Quote:
Originally Posted by Dion
Suicide is not a matter of choice. The profound depression that motivates most suicides is a disease.This disease causes a level of pain so profound that it twists one’s ability to assess risk, to make good choices, to maintain a sense of future possibilities.
When people act out of this depression, they are not exercising free choice. They are falling victim to a disease. This disease is not about logic or self interest. It is about an immediate desire to be dead
|
I'm not sure about this, either. Maybe we're projecting our personal experiences with suicide and drawing conclusions based on those.
Thankfully, there are resources for mental health issues such as therapy, medication, etc. If you're ever feeling suicidal you can even go straight to the emergency room at a hospital to get immediate help.
I think the greater difficulty comes in if the therapy doesn't help, or the medications don't work, or they work for a time then stop working, or you get sick of the side effects. There really doesn't seem to be a cure; just ways to manage it. Compound a depressed state with external complications such as a break up, getting laid off, death of a loved one or supportive person, or just some general stress and you have a real big problem all of a sudden.
From what I've seen, I think suicide can be a mercy killing in some ways (from the perspective of the victim of depression). It is selfish to expect somebody to live in perpetuity with the anguish this condition can bring when they have genuinely exhausted all other avenues of treatment. It's never an ideal outcome of course, but they deserve 100% sympathy and empathy in life and particularly after they're gone. I cringe so hard when people call it selfish (not in the way Poster asked, though, that was very reasonable).
So I don't see it as an inability to assess risk or future possibilities. I think it can provide a calming experience of clarity. The future isn't bright for everybody and won't get better for everybody. Depressed people aren't stupid and their judgement isn't necessarily clouded. Taking your life is a free choice and probably has greater significance for a depressed person than somebody free from that pain can even imagine. It's the one thing that will stop all the suffering.
But again, there is a small army of professionals - many of whom are wonderful people - that can and will help a depressed person get better. Things can get better and must be tried. You should always do everything you can to save a life, including your own.