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People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

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Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#301

Post by zajio1am »

cedws wrote: post #103
martindbp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much easier said than done. I doubt you'll feel the same way when that old age approaches, just like teenagers who think life is practically over by 40.

>just like teenagers who think life is practically over by 40 Sorry but... it kind of is, no? You've probably got a family weighing you down so you can't travel anymore. You don't have the freedom to start new exciting ventures. You can't quit your sucky job because it supports your family. You go to parties that end at 9pm and your social gatherings consist of talking about traffic and grocery prices. You're probabl…

Note that most of these issues are related to 'have a family', not to 'be over 40'.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#302

Post by fuzzfactor »

kstenerud wrote: post #161
s1artibartfast wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is saying it's easy or that people are invalid here.

ChrisMarshallNY is sitting in judgment of the fellow in Holland who made use of the euthanasia laws there. Specifically: "I find it doubly tragic, as there are proven alternative solutions" (judgment) "I personally know many people that were once far worse off than that gentleman, and are now doing quite well" (justification that invalidates the man's suffering) "Lots of folks have opinions on it, but I have experien…

From what I've seen, I have no doubt Chris means well.

People everywhere have all different things worth living for, and of course there are ups & downs that vary across time and relationships.

Regardless whether someone has the capacity to be helpful or harmful, almost always some judgement needs to be made or absolutely neither one will be forthcoming.

And there is always going to be someone else to disagree.

Whether either one is correct I wonder who is supposed to be the judge of that?

I see not a word of desecration.

Looking at the story of this particular dying Dutchman, seems to me the only thing within reach beforehand were quite temporary solutions not capable of overcoming relatively longer term problems.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#303

Post by denton-scratch »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #285
denton-scratch wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> non-religious argument against state-sanctioned suicide I don't like the word "suicide" at all. It has strong connotations of sin and criminality. The phrase "state-sanctioned suicide" implies that the state has active involvement in someone taking their own life. What I'm talking about is the state not actively interfering to make it hard for someone to decide for themself how and when they die. "My particular sit…

Suicide literally just means killing oneself: https://www.etymonline.com/word/suicide The connotations of sin and criminality are in the eye of the beholder. > What I'm talking about is the state not actively interfering to make it hard for someone to decide for themself how and when they die. But it does by regulating it. By deciding which suicides, or requests for euthanasia[1] are legitimate, and which aren't. If…

Suicide remains a sin in the eyes of the Catholic Church (the largest Christian denomination); and attempting it was a crime, at least in the UK (where I live) until 1961.

People still speak of "committing" suicide, like committing murder. I can't think of any other legal act that you can "commit".

[Edit] Wrong! Adultery, for example, is legal, and is something you commit. So I suppose that in general, you can "commit" it if it's a sin, or more generally something you shouldn't do.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#305

Post by anonymouskimmer »

mthoms wrote: post #290
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/woman-with-chemical-sensitivit... > Woman with chemical sensitivities chose medically-assisted death after failed bid to get better housing https://www.liveaction.org/news/euthanasia-unjust-social-con... > a recent poll found that 27 percent of Canadians polled strongly or moderately agree that euthanasia is acceptable for suffering caused by “poverty” and 28 percent strongly or moderate…

While this case is indeed controversial and worthy of examining... I'm sceptical of "liveaction.org" as a source because it describes itself thusly: "Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective." Nothing wrong with that of course, but I'd hardly consider it an authoritative source.

This was a commentary piece which quoted (to comment on) other sources.

Almost everyone talking about this topic is at least biased, and generally (what's-the-word for "motivated to convince others as to their point-of-view"?).

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#306

Post by chris_st »

joewferrara wrote: post #284
rcpt wrote: post #277

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high…

This is pretty good considering the fact that David Foster Wallace took his own life in the end. I read the whole quote before I saw at the end it’s from him.

Takes one to know one, as we used to say...

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#307

Post by lazyasciiart »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #249
TheCleric wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I have thought about, but recently have paid attention to stories that seem to be along these lines, such as Gordon Kaye in Great Smokies National Park. While this may seem like a simple way, it seems like it wastes hundreds of people's time that could be spent helping people who are actually wanting help.

> While this may seem like a simple way, it seems like it wastes hundreds of people's time You could just leave a note or email. > that could be spent helping people who are actually wanting help. How many of those people were going to help others otherwise?

