Suicide is NOT Painless, Despite What the Song Says

[linguist]

Not only are you removing yourself for life, and therefore causing grief to family, friends, loved ones, etc.; you're also traumatizing whoever else happened to be around at the time...and that's wrong.

i wholeheartedly agree. it's bad enough to cause such pain to one's family and friends, but to drag innocent strangers into it is the worst kind of wrong.

10 years ago i was one of about 2 dozen witnesses to a public suicide. it happened less than 15 feet from me. i can't speak for the other witnesses, because i haven't had any contact with them since that night, but it's scarred me for life.

i'm sorry that the woman i saw kill herself was in so much pain that she felt that suicide was her only option. i'm sorry for her friends and family, who've lost someone they love. but most of all i'm sorry for those of us who had never met her, who'd never done anything to her, who she dragged into her pain against our will.

i do truly hope she found the peace she was looking for, but you know what? i was happy. i was at peace. she took that away from me, and she had no right. i am deeply, deeply resentful of her for 10 years of nightmares, nightmares i expect i'll have the rest of my life.

[guywithashovel]

This is a really horrible thing. Yeah, understatement, I know, but that's the most eloquent thing I can think of right now.

I didn't know Plaidman that well. I never had any communications with him aside from the occasional interaction in threads. However, he always seemed like a really bright guy with a good heart. He seemed to me to be a big champion of the downtrodden. Anytime he thought someone was being picked on, he always had something forceful to say about it.

I could see that he was troubled, though. He wanted nothing more than for someone to love him romantically, and he always seemed to feel like most people disdained him. I can remember feeling very concerned about him when his thread about people complaining about their SOs was active on the boards. It was obvious that he was aching for someone to love. He also thought that everyone else on the board was laughing at him for the opinions he was voicing. I certainly wasn't, and I hope no one else was, either.

As for the topic, I guess suicide is selfish, but I think we should be careful before tearing into someone who has done it or thought about doing it. Depression and despair can be powerful things, and it's possible that the person thinks everyone would be better off without him or her in the world.

[dendawg]

I could see that he was troubled, though. He wanted nothing more than for someone to love him romantically, and he always seemed to feel like most people disdained him. I can remember feeling very concerned about him when his thread about people complaining about their SOs was active on the boards. It was obvious that he was aching for someone to love. He also thought that everyone else on the board was laughing at him for the opinions he was voicing. I certainly wasn't, and I hope no one else was, either.

Wow....there's so much of how I feel sometimes in that last paragraph it's scary. High self-esteem and I have never really been great friends, I've never had the best of luck romantically, and I'm really lucky that I have somebody that loves me for what I am other than family. Even if I didn't have her and the promise of someday finally being united once and for all, though, I'd never really consider suicide an option and I have one person to thank for that:

My grandfather. In the space of one day, he got laid off from his job and got diagnosed with cancer. Rather than deal with that with my grandma, the selfish son of a bitch found a rifle and blew a giant hole in his chest. The Saturday after my grandma found his body. It took me a long time before I could even begin to forgive him for the pain he caused not only my grandma, but me and the rest of the family. 27 years ago, and there's still a pretty big part of me that hates him for doing that.

There's also a part of me that hates Plaid for doing what he did, but I can empathize with his depression, if not his physical condition. Why did you have to do it, Plaid? There were plenty of people who considered you friends, if not in the real world, then at least here and at CS.

Lastly, for any of those of you considering suicide:

DON'T DO IT!!!!

THERE'S ALWAYS ANOTHER WAY!!!

[Lace Neil Singer]

Not quite the same thing, but I self harmed for years before I got hit with clinical depression, and, in answer to a question of "If you think that suicide is selfish, would you consider yourself selfish?" the answer is yes.

There were a few occasions when my self harm landed me in Casualty; once cuz I'd taken an overdose of painkillers to damage myself from within, and the rest of the time to get my arms stitched up. By being there as a person who had inflicted damage on themselves, I was being selfish and taking up space and doctor time that could have been spent on someone who'd say, been in a car accident or accidently hurt themselves. I had no regard whatsoever on the pain I was causing my family; I didn't care about anyone else but myself and how much I personally was hurting inside.

