What are your thoughts on suicide?

[MACKTEXAS]

I don't believe I could do it. If there was no hope and I was too sick or in too much pain to go on, I could refuse my regular medications and rely only on comfort meds which I believe my doctor would prescribe, knowing his sensitivity to anyone in such a state.

 

[KSav]

I had no intention to offend. It was a personal observation that seems to be wrong.

I am not a mental health professional, obviously.

I apologize for getting snappy, @Luce. This is a touchy topic, and you happened to hit a nerve. I shouldn't have posted. There are some topics I need to stay away from. This is one of them.

Cheers!

 

[David777]

In the recent century, given technology and transportation, people worldwide are being mixed together for the first time ever. And none of it is fair, though wealth mongers in control choose to ignore such. As our world Earth monkey over-populations continue to increase, choking life out of the rest of the planet, I expect suicides will exponentially increase as the relatively uneven mix of those physically attractive to unattractive, intelligent to dull, educated to ignorant, skilled to unskilled, wealthy to poor, grows, making significant numbers of people, comparatively unsatisfied, frustrated, feeling like unfair loosers.

 

[OldOld]

Say it was illegal somewhere and a person attempted but failed. Then they could be charged with Attempt or possibly subjected to a temporary mental health hold.

Just need to have a good plan and execute it well and finish the job successfully.

 

[Luce]

I apologize for getting snappy, @Luce. This is a touchy topic, and you happened to hit a nerve. I shouldn't have posted. There are some topics I need to stay away from. This is one of them.

Cheers!

Apology not required, but accepted anyway. You didn't come off as snappy, but I could tell you were a bit upset.

 

[Stoppelmann]

In his books The Sane Society (1955) and Escape from Freedom (1941), Erich Fromm argued that society itself can be 'sick', becoming destructive and alienating and estranging people from their true humanity. In such a case, a person who cannot adapt to the society and develops neuroses or conflicts may in fact be the healthier one because their suffering reflects a refusal to fully conform to pathological norms.

He writes:

“The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues. The fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”

Elsewhere, he notes:

“The neurotic is often the one who refuses to participate in this collective insanity, and who, in his protest, clings to values which are still human.”

He says that despair leading to suicide often stems from the inability to reconcile one's genuine human needs with a dehumanising society:

“To see the world as it is, and to experience one’s self as what one potentially is, creates a deep conflict with the demands of an alienated society. The neurotic may rather prefer not to live in a world in which he cannot live as a human being.”

Fromm does not glorify suicide; he sees it as tragic. However, he also refuses to reduce it to simply being a "disease". To him, the fact that someone would rather die than conform to a dehumanising existence demonstrates the depth of their suffering, as well as the strength of their human awareness.

Fromm writes (paraphrasing): "We must ask not why the individual has failed to adapt, but why society has become so hostile to human needs that one must fall ill — or even die — to escape it."

 

[MarkD]

In his books The Sane Society (1955) and Escape from Freedom (1941), Erich Fromm argued that society itself can be 'sick', becoming destructive and alienating and estranging people from their true humanity. In such a case, a person who cannot adapt to the society and develops neuroses or conflicts may in fact be the healthier one because their suffering reflects a refusal to fully conform to pathological norms.

He writes:

“The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues. The fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”

Elsewhere, he notes:

“The neurotic is often the one who refuses to participate in this collective insanity, and who, in his protest, clings to values which are still human.”

He says that despair leading to suicide often stems from the inability to reconcile one's genuine human needs with a dehumanising society:

“To see the world as it is, and to experience one’s self as what one potentially is, creates a deep conflict with the demands of an alienated society. The neurotic may rather prefer not to live in a world in which he cannot live as a human being.”

Fromm does not glorify suicide; he sees it as tragic. However, he also refuses to reduce it to simply being a "disease". To him, the fact that someone would rather die than conform to a dehumanising existence demonstrates the depth of their suffering, as well as the strength of their human awareness.

Fromm writes (paraphrasing): "We must ask not why the individual has failed to adapt, but why society has become so hostile to human needs that one must fall ill — or even die — to escape it."

I’m sure this must indeed explain a lot of unhappiness as well as suicides. In addition to recognized suicides in which a person seeks an exit from existence there are probably many more in which a person remains oblivious to their suffering but slides into dangerous or unhealthy habits which result in an early death. Perhaps this is what is meant by suicide by lifestyle.