Meretlein

Meretlein

Moderator
Feb 15, 2019
1,199
Suicide used to be thought of as a criminal action, but in modern society, the view has softened into seeing suicide as a result of mental illness. On SS, we often affirm that committing suicide is a decision we have the right to make because we have dominion over our bodies and lives. However, those who oppose pro-choice ideas often believe that people own their lives and bodies yet come to very different conclusions about suicide. This is due to operating under a different value system.

In this post, I will go over two related suicide topics. The first part of my post will address the value of life, suicide from the perspective of autonomy, and the rationality (or irrationality) of ending one's life. The second part will address the harms of standard suicide prevention tactics.


The Value of Life


Sheldon Solomon defined the cultural scheme of things to be "a shared lens for viewing life and reality that (a) gives life meaning and significance (b) is perceived as permanent and enduring over time (c) establishes the standards of values for individuals with the culture to live up to" (3). The cultural scheme of things can be thought of as the "symbolic world" that exists in each person's mind that not only gives people a means to integrate and process their experiences but also posits the nature of reality and lays down a framework of values and standards.

One value that is near-universal, so much so that it is thought to be self-evident, is life. To most, life is thought to be inherently valuable, an end rather than a means to an end, and requires no justification or explanation. There is often little philosophical reasoning provided for this idea that life is inherently worthwhile and valuable; for most, it is merely a feeling. This belief is, in essence, part of one's cultural scheme of things masquerading as objective reality. Anyone who disagrees with this idea is not only seen as wrong but as being pathologically out of touch with reality. There are, however, a few asymmetries in life that those arguing for its inherent good should answer for.

While some may regard life as a gift, it is undeniable that life comes with striving, and in many ways, this striving is asymmetrically tilted towards suffering. Negative states such as thirst, hunger, and old age (with all of its accompanying pains) come naturally, while one must strive not only to stave off or remove negative states but to reach positive states. In addition to this, one often spends far more time striving for positive states in relation to how long the positive state lasts. One pertinent example is the amount of energy, time, and oftentimes animal suffering it takes to make a meal yet how ephemeral the ensuing gustatory pleasure is. It is rarely denied that life is inculcated with striving, yet this view is often mitigated by arguing that one misses out on the pleasures that life brings when they die. But just as the time before one was born was not a deprivation, the time after one dies will not be either. In the words of Nabakov, who put it far better than I ever can, "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for" (1).


Not only must we strive, we strive alone. A fundamental part of our inner selves is separated from others and while this gap can be indirectly bridged through the use of language, touch and other symbolic means such as art and music, every individual is ultimately alone in their own head. There is no one but them alone who experiences the suffering (or pleasure) that they are experiencing. We may share moments with someone else, yet they are never in that moment with us, ie, the qualia of those moments is something felt by us and us alone. Ernest Becker touched on this when he wrote, "We touch people on the outsides of their bodies, and they us, but we cannot get at their insides and cannot reveal our insides to them. This is one of the great tragedies of our interiority—it is utterly personal and unrevealable. Often we want to say something unusually intimate to a spouse, a parent, a friend, communicate something of how we are really feeling about a sunset, who we really feel we are—only to fall strangely and miserably flat" (207). It is therefore fitting that each individual should be able to ascertain whether the current costs of existence are worth it and how valuable the potential for future pleasure is relative to current suffering.

Mainstream suicide prevention

Suicide preventionists like to hide their paternalism under the guise of protecting a suicidal person's (or, in many cases, a suspected suicidal person's) "real, future self" from their "mentally ill and pathologically out of touch with reality current self." As I addressed in the previous part of my post, the view that suicidal people are pathologically out of touch with reality is unsubstantiated.

Perhaps the most vile method of suicide prevention is forcible psychiatric detention. In essence, this involves subjecting a suicidal person to what would otherwise be considered abuse, violence, and kidnapping if not committed against a suicidal person by medical authorities. Despite the good intentions of medical authorities, the phenomenological experience of the detained person is that of kidnapping and bodily violation. The voice of the suicidal person does not matter. If they try to resist, they will be violently forced into submission through either brute physical force, being tied down, or being drugged. Any other values that a suicidal person may hold, such as bodily inviolability or autonomy, are rendered null. The indignity of being forcibly detained is considered worth it by others if it saves a life, regardless of whether the person who is being subjected to forcible detention values their life more than dignity, autonomy, and bodily inviolability. This line of thought insinuates a deep lack of respect as respect entails allowing someone to act in their own best interests in accordance with their own values and not forcing them into following their "best interests" as defined by others. This also applies to many people who are mentally ill, as mental illness does not necessarily render someone globally irrational and all of their values (besides life) null.

As much as the mental health movement likes to talk about destigmatizing suicide, there is very little that is more stigmatizing than taking away someone's voice and violently forcing them into submission. Medical authorities have their hearts in the right place, yet they are subjecting another human being to cruel treatment on the chance that they will be grateful for it some day. Without a doubt some people are grateful, but it comes at the cost of making the dignity, autonomy, and peace of mind of a suicidal person disposable.

This is less of a suicide prevention tactic and more of an attitude. We all know this attitude well; it is the idea that suicidal people ought to keep living, and anything that is not prolife content is encouraging suicide. While suicidal people are often implored to choose life, there is no true choice unless one is allowed to do the opposite. By not allowing one to opt-out of life, pro-lifers see life not as a choice but as an obligation. If an adult cannot make an autonomous decision about what to do with their own body and life, then they do not own their body or life. This is an odious conclusion. I have had friends on this site who I deeply wish were still here, yet it was their life to take and do with it what they please, not mine to keep.

The zeal in which society wants to prevent suicide is fascinating because one is allowed to do many things that are analogous to suicide, such as cutting off all contact with loved ones or making life-altering irreversible decisions. This incongruence is once again caused by seeing life as inherently valuable and worthwhile.

I have written this post hoping that it will explain the "why" behind many of the ideas often expressed on SS. For anyone who has gotten this far, thank you for reading.

Postscript

It should be noted that I am not against suicide prevention - only the coercive means of doing so, such as throttling information and denying access to peaceful methods of suicide and locking someone up on the chance that they will end their life. These tactics cause someone to stay alive not because they voluntarily choose to live but because they have to. I am not pro suicide, I am pro voluntary life.

References
Nabokov, V. V., & Boyd, B. (1999). Speak, memory: An autobiography revisited. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Solomon, Sheldon. Denying Death.

Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. A. (2015). The worm at the core: On the role of death in life. Penguin Random House.
 
