[lucky flute]

I feel really bad for people who want to kill themselves, my heart goes out to them, because I know what it's like to feel that desperate and out of options. But I think life is still worth living, even when you have nothing, because there's always the possibility that things will change tomorrow. Hope is always worth living for.

[Peripeteia]

Originally Posted by Causa Mortis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Given: 1. No career despite consistent effort. 2. No meaningful relationships despite largely consistent effort. 3. A strong and pervasive instinct to self-sabotage anytime one has small successes in either of the former. 4. A great deal of self-loathing and mental anguish. 5. Years of therapy with several therapists have not improved any of the above. 6. Little in the way of connection with family, most of whom are batshit insane. ...why should a person desire to live? I'm curious about what arguments - rational or otherwise -one would offer to someone who is strongly considering suicide. Just interested in discussion - I'm not eminently suicidal.

The most rational assumption I can make here is that there is no evidence one way or the other that suicide would actually put an end to these issues. Why should anyone desire to live? Or die for that matter? It's perception-based for all unless you are suffering physically. There is no absolutely no guarantee that lack of a body results in lack of perception...certainly we have strong evidence of this but not enough to chance it I think. There is of course, a definite that suicide leads to no more physical body in your posession and who knows what kind of annoyances that brings about.

[BlackMita]

Suicidal behavior is essentially scaring yourself into seeing where the worth is... apologetically directing your own fate without calling it that, used by people who insist living should be spent serving others, or meeting some obligatory happiness quota, but still want to keep their imaginary integrity.

Suicide is when someone drops all the responsibilities they don't want.

[Night Runner]

Originally Posted by cannotseethe To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

( Show Spoiler ) I disagree. It goes like this. My life stinks. The only way I can know my life stinks is to have a concept of what an unstinky life would be like. Therefore, when I say my life stinks, it means I want to have that life I can conceptualize, but currently do not have. So, you start with the idea that your life is bad, but it contains within it the assertion that you want to have something of value that you currently do not possess. The fact that you do not make the effort to consciously identify and articulate that value is immaterial. Then the rationale behind suicide looks like so: My life currently lacks a value that I want it to have. Therefore I am going to eradicate my life and guarantee I never possess that value. This is not rational when there is a non-zero chance that you could obtain that value if alive. You're essentially using a lack with a non-zero chance of being remedied as a justification for an action that guarantees the lack will never be remedied. Contradiction. That's the basic argument. It doesn't sound circular to me.

	Originally Posted by lucky flute To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I feel really bad for people who want to kill themselves, my heart goes out to them, because I know what it's like to feel that desperate and out of options. But I think life is still worth living, even when you have nothing, because there's always the possibility that things will change tomorrow. Hope is always worth living for.

Both of you are making an assumption that the situation in question can be remedied (I'm talking about a hypothetical "suicider," not Causa Mortis) and that it's temporary in its nature. What if it isn't? What if it's a fatal disease that will end in a long, painful and humiliating death? What if it's an incurable trauma, physical or mental, which can't be healed or ignored?..

(As you may have guessed, I'm not much of a happy camper myself. In fact, the Encyclopedia of Suicide is one of my favorite books...)

[The Psyentist]

"A man who despises himself has respect for himself as the one who despises." --Nietzsche

Read The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, and enter the world of the Absurd. Life does suck, there is no meaning, but the tragic hero triumphs by existing.

"There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn." "His fate belongs to him." "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart."

The only logical decision in this repetitive and pointless world of pain, tragedy, and dispare is to give up...but it is the fight that makes a hero. He defies the fate placed on him and makes his own by never giving up.

[cannotseethe]

	Originally Posted by Night Runner To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Both of you are making an assumption that the situation in question can be remedied (I'm talking about a hypothetical "suicider," not Causa Mortis) and that it's temporary in its nature. What if it isn't? What if it's a fatal disease that will end in a long, painful and humiliating death? What if it's an incurable trauma, physical or mental, which can't be healed or ignored?..

Well, this may go too far afield. I wanted to at least throw out Camus's ideas here and give them a fair read (i.e., without the typical, usual dismissals they get).

