If you're going to commit suicide...

[wolf]

Suicide is an inherently selfish act.

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Originally Posted by wolf

Suicide is an inherently selfish act.

You are right, of course, but sometimes the person's selfishness is quite understandable. I have complete sympathy for someone in the final stages of a terminal illness who has no quality left to their life and who quietly OD's on their pain meds. Makes sense to me and doesn't leave too much of a mess for anyone to clean up.

A friend of mine ("Joe") had a truely horrific experience with the deaths of his elderly father and step mother a couple of years back. Both of them had been experiencing steadily increasing health difficulties for quite some time and were in their early 80's. The step mother had reached the point where she was completely bed ridden and in constant pain. Joe's father had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, so he was little better off than his wife.

Apparently, the two of them made some sort of murder/suicide pact and Joe's father shot first the stepmother and then himself. Amazingly, no one in their upscale neighborhood heard the shots go off, and it was a week before Joe discovered their bodies (he lives in another town and when he couldn't reach them by phone, he drove down to check on them).

Apparently, the mess and the smell was terrible, Joe had to go through the process of an inquest because no suicide note was left behind and the local cops were extremely suspicious that Joe might have knocked 'em off to get his inheritance before the medical bills ate all the money up.

The forensic evidence made it pretty clear what had happened, but Joe was put through a great deal of needless stress at a time when he already had plenty to deal with.

I have always wondered if this wasn't some sort of strange "payback" to Joe by his Dad. I've known Joe since we were both about 20 or so, and back then Joe's Dad would always get the two of us to join him for his annual fall hunting trip. Joe's Dad who had worked for the Forest Service all his life considered Joe a sort of "wussy boy" because Joe was intent on an academic career in philosophy, and these hunting trips were his way of trying to make a "man" out of Joe.

I was always uncomfortable watching the interaction between the two men. Joe seemed to lose all self confidence around his Dad and his skin would even break out if he made contact with the blood of a deer or an elk that we had brought down.

I think in some very fucked up way, Joe's Dad was taking one final chance to show Joe how to be a "real Man."

[russotto]

Originally Posted by wolf

Suicide is an inherently selfish act.

What about people who commit suicide to get their family the insurance money?

[tw]

Originally Posted by wolf

Suicide is an inherently selfish act.

Did Adam Smith not say people act selfishly? Therefore suicide is a symptom of free market economics?

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by russotto

Demanding someone stay alive, regardless of how bad their life is or its lack of prospect for improvement, is unbelievably stupid and selfish.

I don't demand that anyone stay alive. Just that they don't traumatize the rest of humanity whilst going in thru the out door. And it certainly IS a selfish act. Try to understand beyond yourself.

[xoxoxoBruce]

But beyond yourself should not include people that force themselves into your life.

[wolf]

Originally Posted by russotto

What about people who commit suicide to get their family the insurance money?

Most insurance policies don't pay off on suicides.

[busterb]

Years passed I sold a guy I knew a legal hand gun. He gave it to his brother who was terminally ill & in hospital. he did the lights out thing. Boy was I glad we did the right paper work on gun.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by busterb

Years passed I sold a guy I knew a legal hand gun. He gave it to his brother who was terminally ill & in hospital. he did the lights out thing. Boy was I glad we did the right paper work on gun.

This just after I said in the Hunter Thompson thread -

(I don't think a nurse has to be a genius to not let the terminal cancer patient have a gun).

My bad.

Was the brother charged? Did a jury convict him of anything?

[busterb]

Not that I know of. But he was on the families shit list for a long time. Anything is possible in New Orleans.

[cowhead is lame]

Originally Posted by cowhead

or don't try to chicken out at the last second...

that's the problem with people who only think they want to die.. if you're going to do it, there are quite a few other more sure ways I can think of.. of course they would require a little more thinking than parking your dumb ass on a train track.

and would be a little more spectacular.

strap some dynomite to yourself, down a bottle of percaset with a fifth of whiskey, light the fuse cut your wrists and jump from a tall bridge in the winter... multiple redundancies are good

ok, cowhead, thats really not cool for you to just tell someone how to kill themselves 'efficiently.' i mean god damn, you're a gruesome ass! i mean honestly! how could u think up something like that? you say he's lame? what about you? you probably thought out your elaborate scheme up for yourself, and then i bet YOU chickened out.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Well now, am I to assume from your name you just dropped by to flame cowhead and not offer anything constructive? That's not nice.
Is suicide a personal hot button? Somebody you know off themselves?
If so, rather than flaming cowhead for an obvious intentionally fatuous post, you could add some insight about those left in the wake of such a tragedy.
If not, are you just perturbed that someone, in this case cowhead, would think up a foolproof methodology? Or be so callous as to not care that your considering offing yourself?
Did you ever think the cowhead, like a lot of people are sick and tired of people "attempting" unsucessful suicides to get attention? Kind of like flamers.

[wolf]

Nicely said, bruce.

I've seen the serious, the cry for helps, and the attention seekers. I've also seen the accidentally or drunkenly stupid.

If there's a variation, I've probably dealt with at least one. Jumpers, cutters, drunkards, auto-exhausters, air-shooters, overdoses, shotguns, pistols, rifles, folks who decide to try to find out if humans are combustable, layers-down on train tracks (the guy who totally fucked himself up by not doing that one quite right was a piece of work ... has one remaining arm and half his large and small intestines).

Where the heck was I going with this?? Oh, yeah. There's no one way to think about suicide, no one way to think about suicidal people. Or to respond to them.

The reality is if they are gonna do it, they'll do it. The danger of that, of course, is they might die trying.

Even if they don't really want to.

[cowhead]

thanks Bruce.. hadn't been by here in a while. but it's kinda cool that someone wasted that much time to sign up and pick a name just to taunt me!

no, i have tried to snuff myself a couple of times which resulted in some really spectacular failures. to which left me with some sense of 'fate'.. as in I'm not supposed to die yet. (what I'm around for I have no Idea.. but it looks like there's something I'm supposed to do.. and for an agnostic that's a bit of a trick )

and I still stick by my 'if you want to kill yourself go right ahead, just be as considerate about it as possible' mentality

yes! killing yourself is fucked up! but.. sometimes it seems like the only option, and in the case of the terminally ill.. I support it! why suffer more than you really have to? (yeah that's another thing where the thought process get's tricky.. how much is too much?) damnit...

[cowhead]

oh yeah! and I have a gruesome sense of humour...