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bed

bed

CTBed
Aug 24, 2019
919
Very well written.

I think most people are delusional in the sense that human life is far more important than every other life form on this planet. We are no more important than the ants beneath our feet.

From a lot of people i've spoken to, involuntary commitment has done far more harm than good. For me, it really didn't do anything, I had a more neutral experience but it still was far from good.

Until we treat the problems at hand instead of the symptoms, we will continue to repeat the cycle as a society.
 
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P

pole

Global Mod
Sep 18, 2018
1,385
this is powerful.

Journalists outside of the site focus on a single side, and their perception of the forum is shaped by grieving families driven by sadness and anger. Well what about what this site is from a members perspective? How do they feel about suicide discussion? What does this place truly do for them? Instead of vilifying the site, maybe incorporate the perspectives of long time members that haven't ctb'd, and find comfort in this space? oh wait, it doesn't fit your narrative. cool.

No one should blame those families of lost ones for wanting take action, as they are driven by heartbreak. However, these journalists have been far from neutral. it's unfair.

thank you for shedding light and bringing a different view on what this forum is. it is important.
 
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Meretlein

Meretlein

Moderator
Feb 15, 2019
1,199
this is powerful.

Journalists outside of the site focus on a single side, and their perception of the forum is shaped by grieving families driven by sadness and anger. Well what about what this site is from a members perspective? How do they feel about suicide discussion? What does this place truly do for them? Instead of vilifying the site, maybe incorporate the perspectives of long time members that haven't ctb'd, and find comfort in this space? oh wait, it doesn't fit your narrative. cool.

No one should blame those families of lost ones for wanting take action, as they are driven by heartbreak. However, these journalists have been far from neutral. it's unfair.

thank you for shedding light and bringing a different view on what this forum is. it is important.

Thank you for this response. We should keep affirming that we are not pro suicide but pro voluntary life, something reporters gloss over.
 
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LingeringUnreal

LingeringUnreal

dumb of ass
Dec 14, 2021
118
It's telling when an article seeking to vilify something ends up drawing people who need it, at least in my case. Too often does talk of suicide wrap around to how others feel about it - it often focuses on the family, the friends, the people around them - but then rarely if ever does it ever actually talk about how the person themselves felt. Or if it does, it's wrapped in these coddling and infantilizing remarks about "not in right mind" or things of that nature. It's not even about free speech at heart, it's about individual autonomy and the absolutely humiliating and dehumanizing treatment suicidal people face in regular counseling, and being able to say things that would otherwise result in expensive and horrific treatment.

In the end, even non suicidal people will say someone who took their own life "made a terrible choice" - if you admit it is a choice, why then would you deny people to talk about it as such? So strange. Thank you very much for the thoughts, just wanted to add as someone swayed in the completely opposite intended direction of the article.
 
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Insomniac

Insomniac

𝔄 𝔲 𝔱 𝔦 𝔰 𝔪
May 21, 2021
1,357
the biggest deepest fear people have about destigmatizing suicide is that it'll eventually turn out to be a double edged sword.

I have said it before. humans will eventually end up using this against each others.

like family members who claim that one of their relative is crazy or insane to gain conservatorship or to force them into psywards and forcibly drug them. If suicide becomes a norm, it's guaranteed that people will end up using it against each other in some way. Like we now use mental illness awareness to completely take away the rights of mentally ill people.

Also, there is the fear that people will start resorting to suicide too easily without considering other options. Of course, in my ideal world, that wouldn't be an issue. But since we're composing with people who value life, it's important to understand and take into account and come up with a solution to avoid all these concern they have.

I value prolifers opinion of suicide as much as I value my prochoice stance. I think this balance is necessary. Pro-lifers do have a valid point about the importance of life, not because I think life is valuable, but because cooperation and meeting them halfway in their opinions and convictions is important to me.

What I say here doesn't apply to the people who are vilifiying us in their articles or these immature relatives of suicided people who attack us. I have zero compassion or respect for them.

I'm talking about prolife philosophy in general and it's necessity and it's indeniable value and the importance of meeting respectful prolifers halfway and admitting that their concerns are real and valid.
 
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rationaltake

rationaltake

I'm rocking it - in another universe
Sep 28, 2021
2,712
Thank you @Meretlein for this lucid and eloquent post. You are standing up for all of us on this site.
 
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MelancholyMagic

MelancholyMagic

For my next trick, I will disappear
Dec 12, 2021
204
thank you for reading
Thank you for crafting this post.
I like the points you made, especially about how people view life as objectively good when it really isn't, and how the problem isn't suicide prevention but coercive suicide prevention.
Suicide used to be thought of as a criminal action, but in modern society, the view has softened into seeing suicide as a result of mental illness.
I have often wondered which would be preferred (if we had to have one): Suicide as a criminal act, or suicide as an irrational act. I'm not actually sure which is better myself.

Suicide being criminal is clearly problematic. But I worry that this recent trend (past several decades at least) to make suicide into something that "only a person who is so confused that they can't even make choices for themselves" is even more insidious. When suicide was criminal, it was treated as a choice you could make over your own body, just that you shouldn't do it. With it now labelled as irrational, you are treated like you are incapable of making choices in the first place. This may be an even worse violation of bodily autonomy.
This treatment of suicide as a so-called "irrational act" may have been, in some ways, a step backwards from reaching the universal RTD too, but only time will tell with that.

As a side note, I'd say suicide is rational, and living is irrational. But that is a topic for another time.
 
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DocNo

DocNo

whatever
Oct 30, 2020
1,750
nothing really to add to this well written text.

i think in medicine not only about mental health but about health in general a lot from this mindset of saving life at all costs comes from a historic religious influence.
like it somehow still is seen as a sin which is now masked by some different terminology. and despite the fact in many countries the influence of religion is getting lower it still prevails cause mindsets don't change overnight. it often takes generations for bigger changes.
so based on this mindset even statements like this from your text "It is therefore fitting that each individual should be able to ascertain whether the current costs of existence are worth it and how valuable the potential for future pleasure is relative to current suffering." are invalidated as being out of touch of reality too easily.

but at least we see in some countries movement and the realization that leaving in dignity can be more important than staying alive at all costs.
but it's for sure a long way. i think in terms of mental health treatment we are still more in the middle ages than in modern times.
and also the tendency in modern society to treat symptoms instead of digging deeper to the root isn't very helpful. but ongoing treatment is more profitable - but anyways - that's a whole other topic ^^
 
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FuneralCry

FuneralCry

Just wanting some peace
Sep 24, 2020
38,211
This is an interesting post, thank you for sharing, it is well written. I think many people live under a delusion that life is always worth living and they are in denial of the fact that things can get that bad that one would consider ctb. They therefore dismiss all suicidal people as irrational. I think in many cases, wanting suicide can be a perfectly rational response to someone coming to the conclusion that their life is not worth living.

