h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think the point that Ed was trying to make was that people who are suicidal are rarely in their right mind. It's not that they are idiotic or cruel, they just aren't thinking clearly. And it can be very biologically based. I'm speaking from some experience here, as I made a very serious suicide attempt once in a church, a very public place.

And I'm not deliberately trying to be insensitive. I'm not trying to write off all emotional instability or organic imbalances as deliberate acts of selfishness or cruelty. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes even the most logical person isn't in his/her "right" mind. Some seemingly irrational folks are apparently otherwise perfectly sane, too, I suppose.

Either way, it's upsetting to watch someone jump off a bridge when you're picking up your morning coffee. There are worse things you can do to a person than kill them. Letting them live with a horrible memory is quite possibly one of them. It's the waste that makes me so angry, though.

JEllen and Edward, for what it's worth, I'm glad you both are still here.

Good morning PC. Check your email, I sent you some pics. I'm not sure if all three got attached properly, so if you only got one picture, let me know, and I will resend.

"It's not that they are idiotic or cruel, they just aren't thinking clearly."

Absolutely. And exactly the same applies to wife-beaters.

I know that sounds completely insensitive, and if I actually witnessed a suicide, I expect I would only feel angry inasmuch as death always makes me feel angry and hopeless. But, like yours, my comments are born from experience. I used to think my death would please a lot of people, or at worst, mean nothing to them; so a public and very gory death seemed like the sensible option. Until it was spelled out to me in no uncertain terms, I never considered the fact that a driver, or the owner of a kitchen knife, might have my death imprinted on their conscience for the rest of their lives.

Perhaps asking people not to make a splash is an important thing to do. Perhaps saying such things might cause at least some to reconsider suicide altogether.

Hey people. I've been suicidal in the past as some of you here will know. When I was suicidal I was *always* thinking of how people will react to finding my body. But I asked myself ... is finding the body of a person who committed suicide really and necessarily such a horrible thing? It could be, if done by a fairly violent method, but otherwise? My first suicide attempt was with pills; my second with a gun; my third was hanging. I couldn't properly 'complete' the second attempt because people were watching and I didn't want them to see me blow my brains out, because that would have been messy and nasty. But a death from pills, or from hanging? So, my corpse's tongue might be hanging out and it might be blue in the face, but it would be a fairly 'clean' situation.

When I'm suicidal I don't believe that people care for me at all so I find it very strange to imagine I might upset them by doing something to *myself*.

<<"It's not that they are idiotic or cruel, they just aren't thinking clearly."
Absolutely. And exactly the same applies to wife-beaters.>> (Snailrind)

Always a mistake to try and generalise in such situations.

I can't imagine feeling suicidal to the point of actually taking steps to do the deed - truly one must be not 'all there' or even remotely thinking of others when they take that step.

And curiously, suicide needs a rather unusual combination of feeling both very depressed but also very motivated at the same time. Trying to imagine when these two opposites collide and meet . . . would there be any sort of 'common sense' happening, in terms of considering what the fallout of this act would be?


az

Azahar, I'd say it's an act of desperation, and that desperation is the main emotion. But perhaps it's different for everyone.

It looks like different people consider others to different degrees when contemplating suicide. Pillowcase, I hope you don't still feel that way about others not caring about you!

I've been rethinking my previous post since I wrote it. It's all very well to say people shouldn't try it publicly, but when it's done in secret, we may wish they had at least told someone...

(And yes, I was generalising atrociously!)

Right now I don't really care whether people care about me or not! I'm more concerned about whether people 'care' in general. Do people really care so much about other people as to really care if some people off themselves? Or is it just squeamishness and not wanting to see corpses because corpses are ugly and it's a bit embarassing to be confronted with them?

I think people care, in a real and meaningful way, Pillowcase.

I think people do care.

I know I shudder just reading about things like that, without actually 'confronting' them. It hurts to think that people can get in a state where death seems like the only way out.

People do care.

Hi Willem,

Of course I care and just try to feel that hug, even though it comes from far away in Spain.

