was, and still is, you have to be able to form an intent to be responsable of your actions. Some psychological problems can lead to a personal state in wich the individual loose all perspectives about the inherent and universal self preservation priority.

Therefore, suicide being by far a direct consequence of a serious mental imbalance, it is sufficient to protect the individual against the too numerous uneducated morons (here and elsewhere) who are passing judgement on these poor individuals.

My apologies to aphex944 for that distasteful turn of event.

Amicalement

I'm sorry for your loss. My uncle committed suicide when I was 9. I am now 43, and my family has never really recovered from it.

I was thinking about this before, and for all the people that think it is a selfish decision:
Do you not think it's selfish for other people to expect you to live through the suffering, just for them?

I'd give you +rep if I could. You seem to be the most insightful and understanding member on this topic.

I don't mean to make any enemies (or friends for that matter), but I fail to see why braillediver's statement is so invalid.

Suicide - in the cases I'm familiar with - is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Suicide is a selfish act because people are all individuals. You are affected because you feel left out of the picture when said person takes his/her own life. Why? Because we are also selfish. We want these people to remain by our sides because they have qualities you like, qualities which you value and qualities you often lack yourself.

There are cases when I think suicide is an unjustifiable act, for example leaving after children to fend for themselves. Nothing in my opinion can justify that, no matter how run-down you are.

However, there are also cases which I think are highly justifiable. A year or two back I read in the paper about a husband and wife who had their child run over by a car next to a camping site - right before their eyes. In such a situation, I believe life would have lost all it's meaning and value and suicide would in fact be a valid "escape".

Sorry to hear!

Here's to you for making it through some tough times

I have a friend who has been on them as well, seems as if he is happier more often, but when he does get sad or down it brings him down deeper than he was off the meds. Really is a struggle and anyone who thinks happiness is a prescription away is misinformed