Suicide should not be so stigmatised. It does frustrate me the attitude that society holds that suicide must always be prevented. It should be the choice of the individual as it is their life. It is nothing to do with anyone else.
 
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rationaldeath

rationaldeath

Member
Dec 10, 2021
84
Great post, especially the point about people lacking a solid philosophical justification for their belief in the objective value of life. Given that they are the ones claiming the existence of this truth that we ought to base our decisions on I would think the burden of proof lies with them. The suicidal are only irrational if there is an objective system of morality which is a view many don't even hold, let alone have a sufficient defense for.
 
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GentleJerk

GentleJerk

Carrot juice pimp.
Dec 14, 2021
1,372
This is very well written and eloquent thank you @Meretlein . It covers a lot of the deliberately ignored elements of the topic. More intelligent input like this is much needed If there is to be greater understanding and acceptance.

It is largely up to us more than anyone else to generate a stronger case for acceptance, and to balance the uneven playing field by advocating for our rights and beliefs. What a great community!
 
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Ironweed

Ironweed

Nauseated.
Nov 9, 2019
320
Suicide preventionists like to hide their paternalism under the guise of protecting a suicidal person's (or, in many cases, a suspected suicidal person's) "real, future self" from their "mentally ill and pathologically out of touch with reality current self." As I addressed in the previous part of my post, the view that suicidal people are pathologically out of touch with reality is unsubstantiated.
Unfortunately this statement is not quite correct. While I am a bit uncertain what is meant by "pathologically out of touch with reality," enough suicide attempts, and one assumes successful suicides, are in fact done in a spur of the moment way, in a state of high emotion, under mood or even mind altering substances and so on that it becomes difficult to defend these instances as being remotely close to a rational act. I think the error you've fallen into is the same one your "suicide preventionists" fall into: an "all or nothing" or perhaps even a "one size fits all" assumption that all suicides are somehow qualitatively the same, the only difference being you're defending -- or seem to be defending -- what these sorts seek to stop. And we do know that while a previous suicide attempt is a leading, maybe THE leading, indicator for an ultimately successful suicide, only a small percentage of suicide attempters ever go on to end their lives. I don't have citations at hand for any of this, but I think I could dig them up with an hour or two of googling.

To stick on my advocatus diaboli devil's horn's, and argue a position I don't hold, I think a pro-lifer could even argue you've created a straw-man here, in the sense that they could reasonably argue what they're doing is preventing somebody temporarily out of touch with reality from harming themselves. In some instances, they might even be right.

I do agree with the whole "future self" business. It is unverified and unverifiable, a sort of secular religion dogmatically asserted and nowhere even coherently defined. Jennifer Michael Hecht certainly abused the hell out of the term in her execrable Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It

I'll meditate on the rest of the essay -- most of which I do in fact agree with -- and if I have anything else worthwhile to say I'll come back and add a few more thoughts. But I did want to note my biggest area of disagreement with the OP. I realize there's a great deal I didn't define to a reader's satisfaction here, in the sense I'm arguing for a kind of "good" vs. "bad" or "rational" vs. "irrational" suicide, but that would be an essay on its own. One I'm not currently prepared to write, and I doubt anyone would read even if I wrote it.
 
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steviewonder

steviewonder

Sexually Challenged
Nov 9, 2020
109
the biggest deepest fear people have about destigmatizing suicide is that it'll eventually turn out to be a double edged sword.

I have said it before. humans will eventually end up using this against each others.

like family members who claim that one of their relative is crazy or insane to gain conservatorship or to force them into psywards and forcibly drug them. If suicide becomes a norm, it's guaranteed that people will end up using it against each other in some way. Like we now use mental illness awareness to completely take away the rights of mentally ill people.

Also, there is the fear that people will start resorting to suicide too easily without considering other options. Of course, in my ideal world, that wouldn't be an issue. But since we're composing with people who value life, it's important to understand and take into account and come up with a solution to avoid all these concern they have.

I value prolifers opinion of suicide as much as I value my prochoice stance. I think this balance is necessary. Pro-lifers do have a valid point about the importance of life, not because I think life is valuable, but because cooperation and meeting them halfway in their opinions and convictions is important to me.

What I say here doesn't apply to the people who are vilifiying us in their articles or these immature relatives of suicided people who attack us. I have zero compassion or respect for them.

I'm talking about prolife philosophy in general and it's necessity and it's indeniable value and the importance of meeting respectful prolifers halfway and admitting that their concerns are real and valid.
Suicide will always be taboo. I can see old people being pressured into it but not really as big of a problem as you're bringing up. That being said the state would benefit from unproductive people dying as it reduces tax burdens.
 
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MolinaKeyLime

MolinaKeyLime

Member
Dec 16, 2021
23
It's telling when an article seeking to vilify something ends up drawing people who need it, at least in my case. Too often does talk of suicide wrap around to how others feel about it - it often focuses on the family, the friends, the people around them - but then rarely if ever does it ever actually talk about how the person themselves felt. Or if it does, it's wrapped in these coddling and infantilizing remarks about "not in right mind" or things of that nature. It's not even about free speech at heart, it's about individual autonomy and the absolutely humiliating and dehumanizing treatment suicidal people face in regular counseling, and being able to say things that would otherwise result in expensive and horrific treatment.

In the end, even non suicidal people will say someone who took their own life "made a terrible choice" - if you admit it is a choice, why then would you deny people to talk about it as such? So strange. Thank you very much for the thoughts, just wanted to add as someone swayed in the completely opposite intended direction of the article.
Ur profile photo mixed in with the "dumb of ass" made my day
 
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Meretlein

Meretlein

Moderator
Feb 15, 2019
1,199
Unfortunately this statement is not quite correct. While I am a bit uncertain what is meant by "pathologically out of touch with reality," enough suicide attempts, and one assumes successful suicides, are in fact done in a spur of the moment way, in a state of high emotion, under mood or even mind altering substances and so on that it becomes difficult to defend these instances as being remotely close to a rational act. I think the error you've fallen into is the same one your "suicide preventionists" fall into: an "all or nothing" or perhaps even a "one size fits all" assumption that all suicides are somehow qualitatively the same, the only difference being you're defending -- or seem to be defending -- what these sorts seek to stop. And we do know that while a previous suicide attempt is a leading, maybe THE leading, indicator for an ultimately successful suicide, only a small percentage of suicide attempters ever go on to end their lives. I don't have citations at hand for any of this, but I think I could dig them up with an hour or two of googling.

