Should suicide be legalized?

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You know what I think would be a good idea? To have suicide failers have capital punishment. Most people try to kill themselves in order to get attention. To then get a lot of expensive help and expensive treatment. While they didn't actually want to die. I think suicidal attempts would really lower a lot that way.

Jenny, I'm very sorry to hear about your brother. I know from way too much personal experience how badly a suicide in the family can hurt everyone. I hope you are all healing from your grief and remembering him more for the wonderful things about him now.

I have bipolar type 2, which is the type with the really low pervasive depressions and the milder euphorias. I hate to cycle. I REALLY hate to cycle. So much so that I start to panic if I get low on my meds. I'm rare for someone with bipolar. A lot of people with bipolar won't take their meds, because they like the euphorias and the meds don't just take away those, they make the person feel "flattened out." Fortunately for me, mine don't. I can still write, paint, do all my needlework, and all my other creative pursuits, even with the highs controlled. But they're having an awful time controlling the depression side of mine, which is normal with type 2.

Under normal circumstances, I'm not suicidal. In fact, I don't tend toward suicidal at all. I DO tend toward the self-destructive when I feel overwhelmed with emotional pain. I'm trying to learn coping mechanisms to deal with it without needing exterior pain to balance the interior pain.

I read in another post, though, that someone had heard of people who have attempted suicide without knowing that they had done it. They limited this to people who are brain damaged. You don't have to have brain damage to attempt suicide without remembering it. I have two suicide attempts in my past. The first one was like being trapped in a glass cage in my own mind, while some stranger controlled my actions. I didn't want any of the things that were going on to happen. My subconscious had complete control. The second time I had had a long string of very difficult emotional shocks and blacked out. When I came back to myself, I felt very strange and found a LOT of empty Tylenol containers all about. I called my husband to give him some emergency directions for just in case, then dialed 911. I passed out as they were putting me in the ambulance and woke up 2 days later. I don't remember that day or much of the next, but by the time I got to leave the hospital I was doing a lot better.

I have other "blank spots" in my memory, as well. They are all places that seem to be too painful for me to remember. None of it is brain damage. Just emotional damage done during the course of a life spent as a person with bipolar among undiagnosed people with the same disorder. Suicide is the leaading cause of death in my family. My mother used suicide threats as a method of child control. "If you two don't behave..." For your family's sake, if you have the diagnosis, take your meds! They need you with them, and they need you stable!

I want to state here that I am against people being locked away, being punished because they had a failed attempt, or help somebody to end suffering! Maybe I was not clear enough. I was trying to point out and ask what happens in society at the moment with people who had a failed attempt and people who assisted a suicide? I live in the UK and I was wondering what happens in the US, where in some states the death penalty still exsist (I find this very contradictionary)?

I just find it hard to think of solutions within laws I do not agree with in the first place.

My opinions, some through experience;
* I do believe that you should be the boss over your own body.
* If people are mentally ill and because of an illness they are (temporarely) suicidal they should get the help they need and have a say in that help as much as possible.
* Suicide can be the only solution for a person. It's not necessarily wrong per definition.
* People should not suffer (mentally and/or physically). If the quality of life is so bad that a person wants to die and that person needs a hand, then I think there is nothing wrong with it.
* It does happen that a person has a suicide attempt, was saved (brought to hospital), but has no memory of it at all. No memory before the attempt, no memory of a reason to do it, no memory of the attempt itself and no memory of being saved. I must say this person was suffering from a brain/head injury for a long time.
* A person can commit suicide after taking drugs and as a result end up in a delusion and end his life. This is a sad waste of a life I think, but still if you don't know the exact situation then it's difficult to have a clear opinion.
* If a person commits suicide then people related to that person should not feel guilty, you really can't prevent it.
It all depends on the person and what's going on. Every person and every situation is unique, therefore it is very difficult to create general rules/laws, especially when the laws already exsisting are contradictionary and hypocrit.

And a failed attempt is not always a cry for attention. Also I don't like the term 'attention'. It is a cry for help!

* The intention can be to seriously end your life, but something went wrong during the attempt. Things can go wrong on different levels and you end up alive.
* And if it is a cry for help, then what is wrong with that?
Sometimes people can get so alone and hopeless that it seems the only way out. And there is always the chance that the attempt will be successful, people are taking a serious chance of ending up dead.
* And there's the possibility of having no memory about the attempt, like I just explained above.

People can get really shocked, scared after realising what just happened, if it was a cry for help, if it was no memory or if just something went wrong during the attempt.
Every attempt should be taken seriously. Every cry for help should be taken seriously.
The time after a (failed) attempt is really tough and very difficult. People can end up losing a lot, scaring away people you love, relationships ending etc etc. Get little to no understanding from people around the person, which can be understandable because sometimes even the person does not understand what happened to him or herself. Also there might be not a lot of support from people around the person, a thing that a person sometimes really need after an attempt.

Judith, Thanks very much for sharing your experiences. It is so difficult for anyone who has never experienced severe depression or thoughts of suicide to understand how, or why a loved one would want to end their life.

I appreciate the insight. I wish you all the best and hope that you find a way to decrease the depressive episodes as well.

Thanks again

Suicide was illegal in many countries before. The punishment was usually to be buried outside the cemetary and later in an obscure corner of the cemetary. It became legal in 1856 in Sweden.

On October 27, 1997 Oregon enacted the Death with Dignity Act which allows terminally-ill Oregonians to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medications, expressly prescribed by a physician for that purpose.

I believe we are the only State in the United States that permits this. There are excellent records kept, too.

http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/pas/

It is all very simple. We own our lives and bodies. Therefor we can dispose of them as we see fit as long as in doing so we do not deny others their rights and ownership to their lives, bodies and property.

If you own property P you can dispose of P, as long as the disposal does to impose a hazard on others. Which means if you wish to kill yourself, do it quietly, safely and arrange for the proper disposal of your corpse before doing the deed. Also do not jump out of a high window as you might land on someone.

ruveyn

The "punishment".

I think it's rediculous to get in legal trouble if you try to kill yourself, obviously you need help, not punishment.

Do I think suicide should be legal?

No or I would've been dead after the couple of attempts I made. I've gotten a lot of help and no longer have this strong urge like I used to.

Both suicide and euthanasia should be legal. I'm not sure I agree that all people that fail in their suicide attempts end up thankful for being alive. I attempted 14 years ago and have never really felt glad that it didnt work (apart from the negative effect it would have had on my family). After all, if I had died I would be dead and wouldn't have regrets. I will die one day anyway and once that happens, from my perspective it makes no difference if I'd had this extra bit of life or not. Furthermore, although I have had some very happy and pleasant times since that attempt, I have also experienced years of depression during which I certainly wasn't glad to be alive (although now I realise more than I did at 17 what a responsability to my family I have, so don't seriously consider the idea of suicide) and furthermore even wished that I had never existed, or indeed had ended it all back at 17. Basically, I can see the advantage that me surviving had for my family, but I don't really see it for myself despite the interesting experiences I have had since.

Currently I am quite enjoying life, but cycles of suffering (and this has only happened twice) have already worn me down and I have a quite cynical detached view of life. My life isn't that important to me anymore - I'll take it as it comes, but if I die tomorrow I don't mind. Furthermore, if it becomes a persistant unpleasant experience - either mentally or physically, then I (assuming no family obligations) might take a rational decision to end it, just because I am tired of it all. I hope that I will have advance warning of any impending severe physical disability in order to be able to make plans and carry out an ending in the method and at the time and place I choose, before being myself incapable and having to implicate other people.

I committed suicide 2 years ago and I'm still in jail to this day.