Andy of Comix Inc said:
Well... I was just seeing if you considered yourself nihilistic or not. That you took insult to it, hey, that proves you're not. So, cool.
Anyway, suicide is worse because it is directly preventable, basically. Depression is really simple to spot and manage, and its a matter of awareness, really. If more people who need help seek help... there'd be less suicide.
It is a selfish act. That's the thing. It's an individual act that only harms others; the person committing suicide gains nothing, everyone around them loses out. And they could so easily find help! That's the thing - suicide is so easily stopped! That it isn't is an awful tragedy, really.
I assumed it was an insult considering your comment was, pretty much, "stop being a nihilist downer, cheer the fuck up and learn empathy". However, I am not a nihilist still.
The first part about suicide being directly and simply preventable I've touched on before by saying that a lot of deaths are. Heart disease and strokes are rather easily preventable if you're willing to put some work into it. Car accidents are usually pretty easy to prevent since most of them boil down to "lack of care". Although, depression, less so. For someone who claimed before that you've had depression, I'm surprised you'd claim it's easy to spot and manage. Especially among men, depression is seen in a severely negative light to the point where it's usually deeply hidden. It's why for men there is a statistically significantly greater chance of succeeding at suicide than females, because they tend to go for sure-fires like hanging, gun-shot wounds and jumping in front of trains. Even if you get diagnosed, managing is far from simplistic. So you either go through therapy where you need to meet a therapist you like and trust and then you take a good few years of CBT to get cured of it, or you take pills that don't solve the core problem and give you a collection of nasty side effects. It's not hopeless, but it's a very difficult challenge to fix mental illnesses. It's even tricky to manage it.
About the suicide being a selfish act though, I'm sorry but I disagree very strongly. I think the mentality that an individual's life is not his/her own, but rather he/she must exist with an experience they do not enjoy for the sake of others to be selfish to the core. Those who kill themselves get something out of dying, and it's usually the belief in what they think the afterlife will provide. Even if you're an atheist who believes there is nothing after death, at the very least it's the peace of absence. Which if you're someone who is going to kill themselves, it's a very attractive prospect since you likely have absolutely nothing really going for you (I really do mean nothing) and everything in your life is a negative. We're talking about living in a society you've grown to loathe, surrounded by a species you despise, as you go to your poorly paid tedious job that has no future prospects. We're talking about having no real friends to speak of and a poor relationship if one at all. Those who submit themselves to the act are rarely those who haven't put much thought into it. Others may lose out, but my view is this loss isn't any more tragic than the same guy getting hit by a bus by accident.
Although, I have to wonder this: If you say it's so easily preventable and easy to notice, assuming I'm wrong, then why does no one talk to them about it? If the individual in question does get asked about it and then deny it, then why is it still a tragedy that the person decided that he wants to take his/her own life, the most sacred possession he/she has, and crush it between his/her fingers?
Edit: I just would like to say that I'm sorry these posts seem lengthy, almost needlessly so. It's not on purpose.
