Suicide: Deliverance or The Dark Side of Dying?

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SifuPhil

R.I.P. With Us In Spirit Only
Location
Pennsylvania, USA
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Ever since Dr. Kevorkian grabbed the public eye with his assisted suicides we as a society have argued over the merits of taking our own lives.

On the negative side we have religious restrictions, moral questions, accusations of cowardice and abandonment and a general non-willingness to discuss the topic.

On the plus side we have quality of life issues, the right to self-terminate and the question of self-determination.

Where do YOU fall in this spectrum? Do you believe in suicide, and if so under what conditions? If not, under ANY conditions, what is your reasoning?
 

That Guy said:
I've read accounts of people who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived saying their first thought was wishing they hadn't.
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I'm sure, but perhaps I should have qualified: I'm talking about being in extreme physical pain, not a psychological problem. I know that to most people discussing suicide they would be the same, but to me they're like night and day.
 

I am for Dr. Kervorkian type suicides, because it is planned, neat and clean. I think that if someone want's to end their suffering and their life, it is their choice. My mother-in-law, when she was around 80, and in poor health, purchased the book Final Exit by Derek Humphry. Since she passed naturally, she never needed to use any advice in the book. It still sits on my bookshelf, and is an option for those who have poor quality of life, and perhaps have nobody to care for them like my MIL had.

If I had a terminal illness, and wanted to end my life, I wouldn't do anything like jumping off a building or bridge. I would do it a more discreet way, and in such a way that there would be no room for error. What makes me wonder, it the homicide/suicide pacts, that many older couples have with each other. So, the one kills the other, then attempts suicide....but it doesn't work. :confused: :rolleyes:
 
I think that suicide as a way to just stop living your life is not an acceptable idea.
But here, we are talking about ending life when it is already in the process of ending, a totally different situation, at least , in my opinion.
My father-in-law had a heart attack, and never woke back up. He was medicated, but still suffering when he had heart attacks even with the meds. The family had to make the decision to let him die, and then he gasped as his lungs filled up and he finally died. It was horrible. He would have suffered a lot less had he died with the original heart attack. But no one knew then that he would not wake up and recover.

Once that it was known that he could not survive, the most humane thing would have been an injection to put him to sleep. I know that this is a different issue at this point, because he was no longer able to make that choice, but were I in his position, I would certainly want to be able to end my life.
When life is ending anyway, and there is no possible chance of anything but pain and suffering to follow, then I do not see anything wrong with ending ones life, or even another persons life , in that case. I remember a movie, where a car crashed and was burning, and the wife could not get her husband out, and she finally had to shoot him, at his request. A terrible decision to have to make, but the only one, I believe.
 
Happyflowerlady:
Once that it was known that he could not survive, the most humane thing would have been an injection to put him to sleep.
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We do it for our pets and call it the humane thing to do...so why not be humane to people? I've been in the position to have to do this several times for pets and have no remorse. It is quick and peaceful and the right thing to do when they are at the end of their lives, suffering and struggling toward death.
 
My mother was in her late 70s, and in a diabetic coma in the hospital. She was hooked up to many tubes, etc. She was panting heavily and it was very disturbing to see our loving mom in this state. The doctor had already had a serious talk with my older sister about my mother's condition.

If she did come out of the coma, which was unlikely, her brain stem was so damaged, that she would be in a vegetative state at best. We did have conversation about making the decision to 'pull the plug'. Well, in the middle of the night, we received an emergency call from the hospital, telling us that she had passed. Her passing would have been quicker if she had just died from the stroke that put her in the coma, but I feel she went in peace, as she would have not wanted to live in a bed being kept alive by machines.
 
Ozarkgal said:
Happyflowerlady:


We do it for our pets and call it the humane thing to do...so why not be humane to people? I've been in the position to have to do this several times for pets and have no remorse. It is quick and peaceful and the right thing to do when they are at the end of their lives, suffering and struggling toward death.
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That's an interesting point. I think it's because most people see animals as beneath humans, as being somehow deserving of less consideration. To them, the taking of an animal's life is in no way equal to the taking of a human life, because everyone KNOWS humans are worth more. :rolleyes:
 
SifuPhil said:
That's an interesting point. I think it's because most people see animals as beneath humans, as being somehow deserving of less consideration. To them, the taking of an animal's life is in no way equal to the taking of a human life, because everyone KNOWS humans are worth more. :rolleyes:
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Not in my world.

As far as suicide goes, taking one's life to escape the problems of everyday life is not okay with me. If I can muster through and handle my problems, so can others. Problems pass, suicide is forever. Putting one's family and loved ones through the pain of a self inflicted death is a selfish, cowardly thing to do. I know this first hand on two counts.

