Poll: Can suicide be rational?

[Ancientgamer]

At first I was going to say no, but then I remembered POW cases that involved torture and deliberately painful execution. There might be some point at which it's rational to pop the cyanide pill. Especially if it's to guard some kind of important secret.

 

[CipherMachine]

No. Rational people don't kill themselves. I have no respect for anyone who commits suicide....Then you have this asshole who killed himself, deliberately leaving friends and family distraught,all because some other worthless douchebag called you names.

I have no respect for those who commit unjustified suicides either. That guy does sound like a selfish individual too. Yet, it was a rational thought in his mind. He obviously DIDN'T care about how his death would effect others and one can assume he didn't really care about his friends. That's just messed up values. Since he didn't value these things he ignored them in his logic and only thought of himself.

On another note, I really respect people who die for the team. Martyrs are amazing people. I hear stories of people jumping on grenades to stop it from wiping out the whole group. Amazing. To conquer the basic animal instinct to live to allow others to live is truly inspiring.

 

[Peach_hat]

If the only people who will cry are people who merely remember you from the past, why not?

Suicide is only irrational if it creates problems for the living.
If it doesn't effect anyone as much as it should then I think continuing to live in pure misery is doing far more damage than ending it all for yourself.

 

[Slayer_2]

Well I hate to use a game for an example, but you know in Gears 2 how Tai is tortured heavily and shortly after his "rescue" blows his brains out? Anyhow, if you were in a lot of pain, you might not be called "sane" but I could see the motivation for killing yourself. Or maybe if your life was ruined do to a conviction, seizure of your property so you're left with nothing, etc.

 

[CuddlyCombine]

Well I hate to use a game for an example, but you know in Gears 2 how Tai is tortured heavily and shortly after his "rescue" blows his brains out? Anyhow, if you were in a lot of pain, you might not be called "sane" but I could see the motivation for killing yourself. Or maybe if your life was ruined do to a conviction, seizure of your property so you're left with nothing, etc.

Under the stress, I wouldn't say you'd have the ideal mindset. The scenario I'm thinking of involves a person under no real immediate pressure.

 

[Scary_Bob]

Depends on whether you think there are fates worse than death, if so, then death is a step up from them, and so is a rational way to improve things.

 

[sorry user name taken.]

suicide people are lost people...

 

[Mozared]

As with every topic here, definitions matter a lot. What's "Rational"? Most people who commit suicide do so because they're in a pit and they "No longer want this", not because they necissarily want to die. I don't think it's very often a "rational" decision where the person in question writes down all good and bad things in his life and checks which he has more.

 

[Xvito]

Not really...

I mean, rational people don't want to die.

Your body is wracked with cancer. It started with brain cancer and has now spread throughout the body. You have had surgery, multiple rounds of radiation and kemo, even the experimental chemo therapy has failed. It is now considered untreatable and terminal and you have been put on palutive care. Symptoms are so bad that you are on a constant morphine IV to reduce the pain, but the pain and nausea are still they constantly unless you take enough morphine to render you completely unconscious. The brain tumours have permanently destroyed your ability to walk and most of your upper body control is gone, you are told the rest will go to. You have started to be unable to control bowel functions and are diapered. The brain tumour is starting to interfere with your ability to speak. You are basically a couple days away from being turned into a vegetable.

I watched this happen to two people (different cancers, same result). Both of them were ready to go in the end. Death can be a rational choice when life is over.

Those people didn't have a choice.

I've known people who've died of cancer to...

 

[7moreDead_v1legacy]

Suicides piss me off to no end, I just find it a weak means to an end...Suppose you could say I despise it to some extent.

If your life is shit, pack up and move on, family and friends shuffled off the mortal coil? Man up, get to grips with life...Think they'd want you to crock it? Partner left you...Plenty more fish in the sea.

The last two of them happened to me rather recently...Yes I was/still am to some point upset/depressed about the events but still, just gotta roll with punches. I could go on all day with this >.<

Though yes, if you've got mad ass brain death going on or some other fatal thing I could see the attraction, but I'd live up what time I had left...See it through to the end.

If you've got no way out of something put up a fight, if you loose then at least you tried. But yeah that is my view, I guess some will disagree/ridicule it somehow etc...But it's each to their own, too one something is rational to the other it's not.

