Is Suicide Wrong?

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How about because we can't possible know what the future holds for us? To me, even when I was having passively suicidal thoughts for months on end, suicide is a sure way to make sure you never find out what your future holds. It could be a very bright, prosperous, happy future filled with success, achievements, love, exhilarating good times, travels, journeys, learning, growing, caring, sharing.. and countless other good things. I want to find out what my future potential is and what my life holds for me, so I never gave into suicidal thoughts. Even if they don't seem very probable, just having the possibility of positive outcomes like those I listed is something worth living for, IMO. All that and I love my friends & family too much and even in my darkest times I know they love me, too. There were times where I valued myself so very little, but love my friends so much that I literally lived for them. Time spent & moments shared with them literally kept my will to live and go on through my darkest period. Now that all of that seems to be in a distant past for me, I still love and appreciate my friends and family, but I think a lot higher of myself than I used to and do a lot more living life for ME than in my past - because I deserve to live a healthy happy life.

I hope my own personal example makes you think about your own reasons to carry on.

I have certainly been through some very dark bleak episodes in my long lifetime, and there were times when suicide haunted me like a siren call.. though I am glad that my one serious attempt over 40 years ago failed (I was found by a friend who had a strange intuition that I was in serious trouble - she came to my place and hammered on the door; when there was no response, she still felt I was there and broke in.. she found me unconscious and rang an ambulance. She saved my life). That was many years ago. I woke up in critical care the next day, and promptly lost consciousness again, and as days passed I recovered. I walked out of the hospital a few days later, determined to survive. Really determined. I remember this so clearly, this decision I made to survive. The past had nearly beaten me, and I made a decision that never again would I allow that to happen, however bad things got. And of course there were new terrible times ahead.. but I had learned to say "bring it on" to life. Throw whatever you want at me - I'm not going without my best fight! The day I left that hospital I stopped being a victim and became a survivor, and it was a great turning point in my life.

PS: please don't take that as encouragement to try and kill yourself..

No, but one must die and leave the consequences to those that remain alive. Having a painful terminal illness would be a good example of where it would probably be a good thing to do. But wasting oneself after a crappy childhood and not even trying at adulthood is ambiguous, I guess it depends, does your own personal pain outweigh the pain that your death will cause to others that you value? It's a very subjective thing. I've wanted to end it for quite some time now, but fortunately I have a family that cares and for now I wont destroy them in that way.

B19 described it best, it's like a siren call sometimes.

Hello friend. Suicide is very wrong. Trust me, I was in you shoes. I still have the scares on my wrist to this day. Every time I see a shaving razor, i remember when I tried to use one to kill my self, thank God I failed. That was while I was in high school. There where other times when i considered it but I didn't do it. I fought and I suceeded. In fact, I got married. There was one point where we thought I would end up on disability in my parents house. I didn't accept that, so I fought, and it was tough, but now i am in the beginning of a greater, and harder Journey. You can do it, I know it. It will be tough, and your going to feel really down from time to tiem, but you can do it. I promise you.

I do not see a bright, prosperous, happy future with all of that...I have to be somewhat realistic. I spent my whole childhood looking forward to 'what if' and longing for when things get better, figured I'd make that happen with getting good grades in school and going to college...well it certainly did not turn out that way. So right now just trying to look into subsidized housing to move out of my moms place, perhaps having my own space would help me relax some without being concerned with living with other people and there are a few things I don't want to miss out on. Already bought a ticket to a concert this month so cannot miss that, though my recent suicidal ideation is somewhat subsided for the time being.

When I was severely depressed I couldn't have even imagined any of those positive things being my reality.. but I did still cling to the possibility that they could be & I wanted to live to find out.

Now, my life has changed so much for the better over the last couple years that I have most/all of those things in it. I'm living a second life I could have never imagined would be my reality. Sure, I'm no highly successful public figure or anything, just a regular guy, but I'm living a rather healthy & relatively wealthy, happy, life in comparison to how I was just 2 short years ago.

Now, I kinda take for granted how good my life is.. sometimes I get stressed about not being further ahead on my various goals, but then I have a little reality check like a thread like this one that reminds me just how far I've come in the last couple years and I am perfectly OK with where I'm at today in this moment. Especially since I'm still doing what I need to to better myself and my situation further as rapidly as I can. I still have other goals to work towards and nothing's going to stop me from achieving them, not even me.

Cliffs: My life was s**t. Now it's pretty great. You never know, yours could change for the better, too.

B19, I am so sorry for what what you and your husband endured. There should be better support from health care in end of life situations, so it doesn't come to that.

Your replies have made me feel better and I'm happy to hear that so many of you have shared these feelings and are successfully coping with them. It's encouraging.

Thank you. I am very glad that this thread has been helpful and all the best..

I would love to talk about this issue however the Canadian government banned any talk of pro suicide in their recent anti cyber bullying law. Until we see the out come of this law in court I would recommend any Canadians to be careful on this subject.

Yeah, I guess it's not cool to encourage suicide when a person's down. There's no way I could do it while my mother's still alive. Or maybe at all. I just get fed up sometimes.
Euthanasia is different though. If the end of life is approaching, people should be able to choose how they deal with it.
How's the weather out in BC? Better than here I bet.

Rainy like always! At least it is better than snow.

To clarify, I am against in encouraging suicide at the individual level, however, I am worried about how the the government could abuse this law. For example, what if I write a general pro-suicide comment than someone kills themselves due that would I be held responsible even if my comment was not direct at them? I am just worried about that aspect of the law.

Rain sounds idyllic right now. Every year around this time I think about moving to the west coast. I suspect it's much nicer an environment than here. Being on ODSP, I don't think I could switch provides that easily. But I may be off it one day.

I don't think suicide is ever the right decision. You should try anything to make your life better - anything but giving up. Like goldfish21 said, you never know what the future holds for you. Maybe things will get better, you never know. But if you kill yourself you'll never get to find out.

That being said, I don't think suicide is morally wrong, either. Most people who kill themselves are seriously mentally ill, or at least deeply depressed. They feel that killing themselves is the only way out of their torture. I don't think people should be condemned or called selfish for committing suicide. Unless you've been there, you don't know what it's like.

I think people who are suicidal should get immediate psychiatric treatment so they can start to get out of that dark hole and realize there are other options.

I'm not so sure about the equation of suicide with mental illness. s**t happens, sometimes people get totally overwhelmed, too much happens at once to process and coping mechanisms break down. It can happen to anyone, especially to people who are already underprivileged or have no social or personal support in their life.

There but for the grace of god...

I don't think suicide is wrong.
Morally, there is nothing wrong with ending one's own life.

I think it's hard to understand how suicide is viewed as wrong when people seem not to accept or make one feel like a burden, but that a better solution is when we can care for one another rather than for anyone to feel they have to die. Glad you're feeling better!!