I suppose Camus would say, in those cases, that suicide is still not rational. It, still, is a resignation to some notion of hope for a better (pain- and illness-free) life. To suicide is to opt out, to give up, when all we ever have from the beginning is life, never a guarantee of a pain- or illness-free existence. People might suicide to relieve suffering, out of some feeling that their life will never get better, but they cannot do so with logical or rational justification. It grounds out in a feeling, not in a solid set of premises about how one should live that leads inexorably, logically, to the conclusion that one must kill oneself.

[daydreamer]

Originally Posted by cannotseethe To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Well, this may go too far afield. I wanted to at least throw out Camus's ideas here and give them a fair read (i.e., without the typical, usual dismissals they get). I suppose Camus would say, in those cases, that suicide is still not rational. It, still, is a resignation to some notion of hope for a better (pain- and illness-free) life. To suicide is to opt out, to give up, when all we ever have from the beginning is life, never a guarantee of a pain- or illness-free existence. People might suicide to relieve suffering, out of some feeling that their life will never get better, but they cannot do so with logical or rational justification. It grounds out in a feeling, not in a solid set of premises about how one should live that leads inexorably, logically, to the conclusion that one must kill oneself.

is it logical to go on though? is there a rational, logical argument for going on?

[sunlover]

Because suicide is for heartless/selfish/foolhardy folks who can't face hard times without giving up, lack the ability to realize change is the only thing in life that doesn't change...and thoughtlessly rip the heart out all the "insane" relatives and friends who weren't given a choice as to whether they wanted to bear that grief and heartache, then carry the emotional baggage the person left them for the rest of their hopefully natural lives.

[Kisai]

The only time I would rationally consider suicide is if I was diagnosed with dementia, such as Alzheimer's or a total physical incapacitance.

I feel sorry for the people in the OP's list, but really, the rational suicidal person can remove hirself from hir environment and go or be something else somewhere else. It's a big world. I understand that for the depressed suicidal person, this isn't an option.

[Night Runner]

Originally Posted by cannotseethe To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I suppose Camus would say, in those cases, that suicide is still not rational. It, still, is a resignation to some notion of hope for a better (pain- and illness-free) life. To suicide is to opt out, to give up, when all we ever have from the beginning is life, never a guarantee of a pain- or illness-free existence. People might suicide to relieve suffering, out of some feeling that their life will never get better, but they cannot do so with logical or rational justification. It grounds out in a feeling, not in a solid set of premises about how one should live that leads inexorably, logically, to the conclusion that one must kill oneself.

Originally Posted by sunlover To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Because suicide is for heartless/selfish/foolhardy folks who can't face hard times without giving up, lack the ability to realize change is the only thing in life that doesn't change...and thoughtlessly rip the heart out all the "insane" relatives and friends who weren't given a choice as to whether they wanted to bear that grief and heartache, then carry the emotional baggage the person left them for the rest of their hopefully natural lives.

Ah, so now we're going back to the question of whether it's ever possible to have a rational suicide. I say it is. I'd venture a guess that most suicides are truly irrational, fueled by emotion, desire for revenge, jealousy, heartache, etc. And yet rational suicides ought to exist, even if they only constitute 5% of all cases. (After all, only 2% of the population are INTJs - to your typical ESFP, we too are improbable, borderline-mythical creatures.)

As for the decision impacting our relatives... One can say the same about any big decision. If I get married outside my race, it will anger some of my more racist conservative
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relatives. I'm thinking of joining the military. This decision will be a tremendous shock to my intelligentsia family, and they'll more than likely be very, very upset if I follow through with it. Should I cancel this life-changing decision merely because it has the potential to "rip the heart out all the 'insane' relatives and friends who weren't given a choice as to whether they wanted to bear that grief and heartache"?
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[BuShinJu]

Originally Posted by sunlover To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Because suicide is for heartless/selfish/foolhardy folks who can't face hard times without giving up, lack the ability to realize change is the only thing in life that doesn't change...and thoughtlessly rip the heart out all the "insane" relatives and friends who weren't given a choice as to whether they wanted to bear that grief and heartache, then carry the emotional baggage the person left them for the rest of their hopefully natural lives.

