Discussion Is it possible for CTB to be a rational decision?

[allym101]

I'm tired of people telling me that life is so beautiful and that this is just a "phase". I've been thinking about suicide for around 8 years now and I feel like my decision is pretty rational. Every time I've had an attempt I've always been very calm and fully aware of what I was doing. Even when I'm having a bad day I don't just swallow a bottle of pills, I think really heavily about this stuff. I'm not choosing to take my life purely because of depression, I really just have no interest in life. I could be happy and rich and it'd still be mundane and meaningless to me.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

I think people (and disciplines like psychiatry and psychology) assume that a choice to ctb cannot be 'rational' since a 'normally functioning' mind would not make that decision.
The assumption is that it can only be the result of mental illness or deviant thought process which lead to unclear thinking. How do they know it is due to mental illness or mental deviancy? Well, because no 'normal' mind would come to that decision, since it's irrational. The default position about ctb being irrational is actually based on circular reasoning.

However, a 'rational decision' is technically defined as a the use of logic and objectivity in making choices between alternatives such as to maximize the favor or benefit for the decision maker.

And when you think about it, who is the best judge as to whether x's life is worth living or not? It surely cannot be any external or outside person who only has third-person knowledge of x's life. It can only be x who has the intimate first-person knowledge of their own life which enables them to make the best objective decision about its worth.

Sometime a decision to ctb can be irrational, because the use of logic and objectivity has been compromised due to a real mental illness or because the person is very young and their brain hasn't fully developed yet. But I also think that rational decisions to ctb are a lot more common than assumed by most people and disciplines like psychiatry which benefit financially from making sweeping judgements about the irrationality (which implies mental illness/madness, therefore treatment, pills etc) of it.

 

[Meditation guide]

I'm tired of people telling me that life is so beautiful and that this is just a "phase". I've been thinking about suicide for around 8 years now and I feel like my decision is pretty rational. Every time I've had an attempt I've always been very calm and fully aware of what I was doing. Even when I'm having a bad day I don't just swallow a bottle of pills, I think really heavily about this stuff. I'm not choosing to take my life purely because of depression, I really just have no interest in life. I could be happy and rich and it'd still be mundane and meaningless to me.

It's rational to you. Only you know what your life is like and what you want. That's all that matters. Pay no attention to others when they say things that you don't agree with. It's a sad situation to be in to not have anyone understand, or see that it's your decision to make and no one elses. I'm so grateful to this site.

 

[theguineapigking]

Yep, you can make a rational decision to ctb. Screw the pro-lifers. Screw their cocky asses. The fact is that you CAN indeed make a rational choice to kill yourself, period. I truly believe that many with depression have actually 'awoken' to life's bull****. Why? Because this world is absolute trash. So I am really starting to think that those 'pro-lifers' are actually the ones with mental illness, because they actually believe that life is worth it, period.

I have been depressed forever. I've wanted to die for most of my life. I see the world as a joke. There's so much pain and misery. Sure, there's goodness and pleasure, but there's more potential pain than pleasure(FACTS, BRUH). Why, you may ask? Because, it's simple: If you don't eat, you suffer. If you don't drink, you suffer. You can get injuries. You can get sick. You can be hurt emotionally. You have to work as a wage slave(unless you're one of the rich people) to exist. I mean come on..it doesn't take a genius to figure out where I'm going with this ;)
If you think that life is worth it for 'you', then ok, good for you. But if you truly believe that this world is a great and wonderful place, and that life is basically always worth it, then you're an idiot.


I've made the RATIONAL choice of suicide, because I've thought long and hard about this. Why would I want to live and exist in a meat suit(body) and, well, just live as a human? You'd have to be crazy to be ok with that!

 

[Mr2005]

I'm tired of people telling me that life is so beautiful and that this is just a "phase". I've been thinking about suicide for around 8 years now and I feel like my decision is pretty rational. Every time I've had an attempt I've always been very calm and fully aware of what I was doing. Even when I'm having a bad day I don't just swallow a bottle of pills, I think really heavily about this stuff. I'm not choosing to take my life purely because of depression, I really just have no interest in life. I could be happy and rich and it'd still be mundane and meaningless to me.