 

[jodko]

I suppose you could rationalize it but that doesn?t make it right.

 

[BubbleGumSnareDrum]

If someone was suffering horribly every day, and they had no way of escaping from this suffering, then I can understand why they would want to kill themselves.

However most people who commit suicide are not suffering like this.

Suffering is subjective. Nobody knows exactly how a specific person feels unless they happen to be that person.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

It can be rational, if the person is unhappy beyond help. There are people who are so deep in a dark, depressing pitch, that they feel no point in living. However, this'd probably be a really rare case.

 

[insanelich]

It can be rational, if the person is unhappy beyond help. There are people who are so deep in a dark, depressing pitch, that they feel no point in living. However, this'd probably be a really rare case.

Actually, they're not very rare at all.

It's called anhedonia, and it's a medical condition. There's decidedly ways to treat it - now, will they be used in time anywhere but Italy? Doubtful.

(Italy has the only direct cure available - however, it's also the most abuse-prone drug in existence, which is exactly the reason it's banned in the rest of the world.)

 

[traceur_]

If your life is really that bad, I'd say leave the life you have and start a new one or something. But why would you kill yourself? Honestly if your willing to die at least sign up for the army. I think there can be no logic in killing yourself.

Terminal illness, treatment costs money, money that your family could use, you kill yourself because you're going to die anyway, you save money for your family by doing so.

Logic.

 

[SultanP]

Don't really have time to read the whole thread, so I don't know if this has been said.

I was once of the opinion that suicide was irrational, the coward's way out, and only for weak people.

But my opinion has changed, mainly due to one single utterance. I can't remember who said this before me, but it changed a great deal for me, and I have adopted it as my main point on this issue.

It goes something along the lines of this:
"Life is like reading a book, if the first half sucked then there's a great chance that the other half will too, and if we are reading a book, we wouldn't keep on reading."
So if life has sucked so far, then i don't see a reason why suicide shouldn't be a viable way out.

Personally I think that it is cruel and inhumane to demand that everyone wait for a more natural way out, if they hate being alive. Especially since we also do everything we can to postpone the natural deaths too.

 

[Ionami]

I would say yes, suicide can be logical. Whenever I get suicidal, my thoughts stay purely logical and, to an extent, cold. My thought process is that my life has never been good, and there is no proof that it can change, so therefore it will not change. As a result, it will never be good, and so therefore why continue living when things are never going to turn out good?

Also, I can understand someone who has a terminal illness contemplating suicide in a logical fashion. If you are going to die anyway, why put off the inevitable?

Having been suicidal myself, I understand that others may not be able to see things from the same point of view. But the OP asked what do you think, so I gave my thoughts.

Suicide and euthanasia are pretty different.

One is someone in incredible pain and/or with little to no quality of life, one is someone just wallowing in depression and self-pity. Not really fair to compare the two.

Your thoughts aren't rational. You say "My life sucked so far, so therefore it will always suck." What is rational about that? You're making a ridiculous assumption. You're also implying that there is someone responsible for your life, and it's their job to make it better. You want to know who it is? YOU. You decide what direction your life goes in, and YOU decide what you achieve and accomplish. (Granted, as a child, you can't choose your parents, or particular upbringing, but you should be able to eventually manage your emotions and feelings.)

Interesting fact: There's a documentary (Can't remember the name, will try to find it.) about folks who jumped off of the Golden Gate bridge in San Fransisco, and survived. All of them said that the moment they jumped, the first thought that went through their head was: "Oh my god, what have I done?"

Fact of the matter is, suicide is the end of the line... how can you ever hope to make anything better for yourself, if you end it all? It's not a rational thought process, and that's pretty much the point. People contemplate suicide primarily to deal with overwhelming emotions, and therefore, their judgment is affected by these emotions.

I was suicidal myself for quite a while a few years back. With the help of friends and family, I was able to lean away from that. But you know who ultimately changed my life for the better, and turned everything around? ME. And I'm stronger for it. So as someone who struggled with it as well, I can tell you that it is definitely NOT rational.

EDIT:

Name of the documentary is "The Bridge".

Some info on it:

http://www.documentaryfilms.net/index.php/the-bridge-a-year-in-golden-gate-bridge-suicides/