Is Suicide Wrong?

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i view death as freedom. freedom that i can't obtain any other way. I'm afraid to die though, so I am left dreaming of finally being free.

I don't know what death is, apart from an eventual certainty that will come soon enough. Maybe it all ends there, maybe not. I have the spirit of an adventurer, and one day, I'll face that adventure too, unwillingly perhaps. Meantime, I want to hear the music, feel the love, and dance to the music of time. Life hasn't always been kind, but it has always been an adventure, and continues to be. You never know what tomorrow brings. I'm glad I am still here. Yes, there were some ratshit years, that's for sure; but I made it with a little help from my friends.. I love that Beatles song ...

You are right, but having mental illness can make things even more difficult and can make even normal stress more difficult to cope with...but not everyone who becomes suicidal is mentally ill. There are other things that contribute to feeling that way.

I believe that depression can be as painful as cancer. I don't understand why mental pain is not taken as seriously as physical pain. People always talk as if it's somehow less real. If it is "right" to die in order to avoid excruciating physical pain, then it is no less "right" to do it to avoid mental pain. Saying it's unfortunate is fine, but keep the f*****g moral judgements out of it.

I think it can be totally bio-chemical and people don't even know it. I mean, I'm sure there's some pharmaceutical out there that can induce the pain of depression in a perfectly normal person. Of course nobody would willfully want to take such a pill in their right mind, but it might help them empathize if they're forced to put up with something for just a single day that depressed people have to put up with for months and years at a time, sometimes with no end in sight. It would put an end to the judging and patronizing.

Anyways, no, suicide isn't "wrong", not even in cases of depression. It can be perfectly rational to want to do it too. It's perfectly rational to not want to deal with endless suffering. To say depression is "irrational", or that it makes people "irrational", is super patronizing and ignorant. It's not a f*****g choice. You can't reason your way out of clinical depression any more than a person with a broken leg can reason out of feeling pain when they try to walk on said broken leg. It's an easy concept if people could just get over this notion that emotional pain isn't real and can always be changed in an instant. Sometimes it can't be changed in an instant. Sometimes it never goes away. Sometimes it doesn't even matter how "good" someone's life seems from the outside. If your own brain keeps attacking you and making you feel miserably 24/7, it's impossible to feel that life is worth it. Telling someone how good they have it doesn't make them feel better. It feels like an attempt to guilt trip them out of their depression. Do you ever attempt to guilt trip a cancer patient out of feeling physical pain or fatigue from their illness? Hell no. Why is it so different for depression. Why must it be moralized?

I honestly don't think you were ever clinically depressed, just feeling down on yourself. There's a huge difference. If you are truly clinically depressed, you don't crave being more "successful". All you crave is for the pain to end. If you ever thought that all it would take was for positive things to happen, you probably didn't have clinical depression. Either that or it just wasn't all that severe. Maybe you were told you were "depressed" because you had low self-esteem and your life wasn't where you wanted it to be. Maybe people in that situation are given an antidepressant to cope, but they're not necessarily biologically depressed (Big Pharma wouldn't be where it is today if depression wasn't over-diagnosed).

If you're truly biologically depressed you have a tough time enjoying much of ANYTHING. I have accomplishments that should make me happy, but they don't. I'm much smarter than most people. I'm sure I'm smarter than you. I have an MS degree in a tough scientific field that 99% of people would have no chance of. I worked my ass off for it too. I'm not some f*****g slob. I'm not some "failure". I'm not whatever you saw yourself as when you were "depressed".

But guess what? None of that ego driven BS even matters to me. I'm way beyond it. ALL OF IT. All I want is to BE HAPPY and have the f*****g pain end. I'd give it all up to be happy. I'd give up my intelligence. I'd give up everything. I'd turn myself into a drooling dog to be happy. I'd become a rat that finds joy rummaging through a dumpster full of rotting food. I'm not an ego driven person like you are. I'd probably find all the s**t you enjoy BORING AS HELL.

Um, yeah... yeah, I was. I quantified my Burns Depression Checklist scores & cross referenced them with Dr. Burns' depression scale guide every few days, scoring WELL into the "clinically depressed" category & worsening over time. I detailed all of this and more in my story that I shared here a year ago. That was during the worst 5 month period of depression in my life. I've been depressed at other times as well. If you don't know Burns' book, it's about 700 pages of info on depression & methods to treat it w/o meds. It's called "Feeling Good." I'm very well informed as to what clinical depression is and my experience of it, thanks.

I never said I craved being "successful," just a better existence, a better me, a happier life in general. I could accept being different, but I couldn't accept a lifetime of passively suicidal thoughts & rather than give in to them and give up on myself, I was willing to work harder, learn what I needed to learn, and do anything I needed to do. My closest friend & a few others in my life were my motivation to persevere. I couldn't stand the thought of not living life to the fullest with them and wanted to get myself into the kind of stable state that they deserved to be around.

Good for you. I'm a pretty smart guy, too. I graduated from a technical school of business having completed 130.5 credits of business & industrial engineering courses in two years by the age of 19. I've accomplished other things, but wouldn't call myself a "success" yet - well, not in terms of business, anyways. I have successfully managed to learn and do a lot of things, and consider myself very successful at getting my health in order over the last couple of years, enabling me to pursue bigger and better things that I will be successful with.

You'd do anything to be happier & healthier, eh? Except for try what I and others have suggested. Just sayin'... but if you are open to it, I'd gladly forward my story via email and you can read about what I've done in terms of diet/detox/probiotics and how it's benefited my entire life. I'm literally living a second life right now.. passed the misery of a living hell I was in a couple years ago & moving on and up with everything as quickly as I can. Money isn't everything, but I have a lot more of it now and building compared to what I used to have. I must be doing something right in order to achieve this.