I totally agree with this, from direct personal experience, a friend suiciding with out making any effort to ask for help or to fix things themselves.

Night Runner, I reckon life changing decisions are vastly different to life ending decisions. You make life changing decisions you can still visit for Christmas. However, I agree there is a place for rational suicide.

I saw my friends dad in the supermarket. He looked like shit. You don't recover from that.

[cannotseethe]

Originally Posted by Night Runner To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Ah, so now we're going back to the question of whether it's ever possible to have a rational suicide. I say it is. I'd venture a guess that most suicides are truly irrational, fueled by emotion, desire for revenge, jealousy, heartache, etc. And yet rational suicides ought to exist, even if they only constitute 5% of all cases. (After all, only 2% of the population are INTJs - to your typical ESFP, we too are improbable, borderline-mythical creatures.)

Um, we never left the topic of rational suicide. That is the thread title, after all. It's also the concern of The Myth of Sisyphus, which I've been blabbing about from the beginning.

In that hypothetical 5% of cases, what would be a rational basis for the suicide? Remember, this is a pretty tough criterion, rationality. You'd have to give premises that do not contradict themselves and are not contradicted by the act of suicide itself as well as the reasoning process that concluded in "yes, suicide is the thing to do." That's what Camus was after when he asked whether suicide could be rational.

[Night Runner]

Originally Posted by cannotseethe To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

In that hypothetical 5% of cases, what would be a rational basis for the suicide? Remember, this is a pretty tough criterion, rationality. You'd have to give premises that do not contradict themselves and are not contradicted by the act of suicide itself as well as the reasoning process that concluded in "yes, suicide is the thing to do." That's what Camus was after when he asked whether suicide could be rational.

Same as I stated before - an irreversible, unavoidable pain or tragedy with no possibility of improvement. Getting diagnosed with a terminal disease (which by definition can't be cured) is probably the most common example. In some cases, it may be an altruistic suicide: if you get diagnosed with Alzheimer's and know that your last years will put a tremendous burden (financial and emotional) on your family, it may be more rational to end your life on your own terms, in dignity and with an ability to say goodbye to your loved ones.

Actually, at this point the debate ties in to the issue of euthanasia. Would you say that people who choose euthanasia over suffering are irrational? Technically speaking, it's an administered suicide...

[cannotseethe]

	Originally Posted by Night Runner To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Same as I stated before - an irreversible, unavoidable pain or tragedy with no possibility of improvement.

But this is pain avoidance, not logic.

[Scatterbrane]

	Originally Posted by cannotseethe
	In that hypothetical 5% of cases, what would be a rational basis for the suicide?

Let's go to the very extreme end of situations promoting rational suicide. Let us say that I have a rational basis to believe -- in fact, let us assume that this is true knowledge -- that on a very immediate timescale, I will go through violently extreme and protracted suffering followed by permanent extinction of consciousness, and that there is no way to avoid any of this while both alive and conscious. Would it not under this circumstance be rational to prematurely end your own consciousness through whatever comfortable means are available, say a powerful anasthetic so that you may lose consciousness beforehand and not regain it or, if such is the only means available, some method accomplishing an immediate and painless death?

---------- Post added 12-09-2009 at 02:35 AM ----------

	Originally Posted by cannotseethe
	But this is pain avoidance, not logic.

I thought that one or both of avoidance of negative experience or the seeking of positive experience were a shared set of assumptions of the basis of most any goal in this matter?

[cannotseethe]

Originally Posted by Scatterbrane To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Let's go to the very extreme end of situations promoting rational suicide. Let us say that I have a rational basis to believe -- in fact, let us assume that this is true knowledge -- that on a very immediate timescale, I will go through violently extreme and protracted suffering followed by permanent extinction of consciousness, and that there is no way to avoid any of this while both alive and conscious. Would it not under this circumstance be rational to prematurely end your own consciousness through whatever comfortable means are available, say a powerful anasthetic so that you may lose consciousness beforehand and not regain it or, if such is the only means available, some method accomplishing an immediate and painless death?