On the other hand, assisted or self inflicted suicide to end one's medical suffering is another thing. I think loved ones would be more apt to understand in this situation, and even have a part in the decision. I have always said I will never end up in a nursing home or take heroic measures to prolong my life if I am in a terminally ill situation. I would have no problem opting for measures to bring a peaceful end.

Yikes! What a depressing subject
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Not in my world either, Ozark, and I am sure, not in a lot of people's world, that have and love their pets. I have had to put suffering pets to sleep, as well, and it is a heartbreaking thing to have to do. One part knowing that you now have to go on living without the little (or big) Furbaby that you love so much , and the other part knowing that ending the pain is what is best for them.
I don't know if our special pets will be in Heaven by the Rainbow Bridge, but that is the first place I want to go if I make it to Heaven.
Anyway, getting back on track again, I do think we should be allowed to choose an end with dignity, either for ourselves, or a loved one, just like we can do with our pets.
 
Ozarkgal said:
Not in my world.
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Nor in mine, but to listen to the media reporting on all the abandonments and cruelties inflicted on them one wonders ...


Yikes! What a depressing subject
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Which is precisely why the subject is so often shunned and seen as beneath contemplating.

But I've always been one to lift up rocks to see what's underneath. :playful:
 
I have spoken to people who say they will never suffer in old age or go into a Nursing Home?

They have hidden a supply of Sleeping Tablets or Neuroleptics and they will have no hesitation in ending it all.?

(I guess where firearms are readily available they could be added to the list?)

I just point out that should they develop Alzheimers or Dementia they will forget where they carefully stashed all that stuff for safekeeping?
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It is a very depressing subject and it is difficult for us to understand when most of us are able bodied and able to move about freely?
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Frankly I've never understood why it's a depressing subject. Death is as much a part of life as living, yet we avoid any discussion on the topic, as if we're afraid to conjure up the Death Imps.

Death is natural; death is a release. Certain forms of death are understandably difficult to discuss, but perhaps in the speaking of them there is a cathartic release.

My "middle" brother David was in his middle 40's when I was married for 6 years with a 4-year-old son. That would put me at about 34 years old. He developed adult-onset diabetes and, being of the same stubborn blood as I, refused to go to a hospital when his symptoms began to worsen. In fact, he made me swear NEVER to bring him there. He had managed to get a prescription for insulin but his condition required more care than that.

Things got much worse and he began to plead with me to go to the hospital, which I of course agreed to. He was in hospital 3 days and called me, begging me to take him home - he couldn't stand all the testing and poking and prodding and all the other indignities visited upon him.

I picked him up and brought him home (my home, where we had taken him in after he left his job). Over the next few weeks I watched as his condition worsened, yet he never wanted any medical attention again. I fed him, bathed him, changed him - basically treating a once-healthy 40-something like a baby - or a very old person.

One day, after a particularly bad spell, he waited until my wife took my son to pre-school and asked for his favorite breakfast. I knew something was up because he was the calmest I had seen him in months. After eating we spoke a while, then he asked for a favor ... or, to be precise, the fulfillment of a promise.

Each of us three brothers had sworn to help the other end their life if the quality of that life was gone. David was my last brother, my oldest, Mickey, having passed several years before. Since he couldn't do it himself, David asked me to load the pistol-grip shotgun he kept in the closet and lay it down next to him. We said our goodbyes, I went outside for a smoke, and heard just a quick "bang".

The sight I saw when I came back in I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, yet somehow I was relieved that he wasn't suffering anymore.

The kicker of the story, the thing that should logically have turned me off to suicide, was that the authorities told me they couldn't send anyone to clean up - that it was considered "medical waste" and that I would have to pay thousands of dollars for a special cleaning team to come in. I spent the following few days picking bits and pieces of skull fragment and tissue out of the drywall, finally bringing it all to a friend that worked at the local crematorium.

Even after all that I still support suicide, assisted or not, when the medical condition of the person is so far gone that they lose not only the use of their bodies but the pride contained within their minds.
 
Wow Phil, very intense personal story. It must've been very traumatic, I'm so sorry for your loss. Thanks for sharing this. :rose:
 
Phil, I know this must have been as difficult for you to write as it was for me to read. My father ended his life by bailing out of a three story window. Not for certain if it was on purpose or because he was intoxicated and fell. The night it happened, my mother took me and left because he was becoming violent. None the less, he also was a severe diabetic and if the window hadn't gotten him, the booze would have. One way was just quicker.

