kalibane wrote:I'd like to offer something about suicide based on what Riv just said about selfishness and is probably important to understand. I used to feel exactly they way you do. It's cowardly, it's selfish etc. etc.
It is selfish to people who are sane working within the right frame of mind and most people who take their lives would agree if they weren't so depressed. But generally when people get so despondent that they are ready to take their own life in their mind they absolutely believe that the people they leave behind will be better off without them. They feel like they are an anchor attached to their loved one's ankle and the short term grief is outweighed by the anchor being removed. They may be delusional for thinking it but in a sick way when people are in that state, they really believe suicide is the more selfless act.
I've ceased being so judgmental after life's twists and turns have brought me closer to the subject. Now I'm just sad for everyone.
I'm not sure if I'd ever call suicide 'cowardly.' More like refusing to face up to the challenges of life. There are times that suicide is a justifiable act, such as a terminally ill patient, a spy avoiding capture, etc. I don't know enough about Robin Williams' personal life to venture too much of an opinion as to where his act would fall.
In the case of my friend, I don't think he fully comprehended the impact his suicide would have on his family and friends. It certainly wouldn't have been his first choice to have his son be the one to discover him hanging from the garage rafters. I think it was a spur of the moment decision, that something came over him and he acted on it (his wife had left him), as I saw him 10-12 hours before he was found dead, and he was the same old smiling, laughing, joking self. The last time I saw him he greeted me from a distance of several hundred feet, almost embarrassingly so like Forrest Gump might do. He was the last person in the world you'd suspect as being suicidal. That's one of the things that made it so tough for us, it was such a shock.
20 or so years ago, I had another co worker/friend that committed suicide. He was just a few hours from being arraigned on charges of sexually abusing his teen age step daughter. Years later, the girl admitted that it was a lie, that she was mad at him for his not letting her spend the night at one of her friends. In that case, I do think he was guilty of not having the guts to stand up and defend himself. But I won't go so far as calling it cowardly.
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 10:59 pm