My overdose, had it resulted in my death, could have been interpreted as a suicide attempt by others, who would have no doubt have railed at me posthumously about my incredible selfishness and unthinking attitude. At the time, I wasn't suffering from depression; I was miserable cuz I was going thru vicious bullying at school which made me feel as tho I was worthless. The bullies even told me on several occasions to kill myself and do the world a favour. Whether that state of mind comes from clinical depression or a situation like I was in, the wish for the peace of being dead is a strong one that not everyone can withstand. I managed to do so, cuz I had another outlet; my self harm.

Later on, when the depression hit, I once again longed to be dead, to finally have an end to a life so full of suffering. I didn't do anything active as such tho, as my depression took the form of apathy and an absence of feelings, rather than deep misery. I felt as if I was a robot, going thru the motions and felt it would be easier if I could just go to sleep and never wake up. However, I had something on my side that counted, and which I believe in a lot of cases makes the difference between surrendering to dispair and pulling thru. My parents cared about me; they forced me to get up out of bed and dragged me to see a doctor. It made all the difference and was the turning point.

Maybe Plaid didn't have that kind of support behind him, so he felt that he was truly alone in the world. It doesn't always matter if you have friends; they can't be there for you all the time and sometimess it's just not enough. However, I agree with the sentiments expressed in the post above me. Suicide isn't the way. There is always hope, and there is always a way out thru the depression and out the other side.

[Rapscallion]

Maybe Plaid didn't have that kind of support behind him, so he felt that he was truly alone in the world.

For the record, the moderating team as a whole put a lot of work into trying to keep him with us on more than one occasion. Due to time zones, I wasn't the main person involved.

I'm proud of the team we have. I've grieved over the eventual result, but looking back his condition just stopped him from listening.

Rapscallion

[MrsEclipse]

The following information and opinions are gleaned from active reading of the library's nonfiction section and may or may not actually be full of shit.

I think about suicide a lot. I read about the psychology, the statistics, the disorders associated with it. I read about different methods, for example how men are more likely to pick violent methods like guns while women prefer pills. I read about the trends in the stigma.

Suicide is a lot about ending pain that people see no way out of. One scary thought is that a lot of times the decision to go ahead and commit suicide, while the person may have been considering it for a while, even picked out the method and has the gun or the pills handy, there's only a very brief window where they may actually act on it. If the method is not available at the moment, the desire may pass back into the regular depression, and the next time he sees the gun he'd just shrug it off. If he did act, then for the rest of his friends and family's lives, they'll have to think, what if I was there for that window?

Suicide is a lot about control. Say, I can't control my emotional pain. I can't control the cancer that's eating away at my body. But at least I can control when I die. Hell, I can even control where and how I die, which is a lot more than most people get.

Sometimes I even think about my own suicide, hypothetically. If I die, I count the people who would be devastated, who would be saddened, who would take notice, and who wouldn't care, except they figure they ought to feel sad. Then I know that I have some sort of control over these people, because they love me. And they have control over me, because I love them.

Plaid was not in control in so many ways, that he exercised his control over the conditions of his death and the one control he had over his emotional state, possibly without considering or even being able to consider the control he had over us that causes us to feel that way. Or maybe he did. And too many people will forever wonder if there was just a small window where we could have done something. And hell, maybe after this he would finally find the inner peace or combination of meds that turns his life around. Probably not. Most likely not. But hell, the what ifs are part of what makes us human.

This brings me to the big question of the thread: Was Plaid's suicide selfish?

... Fuck if I know. For all we know, I'm just full of shit anyway.

Oh well. I got free hugs if anyone needs them.

[kibbles]

If you saw yourself in what I wrote, I have to wonder why?

Actually, I have to admit that I had mistakenly thought you were referencing McDreidel09 in your post too. It just shows that one should never assume.

[Andara Bledin]

Considering that a large percentage of us are active on both here and CS and the whole thing between the two was fairly "public" as these things go, I suspect the default of most people would be to assume that it matches up with information they already have and not information that only appears to have only been known to one who posted and nobody else here.