In high school I had a friend that blew his head off over being jilted by his girlfriend (not me). It was a shock, as he was always a jokester and the life of the party. No one knew what was lurking in his mind. Sad because at such a young age, he didn't understand that young love comes and goes, but death is forever.

I am guilty of not wanting to think about death, but appreciate everyday my hubby and I are given, knowing how fragile life can be.

Phil:
Even after all that I still support suicide, assisted or not, when the medical condition of the person is so far gone that they lose not only the use of their bodies but the pride contained within their minds.
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I totally agree with you on the medical condition point. There is a difference between just drawing breath and living. I'm sorry you had to be the heroic one for your brother, but how fortunate he was to have a brother he could depend on when the time came. There must have been much love between you.
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Ozarkgal said:
... There must have been much love between you.
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It was, like many other things in my family, an odd type of love. :D

It was never expressed openly, especially among three brothers (my sister was killed by a drunk driver when I was 12, so she wasn't part of the later-years scenarios). We kidded around as brothers do, doing nasty things and playing awful tricks on each other, but yes there WAS a strong bond there.

What bothers me the most now, as I always knew it would, is that I'm the last one in line - I have to make plans of a solo nature.

And my condolences on your father's death - it must be frustrating not to know what really happened, but perhaps in the end it doesn't really matter for, as you said, if it wasn't one thing it would have been the other.

As for your friend in school - now THAT type of suicide causes me grief, because it isn't medically necessary. But the passions (and the illusions) of youth run quick and deep, and unfortunately we were not all made equally strong in our ability to handle adversity at such tender ages.

I had a student once - a girl, 15 years old and a prodigy at martial arts. Before I finished my first month of instruction with her she was performing at an advanced level. I urged her to attend a larger school where she could have access to tournaments (I was a one-man show and didn't belong to the proper "circles") but she insisted on staying with me. She couldn't afford tuition, but I made an exception in her case.

But as wonderful as her physical ability was her mind was clouded by an abusive father and a non-interfering mother, to the point where, despite my best efforts, she fell in with the wrong crowd and began abusing a few powerful antipsychotic medications that her social service doctors had helpfully provided a prescription for. She spiraled out of control and one day just stopped showing up to class.

I lost track of her for a while, then found her hitch-hiking on the road one day, looking like a drowned rat and without any real indication of life in her eyes. I put her up for a while but it wasn't enough and it came too late.

A week later they found her in the Susquehanna River. No one can tell (or will say) whether she jumped or was abducted, but the end result was the same - the useless loss of life before she even became a woman.

If it is true that we in large part form our opinions and prejudices based upon life experience, then this would explain my hatred of both unethical prescriptions and abusive parents.
 
Phil, so sorry to hear of your sister...my condolences for your loss, she was so young. I was hit by a drunk driver myself at the age of 16, but thankfully I lived with only a slight concussion, broken ankle, hip and pelvis. Such a shame about your student, so many young lives wasted when kids get in with the wrong crowd, and do more drugs than they can handle...tough and tragic lesson to be sure. :(

Ozarkgal, sad story about your dad, my sympathy...it was a very hard time in your life I'm sure.
 
Phil, that is an incredibly sad story, and I can only imagine how hard that had to be for you to do. And even worse to deal with it afterwards. No one should have to see a loved one like that, and I can feel that it is as real in your soul as when it happened all those years ago. Prayers for your pain.
Death is indeed , a part of life, but sometimes it is an incredibly sad and hard part, when we lose someone that we love with our heart, but know we have to do the best thing for them, too.
You are a man of great compassion and integrity...SifuPhil.
 
I thank you all for your condolences, but that wasn't the goal of my revealing this story. It was simply that, yes, although it was a shock to my 12-year-old system to lose my sister (and one month later to the day my father) and to deal with both of my brothers' deaths, I feel that my view of life - and death - have allowed me to handle it better than many others.

When I was actively involved in the Chinese healing world one of the services I offered was "Taoist philosophical counseling" - a sort of life-coaching wrapped in a Chinese robe. :rolleyes: What I would do is discuss the day's problem with my patient, lay out the Taoist philosophical thoughts on it, and see if we could come up with a plan of action based upon those thoughts.

Like any other life-coaching this system had its ups and downs but I like to think that particularly in the field of death and dying, into which a large part of my practice seemed to carry me, I was able to impart a certain level of calmness, acceptance and, dare I say, even relief into the process.

We live, we die ... it's a natural cycle ... we often cloud that cycle up with fears, hopes, expectations and dread, but in the end (!) we must obey the natural order. The form that ending takes can certainly evoke strong emotions from the survivors, but that doesn't change the fact that the decedent has merely moved one step further in the cycle. We none of us knows what happens at that level (sensationalist news stories and religious dogma aside) so it is a waste of life to give death any but a cursory examination.
 