But you're not happy and that's the point so how can you say how you'd feel if you were? Why aren't you happy? Without any particular reason I don't think it's rational. Sounds exactly like depression to me but it's your life and if you want to end it you don't need any convincing

 

[esse_est_percipi]

Without any particular reason I don't think it's rational

But is it rational to carry on existing without a particular reason, purpose or goal?
Most people in western societies today just live for the short term and have nihilistic visions of life, they just carry on existing because of biological inertia, so in that sense they are all living irrationally.

Sorry, I don't mean to question what you said or argue with you, you made a good point.

 

[StringPuppet]

I think most people just can't fathom that not all suicides are spur of the moment, "permanent solution to a temporary problem" scenarios. I think if they were to start really asking why someone would want to throw away "the gift of life" they would come across some answers they won't like, so it's easier to just see suicides as hasty irrational decisions.

 

[Mr2005]

But is it rational to carry on existing without a particular reason, purpose or goal?
Most people in western societies today just live for the short term and have nihilistic visions of life, they just carry on existing because of biological inertia, so in that sense they are all living irrationally.

Sorry, I don't mean to question what you said or argue with you, you made a good point.

That's alright then. I fully expected to be greeted with disdain. I can't really answer that question except for myself to which the answers no but there's reasons for that that are unique to me. Not anything to form a basis around which to give advice

 

[SipSop]

Yes.

 

[allym101]

I think people (and disciplines like psychiatry and psychology) assume that a choice to ctb cannot be 'rational' since a 'normally functioning' mind would not make that decision.
The assumption is that it can only be the result of mental illness or deviant thought process which lead to unclear thinking. How do they know it is due to mental illness or mental deviancy? Well, because no 'normal' mind would come to that decision, since it's irrational. The default position about ctb being irrational is actually based on circular reasoning.

However, a 'rational decision' is technically defined as a the use of logic and objectivity in making choices between alternatives such as to maximize the favor or benefit for the decision maker.

And when you think about it, who is the best judge as to whether x's life is worth living or not? It surely cannot be any external or outside person who only has third-person knowledge of x's life. It can only be x who has the intimate first-person knowledge of their own life which enables them to make the best objective decision about its worth.

Sometime a decision to ctb can be irrational, because the use of logic and objectivity has been compromised due to a real mental illness or because the person is very young and their brain hasn't fully developed yet. But I also think that rational decisions to ctb are a lot more common than assumed by most people and disciplines like psychiatry which benefit financially from making sweeping judgements about the irrationality (which implies mental illness/madness, therefore treatment, pills etc) of it.

Wonderfully said.

Yep, you can make a rational decision to ctb. Screw the pro-lifers. Screw their cocky asses. The fact is that you CAN indeed make a rational choice to kill yourself, period. I truly believe that many with depression have actually 'awoken' to life's bull****. Why? Because this world is absolute trash. So I am really starting to think that those 'pro-lifers' are actually the ones with mental illness, because they actually believe that life is worth it, period.

I have been depressed forever. I've wanted to die for most of my life. I see the world as a joke. There's so much pain and misery. Sure, there's goodness and pleasure, but there's more potential pain than pleasure(FACTS, BRUH). Why, you may ask? Because, it's simple: If you don't eat, you suffer. If you don't drink, you suffer. You can get injuries. You can get sick. You can be hurt emotionally. You have to work as a wage slave(unless you're one of the rich people) to exist. I mean come on..it doesn't take a genius to figure out where I'm going with this ;)
If you think that life is worth it for 'you', then ok, good for you. But if you truly believe that this world is a great and wonderful place, and that life is basically always worth it, then you're an idiot.


I've made the RATIONAL choice of suicide, because I've thought long and hard about this. Why would I want to live and exist in a meat suit(body) and, well, just live as a human? You'd have to be crazy to be ok with that!

You perfectly put my thoughts into words. The bad parts of life always seem to outweigh the good parts, and even the good parts end up being worthless and short term. Being human is pathetic, not a day goes by where I don't lament my existence. I really wish people would stop labelling us as crazy or ill. Not all people who commit suicide are wrist cutting emo teenagers and I'm tired of that being the stereotype. I wish legal euthanasia was more popular.... it's unfair for the world to just expect us to put up with all this sh#t with a grin on our face.

