Opinions Wanted Please

[Living sucks]

What is your opinion on the difference between:

someone who is terminally ill and dying despite the fact that they want to live but feel the need to ctb to avoid being in a physical state that doesn't allow them to ctb.

and

someone who has good physical health and could live a long life but suffers mentally and feels ctb is their only answer

EDIT :
I'm not looking for why people commit suicide .. I'm seeking opinions on how people feel about the difference of those 2 reasons?
are they different ? Or the same? How do you view the 2 from a personal perspective? I understand it's all personal opinion.

EDIT 2: revised question to try to avoid seeming biased

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I'm not quite sure what you're looking for, so I'll answer with what came up for me: how they are similar.

From the Stoic perspective, suicide can be a rational choice to preserve one's sense of self, and to preserve one's virtue. Things that can cause one to not act with virtue and are therefore rational reasons to suicide:

Ill health

Poverty

Madness (their word, not meant to be derogatory, feel free to replace with mental illness or another term if bothered by it)

Being under the control of tyrants who force one do and say things against their will (which may be against their virtue, and is definitely against one's sense of self)

 

[Soulless_Angel]

is there even a answer to this question?

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I feel the comparison is like comparing apples with oranges.

 

[Living sucks]

I'm not looking for why people commit suicide .. I'm seeking opinions on how people feel about the difference of those 2 reasons?
are they different ? Or the same? How do you view the 2 from a personal perspective? I understand it's all personal opinion.

added this to OP

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

I'm going to make some observations here. Not at all making you wrong, just being analytical with the intentions of giving constructive feedback.

There is an implicit comparison presented here between physical and mental health. This comparison is weighted in the OP -- the NEED to ctb for health reasons vs. the person with mental suffering who feels ctb is their only answer.

I consider what you've shared about yourself and your situation on the forum: you identify as pro-life, but your health situation has led you to seek ctb. Although you identify as pro-life, you consistently act to support others on the forum in their own self-determination and choices. The closest I've ever heard you come to a pro-life statement is to caution one to consider their choice before acting because the results will be permanent.

I think you're struggling with your ethics and the perspectives that served you in the past but no longer serve you. You've in fact been serving others here, and I think you're not yet comfortable with it.

Based on what you've shared in the past, and seeing NEED in all caps, I think you're feeling defensive. And based on saying the personal with mental distress "feels" ctb is their only answer, I think you're struggling with questions of what conditions are valid for this choice. It's like a set of scales where, to you, your situation outweighs the other, but really, I don't think you believe either is valid, but nor do your behaviors indicate you believe they are invalid. I get the sense that you're holding up these scales to a judge and crying out for mercy, both for yourself and others, but unintentionally minimizing the others should only one be acceptable to the judge.

What if there was no judge or court? How would you feel about yourself and your actions if no one was watching and might say you were wrong, or worse, attempt to condemn you?

 

[Living sucks]

is there even a answer to this question?

I feel the comparison is like comparing apples with oranges.

Are you saying there is no comparison? Or there is no difference? IYO

 

[4eyebiped]

Without more information I will say... Both are unfortunate. Both are forced to take an unnatural, and extreme, action to remedy their problem. Both potentially did not have a choice. Both simply got fucked by life. So, one perspective is that they are the same. Sure, I could also argue it a different way or get all philosophical, but, na.

 

[shipwreck]

Are you asking whether one is more justified than the other? If so, I think not: it comes down to how much suffering your condition causes you and whether you are able to bear it or not. A degree of suffering that would crush person might be tolerable to another, and some people are better at tolerating physical pain than mental distress and vice versa.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Are you saying there is no comparison? Or there is no difference? IYO

The idiom implies that they cannot be practically compared.
The difference between them is as stated. It is what it is.
Is there a question in there?
Is the question: which is more justifiable?
How on earth can anyone properly answer that?
Hence the idiom 'it's like comparing apples and oranges.'

 

[GoBack]

It is a very hard question to answer, I'm trying to think but my brain is not so good these days and it's like trying to imagine being in two different bodies at the same time.

I know mental health sucks the will to live out if you, physical health takes the ability to live. But they're both connected.

 

[Living sucks]

I'm going to make some observations here. Not at all making you wrong, just being analytical with the intentions of giving constructive feedback.

There is an implicit comparison presented here between physical and mental health. This comparison is weighted in the OP -- the NEED to ctb for health reasons vs. the person with mental suffering who feels ctb is their only answer.