I don't know the Gordon Kaye story, but "those people" that get involved for search and rescue operations are usually professionals who would, in fact, spend that time working to help other people instead.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#308

Post by j3s »

SUFFERING IS A PART OF LIVING.

as someone who has lost many friends and family members to suicide, articles like this feel so naive.

at their funerals, there’s always a person saying “let’s remember them how they lived, not how they suffered”

no. their suffering was a big part of their lived experience, and i will remember it forever. people who want to commit suicide do want to stop living. sometimes it’s because there is so much suffering in their life they can’t take it - sometimes it’s something else.

thousands of years ago, people knew that life _is_ suffering. it’s so disgusting to me to pretend that life and suffering aren’t intertwined.

some people can’t take it, and that’s fine. we didn’t ask to be here. but when those people go, let’s not falsify our memories of them because we don’t personally like the idea of suffering.

so infantalizing.

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#309

Post by spacedcowboy »

rcpt wrote: post #277

“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high…

This is where my wife was, a week or so ago.

She was initially admitted to hospital for low Sodium (hyponatremia) with no obvious symptoms - we actually went for something else which was benign. They corrected the low Sodium, but they corrected it quickly - possibly too quickly [1]. The next day she started to become non-responsive, and the day after was completely non-responsive - didn't react to pain stimuli, dropping her hand over her face just made her hand hit her face, couldn't open her eyes etc.

They gave her anti-depressant drugs and she seemed to snap out of it. They kept her in for another couple of days (which the insurance are now arguing over, but that's another tragedy) and then discharged her.

A few days later she stopped being able to walk, she's in constant pain, her legs are tremoring all the time now, her chest is constricted and she's frequently hyperventilating for hours at a time in order to breathe. She gets told she's "anxious", and it's in her head by her PCP. We visit ER several times because she can't breathe properly, and every time she's put on an IV, they maybe give her some sedation (Ativan) and then discharge her a few hours later once she's calmed down due to the drugs.

After 6 weeks of constant pain, next to no sleep, and being told she's fine (when she clearly isn't "fine") she starts talking about how she needs to find peace, and she can't take this any more. She's been building up to it, but I didn't take it seriously enough. Mea culpa. We don't have a gun in the house, she phones friends, asking them if they have a gun, and she'd "take care of everything".

One friend of hers calls it in. Police, Fire-brigade (EMT) and eventually an ambulance appear outside the house as she's sectioned on a 3-day hold. They actually released her the next day, and now she's terrified of "going back". I'm not saying the officials did anything wrong - they didn't - they were courteous but implacable, but they were just doing an unpleasant job. On the plus side, she's not mentioned anything about taking her life since.

A doctor mentions that there is such a thing as Osmotic Demylination Syndrome [2], which can happen when hyponatremia is "fixed" too rapidly. It would explain all the symptoms we're seeing, including the non-responsiveness. Apparently there's an MRI test to see if this has happened. Our next (7th ? I lose track) visit to ER, I get them to do this MRI. She doesn't have it, from what we can see on the data. I ask for the data to send to the neurologist.

Finally, 8 weeks since this all started, the various specialist referrals start to kick in: Endocrinologist, Cardiologist, Neurologist, Gastroenterologist, Psychiatrist... Her PCP hasn't been much help other than to give referrals, and in fact seems to be out of her depth - the last visit to the PCP we were told that the PCP refused to prescribe any more Ativan. That would be reasonable (these aren't drugs to take lightly) if she were to be weaned off them, but no - cold turkey it has to be. I ask the PCP to talk to the neurologist, who seems a bit more human, and the prescription is passed to the neurologist to fulfil.

I won't go into me finding a lump on my balls, and the subsequent worry over cancer (it was just a cyst), or the maybe-heart-attack last weekend that has me seeing the same cardiologist as my wife 'STAT'. This isn't about me. But if I'm out of the picture, well, there's just me, her and our son, the rest of family is 6000 miles away....

So here I am, still trying to sound positive to an intelligent woman who knows just how far she's fallen. Still trying to sound upbeat when she's literally crying in pain (oh yeah, the pain-specialist appointment is still to happen) throughout the night, and OTC pain-killers don't have any effect. Still trying to make it sound like we're making progress even though I can't see it myself. Still trying to answer "why won't someone help me ?" without sounding trite and jaded.

Hopelessness is an insidious poison for the mind. I don't feel the same way, but I can understand how she'd ask about the gun...

1: https://imgur.com/jtGTdn3

2: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000775.htm

Re: People who die by suicide want to stop suffering, not to stop living

#310

Post by codr7 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #241
codr7 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Fact: There was no such thing as skin cancer before we started rubbing toxic crap like aluminum into our skin to "avoid it". Recognizable descriptions of malignant melanoma date back to at least Hippocrates.

[flagged]
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