To stick on my advocatus diaboli devil's horn's, and argue a position I don't hold, I think a pro-lifer could even argue you've created a straw-man here, in the sense that they could reasonably argue what they're doing is preventing somebody temporarily out of touch with reality from harming themselves. In some instances, they might even be right.

I do agree with the whole "future self" business. It is unverified and unverifiable, a sort of secular religion dogmatically asserted and nowhere even coherently defined. Jennifer Michael Hecht certainly abused the hell out of the term in her execrable Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It

I'll meditate on the rest of the essay -- most of which I do in fact agree with -- and if I have anything else worthwhile to say I'll come back and add a few more thoughts. But I did want to note my biggest area of disagreement with the OP. I realize there's a great deal I didn't define to a reader's satisfaction here, in the sense I'm arguing for a kind of "good" vs. "bad" or "rational" vs. "irrational" suicide, but that would be an essay on its own. One I'm not currently prepared to write, and I doubt anyone would read even if I wrote it.

I should have been more clear about what type of suicidal people I am referring to. I am aware that some suicidal attempters are impulsive and often ambivalent about dying; they should not be seen the same as someone who is highly intent on dying and is acting in a non-impulsive frame of mind. However, what should be done about with impulsive attempters is a dilemma. Intervention sounds good in theory but often amounts to little more than abuse and violence in practice.

Impulsive attempters are not the equivalent of most SS users who, despite often struggling with mental health issues, are usually acting in a non-impulsive state. People here have to read about a method, wait for the supplies to arrive, and more times than not, go through a 2-day antiemetic regimen. I acknowledge that not all suicidal people are cut from the same cloth, which is one reason I am critical of studies showing that most suicide attempters do not later die by suicide. How many of them were truly intent on dying and willing to make meticulous plans? I haven't seen much research on the topic.

One thing to consider when it comes to impulsive suicide attempters is that it is highly probable that many of them were compelled to act during moments of desperation because they had no knowledge of more peaceful means.

I plan to discuss impulsive attempts and suicide regret in a later post. Thank you for the feedback on this post. I really appreciate it.
 
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Rabhen

Rabhen

Isolated Loner
Dec 17, 2021
147
Suicide used to be thought of as a criminal action, but in modern society, the view has softened into seeing suicide as a result of mental illness. On SS, we often affirm that committing suicide is a decision we have the right to make because we have dominion over our bodies and lives. However, those who oppose pro-choice ideas often believe that people own their lives and bodies yet come to very different conclusions about suicide. This is due to operating under a different value system.

In this post, I will go over two related suicide topics. The first part of my post will address the value of life, suicide from the perspective of autonomy, and the rationality (or irrationality) of ending one's life. The second part will address the harms of standard suicide prevention tactics.


The Value of Life


Sheldon Solomon defined the cultural scheme of things to be "a shared lens for viewing life and reality that (a) gives life meaning and significance (b) is perceived as permanent and enduring over time (c) establishes the standards of values for individuals with the culture to live up to" (3). The cultural scheme of things can be thought of as the "symbolic world" that exists in each person's mind that not only gives people a means to integrate and process their experiences but also posits the nature of reality and lays down a framework of values and standards.

One value that is near-universal, so much so that it is thought to be self-evident, is life. To most, life is thought to be inherently valuable, an end rather than a means to an end, and requires no justification or explanation. There is often little philosophical reasoning provided for this idea that life is inherently worthwhile and valuable; for most, it is merely a feeling. This belief is, in essence, part of one's cultural scheme of things masquerading as objective reality. Anyone who disagrees with this idea is not only seen as wrong but as being pathologically out of touch with reality. There are, however, a few asymmetries in life that those arguing for its inherent good should answer for.

While some may regard life as a gift, it is undeniable that life comes with striving, and in many ways, this striving is asymmetrically tilted towards suffering. Negative states such as thirst, hunger, and old age (with all of its accompanying pains) come naturally, while one must strive not only to stave off or remove negative states but to reach positive states. In addition to this, one often spends far more time striving for positive states in relation to how long the positive state lasts. One pertinent example is the amount of energy, time, and oftentimes animal suffering it takes to make a meal yet how ephemeral the ensuing gustatory pleasure is. It is rarely denied that life is inculcated with striving, yet this view is often mitigated by arguing that one misses out on the pleasures that life brings when they die. But just as the time before one was born was not a deprivation, the time after one dies will not be either. In the words of Nabakov, who put it far better than I ever can, "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for" (1).


Not only must we strive, we strive alone. A fundamental part of our inner selves is separated from others and while this gap can be indirectly bridged through the use of language, touch and other symbolic means such as art and music, every individual is ultimately alone in their own head. There is no one but them alone who experiences the suffering (or pleasure) that they are experiencing. We may share moments with someone else, yet they are never in that moment with us, ie, the qualia of those moments is something felt by us and us alone. Ernest Becker touched on this when he wrote, "We touch people on the outsides of their bodies, and they us, but we cannot get at their insides and cannot reveal our insides to them. This is one of the great tragedies of our interiority—it is utterly personal and unrevealable. Often we want to say something unusually intimate to a spouse, a parent, a friend, communicate something of how we are really feeling about a sunset, who we really feel we are—only to fall strangely and miserably flat" (207). It is therefore fitting that each individual should be able to ascertain whether the current costs of existence are worth it and how valuable the potential for future pleasure is relative to current suffering.

Mainstream suicide prevention

Suicide preventionists like to hide their paternalism under the guise of protecting a suicidal person's (or, in many cases, a suspected suicidal person's) "real, future self" from their "mentally ill and pathologically out of touch with reality current self." As I addressed in the previous part of my post, the view that suicidal people are pathologically out of touch with reality is unsubstantiated.