Well that's what I'm asking. What's the rational basis for doing this? Pain avoidance is not rational on its face.

[Goodday]

Originally Posted by Kmal To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

you think you're a toxic, crazy person, so you are. you're thought pattern is so negative and its causing negative things to happen. so you had a crazy, stupid bitch ex? ive had one. everyone has had one. fuck her. graduate school is NOT going to hurt your chances of a job????? start thinking more positive. if you think youre going to succeed, you have no choice but to do so. i think therefore i am.

I'm pretty sure we all think that "The Secret" stuff is pure crap.


Suicide=selfish just like depression is a very selfish experience. I think you need to stop therapist hopping, find one, build a relationship of trust with that therapist and deal with the mood/personality disorder you are likely suffering from. If you still feel the same after doing those things, well, it's your life to end or live as you please.

[Night Runner]

	Originally Posted by cannotseethe To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	But this is pain avoidance, not logic.

...
You appear to have missed this part of my post:

	Originally Posted by Night Runner To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	In some cases, it may be an altruistic suicide: if you get diagnosed with Alzheimer's and know that your last years will put a tremendous burden (financial and emotional) on your family, it may be more rational to end your life on your own terms, in dignity and with an ability to say goodbye to your loved ones.

^
This isn't pain avoidance - this is reducing the burden on your family, environment, healthcare system, etc.

[gwilendiel]

Originally Posted by sunlover To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Because suicide is for heartless/selfish/foolhardy folks who can't face hard times without giving up, lack the ability to realize change is the only thing in life that doesn't change...and thoughtlessly rip the heart out all the "insane" relatives and friends who weren't given a choice as to whether they wanted to bear that grief and heartache, then carry the emotional baggage the person left them for the rest of their hopefully natural lives.

I take offense to this and call bunk.

I posit that you know NOTHING of real pain. You present superficial assessments, nothing more.

---------- Post added 12-08-2009 at 10:05 PM ----------

To truly examine the darkness you must put your own neck on the guillotine and give somebody else the rope.
Only then can you pass. Or die.

[LaoTzu]

Given:
1. No career despite consistent effort. -Can you eat?/Rest your head somewhere?
2. No meaningful relationships despite largely consistent effort. -Define meaningful...
3. A strong and pervasive instinct to self-sabotage anytime one has small successes in either of the former. -See Below...
4. A great deal of self-loathing and mental anguish. -Find the cause
5. Years of therapy with several therapists have not improved any of the above. -A 'cure' has to come from within. Therapy is limited by this....
6. Little in the way of connection with family, most of whom are batshit insane. -If they are insane, then why concern yourself with them. Living well is the best revenge...

[gwilendiel]

Originally Posted by LaoTzu To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Given: 1. No career despite consistent effort. -Can you eat?/Rest your head somewhere? 2. No meaningful relationships despite largely consistent effort. -Define meaningful... 3. A strong and pervasive instinct to self-sabotage anytime one has small successes in either of the former. -See Below... 4. A great deal of self-loathing and mental anguish. -Find the cause 5. Years of therapy with several therapists have not improved any of the above. -A 'cure' has to come from within. Therapy is limited by this.... 6. Little in the way of connection with family, most of whom are batshit insane. -If they are insane, then why concern yourself with them. Living well is the best revenge...

I feel these are the beginning steps to realization.
Well put.

[Nikita]

	Originally Posted by Causa Mortis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	1. No career despite consistent effort.

What kind of career are you seeking? How do you define career and its value to you beyond a paycheck? Describe the effort, please, along with your educational and experiential qualifications for said sought career.

	2. No meaningful relationships despite largely consistent effort.

Describe the effort, please, along with what you consider to be meaningful. I would hazard a guess that many relationships people enter into aren't deeply meaningful. A lot of people treat relationships like a changing room at a department store, just kind of seeing how the fit is before returning the garment to the rack and trying something else.

	3. A strong and pervasive instinct to self-sabotage anytime one has small successes in either of the former.

So you have the instinct, do you always act on it? If so, have you ever tried not acting on it? Find a way to counteract this instinct. Perhaps you need to figure out an alternative course of action to take each time this instinct rears its ugly head.