But you're not happy and that's the point so how can you say how you'd feel if you were? Why aren't you happy? Without any particular reason I don't think it's rational. Sounds exactly like depression to me but it's your life and if you want to end it you don't need any convincing

I have been happy and I've been granted everything that could give me a great life. I was born into an upper middle class family, I have a good education, I'm not too bad looking and I've never had too much trouble getting along with people. From my point of view though, this is just exhausting. Even when I was extremely happy, I remember feeling suicidal not necessarily depressed. It literally doesn't matter how great my life is, I just don't like it. Put simply, I don't like being human and I don't like the concept of existing. I'm talking more on a philosophical level rather than psychological. I think the depression is just a side effect to my hatred of life but it is not where my suicidal thoughts came from.

 

[AJ95]

I think so :)

I've made a few really impulsive attempts before, obviously none of them worked.

But this time is different. I feel completely calm and at peace with it. I know I'm not going to get better, and that to keep living would be to keep feeling like this for the next 60 years until I died anyway.

I feel completely rational choosing to end it now.

 

[Futile]

Of course it can, the irrational choice would be to keep this miserable existence

 

[Mr2005]

I have been happy and I've been granted everything that could give me a great life. I was born into an upper middle class family, I have a good education, I'm not too bad looking and I've never had too much trouble getting along with people. From my point of view though, this is just exhausting. Even when I was extremely happy, I remember feeling suicidal not necessarily depressed. It literally doesn't matter how great my life is, I just don't like it. Put simply, I don't like being human and I don't like the concept of existing. I'm talking more on a philosophical level rather than psychological. I think the depression is just a side effect to my hatred of life but it is not where my suicidal thoughts came from.

Well that certainly makes it easier. Maybe that's the point? Is there not something else your repressing? Lifes shit yeah but that's what everyone says. I'm constantly amazed by the hurdles people overcome in order to go on living. Are they insane or there's just enough things that make it worthwhile? Maybe having everything you want means not appreciating what you have. I know I'd carry on if every day wasn't agonizing for personal reasons because there's too many things I like to just give up unless I have to. Philosophy being one of them. Without existence there'd be no philosophy. Life is everything good and bad. Death is nothing. We're all going to get there eventually. Whatever point to it there is don't think the destination is it

 

[Superdeterminist]

Yes, I actually suspect that most suicides are.

 

[Disk]

Interesting question, I appreciate some of the insights in here.


3 thoughts based different and loose interpretations of the concept of rationality :

1. In the precise moment of making a decision, I tend to think that the fact that one is able to go through with it means they're perceiving it as rational, no matter how agitated they are, no matter how long they've pondered things.

2. Beyond that, I think the question of whether a decision is rational or irrational doesn't bear any meaning unless one lives up to experience the consequences. If you're not around afterwards, you can't regret the decision or disagree with it.
It's always up to a third party to decide if it was rational or not: either your peers, or future-you.

3. I think reason as a universal can only get one so far. The choice of living or dying lies beyond the realm of reason. For ctb to be a rational decision, you'd have to have solved life.
That's not possible, the universe is absurd.

 

[Lupgevif]

I don't know, I don't have enough knowledge in psychology to be able to give an unbiased opinion (not that I think psychology is very accurate, but I digress). I have also been considering it for years now, and I have considered what I could do instead of killing myself. I have come to the conclusion that, even if I manage to go back to college, and find a job in the area I wish the most, I'd still rather die. Feels rational to me, at least.

 

[peacechoice]

I'm tired of people telling me that life is so beautiful and that this is just a "phase". I've been thinking about suicide for around 8 years now and I feel like my decision is pretty rational. Every time I've had an attempt I've always been very calm and fully aware of what I was doing. Even when I'm having a bad day I don't just swallow a bottle of pills, I think really heavily about this stuff. I'm not choosing to take my life purely because of depression, I really just have no interest in life. I could be happy and rich and it'd still be mundane and meaningless to me.

Exactly. Thank you for stating this. So important.

 

[Throwmyselfaway]

It only matters if it feels right to you. Those that aren't feeling how we do like to think that others can't be suicidal or depressed.