Perhaps the most vile method of suicide prevention is forcible psychiatric detention. In essence, this involves subjecting a suicidal person to what would otherwise be considered abuse, violence, and kidnapping if not committed against a suicidal person by medical authorities. Despite the good intentions of medical authorities, the phenomenological experience of the detained person is that of kidnapping and bodily violation. The voice of the suicidal person does not matter. If they try to resist, they will be violently forced into submission through either brute physical force, being tied down, or being drugged. Any other values that a suicidal person may hold, such as bodily inviolability or autonomy, are rendered null. The indignity of being forcibly detained is considered worth it by others if it saves a life, regardless of whether the person who is being subjected to forcible detention values their life more than dignity, autonomy, and bodily inviolability. This line of thought insinuates a deep lack of respect as respect entails allowing someone to act in their own best interests in accordance with their own values and not forcing them into following their "best interests" as defined by others. This also applies to many people who are mentally ill, as mental illness does not necessarily render someone globally irrational and all of their values (besides life) null.

As much as the mental health movement likes to talk about destigmatizing suicide, there is very little that is more stigmatizing than taking away someone's voice and violently forcing them into submission. Medical authorities have their hearts in the right place, yet they are subjecting another human being to cruel treatment on the chance that they will be grateful for it some day. Without a doubt some people are grateful, but it comes at the cost of making the dignity, autonomy, and peace of mind of a suicidal person disposable.

This is less of a suicide prevention tactic and more of an attitude. We all know this attitude well; it is the idea that suicidal people ought to keep living, and anything that is not prolife content is encouraging suicide. While suicidal people are often implored to choose life, there is no true choice unless one is allowed to do the opposite. By not allowing one to opt-out of life, pro-lifers see life not as a choice but as an obligation. If an adult cannot make an autonomous decision about what to do with their own body and life, then they do not own their body or life. This is an odious conclusion. I have had friends on this site who I deeply wish were still here, yet it was their life to take and do with it what they please, not mine to keep.

The zeal in which society wants to prevent suicide is fascinating because one is allowed to do many things that are analogous to suicide, such as cutting off all contact with loved ones or making life-altering irreversible decisions. This incongruence is once again caused by seeing life as inherently valuable and worthwhile.

I have written this post hoping that it will explain the "why" behind many of the ideas often expressed on SS. For anyone who has gotten this far, thank you for reading.

Postscript

It should be noted that I am not against suicide prevention - only the coercive means of doing so, such as throttling information and denying access to peaceful methods of suicide and locking someone up on the chance that they will end their life. These tactics cause someone to stay alive not because they voluntarily choose to live but because they have to. I am not pro suicide, I am pro voluntary life.

References
Nabokov, V. V., & Boyd, B. (1999). Speak, memory: An autobiography revisited. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Solomon, Sheldon. Denying Death.

Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. A. (2015). The worm at the core: On the role of death in life. Penguin Random House.
I haven't finished reading this yet, I will finish, but I must comment...
I should have been more clear about what type of suicidal people I am referring to. I am aware that some suicidal attempters are impulsive and often ambivalent about dying; they should not be seen the same as someone who is highly intent on dying and is acting in a non-impulsive frame of mind. However, what should be done about with impulsive attempters is a dilemma. Intervention sounds good in theory but often amounts to little more than abuse and violence in practice.

Impulsive attempters are not the equivalent of most SS users who, despite often struggling with mental health issues, are usually acting in a non-impulsive state. People here have to read about a method, wait for the supplies to arrive, and more times than not, go through a 2-day antiemetic regimen. I acknowledge that not all suicidal people are cut from the same cloth, which is one reason I am critical of studies showing that most suicide attempters do not later die by suicide. How many of them were truly intent on dying and willing to make meticulous plans? I haven't seen much research on the topic.

One thing to consider when it comes to impulsive suicide attempters is that it is highly probable that many of them were compelled to act during moments of desperation because they had no knowledge of more peaceful means.

I plan to discuss impulsive attempts and suicide regret in a later post. Thank you for the feedback on this post. I really appreciate it.
Thanx
I haven't finished reading this yet, I will finish, but I must comment...

Thanx
you spoke from my heart
 
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little helpers

little helpers

did I tie the tourniquet on my arm or on my neck?
Dec 14, 2021
519
like family members who claim that one of their relative is crazy or insane to gain conservatorship or to force them into psywards and forcibly drug them. If suicide becomes a norm, it's guaranteed that people will end up using it against each other in some way. Like we now use mental illness awareness to completely take away the rights of mentally ill people.
cuz psych meds is one of the most lucrative shit in this world. same with addiction "recovery" industry. psych prisons, too, are fucking expensive. just as the BIPOC families driven into bankruptcy because the prisons/jails is TOO EXPENSIVE a place for their daughter / son / parent / sibling to BE IMPRISONED AND ENSLAVED IN.

it's all about milking more out of disabled people. and they do it with some more squeezing. "we need to prevent suicide because [however much profit] is lost each year through these lives" BS. we become "burdens" simply for we asked for a lil more to keep. a bit more community, autonomy, trust, safety. human things. we are maladjusted to staying in our sub-human places under anti-human conditions. our bodies shouted in the universal language of pain. while we're told to ignore the firing alarm with some SSRIs and antipsychotics - to "put up with the alienation and go on with the fascination".

"it's no measure of good health to be well-adjusted to a sick society."
 
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little helpers

little helpers

did I tie the tourniquet on my arm or on my neck?
Dec 14, 2021
519
While I am a bit uncertain what is meant by "pathologically out of touch with reality," enough suicide attempts, and one assumes successful suicides, are in fact done in a spur of the moment way, in a state of high emotion, under mood or even mind altering substances and so on that it becomes difficult to defend these instances as being remotely close to a rational act.
this statement inevitably implies that the person saying so has huge misunderstandings of what drugs or emotions do. does calmness necessarily translate into "being rational"? are addicts lacking judgement in anything other than how to balance our drug use? should olympic and paralympic records stop being touted because when these athletes compete, they're fucking excited (naturally)? how do they even compete if an emotional high impedes judgement, one of the biggest factors in competitive sports? don't many people, here and beyond, already take rational and philosophical considerations over and over again, when we're not impulsive, before we take our own lives (if we choose to do so)?
AND, is ANY OTHER person more rational when it comes to OUR own option to die? most of what I see, is the bystander bursts into absolute hysteria and claims they know what we "really needed" - so delusional that they think they can override the biological and psychological boundary between individuals, and force us to live under their understanding of what is good for "us". an understanding driven by THEIR interest to not witness trauma and undergo devastation, WHILE it is, at least to a certain extent, their neglect (and oftentimes abuse) that influenced, if not prompted us, to have lost all faith in humanity, and stopped clinging onto life as a result.