	4. A great deal of self-loathing and mental anguish.

You're the only one who gets to control your mind. Others can try to influence you, but how you think and how you allow your experiences to color your world are ultimately up to you. Where does the self-loathing come from? Is it based on your actions, lack of action, intellect, lack of intellect, or what others have said to or about you?

	5. Years of therapy with several therapists have not improved any of the above.

Ok, that's one route that hasn't worked. Find another. Every failure is just one option that didn't work. Success is the one functional option out of 1,000 failures.

	6. Little in the way of connection with family, most of whom are batshit insane.

Who says you need family? If they are toxic to your life, then cut them out of it. Just take yourself out of the equation by living your life independently of them.


To live vs. to die is to take on a challenge against the enemy you know, as opposed to the enemy you know not. Death is an absolute in relation to life, but after-death is an unknown. To be alive is to have the opportunity to create, explore, imagine, try, fail and try again, succeed, understand, ask questions, critique, analyze...the list goes on. To die is to lose the opportunity to do the same. All we really know about death is that it is irrevocable, or so the evidence so far indicates. Maybe after-death involves heavens and hells, maybe it involves reincarnation, eternal torment, being stuck on earth as a ghost until you learn some lesson, or maybe it involves nothing at all - a non-existence.

You're the only one who gets to live your life. You're the only one who gets to experience what you experience. Nobody else can do what you can do, or be who you can be. That's just an honest fact of independent existence.

If you're going to live, you need to find a reason to live for yourself. Examine the root of your anguish and frustration. The root is not existence itself because that is a common root connecting us all. Something in your experience of existence is the root. You just need to identify it and prune the garden.

[Vyrokashan]

This is a likelihood of my life I have been preparing myself for. A few years ago, if I had been a person with the six things mention previously, I would have no argument against killing myself. However, this is what I prepared myself for in the recent times: To live on, even though there is nothing to live for.

Spite. To spite the living people you met in school, to spite the people who said you'd die young and amount to nothing. To spit in their faces that you could survive and live on where they could not. For me personally, it is because I do not want a single person I am friends with to see me dead. I openly say this to their face. I will not be the one to do myself in to the final fail of my life, I will let that happen on its own accord.

TL; DR: Why should this person desire to live? For spite and spite alone, against everything thrown in their face.

[gwilendiel]

	Originally Posted by Vyrokashan To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Why should this person desire to live? For spite and spite alone, against everything thrown in their face.

I have to ask, what if you despise yourself for your own acts of spite? What if you felt so conflicted because of the spite used against you, that you would indeed rather die than become one of "them"?

You do know spite is related to contempt and malice, right? It's a few steps below murder I'd say.

[eibuos]

Originally Posted by Causa Mortis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Given: 1. No career despite consistent effort. 2. No meaningful relationships despite largely consistent effort. 3. A strong and pervasive instinct to self-sabotage anytime one has small successes in either of the former. 4. A great deal of self-loathing and mental anguish. 5. Years of therapy with several therapists have not improved any of the above. 6. Little in the way of connection with family, most of whom are batshit insane. ...why should a person desire to live? I'm curious about what arguments - rational or otherwise -one would offer to someone who is strongly considering suicide. Just interested in discussion - I'm not eminently suicidal.

Well because all of these things are temporary.

1. I have been without a career a few times and then I have had a fabulous career.
2. I was sure that I would never be in love or ever be in a relationship again, heartbroken beyond belief... and then I met an amazing man.
3. That is normal when you don't feel good about yourself. Become someone you like and respect.
4. No self loathing but I have had the mental anguish - it passes.
5. Didn't have that but liking who you are is good medicine.
6. My family is totally batshit insane. It sucks, it REALLY sucks but you have to play the cards you're dealt. Deal with it, remove yourself from the situation if you have to.

Suicide is permanent. And besides who says it's not worse when you are dead? What if you have to spend eternity in the state of mind you were in when you died? That would not be fun. Not a good gamble IMO