 

[peacechoice]

Like some people have stated. Why are we asking ourselves if suicide is rational? Shouldn't we be asking ourselves if living is even rational itself. It a fucking gamble either way. You don't know. To live by reason is to die by it. It so weird that the living only associate living as rational because they've come to value life so much and not so much the quality in itself. If we really start to dissect and see quality as reason then we would see that many suicides were reasonable. This, however, would be against our normal realm of reason. When we start to look at life only for life and not the quality then we start to reason that life is all we have.

I believe the depressed have come to realize that life is not worth living because they've opened their eyes somehow. They are no longer enchanted by the fake lights. They see The world as it is. They see the grueling rawness that is life. The people who still believe in life are living in a fantasy world, a world that's been given to them because they are lucky bastards who have a combination of great genetics and something in their head that makes them see joy. I am happy for those people because they can get through everything.

I mean there is the case that there are chemical imbalances in the head, but many people have become worst off on meds. Another story for another time.

Anyways, getting back to rationality. Is it not Irrational to be both alive and even choosing death/suicide. It is irrational to live because life is a gamble, it can really go to shit (health wise and financially) you have to be quite lucky to win at it. Most people lose, which is why we realize our chances of losing and decide to stop playing.Choosing death is irrational maybe only for the fact that we ourselves can't see the outcome of that choice. We can't determine if it was a rational decision because we are not there. The people that are alive will inevitably say that it was irrational to make that decision just so they can stay a little bit more rational themselves (or bear being alive themselves). In reality, I think someone stated that it was absurd to even think there is rationality in the universe- it's absurd.

 

[verminoid]

absolutely. a solution to a problem can be found through logical reasoning when you consider the permanence of it, how it'll effect you and the people around you and if it'll actually solve the issue or just make it more bearable. in my situation, i've come to the conclusion that suicide is my best option because 1) i've been in the mental health system for almost 20 years (since i was 8, i'm 27 now) and gone through many kinds of treatment including every type of talk therapy, dozens of medication combos, emdr and treatment resistant/atypical antidepressants. basically the only thing they haven't tried is an icepick to the frontal lobe 2) my family and friends will be devastated but
i've been miserable for too long and living solely for others isn't enough to keep one here 3) pretty obvious that it's a the permanent solution. i'm not deluding myself into thinking it'll lift the burden of my existence from those around me or anything. i've tried treatment methods to no avail. i think i've come to a pretty reasonable conclusion. i resent my mental health worker for saying that i need to stay alive just because, it's what you do.

 

[Amumu]

If you're not doing a psychotic crisis and if you haven't changed your mind for years, it is likely to be a rational decision.
Of course there are other factors which can lean towards "rational" - having the experience of trying all you can try
before that extreme solution, etc. - but that's all about nuances.

 

[Jean Améry]

Why couldn't it be? That's not to say there aren't irrational suicides (probably quite a lot of them although I do not buy into the notion of suicide being irrational by definition) but aslong as the decision was reasoned, the person making the decision was in a reasonable tranquil state of mind and alternatives were seriously considered I don't see why it couldn't be. Stating certain material conditions is folly in my view as we can't gain access to someone-else's mind and thus can't know what they go through and how bad it really is. What is trivial for most might be excruciating for some.

For most people growing old and having to move to a retirement home might not be a big deal while for some it'd amount to pure torture to lose their autonomy and having to be fed, bathed etcetera. For them choosing death over a life that is not worth living in their view (influenced by their values) would constitute a reasoned, rational decision.

It's actually a fairly hot topic in the philosophy of suicide. You might find this lecture interesting:




It's also discussed in this article: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/#AutRatRes (3.7).

Personally I'm a big proponent of rational suicide (not suicide by itself and I certainly don't relish anyone's death but if a person is to take their own life I'd much prefer the decision be guided by reason as opposed to emotions) and I sincerely hope everyone who takes their own life has actually thought it through. Which is one of the reasons I'm opposed to the suicide prohibition: if it were legal under certain conditions people could be guided throughout the process (talks with various people along with offering alternatives if there are any) so that only those that are truly determined, certain and well-informed would opt for it. The others could and should be helped with their respective problems.