whatever mental states people are under when they commit suicide does NOT automatically reflect the states they're in when the made the decision to do so. and we think about it carefully, essentially BECAUSE suicide can be very (physiologically) painful. chronically suicidal people especially, we have enough time, too much time, really, to think about it. all the time. years and years on end.

say, you've considered all the risks involved, is very well-informed, and still reckon that a major surgery is the best option for your condition. do you undergo surgery armed with nothing but strong will, or do you consent to be anesthetized? the surgery knife slitting your bare skin is sure to make you regret, but you need that surgery to get to a better place, a place you wanted for yourself.

the division between psych meds and street drugs is arbitrary and artifical. it seems acceptable for "happy" or SSRI'ed individuals to think out of touch with reality - biased towards "optimism" where they grossly overestimate how nice their situation is, their chances of winning are, where everyone thinks they're at the top 10% best employee in their workplace. and when other people actually sees how hopeless our society is, we get banned from voicing it, changing it, organising around it, we get banned to live.

and banned from dying too. now we have practically nowhere to go. fed traumas down our throats and told to keep going. sounds like a human sacrifice scene. ahh. trigger warning.

suicide is rational for those who take it seriously. "seriously" meaning they've already thought all about the "future self" thingy and still choose to do so.

Edit: btw, health and pathology is a very philosophical thing to consider. I prefer the view that health is the ability to regulate under a certain range of environments. it's not a rigid thing you can define for each and everyone, but fluid, homeostatic, and tailored to one's history and situations. depression for example, is very much useful for survival. you don't "keep trying" under impossible conditions cuz that costs more than it can possibly offer. if you been in an earthquake, you kneel down and put your head between your knees - that is the "depressive position", and it works. or if you been trapped in a house on fire, jumping out of the window is your best bet. you don't ask a person to stand up straight in a social(external) / mental(internalised) disaster, you remove the threat.
 
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Meditation guide

Meditation guide

Always was, is, and always shall be.
Jun 22, 2020
6,089
I wanted to post this short video which talks about a woman's mother dying painfully of cancer. If this is the wrong place you can remove it.
 
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puppet_nihilist

puppet_nihilist

cogito, ergo sum
Jan 8, 2021
227
Absolutely amazing writing. Succinct, concise, coherent. Nice quote from Nabokov too.
 
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wannaseepenguins

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Dec 12, 2021
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Thank you for taking the time to write this.
 
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cytokinestorm

cytokinestorm

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Apr 19, 2020
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Good post.

My belief is that to force someone to remain alive against their will, is akin to torture. Everyone should have the right to say "enough" and to be able to relieve themselves of the burden of being alive.
 
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Phtzzzing

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Jan 3, 2022
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Well said.
 
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amiaghola

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Jan 6, 2022
3
Unfortunately this statement is not quite correct. While I am a bit uncertain what is meant by "pathologically out of touch with reality," enough suicide attempts, and one assumes successful suicides, are in fact done in a spur of the moment way, in a state of high emotion, under mood or even mind altering substances and so on that it becomes difficult to defend these instances as being remotely close to a rational act. I think the error you've fallen into is the same one your "suicide preventionists" fall into: an "all or nothing" or perhaps even a "one size fits all" assumption that all suicides are somehow qualitatively the same, the only difference being you're defending -- or seem to be defending -- what these sorts seek to stop. And we do know that while a previous suicide attempt is a leading, maybe THE leading, indicator for an ultimately successful suicide, only a small percentage of suicide attempters ever go on to end their lives. I don't have citations at hand for any of this, but I think I could dig them up with an hour or two of googling.

To stick on my advocatus diaboli devil's horn's, and argue a position I don't hold, I think a pro-lifer could even argue you've created a straw-man here, in the sense that they could reasonably argue what they're doing is preventing somebody temporarily out of touch with reality from harming themselves. In some instances, they might even be right.

I do agree with the whole "future self" business. It is unverified and unverifiable, a sort of secular religion dogmatically asserted and nowhere even coherently defined. Jennifer Michael Hecht certainly abused the hell out of the term in her execrable Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It

I'll meditate on the rest of the essay -- most of which I do in fact agree with -- and if I have anything else worthwhile to say I'll come back and add a few more thoughts. But I did want to note my biggest area of disagreement with the OP. I realize there's a great deal I didn't define to a reader's satisfaction here, in the sense I'm arguing for a kind of "good" vs. "bad" or "rational" vs. "irrational" suicide, but that would be an essay on its own. One I'm not currently prepared to write, and I doubt anyone would read even if I wrote it.
I would read your essay, should you ever write it
 
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i_was_here

i_was_here

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interesting and well written
 
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IanUK

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Mar 25, 2021
77
Suicide used to be thought of as a criminal action, but in modern society, the view has softened into seeing suicide as a result of mental illness. On SS, we often affirm that committing suicide is a decision we have the right to make because we have dominion over our bodies and lives. However, those who oppose pro-choice ideas often believe that people own their lives and bodies yet come to very different conclusions about suicide. This is due to operating under a different value system.

In this post, I will go over two related suicide topics. The first part of my post will address the value of life, suicide from the perspective of autonomy, and the rationality (or irrationality) of ending one's life. The second part will address the harms of standard suicide prevention tactics.


The Value of Life


Sheldon Solomon defined the cultural scheme of things to be "a shared lens for viewing life and reality that (a) gives life meaning and significance (b) is perceived as permanent and enduring over time (c) establishes the standards of values for individuals with the culture to live up to" (3). The cultural scheme of things can be thought of as the "symbolic world" that exists in each person's mind that not only gives people a means to integrate and process their experiences but also posits the nature of reality and lays down a framework of values and standards.

One value that is near-universal, so much so that it is thought to be self-evident, is life. To most, life is thought to be inherently valuable, an end rather than a means to an end, and requires no justification or explanation. There is often little philosophical reasoning provided for this idea that life is inherently worthwhile and valuable; for most, it is merely a feeling. This belief is, in essence, part of one's cultural scheme of things masquerading as objective reality. Anyone who disagrees with this idea is not only seen as wrong but as being pathologically out of touch with reality. There are, however, a few asymmetries in life that those arguing for its inherent good should answer for.

While some may regard life as a gift, it is undeniable that life comes with striving, and in many ways, this striving is asymmetrically tilted towards suffering. Negative states such as thirst, hunger, and old age (with all of its accompanying pains) come naturally, while one must strive not only to stave off or remove negative states but to reach positive states. In addition to this, one often spends far more time striving for positive states in relation to how long the positive state lasts. One pertinent example is the amount of energy, time, and oftentimes animal suffering it takes to make a meal yet how ephemeral the ensuing gustatory pleasure is. It is rarely denied that life is inculcated with striving, yet this view is often mitigated by arguing that one misses out on the pleasures that life brings when they die. But just as the time before one was born was not a deprivation, the time after one dies will not be either. In the words of Nabakov, who put it far better than I ever can, "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for" (1).