You are lovely and sensitive and very caring yourself, so please don't give up on some of us who sometimes say or do things that might seem uncaring. Okay?



az

If I came across a stranger who had killed themselves, however they had done it, it would haunt me. I'd wonder about their pain, and be upset that it had got so bad for them that they had felt there was no other option. I'd feel angry on their behalf, and helpless at the cruelty of existence. A couple of people I knew two decades ago killed themselves, and I wonder about them to this day, though I barely knew them.

Hey folks thanks for the concern but don't worry about *me*. I'm OK now.

Is there such a big difference between seeing a suicide or the corpse left over after someone's suicide, or just learning of someone's suicide? Or someone's death? I've never seen a suicide but friends and acquaintances have commited suicide. And I know that many people all over the world are committing suicide right now as we speak. There are also a hell of a number of people who are being murdered. Or abused, tortured even. Or dying of hunger. Or seeing their children dying of hunger. Or suffering or dying from terrible diseases. Or just quietly, or sometimes not so quietly, going mad.

One opens one's self to all of this by being sensitive, aware and compassionate. One escapes from this by becoming blunt, ignorant and insensitive.

Hmmm ... maybe the last sentence is a bit harsh. Basically, I mean, when we choose to care, we allow for getting hurt for others' sakes. We can escape being hurt, by not caring, by distancing ourselves, by shutting off an awareness of the suffering of others. Maybe sometimes we need to do this - ?

I do think that some suicides are done in revenge, with the mentality of right - "see how they like that, hope they suffer that memory of how they made me feel, forever type thing"...

Not to mention suicide bombers..

I didn't mean to belittle your experience by agreeing with Ed, Pc - and I know Ed was just making a point and you also know that too....I just needed to say that is all...

My sisters boyfriend blew his head off with a shotgun a couple of years ago so, we know the painful aftermath of that one. She was quite suicidal too and lost her baby. No one needs to say I'm sorry to my mentioning that...I'm just saying is all...that I know those feelings..and what my family went thro as a result...not knowing the person still makes it personal to you when you are close or nearby in the vincinity.

It does seem wrong somehow when people are trying so hard everyday to survive and someone just tops themselves without a thought seemingly. Kind of a kick in the teeth to the rest of us...depending on how you look at it.

Err.. I seem to have said much....will toddle off now...

>One escapes from this by becoming blunt, ignorant and insensitive<

And so one blunt, ignorant and insensitive person once again, unsubbing from my own journal.

Sounds more like oversensitive to me, PC . And you maybe didn't read the post following that one.

az

Oh dear...I honestly didn't mean to stir things up. I wasn't taking offence, PC. All I was trying to do was to suggest that in many cases, the only reaction can be 'Poor soul!' This applies to many cases of even the seemingly most horrible people out there.

(snailrind)
>>"It's not that they are idiotic or cruel, they just aren't thinking clearly."

>>Absolutely. And exactly the same applies to wife-beaters.

Hmm. We're in danger here of attributing *all* cruelty and criminality to mental imbalance. There's a world of difference between suicide and wifebeating. In the latter case, the abuser is inflicting pain. In the former, the suicide is feeling it. Also - while the abuser gets a payoff in terms of marital power...well, I'll concede that some suicides *may* be seeking a payoff, of the 'that'll show 'em' kind...but they don't live to see it.

>>There are also a hell of a number of people who are being murdered. Or abused, tortured even. Or dying of hunger. Or seeing their children dying of hunger. Or suffering or dying from terrible diseases. Or just quietly, or sometimes not so quietly, going mad.<<

*sigh*
Yeah.


I'm not really sure what your point is, but yeah, of course. I shudder every time I read in the paper about somebody murdered, or raped, or fallen victim to some other sort of violence. About homeless people that starve or drink themselves to death, whichever comes first, because the authorities do nothing to help them. About insensitive government policies that force people into poverty. About racism. About many things. The world is full of bad.

But you have to ignore it, sometimes. I read about all these, and I care, but I move on, because I couldn't think about all of it all the time and stay sane.
I don't think it's insensitive; it's just human nature. A mental protection mechanism of sorts.




Oh, and Vix, regarding suicide bombers (guess I can have somewhat of a say in that matter ), I kind of feel empathy for them as well, as much as I hate what they do. Because these are mostly very hurt and confused young people, whose suffering is being used cynically by fundamentalists in order to get them to go and kill other people, whom they don't even know and are taught to perceive as enemies.

*sigh*