^-.-^

[Racket_Man]

I have held off on posting in this thread for a couple of days now cause the situation with Plaid hit very close to home.

first my own suicidial thoughts from years gone by

and

second by someone close to me actually attempting the deed and almost succeeding the end (well in the end I did lose her but only to divorce)

on the first one. it seems Plaid and I had a lot in common. not concerning the physical disease part but in the fact that we were "alone", just wanted someone to like us, chronic depression, the "noone notices us/likes us" feeling, no friends, being picked on, low self-esteem, the situation is alway hopeless, etc.

I was a very ackward child and born to parents who were just about to enter the "empty nest" stage of their lives (read into that what you will). I could not seem to make real friends (seemed like only fairweather counted), did not seem to fit easily into any group or category, was not really able to interact with my own age peers, could not really interact with adults, have ALWAYS had a general feeling of "why try anymore. I can not seem to get it together and I AM ANGRY but I do not know why", could not seem to please my parents or live up to the reputation of my older siblings, got put down a lot by my own parents, in addition my peers were relentless in their teasing.

in a room full of people I would be the stereotypical wall flower, off in a corner by myself alone. all of my opposite sex relationships were initiated by the other party not me, BUT it was they who dumped me in the end.

the suicidial thoughts came mostly in my younger years before I somehow learned to "cope" with the reality of my life and my acceptance of my somewhat chronic depression (no meds here). I still though am the erternal pessimist. expect/fear the worst and be satisfied and somewhat proud when the worst happened. I have accepted medocrity even though I have mightly strived for higher and better things. I have, unfortuneately accepted that I will not be known nor cared about outside of a small circle of people, and ulitmately be a nobody who left no marks on this world, a person who not many will remember and that I am somewhat of a joke.



I know I have posted this story before but it bears repeating

as to the second point. my now Ex wife did try (and damn near succeed) to commit suicide about 15 years ago.

/bg
at the time she was (and still is) having a LOT of medical and physical problems that could not be fixed or cured. very chonic conditions going on. must negative emotion and hopelessness going around the house. we just did the best we could

mix into that a school system that somehow let some people in authority
say and do things they should not have.

/end bg

I am at work at a downtown office in a different city from where I live while this is transpiring. I am reachable by phone but 45 - 60 minutes away as I rode the subway to work.

after a particually bad morning between DD and Mom, daughter came into school claiming that "Mom tried to break my arms and legs. (not true of course) " school immediately called in the local CPS (logical procedure and I have no problem with that) for investigation. the school social worker then got on the phone to Mom and made very dispariging statements concerning Mom and what WOULD happen ie. they would get Ex charged with some sort of crime, take DD away, make life hell for me, etc. the problem was was that this person should NOT have made these statements in any way shape or form before an examination and initial determination was made by CPS.

Ex flipped out at that point. she screamed a few obsentites at the social worker and hung up. she then called me at my office and, being incoherient, tried to tell me what had happened. she said "FUCK THIS, I can't take this shit anymore and if they are going to take DD away for something I did NOT do I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE ANYMORE!!!!!!!!" and slams the phone down.

being blindsided I called her back. she screamed at me some more all the while cry and blabbering she was going to take a bunch of pills and kill herself. again she hung up on me. I call back again and am literall screaming at her not to do something stupid. she then says she has already swallowed a bunch of sleeping pills and is now going to take a shower so someone will not find a "dirty body" and promptly hangs up. I keep calling but no answer.

The whole office now knew what the situation was.. I called the local
police (in the village where we lived) to get them and a medical rescue unit to our apartment.

Finally I get her on the line again and tell her that I have called emergancy services and they will be there shortly. she still want to end it all. the EMTs finally get there while I am talking to her. they drag her into the ambulance and off to the ER they go.

