Being suicidal is not mental illness. I won't agree no matter what anyone says.
It's simply a reaction of your mind that manifests as helplessness to whatever situation you face that makes overcoming that situation seem impossible. It could be simply that your mind is already too weak by nature so it sees death as the only way out.
I suppose in politically correct forums, I would say that suicidal ideation is mental illness but we are about speaking the truth here, I don't think it is mental illness.
Edit to Add : Maybe in some cases, where the person is otherwise physically and mentally healthy and no other external aggravating circumstances are present, but has suicidal ideation because of diagnosable chemical imbalance in their brain, it could be classified as a form of mental illness.
But this is not necessarily always the case. Many people CTB because of severe life issues that have nothing to do with chemical imbalance in the brain.
Amazingly insightful and extraordinarily accurate:
The False Narrative of Suicide
(written by an annonymous person on Reddit)
"Let's get a few things straight:
First, not everyone who dies by euthanasia is suffering from "mental illness", although a percentage of people do.
Depression is not the only freaking kind of "mental illness", nor is it even the most disabling. I definitely know
what Depression feels like. And I have experienced mental afflictions that for me personally were far worse, and I hope no one ever has to go through those.
Life problems are not an illness. Mental afflictions are not the whole story. Life itself is hard.
Living in financial poverty is not an illness.
Broken life dreams and shattered hopes are not an illness.
Broken relationships are not an illness.
Grief at loss (of a person, object, idea, belief or aspiration) is not an illness.
Emotional scarring and psychic fatigue from traumatic life experiences is not an illness.
Sadness, anger and frustration when looking at both the historical and present state of the world and being painfully affected by observing the sufferings of animals and other human people (humanimals) is not a fucking illness. These things are partly what make us human, goddammit.
Deep unhappiness, crushing loneliness, existential despair, and misery at the life one is living, are not depression, and they are not an illness.
Existential questions and existential angst are not illnesses - not in a medical sense. If perchance they are "illlnesses", they are 'Soul Illnesses'. These aren't even on the radar of the vast majority of mental health "treatment" programs.
Physical illnesses (which includes neurological) that diminish or destroy your previous quality of life are
by definition not a "mental illness".
Socio-economic problems, inequality, injustice, deprivation, destitution, dysfunctional living environments, emotional neglect, isolation, misfortune, and the misery that stems from these, are not illnesses. And by continually classifying them as such in this lazy and simplistic way, we avoid collectively facing up to uncomfortable and inconvenient truths about our society and the causes of ills, or focusing fully on whether any reform is possible, and that is why the euthanasia=depression/mental illness narrative is not only dangerous and misleading, but in my mind actually *unethical*. It allows us to perpetuate the very injustices and inadequacies that are often at the root of the problem. And moreover, invalidates the experiences of those who suffer the realities that they suffer by turning the problem on its head and subtly pointing all responsibility back towards the sufferer, but not at their moral character failings as was done in the past and has thankfully become outdated; this time by using medical disease as a morally neutral scapegoat. If we are going to use the term "illness", I think that in many cases (but not all), what we are dealing with could be relabeled "social illness" as much as "mental/emotional sensitivity illness".
Quite frankly, I feel the mental health "industry" ruined my life rather than helped me in any way. Being drugged by licit psychoactive drugs (psychopharmacology) directly influenced and indirectly/unwittingly lead to my use of illicit psychoactive drugs. Yes, sorry to psychiatrists who get a battering and are just doing their job and want to change people's lives. You're only human too. It's not necessarily you; it's the system and ideology you are part of and the deep-rooted societal and
institutional and political stigma that makes life post-diagnosis a shadow of one's former life, and disrupts future
career aspirations in the same way as a criminal offence. If "mental illness" really is an illness, how is it that we
are punished for having it? Does a cancer sufferer live in fear of the effect the disease will have on his job prospects? Or is he/she denied basic privileges that others enjoy?
My life has been irreparably damaged by having contact with this "system". When it has been changed; when
laws are passed to ensure that having contact with mental health professionals does not go on a permanent record and destroy your life dreams; when people do not have to live in visceral fear of being locked away in a clinical, artificial environment when they are at their most desperate and in need of support and freedom, then branded and stigmatized for life as being ill (with seemingly no possibility of ever rescinding the diagnosis and its associated stigma in the event of eventual recovery); when people's lives are actually made better, not worse, by contact with psychiatric services; then we can talk. As it is, I rue the day I ever set foot in that doctor's office and watched my life and potential evaporate. Everything I am now, I have achieved *in spite of*, not thanks to, the "help" (or lack of it) I received. And that is not funny. I have had to overcome most if not all hurdles myself. And now the one major obstacle that is holding me back, constantly standing in the way of the life I want, is the stigma and branding I should not have to carry. I've done nothing wrong FFS, other than live. So don't make my life and death, every single thing I have ever experienced, all about "mental illness". Please, just Stop. Honestly, hearing it makes me feel ill.
Life is complex and tragic.
In closing, please stop assuming that in order to think about euthanizing onself you must be "suffering from a mental illness (aka depression)". Stop pathologizing human experience. Stop denying us the right to natural emotions for God's sake. By doing this, you strip us of both our humanity and our dignity."