I consider what you've shared about yourself and your situation on the forum: you identify as pro-life, but your health situation has led you to seek ctb. Although you identify as pro-life, you consistently act to support others on the forum in their own self-determination and choices. The closest I've ever heard you come to a pro-life statement is to caution one to consider their choice before acting because the results will be permanent.

I think you're struggling with your ethics and the perspectives that served you in the past but no longer serve you. You've in fact been serving others here, and I think you're not yet comfortable with it.

Based on what you've shared in the past, and seeing NEED in all caps, I think you're feeling defensive. And based on saying the personal with mental distress "feels" ctb is their only answer, I think you're struggling with questions of what conditions are valid for this choice. It's like a set of scales where, to you, your situation outweighs the other, but really, I don't think you believe either is valid, but nor do your behaviors indicate you believe they are invalid. I get the sense that you're holding up these scales to a judge and crying out for mercy, both for yourself and others, but unintentionally minimizing the others should only one be acceptable to the judge.

What if there was no judge or court? How would you feel about yourself and your actions if no one was watching and might say you were wrong, or worse, attempt to condemn you?

I put need in caps originally because the alternative is gradually decline into an invalid in diapers incapable of ending it. I've revised that since as it speaks for itself.

I was both, prolife in a sense that I never would consider suicide a choice without dire reasons to consider it for myself but prochoice in that I understood it in certain situations ... my understanding of those situations has been broadened to a larger range of reasons. So I feel I've been largely prochoice all along and why I've been able to exist here in this platform.

I don't think either situation outweighs the other, they both suck.
I'm trying to get the perspective from both sides .


The rest is to all, not directed at GPE:
I'm not making insinuations or asking for justification of either reason, everyone's reasons have a personal justification.

If you feel it's an unfair or unanswerable question state it without negating me for asking or assuming I'm minimizing anyone's reason. We're all fragile and I am only asking for opinions of those who wish to expand on it. More so of those suffering from poor mental health with good physical health

It is a very hard question to answer, I'm trying to think but my brain is not so good these days and it's like trying to imagine being in two different bodies at the same time.

I know mental health sucks the will to live out if you, physical health takes the ability to live. But they're both connected.

Thank you . Good analogies

 

[Deleted member 1465]

No intention to negate, apologies if it came across like that, I just find it hard to answer.
Personally, I've kind of fitted into both categories. I've felt enough existential depression to be suicidal in the past and to have such despair is awful.
But in the last few years my health deteriorated to the point where I was aware that I was dying. That was true despair, unlike anything I'd ever experienced. If a comparison is to be made, as I've suffered both situations, I'd personally take the depression I had over the physical suffering any day. The physical suffering also comes with the associated mental suffering so I felt it was a double whammy.
However, on this site I've also encountered and befriended people with really awful mental issues that are beyond their control, where the treatments can be as bad as, or worse than the cause. I have no direct experience, but witnessed their brave struggle, albeit second hand, and I'd not want to walk in those particular shoes.
I guess that's why I find it hard to make a practical comparison. We are all locked in our own heads and though I can listen, I can't fully appreciate another's suffering as we all react to things in different ways.
I've seen people die slowly and seem content, surrounded by family. I've also seen slow horrific decline and death that no one could cope with. I've seen people fight mental illness their whole life and even learn to embrace some of the weird positives that certain MH issues can bring. And I've seen people utterly break over something that others might shrug off with a night out on the beers.
Maybe the specific circumstances that cause suffering are less relevant in some ways than the amount and nature of the suffering as felt by each individual.

 

[lostangel]

I think the majority of suicides regardless of the reason are rational in my eyes. But in pro-lifers suicide will never be rational not even to terminally ill. I don't think the difference matters because people will never put themselves in other people's shoes.

So to address the question ''opinions on how people feel about the difference of those 2 reasons? '' For me, the difference is irrelevant because some people won't care if they're suffering mentally or physically. They'll just make them suffer. I think every suicide can be rationalised if you were in the victim's shoes.

 

[Living sucks]

No intention to negate, apologies if it came across like that, I just find it hard to answer.

No I didn't feel that from you, I was just trying to keep it from heading there.
i hope the personal opinion of me doesn't affect how people respond.

 

[Deleted member 1465]

You've brought up an interesting issue. If I'm honest, sometimes I read someone's story on here and a little bit of me thinks "What are you moaning about? Toughen up!" But then I remember that I don't understand, we are all different and there's no way I can legitimately judge someone else's suffering or their ability to cope with it. Hence my apples and oranges comment.