Not really sure how someone could find kiteboarding on the ocean "BORING AS HELL," but whatever, to each their own.

The reason it doesn't sound the same to me is you talk about "positive things" you now have that you didn't have before. I'm sorry, that just doesn't resonate with me. Self-help type BS never resonates with me. It's just too narcissistic and materialistic for me. It makes me feel worse. Eastern-flavor "wisdom" is far easier to stomach.

The "Dark Night of the Soul" as a spiritual turning point in personal lives is of immense fascination and interest for me. I have seem people return from profound suffering become much wiser, stronger, better people after emerging from the terrible darkness.

I have seen the opposite happen too - people emerging from the dark night of the soul becoming more set in past patterns than ever before, at the extreme end becoming hostile and hateful to all others.

It's another spectrum I guess, a bell curve of recovery patterns?

Also, have you considered that you might have bipolar? You were depressed for how long? I was in a less depressed state from the age of 20 to 27. My most recent depression has lasted since 2008. Be grateful you got better, but don't assume people who can't cure themselves with probiotics and fad detox diets aren't trying. You're just one small data point. You aren't every single depressed person that's existed. You seem pretty judgy , abrasive, and full of yourself to me. I'd actually prefer the company of a depressed person to you. You just aren't persuasive at all.

goldfish, your experience is not universal. It's great that you're feeling good, but to suggest that anyone who doesn't read Dr. Burns and adjust their diet deserves their depression is absurd.

Suicide just leaves people in despair. I'm starting to slowly realize those workers I chased after aren't worth it. Savage people that they are. Just because you get feelings for them and they don't care, they have to stamp on my kind nature. Screw that. I have an inner boundary that nobody can breach.

Suicide is a solution to a problem pain, fear or a need and as such I don't think that it's right or wrong. Its the depression or the pain or unmet need that's the problem. If people need to get angry they should get angry at the problem not the people. Not seeing anyone here is doing that.

Absolutely. Depression is the thing to be angry at.

Suicide is wrong. It is cruel to the people left behind, those who love you (even if you don't see it or are too sad to care). Overpowering feelings can muddle a person's clear thinking and often suicide is about self-pity and hopelessness. Often suicide isn't a rational choice; it is an emotional choice and a choice fueled by anger, a need to get revenge, a need to punish the world and sometimes it is about someone who finds the world so difficult to cope with that they want to just end their pain. In some cases, euthanasia might be okay, but suicide should NOT be the cureall to problems and too often it is these days.

I like movies where people try to save someone; where life has meaning. Where someone will risk their own lives to save someone, where to save one life, is to save the world. Life is precious. Don't discard it so easily over emotions (it is usually about emotions , feeling sad and hopeless.

When you are feeling sad, listen to songs that urge you to fight, like Eye Of The Tiger, not depressing songs that encourage you to feel sorry for yourself because everyone has things they are dealing with; everyone has sad stories, even if they don't share them.

Not judging anyone; we don't know other people's stories.

It's perfectly rational to not want to experience unbearable pain. Emotional pain can be just as intense as physical pain and it isn't always possible to reason yourself out of it. That's the thing people like you can't fully wrap your head around. You cling to the idea that emotion is a choice. It isn't always a choice. What isn't rational is to expect a person to carry on indefinitely when they feel hopeless and life is unbearable.


How do you know such people discard life "easily"? How do you know they haven't struggled for a long long time before they finally gave in? Why can't we focus on helping people feel better? Keeping someone alive isn't the end all and be all. People should be able to want to live. If they don't want to live it's because they're suffering unbearably. Emotions can be as real and as unavoidable as physical pain. They're not "irrational". You're reasoning is irrational.


Depression isn't just "feeling sad". Such simple words can't even begin to describe it. You just don't have any idea what it's like. Listening to an upbeat song doesn't help everyone. If you're really depressed you'll find such songs trite and annoying. I prefer neutral music when I'm depressed, or just no music at all, but some people might want to listen to so-called depressing music - not because it makes them worse - but because they can relate to something in it. Maybe it helps people more to relate to a song than to be dictated at. Nobody listens to something because they want to feel worse. Nobody. You just don't get their reasons.


You're not trying to judge, but you make a whole bunch of baseless assumptions and preach solutions that don't actually help anyone who's depressed, especially not severe depression.

Have you ever been suicidal?...I have and yeah I imagine there was a bit of self pity, but what 15 year old girl doesn't(I was 15 when I attempted). But aside from that it wasn't really about any of the things you describe everything felt hopeless, overwhelming and it felt to painful to go on. I also thought I was just a burden to everyone, and worthless enough to deserve all the bullying and ostracism I endured no anger, or trying to 'get revenge' that doesn't even make sense how would killing ones self 'get anyone back' the people such a thing would be aimed at wouldn't give a crap...why would someone care if the outcast they helped bully offs them self. I guess I cannot say its never about that for anyone but that concept does not make sense to me....since then I've gone to the ER twice due to considering suicide and no feelings of anger or getting anyone back are part of that, more just wanting pain to end. Luckily I've found some ways to reduce it and even enjoy some of the time...but if I hadn't I likely wouldn't still be here and i wouldn't have bothered with the ER the last couple times if I didn't have family I cared about who would be upset.

As for music when I am feeling very depressed I do actually prefer more melencholy, sad sort of music...not to 'feel sorry for myself' typically though when I feel like that I don't care enough about myself for that anyways more to sort of let out how I feel if that makes any sense....but yeah music that is opposite of that like more energetic or up-beat just nauseates me when in those depths.