Not only must we strive, we strive alone. A fundamental part of our inner selves is separated from others and while this gap can be indirectly bridged through the use of language, touch and other symbolic means such as art and music, every individual is ultimately alone in their own head. There is no one but them alone who experiences the suffering (or pleasure) that they are experiencing. We may share moments with someone else, yet they are never in that moment with us, ie, the qualia of those moments is something felt by us and us alone. Ernest Becker touched on this when he wrote, "We touch people on the outsides of their bodies, and they us, but we cannot get at their insides and cannot reveal our insides to them. This is one of the great tragedies of our interiority—it is utterly personal and unrevealable. Often we want to say something unusually intimate to a spouse, a parent, a friend, communicate something of how we are really feeling about a sunset, who we really feel we are—only to fall strangely and miserably flat" (207). It is therefore fitting that each individual should be able to ascertain whether the current costs of existence are worth it and how valuable the potential for future pleasure is relative to current suffering.

Mainstream suicide prevention

Suicide preventionists like to hide their paternalism under the guise of protecting a suicidal person's (or, in many cases, a suspected suicidal person's) "real, future self" from their "mentally ill and pathologically out of touch with reality current self." As I addressed in the previous part of my post, the view that suicidal people are pathologically out of touch with reality is unsubstantiated.

Perhaps the most vile method of suicide prevention is forcible psychiatric detention. In essence, this involves subjecting a suicidal person to what would otherwise be considered abuse, violence, and kidnapping if not committed against a suicidal person by medical authorities. Despite the good intentions of medical authorities, the phenomenological experience of the detained person is that of kidnapping and bodily violation. The voice of the suicidal person does not matter. If they try to resist, they will be violently forced into submission through either brute physical force, being tied down, or being drugged. Any other values that a suicidal person may hold, such as bodily inviolability or autonomy, are rendered null. The indignity of being forcibly detained is considered worth it by others if it saves a life, regardless of whether the person who is being subjected to forcible detention values their life more than dignity, autonomy, and bodily inviolability. This line of thought insinuates a deep lack of respect as respect entails allowing someone to act in their own best interests in accordance with their own values and not forcing them into following their "best interests" as defined by others. This also applies to many people who are mentally ill, as mental illness does not necessarily render someone globally irrational and all of their values (besides life) null.

As much as the mental health movement likes to talk about destigmatizing suicide, there is very little that is more stigmatizing than taking away someone's voice and violently forcing them into submission. Medical authorities have their hearts in the right place, yet they are subjecting another human being to cruel treatment on the chance that they will be grateful for it some day. Without a doubt some people are grateful, but it comes at the cost of making the dignity, autonomy, and peace of mind of a suicidal person disposable.

This is less of a suicide prevention tactic and more of an attitude. We all know this attitude well; it is the idea that suicidal people ought to keep living, and anything that is not prolife content is encouraging suicide. While suicidal people are often implored to choose life, there is no true choice unless one is allowed to do the opposite. By not allowing one to opt-out of life, pro-lifers see life not as a choice but as an obligation. If an adult cannot make an autonomous decision about what to do with their own body and life, then they do not own their body or life. This is an odious conclusion. I have had friends on this site who I deeply wish were still here, yet it was their life to take and do with it what they please, not mine to keep.

The zeal in which society wants to prevent suicide is fascinating because one is allowed to do many things that are analogous to suicide, such as cutting off all contact with loved ones or making life-altering irreversible decisions. This incongruence is once again caused by seeing life as inherently valuable and worthwhile.

I have written this post hoping that it will explain the "why" behind many of the ideas often expressed on SS. For anyone who has gotten this far, thank you for reading.

Postscript

It should be noted that I am not against suicide prevention - only the coercive means of doing so, such as throttling information and denying access to peaceful methods of suicide and locking someone up on the chance that they will end their life. These tactics cause someone to stay alive not because they voluntarily choose to live but because they have to. I am not pro suicide, I am pro voluntary life.

References
Nabokov, V. V., & Boyd, B. (1999). Speak, memory: An autobiography revisited. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Solomon, Sheldon. Denying Death.

Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. A. (2015). The worm at the core: On the role of death in life. Penguin Random House.
I'm not mentally Ill by any definition of the term. I can't stand my species but looking at our species and how we behave does that seriously make me mentally ill? I'm probably far more sane than most people that carry on tolerating the hypocrisy of mankind. The ONLY thing that keeps me living is limiting my contact with humans to a minimum. I literally only see a couple of people. I have no fear of Covid but now use pretend fear as an excuse to keep people away. The best thing about Covid is it has kept people away from me and I will continue to use that "fear" even when it's over. Spend time with animals they heal they are a balm to the damage caused by humans. They make life worth living. No judgement, no naval gazing just food warmth and shelter. Given that we can now identify as whatever we want to be and demand that our "truth" is recognised I now officially no longer identify as human, homo sapien or part of humanity. I am a separate species no longer subject to the rules mores beliefs or standards of that breed.
 
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David8886

David8886

Member
Nov 18, 2021
63
Suicide used to be thought of as a criminal action, but in modern society, the view has softened into seeing suicide as a result of mental illness. On SS, we often affirm that committing suicide is a decision we have the right to make because we have dominion over our bodies and lives. However, those who oppose pro-choice ideas often believe that people own their lives and bodies yet come to very different conclusions about suicide. This is due to operating under a different value system.

In this post, I will go over two related suicide topics. The first part of my post will address the value of life, suicide from the perspective of autonomy, and the rationality (or irrationality) of ending one's life. The second part will address the harms of standard suicide prevention tactics.


The Value of Life


Sheldon Solomon defined the cultural scheme of things to be "a shared lens for viewing life and reality that (a) gives life meaning and significance (b) is perceived as permanent and enduring over time (c) establishes the standards of values for individuals with the culture to live up to" (3). The cultural scheme of things can be thought of as the "symbolic world" that exists in each person's mind that not only gives people a means to integrate and process their experiences but also posits the nature of reality and lays down a framework of values and standards.