I leave work but still have a 60 minute train ride to go WTF just happened????. needless to say that train ride was the longest hour I have ever spent --- wondering if EX was still alive, hurt, even more damaged, etc. and what was the fallout going to be. all the while I was shaking and dizzy and could not put together a coherient thought. when I got off the train I could hardly walk or drive.

after getting the "story' from the school I go to the ER and find they have pumped Exs stomach. soemhwat of a close call but she is alive and, relatively speaking OK.

lots of things happen after that but that is in the post I have made previously



Now to my point. I have seen both sides of the coin concerning this. I know what it is like to seriously contemplate this act (Plaid' side) and I know what it is like to be on the other side (all those he left behind)

as we will never know exactly what lset of thoughts and situations lead to this tragedy we can only speculate but I DO understand (more than I would like to).

The illogical and irrational become VERY rational and logical in a moment of supream "clarity" (and yes I used that word purposely becasue that IS what happens)



for Jester

if you read the lyrics of the original song Suicide is Painless they convey a real sense of helplessness, pain, loneliness, defeat and the inevitable "it is not going to get any better" mindset. It is those things that drives someone to point of who cares anymore.

all you want is for THE PAIN, the loneliness, the depression, the anger, the emptyness, the beatdown TO STOP anyway possible. (been there done that almost) and death seems like it would be a warm welcome friend. to go to a place where all of crap and pain stops.

Now beyond that most who try and/or succeed do not contemplate the aftermath of the deed. it DOES leave behind even more pain, confusion, anger and a great loss.

was this selfish??? I do not know but whose point of view are we4 talking about???? Yours or his.

was this "Painless"???? NO from both sides of the coin. no arguement here. he wanted the pain to stop and we are left wiht nothing BUT pain in the aftermath

was it the only way out? again NO. BUT we are not Plaid. we have NO clue what thoughts were swirling around in his mind and what state of mind he was in. BUT as I said before the illogical and irrational can become very logical and rational if one lets that inner voice persuade one to far.

[Ree]

Considering that a large percentage of us are active on both here and CS and the whole thing between the two was fairly "public" as these things go, I suspect the default of most people would be to assume that it matches up with information they already have

Considering that anyone who knows me would realize I wouldn't deliberately make a hurtful comment directed at another member, I'm surprised people defaulted to that conclusion, especially when my wording was not actually directed at one single person:

Imagine the pain of desperately seeking someone to love and thinking you've found that because one girl or another smiles and plays with your emotions like you're a kitten at the end of a string, and then pats you on the cheek and tells you she just doesn't care for you in that way, but she loves you like a friend.

It was also no secret and was not known only to me, because Plaid constantly posted about his troubles with girls who only wanted to be friends, and who sent him mixed signals.

[LexiaFira]

I feel i have to add my two scents in the fact of understanding to what I CAN understand. I may not have understood ALL what Plaidman went through but from what he did chose to tell me it sounded like a personal hell.
I do apologize as this may very well offend, be off the subject a bit but it has a point. And if it is totally unacceptable I expect the mods to do their job. and will take what comes. not to throw it in your face but until now i have been quiet because i just couldn't seem to get across what its like to be depressed to those who haven't ever seen it or at least share what its like so that yes, those that do suffer aren't alone in what they go through.


not unlike what I would go through in the past few years before moving to the south.
Depression is a very hurtful negative beast that for me is consuming.
I remember that there were some days in perspective and points of view I couldn't see past myself, how much it hurt and how many negative thoughts and other voices I had telling me how horrible I am how unworthy I am and repeatedly pointing out all my faults from people who either always called me that or from the one random person I might never see again said ONCE.

From what I remember feeling afterwords, how horrid of me how shameful, all I could think about was myself and that brought on guilt and to deal with that I would work hard, until I felt useful. That meant burning myself out at work, home, and school when I was in school until I was burned out or until the next wave of depression came. Sometimes Plaid would do that with his work and school and sleep for ages, sometimes missing monday classes.

Selfish is irrelevant. He wasn't in control of himself. It was the nature of the illness.