I realize this is quite an old thread, but that doesn't diminish it's relevance.
Phil, I'm sorry for the tragedy you've experienced.

I wish (assisted) suicide were accepted by our society, for those suffering painful illness they will never recover from.

When my mother was in her 70's, her health dramatically declined. She'd been giving herself insulin shots daily for years. She went blind. She was on oxygen and had suffered 3 heart attacks. She had bypass surgery. Then she saw her doctor who told her she'd have to start dialysis because her kidney's were shutting down. She also suffered from depression about her failing health. She also lost her savings which was in an account uninsured by the government.

She lived at home with my father. She stopped taking all her medication and she stopped eating. She insisted my father only assist in making her comfortable. She would not discuss her decision with him and was adamant he not seek medical care for her.

The following few days were awful for my father. I prefer not to discuss the details of events he related to me. Suffice to say he was beside himself at her condition. Neighbors called the police when they saw how distressed my father was. Dad explained to the police what was occurring. The policeman told my father that after she dies the coroner would need to perform an autopsy. Mom's wish was never to have such a thing done. She was also becoming too difficult for my father to care for. My sister & I convinced him to contact hospice respite care. They moved mom to a hospice respite care unit in a hospital. They honored her wishes and did not administer any medication to prolong her life. They only had one IV line where they gave her pain meds.

Dad spent many hours at the hospital with her. He told me the hospice nurses were very gentle with mom. They even gave her back rubs. From the time mom decided to stop taking meds, till her death was 10 days.

After her death my father said he was angry about her decision to commit suicide. I had a difficult time with the term suicide and refused to admit that to myself or anyone else for a long time.

I have given this subject much thought. I now realize I cannot pass judgement on someone's choice to end their life. I am not the one suffering their pain & illness. I also know we are each different in the extent of pain we can tolerate.
 
Lois, I am so sorry about what both of your parents had to go thru. I was the care giver for my parents. At the last Dr. visit I took my father to, his Dr. asked him what did he want, to go into a hospital, or to go home? He looked at me, and asked me to take him home. I took my father back to my home where I had been caring for him the previous five years, and he died in his sleep two weeks later. After he died, my mother asked that I do the same for her. She died in my arms two years later.
This forced me to see how hard that dying was on the family.
I have been think very hard about what I can do for myself, so that no one will have to make those kind of decisions concerning myself.
 
Found this:
March 26, 2013 — Humans Are Weird
[h=1]Is Suicide a Coward’s Way Out?[/h]
People who commit suicide are often labelled as selfish.
They are brandished as cowards who took the easy way out, the stupid option, in the face of a bit of pain and suffering.
As is always the case where such a harsh critique is imposed upon people dealing with very real, painful issues that aren’t understood by the majority, there are always people who want to jump on board the argument-ship coursing in the opposite direction. The general rebuttal to the above analysis, being: Someone who doesn’t experience a depressive mind and body can not possibly know the sort of struggle that is involved, the pain and torment that is endured. And that they shouldn’t judge someone so harshly when they can’t possibly fathom what it would be like to live in such a way, without remission.
 
I think that there is a tremendous difference between a person who decides to end their life, whether from depression, or drug abuse, or whatever motivates it, and the person who is already dying that chooses to stop living sooner.
While both are termed as a suicide, they come from very different motives,and I think that "assisted dying" is a closer term for what happens when a person who is already dying, essentially takes their own life.
Very different than the young girl that SifuPhil was telling us about , who should have had her whole life left in front of her, and was not going to die if she hadn't ended her life so sadly.
We sometimes have to do the caring thing with our pets when they are suffering and there is no chance of them recovering; and I don't think it is wrong to do the same thing with a human when their dying means only endless suffering.
My FIL had a heart attack, was rushed to the hospital, but never regained consciousness, and the family had to make the decision to take him off of life support, and he basically suffocated to death. It would have been a much easier passing for him if they could have simply given him a shot that ended it.
After watching that, I do not want to end up in a hospital on life support, and end up dying that way either, and have also given thought to what kind of an alternative would work.
It is just a shame that we can't die with the same ease and dignity that our pets can receive, and hopefully, it will become more acceptable.
 
HFL, Another problem with suicide is life insurance. How do we get them to accept it as our decision? We try to do something such as life insurance for our loved ones, and if we were to choose suicide we have to understand that we are forfeit all the money we invested in the insurance. I wouldn't have any idea of how to change this matter.
 

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