i hate that there's nothing i could possibly say to convince a more sane person that i'm better off dead. i hate how it's ok to put a physically suffering person out of their misery but a mentally suffering person is just "going through a tough time" and needs to be saved. i hate how when i'm gone people are gonna act like it's some kind of tragedy instead of being happy for me. anyone else got this feeling?
Suicide is just one of those ideas that will never receive validation. It's taboo to affirm it, even if many people actually do sympathize, because if we made it culturally acceptable to suicide, people would over do it. Therefore, it's set up so that if you want to kill yourself, you have to be driven enough to do it in spite of finding near zero affirmation from mainstream culture. You have to want to do it in spite of receiving no confirmation that your feelings are well place.
It is actually true sometimes, that somebody's life can be saved and is worth saving, and they really are just going through a tough time. Maybe this would take more effort than just committing suicide. Let's say suicide was totally acceptable and provided just as easily as any basic mental health support. Wouldn't that be problematic? Everybody would just kill themselves all day. Then what?
Another cultural reason for never encouraging suicide, even though most would agree it's probably a fine idea in some cases, is that people don't want responsibility. Let's say people were just recommending suicide on the regular and we accepted this socially. Imagine the complications this might cause? Think about the problems of people killing themselves just because someone told them to. The suicide will kind of have occurred because of the person who suggested, instead of just by the person who wanted to die. The family of that person might be furious at the person who suggested suicide, because they believed he was still able to be saved. Also, if you recommend it to people, when the person does it, it's no longer entirely their own move, it becomes partially influenced by someone else, which corrupts the integrity of suicide, which should really be a deeply personal judgment call that only the individual can make for themselves, from their own subjective perspective, standing in their own shoes. Anything else becomes questionable.
As a compromise between a full on open and compassionate stance towards suicide, which would be problematic, and the apparent general policy of making it a taboo, I believe, anecdotally, that people who care for each other drop subtle hints to individuals who are struggling, to lovingly nudge them toward it as a viable option, and that it's okay. But if it's not subtle, then it has too much risk of becoming a situation where it was another person's fault, and not just the individual's choice, so it's not good.
People shut up about suicide, say it's bad, because people will kill themselves anyway, might as well not add fuel to the flame and make it go out of control. It's like there's an unspoken barrier to entry for suicide. You have to want it badly enough to have the bravery to try it. If you have been brainwashed and made afraid to do it, then you must be able to overcome that programming if you'd like to die. Death is available. We don't have state-sanctioned suicide booths because we don't need them. Death is available, the silent barrier to entry is you have to pull it off without the help of the state. Maybe that's reasonable. Death is already an accessible thing, maybe we don't need to make it extra accessible, maybe it's accessible enough, since we can actively discourage it and not support it and it still happens. Suicide is still something to be avoided if possible, after all, right? It's not wrong, but it's not the ideal outcome. By all means kill yourself if you want, but that shouldn't be what we promote or want for most people. We want most people to be happy and make things work. So we provide mental health support to help people take coping to its limits, and let suicide happen on its own.
At a broader level- given that we are currently in the thing known as life, anti-life attitudes are naturally unpopular. It's just the inherent fact of the matter, like the sky is blue. When you're in life, it is fundamentally unlikely to find sympathy for any anti-life sentiment. Because the forces that brought life about, and are keeping it about at this moment, are strong. They're the forces behind this entire thing, life. So that something that goes against basically everything else... naturally esoteric.
You just have to get over it, it sucks to not feel validated, but you have got to believe your own feelings totally in spite what the world says. You want to be on that level of thinking if you want to kill yourself.
Take solace in this though- the urge to die is not some obscure thing. I'm pretty sure it's secretly a core part of the human condition. So core that it's there without needing to be actively encouraged. Millions of people living and dead would sympathize perfectly, I reckon, but they're just not talking about it. It's just not the thing to do. There's actually some pro-suicide sentiment out there, even in mainstream media if you look with an analytical eye, but it has to be hidden enough that there's plausible deniability that it was put there intentionally. There's little suggestions everywhere. But the dominant narrative when you're in life is... life. It is what it is