I feel that depression is very much a debilitating thing more so than its name lets on. Its like a monster at the back of your brain seeping into every thought and action until you are so struck with negative thoughts that its so hard to function. To the point that even if you are going on with the day even little mess up can be the end of the world as you are already in such a low state.
It can be all consuming until you or as myself at one point thought suicide was the only way out and that everyone was better off without me EVEN if i left a mess for them to clean up. I was well aware that if I did this, people would have to deal with it. Well that was then when it was just me, and I didn't care so much if I hurt myself. Now people depend upon me, I depend upon myself and I can't let them down by not being here in life anymore. It feels good to know that even though I may feel its not true, there are people here I can call family that love me.

However because for years I did not get help when I was somewhat on stable mental ground or did not know it was available or at worst in my particular state help meant jumping through hoops just to be told hi or no or sorry you "don't qualify" or not being believed for a while it was like why bother. They hear me but aren't really listening. This was in the days before bipolar was bipolar and was manic depressive or just not well known.
It really does cloud your thinking, your judgement and just about everything else.

When i wasn't on medication it felt as though there were clouds hiding a battlefield and I was on automatic pilot. And that was a good day. When the battlefield was visible and as clear as day it was a massacre that drug me down to its bloody depths and thats when the negative voices began and i would spiral down within minutes and be useless because i was swirling in my own self hate or loathing. took me years to go from i cannot stand myself i disgust myself, to i hate myself to I don't like myself to finally. i am ok and that is good.

Maybe even imagine the pain of looking in a mirror and seeing a misshapen face that, in your eyes, makes you a monster, even if well meaning people with attractive or "normal" faces tell you it doesn't matter, and good self esteem is so much more attractive. .

I know very much what it is to look in the mirror and see a monster or something ugly and so easy to not believe when people tell you that you aren't or it isn't what they see. To want so bad to be psychic to have them understand what you see versus what they see. It would be easier to understand what they see so that for once its a change in perspective but until then all one has is actions and words.

SO when Ree had posted that what Plaid saw in himself in the mirror is not what we saw, its very difficult to see past your own negative self image if all you heard growing up was negative or not even helpful things.
As much as he was depressed, he never hesitated to let others know that he cared about them or that others cared or that he cared enough to tell them something via PM.
I wish i could have turned that same message around to him to have him understand it was THE SAME WAY to him, we are here we care...and it DOES mean something....
So for now I will remember the times we had fun goofing around via text and on cs. and this Meow is for you.

The point is that even in all this mental and emotional darkness he suffered, there was still light but if you cannot get the person to open the proverbial shutters to let in the light its hard to help beyond being there and listening.

again i am sorry. I felt this had to be said

[Victoria J]

It just seems like a dick thing to start a thread like this only a week after his death, especially in light of the fact that the CS thread is still active with people still finding out the news for the first time.

I was really pleased to find this thread. Personally I wish it had been posted earlier.

One person is dead and nothing we do now can help or hurt him. But the death has brought up a lot of pain and confusion for a lot of people, including as shown in this thread those who have thought about suicide themselves, had love ones commit suicide or witnessed suicide.

Many people on CS have posted offering help or telling people about sources of help to prevent others making the same terrible choice. Jester was one of the most generous in volunteering an ear. I thought that was a great response, not just feeling bad but offering the only thing that can make a practical difference. Helping the next person when we couldn't help this person.

Part of that was a recognition that talking about our feelings, our pain and confusion, is important. It seems very wrong to make this the one subject that we can't so that for.

Personally I don't know why I find myself so fascinated by suicide. I suffer from serious depression but have never been suicidal myself. I guess the fact that my mother has considered ending her own life is part of it. That I have strong opinions about everything but still don't know what I think about Euthanasia. Since reading of Plaid's death I have been thinking a lot about suicide and really appreciate a chance to get some of those thoughts out of my head where they have been going round and round.

In this case I found it particularly difficult to reconcile the extremely caring nature of Plaid, as shown by his work and the support so many on CS said he had given them when they needed it, and the extremely hurtful act of his death. I cannot see them in my head as the same person. As mentioned by others in this thread those affected by losing people to suicide and those who inadvertently become involved in public suicides are hurt so much. A family friend was a priest and once got called out to a suicide which had taken place in a very violent and unpleasant way and found himself laying hands on part of the person. He never talked it about but was obviously extremely distressed for some months afterwards, and he was a priest. Presumably both used to death and having more of the spiritual answers than the rest of us for these things. Suicides hurts people.