One value that is near-universal, so much so that it is thought to be self-evident, is life. To most, life is thought to be inherently valuable, an end rather than a means to an end, and requires no justification or explanation. There is often little philosophical reasoning provided for this idea that life is inherently worthwhile and valuable; for most, it is merely a feeling. This belief is, in essence, part of one's cultural scheme of things masquerading as objective reality. Anyone who disagrees with this idea is not only seen as wrong but as being pathologically out of touch with reality. There are, however, a few asymmetries in life that those arguing for its inherent good should answer for.

While some may regard life as a gift, it is undeniable that life comes with striving, and in many ways, this striving is asymmetrically tilted towards suffering. Negative states such as thirst, hunger, and old age (with all of its accompanying pains) come naturally, while one must strive not only to stave off or remove negative states but to reach positive states. In addition to this, one often spends far more time striving for positive states in relation to how long the positive state lasts. One pertinent example is the amount of energy, time, and oftentimes animal suffering it takes to make a meal yet how ephemeral the ensuing gustatory pleasure is. It is rarely denied that life is inculcated with striving, yet this view is often mitigated by arguing that one misses out on the pleasures that life brings when they die. But just as the time before one was born was not a deprivation, the time after one dies will not be either. In the words of Nabakov, who put it far better than I ever can, "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for" (1).


Not only must we strive, we strive alone. A fundamental part of our inner selves is separated from others and while this gap can be indirectly bridged through the use of language, touch and other symbolic means such as art and music, every individual is ultimately alone in their own head. There is no one but them alone who experiences the suffering (or pleasure) that they are experiencing. We may share moments with someone else, yet they are never in that moment with us, ie, the qualia of those moments is something felt by us and us alone. Ernest Becker touched on this when he wrote, "We touch people on the outsides of their bodies, and they us, but we cannot get at their insides and cannot reveal our insides to them. This is one of the great tragedies of our interiority—it is utterly personal and unrevealable. Often we want to say something unusually intimate to a spouse, a parent, a friend, communicate something of how we are really feeling about a sunset, who we really feel we are—only to fall strangely and miserably flat" (207). It is therefore fitting that each individual should be able to ascertain whether the current costs of existence are worth it and how valuable the potential for future pleasure is relative to current suffering.

Mainstream suicide prevention

Suicide preventionists like to hide their paternalism under the guise of protecting a suicidal person's (or, in many cases, a suspected suicidal person's) "real, future self" from their "mentally ill and pathologically out of touch with reality current self." As I addressed in the previous part of my post, the view that suicidal people are pathologically out of touch with reality is unsubstantiated.

Perhaps the most vile method of suicide prevention is forcible psychiatric detention. In essence, this involves subjecting a suicidal person to what would otherwise be considered abuse, violence, and kidnapping if not committed against a suicidal person by medical authorities. Despite the good intentions of medical authorities, the phenomenological experience of the detained person is that of kidnapping and bodily violation. The voice of the suicidal person does not matter. If they try to resist, they will be violently forced into submission through either brute physical force, being tied down, or being drugged. Any other values that a suicidal person may hold, such as bodily inviolability or autonomy, are rendered null. The indignity of being forcibly detained is considered worth it by others if it saves a life, regardless of whether the person who is being subjected to forcible detention values their life more than dignity, autonomy, and bodily inviolability. This line of thought insinuates a deep lack of respect as respect entails allowing someone to act in their own best interests in accordance with their own values and not forcing them into following their "best interests" as defined by others. This also applies to many people who are mentally ill, as mental illness does not necessarily render someone globally irrational and all of their values (besides life) null.

As much as the mental health movement likes to talk about destigmatizing suicide, there is very little that is more stigmatizing than taking away someone's voice and violently forcing them into submission. Medical authorities have their hearts in the right place, yet they are subjecting another human being to cruel treatment on the chance that they will be grateful for it some day. Without a doubt some people are grateful, but it comes at the cost of making the dignity, autonomy, and peace of mind of a suicidal person disposable.

This is less of a suicide prevention tactic and more of an attitude. We all know this attitude well; it is the idea that suicidal people ought to keep living, and anything that is not prolife content is encouraging suicide. While suicidal people are often implored to choose life, there is no true choice unless one is allowed to do the opposite. By not allowing one to opt-out of life, pro-lifers see life not as a choice but as an obligation. If an adult cannot make an autonomous decision about what to do with their own body and life, then they do not own their body or life. This is an odious conclusion. I have had friends on this site who I deeply wish were still here, yet it was their life to take and do with it what they please, not mine to keep.

The zeal in which society wants to prevent suicide is fascinating because one is allowed to do many things that are analogous to suicide, such as cutting off all contact with loved ones or making life-altering irreversible decisions. This incongruence is once again caused by seeing life as inherently valuable and worthwhile.

I have written this post hoping that it will explain the "why" behind many of the ideas often expressed on SS. For anyone who has gotten this far, thank you for reading.

Postscript

It should be noted that I am not against suicide prevention - only the coercive means of doing so, such as throttling information and denying access to peaceful methods of suicide and locking someone up on the chance that they will end their life. These tactics cause someone to stay alive not because they voluntarily choose to live but because they have to. I am not pro suicide, I am pro voluntary life.

References
Nabokov, V. V., & Boyd, B. (1999). Speak, memory: An autobiography revisited. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Solomon, Sheldon. Denying Death.

Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. A. (2015). The worm at the core: On the role of death in life. Penguin Random House.
Perhaps the most vile method of suicide prevention is forcible psychiatric detention. In essence, this involves subjecting a suicidal person to what would otherwise be considered abuse, violence, and kidnapping if not committed against a suicidal person by medical authorities. Despite the good intentions of medical authorities, the phenomenological experience of the detained person is that of kidnapping and bodily violation. The voice of the suicidal person does not matter. If they try to resist, they will be violently forced into submission through either brute physical force, being tied down, or being drugged. Any other values that a suicidal person may hold, such as bodily inviolability or autonomy, are rendered null.
In other words, they are tortured to death because their crime was that they wanted to commit suicide. :))))))))))
To be an warning for the future and others
This is exactly what I said in my text entitled "ISIS and its opponents."
They are extremists who condemn us to life, on the contrary; They are afraid of those who will torture them and sentence them to death, but they do the same things and think that they have done the right thing by their ridiculous standards.
 
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David8886

David8886

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Nov 18, 2021
63
Your text was very, very beautiful, logical, literary-philosophical and heavy
Thanks for sharing
Can it be retweeted like Twitter
 
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hendry

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Jan 4, 2021
32
Thank you very much for your text. I liked it all. I learned about new concepts. I met new authors.
 
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