Suffice it to say: I'm just really glad that we directed Plaids mom to CS rather than here, where he has been more active as of late.

I certainly wouldn't want to complain to his parents about how I'm feeling. Their pain must be unimaginable and more than anything else I feel for them. But I don't think the contents of this thread would shock them somehow. If a close friend had done this and I was talking to their parents with some right to feel the loss along side them I would mention loss and sadness at the pain someone felt to do this and anger. It's how suicides make people feel.

Horribly it is almost certainly something his parents feel. Anger at him for doing it, and for hurting them. Anger at themselves for not being enough to stop it. More anger at him for putting them in that position. It isn't instead of the love and missing someone but for most people it will be there.

I have a pretty extreme view actually.
I believe anyone, for any reason, should be able to take their own lives at any time.

In my view, any person who feels he's in too much pain (emotion, physical, both) should have the right to end his/her life. Even if they do understand all the grief and mourning that will inflict on their loved ones. Even if they don't.

When we had to put our dog down after 14 years - i felt it would be selfish of me to let him live on. He was in constant pain in multiple places.

The problem with this view is that when people are prevented from committing suicide so many don't try again. One set of statistics suggest 96% of those prevented from jumping off a bridge didn't make another attempt.

It's not that ending your life can't be a rational decision. But many aren't. It is a very horrible idea that someone will feel overwhelmed and unable to see a way out for a moment and if they could only have lived felt differently the next day, week or year.

With mental illness it is also so hard to separate the illness for the person/personality. And when someone is so ill we may not consider them to be capable of making other decisions how can we accept they are able to make this one.

I've decided to have one cat euthanized. It's one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. But I made that decision from outside, rationally, not effected by the pain and fear I would have felt if I had been the one suffering the illness.

Where people are ill, and particularly where they are getting worse over time, it does seem reasonable to let people end their lives. But how you make that possible without letting thousands and thousands make the most permanent wrong decision ever I don't know. How do you manage those with both physical and mental illness ? How do you work out when mental illness objectively makes life not worth living ?

Plus there are plenty of things we prevent people doing that might be good for them. If something is bad for society we still make it illegal. Even people who feel they may get nothing out of live may still be contributing to society. Wherever people have eloquently campaigned for the right to die it has the opposite effect for me as it shows me how worthwhile their life is in some way.

As I mentioned my mother has discussed ending her life. She has had one very serious illness that left her with permanent health problems and has more recently had other problems following surgery. Her first experience led her to conclude that there were limits to what she would go through just to survive, and that some types of life were not worth living. Yet after spending time paralyzed, effectively learning to walk again and having poor health ever since she worked for an extra 20 years and did important work including work that protected children. Now the depression caused by her current treatment and health can make her irrational at times, but at the same time she may face a time where her quality of life is not enough for her.

She asked me whether I would "respect her decision" and I said I would do so only if she went to counselling which she had done. I feel I have made her mistrust me. I can be very literal and I meant literally that I would not respect her actions otherwise, not that I would actively prevent her. I fear she may now keep it from me if she does decide to act to end her own life one day. I think if she could have done she would have done this 20 years and she and everyone else would have missed out on a lot of good and that makes me disapprove. However it also hurts incredibly that because of the legal position if she does this she will do it alone and could not have support.

As I say it leaves me confused.

Maybe it should be legal but you should have to look the people you are leaving behind in the eye and tell them first.

There have actually been several women over the years who played the "I love you like a friend" game.

Following his death I really couldn't work out whether to be relieved I hadn't argued with some of his posts I had felt uncomfortable about, or whether I wished I had. I think his view of women and romantic relationships were somewhat troubled. He was lonely and had a lot of love to give someone and I feel for him, but I think he was very unrealistic about relationships and wrong to believe that having love in that way was THE thing his life was missing. I kind of wish he had found what he was looking for but I certainly don't think anyone having a relationship with him would have had an easy time of it. If I was advising a friend looking to enter a relationship with someone going through what he was I would advise against it.

I also think that while some women do deliberately manipulate men in the way you suggest and that is cruel thing to do, the other side of that is men who have difficulty accepting when women do not have romantic feelings for them and who claim to like women while ultimately giving no value to their friendship if it doesn't come with sex. I'm not saying this was the case here, but any general reference to the " the "I love you like a friend" game" makes me very uncomfortable. Women don't owe men anything more than they want to give, regardless of how that makes men feel.

Maybe Plaid didn't have that kind of support behind him, so he felt that he was truly alone in the world.

For the record, the moderating team as a whole put a lot of work into trying to keep him with us on more than one occasion.

You can be there to offer support, you can't make someone take it. Sometimes people are too far into depression to be reachable.

Victoria J

[Andara Bledin]

The problem with this view is that when people are prevented from committing suicide so many don't try again. One set of statistics suggest 96% of those prevented from jumping off a bridge didn't make another attempt.

However it also hurts incredibly that because of the legal position if she does this she will do it alone and could not have support.

If we were to have a rational system whereby those who honestly felt that that life was too painful, physically or mentally, could have a way to legally end their own lives, I think there would actually be less who finally opt for that.

But as there is such a legal and social stigma attached to the act, and it must be done furtively and/or quickly lest someone else prevent it from happening, the person considering the act is actually made more isolated, which more often than not, is part of the reason they would be considering the option in the first place.

Of course, there will still be those who cannot bear to continue who will still opt to end their own suffering. But they shouldn't be forced to do so alone, just as they shouldn't be forced to live in what they consider to be overwhelming agony.

^-.-^

[crazylegs]

I have direct experience in many suicides.

I've come across those dead in a park, hanging from the play swings.

I've cut down those who were discovered by 14 year old kids.

I've put people into body bags that have done such damage to themselves that a passer by couldn't tell if they were male or female.

I've been the one who has tried to resus someone who's taken more drugs than a human body could ever handle.

My thoughts have never been 'how could they be so selfish' but have always been 'what has gone so terribly wrong that this person couldn't see any other way out'.

Some people who commit suicide are depressed - at the very bottom of depression those people literally cannot be bothered to kill themselves, it is only when they start to get better and can see the months of pain behind them at which point they can no longer take what is happening to them but they now have the mental resources to plan their own death that it occurs.

Some people are terminally ill and want to die on their own terms, rather than languishing in a hospital bed with no control over their bodily functions nor the ability to control their pain.

Some people have chronic conditions that mean they are continually exposed to pain - it pervades their very being and their life simply revolves around it.

I do not know which of the above, if any, affected Plaidman. I do know that a great deal of people here believed that they were his friends and are frankly feeling guilty that they could do nothing to prevent his death.

I am not for one moment suggesting that he was an angel and perfect in every way but he was a person and one that we would have quite happily sat and had a drink with.

Is it fair to anyone that discovers a suicide victim? Most probably not, but is it fair that that individual has been dealt such a bad hand in life that they took their own life - I would suggest not.

[NateSean]

As I read through these posts, I debated strongly about whether or not I wanted to weigh in on this discussion. On the one hand, the reigning theme is the volatile feelings associated with both the passing of a friend and the feelings associated with suicide in general. On the other hand, it's a split down the middle division among people who feel or do not feel the need to justify their opinions.

Up front, I did not know Plaidman. I responded to handful of his posts. And I actually did search through all of my threads to see if he had ever posted in one of mine. I did this because it is what I did when a member from the Highlander boards passed away due to illness. I discovered that her last post directed at me was on the day of my twenty-fifth birthday and it both saddened and empowered me that this person was in my life, even if she was seperated by an ocean, two continents and the undetermined distance of cyberspace that exists between two computers.

That said, when I heard news of his passing, I was just as hurt as I was when I read that woman's post. Not because I knew him, but because someone else who was a part of the community I was in was no longer with us. It depressed the hell out of me on a very real level, and I found it was one of the many reasons I couldn't get through the week without finding something crappy about it.

When I found out that suicide was the cause of death, I avoided the thread like the plague. I all ready knew what would be said about it, because conversations like this always arise around the subject of suicide. Feelings become confused and volatile and it's hard to throw in two cents on the subject, no matter what your feelings are.

But, I feel I do need to share this little bit of my own personal feelings, and I know that like the OP, this feeling will be controversial and meet with as many approvals or disapprovals as the case may be.

I for one do not find suicide to be a selfish act. Because for one, I am utterly and absolutely terrified of death. I love breathing air. I love standing by the ocean and looking up at the moon and stars and being apart of the living experience as I feel the night wind on my skin. I love eating and drinking. I love the sweetness of sugary sodas and of stuffing myself at an all you can eat Chinese buffet. I love reading books and feeling for the characters. And I love talking to people and reading and writing and listening to music. And seeing movies. I love these things way too much.

And whenever I think of death, all I can imagine is nothingness. No more eating, or drinking. No more breathing. No more walking and no more seeing the ocean. I am utterly terrified at the prospect of no longer breathing and suddenly just not being. Whether I believe in Heaven and Hell or not is irrelevant. I don't want to find out they exist by dying. And I am terrified by this prospect.

So, in my mind, someone who can take their life has to have a lot of courage. Because they don't know what will happen any more than I do, but they are so certain that it is the answer they are willing to do it. To go through with it for any reason, saddens and angers me, but at the same time I find myself wondering if I would ever have the strength go through with it myself.

The fact of the matter is, my life has sucked a lot of balls this past year. And I have tried my damndest to put on a happy face for people. I've come to grips with the fact that losing my job was my fault and that I may have to live with the lasting consequences of it for a very long time. I look at the mounting debts I have to deal with and the fact that I am stuck in a homeless shelter, pounding the pavement every day for work, trying like hell to make a life that I am happy with. I look at it all and I feel it like a weight constantly crushing my chest.

When I go to people for help, they're either trying like hell to shove a pill down my throat, or they're not convinced that I need help because I was stupid enough not to show up in a wheelchair with a bib around my neck.

And if it's not people refusing to help when I ask for it, it's people giving me help that I don't want. Like people offering bullshit solutions to my problems that only work in real life if the rest of the world suddenly becomes a John Hughes film and I'm the main character. Or suggesting the aformentioned pills that may yet reduce the anxiety, but won't remove the reason I am anxietal in the first place. Which is my current situation of being both jobless and homeless.

The fact of the matter is, as flowery as I can get about why I love life, I also consider whether or not the people in my life would be better off if I were not in this world.

I think of two of my four younger brothers. Both with families and both surviving their own life challenges and currently raising families. Alex having done a tour of service in Iraq and now having his own business license. Daryll running a successful record label/scouting agency.
My little sister will always have them as examples to look up to. Me, I'm basically on a spiral that will end with me being the functionally retarted older brother who can't hold down a job and lives on disability.

Then there's my debt. Right now, my mother is remarried and her last name has changed. I had her name and my brothers and sister all have the last names of their fathers. So, if I died right now far from them, the companies I owe money to would be hard pressed to track them down and force them to pay off my debts.

And my mother doesn't dress up the dead. She barely gives me any credit now that I'm alive, so by the time my sister, my nieces and nephew were in high school, I would pretty much be a faded picture on the wall.

So, there. I have had it worked out in my mind for a while, who would suffer and who would benefit from my death. I have a reasonable amount of hope that I would pretty much go into the city's incinerator if my body were located and that would be the end of it so there would be no expense associated with it.

So why have I not given up yet? It goes back to fear for one. Fear that keeps me from going through with it. Hope that if I keep at it, I just might improve my situation by a smidgeon. Knowing that far too many people would respond to my death with a shit eating grin and a declaration of "I told you so". And the slight possibility that I'm wrong about my debt and the credit card companies and student loans would still try to shake my family down for money, taking them to court and putting my sister through hell.

Does that make me better than someone who does commit suicide? No. I just also know that dying certainly won't improve my situation, even if I do start to think a little too much about it.
And with the exception of the rather public cry for help that landed me in the psych ward this past December, I have to believe that I can pull through on my own.