T.O. Attempts Suicide? - Page 2

Good point. Agreed.

Mr. giant, don't get me wrong, I would guess that 85%-90% of successful suicides are definitely people who could have gotten over problems or moved on to a happy life. Perhaps I jumped the gun. I don't mean to downplay these 85%-90%.

But you say I am talking in "vague childish terms". YOU are the one who is denying facts and data. You say "What, we shouldn't help people out? We should just let them kill themselves?" I got news for you. There are lots of people who have NO ONE who would really do anything or care about about them if they tried to kill themselves." Again, your response has some built in naivete to it.

You say I am talking in vague terms. I am talking in the most concrete terms possible. I am talking about people that I know. Are you saying there is NO ONE on earth who at 40 has never really been loved by either their original family or the people they chose to date? Are you saying there are NO dysfunctional people that always date losers and never are attracted to sane people? Are you saying their is NO ONE who has not been abused by every person they have every dated? Are you saying there is NO ONE who's kids are all on drugs or in jail and will regret that for the rest of their lives? Are you saying there is NO ONE who isn't tired of their $6.50 an hour job that they have to work 50 hours a week to pay their rent? Are you saying there are NO poor people that get tired of living in a bad neighborhood with a completely broken down, miserable family?

Unless you respond DIRECTLY to what people should do in these scenarios, I won't bother replying. I am mentioning specifics, and you are talking in generalities.

You said that you and your wife or whatever were contemplating graduate school at 26. At 26, lots of people are contemplating working for $7 an hour for the rest of their lives. Lots of people are realizing that they will never have a loving relationship, just like their parents didn't have one.

You vaguely called my "simple" while not answering the scenarios I posed about drug addiction and untreatable mental illness, also.

You have yet to provide any.


So? Does that make their life worthless? How about they try and find a friend? Oh, social anxiety disorder, you say? How about get into therapy then? Isn't that a little more constructive and smart than not giving oneself a chance at all by committing suicide?


None of that warrants suicide.

What Chucker said, plus:

Isn't that what a discussion is about?


I'm afraid that is none of your business.

But who's stupider, the person who killed himself or the people who based their lives around him? What people have to understand is that in the grand scheme of things we are disconnected from one another and we merely interact. We have no deep seated obligation towards each other. I'm not saying we shouldn't help each other, I'm just stating the reality is that we are not obligated to.


I agree that it's dangerous but not that it is unrealistic. I actually think that it is more in tune with reality.


Again you make the assumption that everyone can be helped. That's just not true. Imagine a rape victim. Do you think that any number of meaningless phrases like 'chin up champ' or 'it could be worse' are really going to make a difference? Yes, some people can get over their problems but others can't.


Then present an intelligent solution.


On the contrary, if you know of a way that people who have suicidal tendencies can get help, it may be beneficial to others.


Firstly, an opportunity to do what? Have a career, a family, friends, money? I personally don't place any value on any of those things.

Is there anything that makes me happy? Not really. Sure, when I watch a funny movie, it makes me laugh but does that give my life as a whole any meaning or purpose? I don't think so.


Scenarios where suicide would be the better choice would be in situations where the prospect of continuing life is worse than ending it. This can usually be countered by pro-lifers by saying that you never know what will happen. But yet again, it assumes a positive outlook no matter how bad things are and I don't think people should be forced to pretend life is good if their's is not.


How do you solve a problem of someone who has lost a loved one? You can try and convince them that they don't need them but there isn't a solution.

This just perfectly illustrates how your philosophy is totally and utterly disconnected from real world.

Well clearly they should kill themselves too! Dumb bastards............

In what way? You keep making derogatory comments without explaining yourself. If you can't answer any of the important questions presented then maybe it's your philosphy that's disconnected.


If that was sarcasm then thanks.

Otherwise, please don't make personal attacks just because someone's opinion differs from yours.

I've been in quite a few threads on this subject and it's interesting how the same replies come up. The majority of people come along with the idea that having opinions like Spindler and I is generally stupid and totally wrong and yet few people come up with valid reasons why. Do you guys really think that abuse is going to convince anyone to think differently?

'I'm right because you have a retarded philosophy about life.'

If you don't answer anything else, then as I said, present a solution to this:


Let's say someone is unhappy with everything or at least most of the things required to make life worthwhile. What is your solution?

That someone should make a two-column table: one column lists everything he's happy with, and the other everything he's unhappy with.

If the first column is virtually empty, he probably needs psychological counseling. If there is something very worthwhile in the first column, that someone probably needs to learn to focus on this thing more and perhaps explore more possibilities related to it.

Meanwhile, the items in the other column will become increasingly negligible in their mind.

Ok good, that's a reasonable suggestion. However, what would psychological counselling achieve? Basically, you just tell a stranger what your problems are. Ultimately, your recovery is dependant on your own willingness to accept the advice they give. Without that, would you agree that there are cases that will not have a solution other than suicide?

Strangers can't give your life a purpose, they can only suggest ways in which you might find one.

No, no.

If someone has an almost (or entirely) empty left column, i.e., if someone cannot think of virtually anything he can do that can make him happy (e.g. "I used to play the violin, and I used to have fun doing it, and I haven't done that in years, maybe I should it again"), then it's most likely a sign of a mental block. That is, there are things that would make him happy, but due to a number of reasons, the person cannot recall them, or has a distorted memory of them (e.g., "I hated playing the violin!", even when one in fact did enjoy it). The usual cause for something like this is trauma; that is, a terrible event in the past may overshadow, cloud or distort one's perspective on one's own past and current life.

What I'm getting at is this: the person would start telling stories from his life that he might regard as dull, "normal" or even negative. A good trauma therapist would listen to them and ask the person questions that tend to throw the patient completely off-guard, in a "I never thought of it like that!" manner. This kind of epiphany can help the person remember that the left column of the list could really be a lot fuller, and that some entries of the right column actually aren't so negative after all.

This is not a matter of manipulation. In fact, the opposite is the case: one's mind has manipulated itself throughout the years, and the goal is to undo that harm, to clear one's thoughts, and to ultimately reconsider one's views on life.

There are manipulative solutions, too, most importantly neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). In an almost eerie 1984-esque way, this works by convincing yourself repeatedly of an assertion until you start completely believing it. The purpose is to balance out fears with strengths. Consider a person you're afraid of, e.g. a high authority (your boss's boss, or something). Your mind might inadvertently create an image of that person that makes the person look bigger (quite literally so) than they really are. Through NLP, you create a counter-image whereby this boss's boss is actually the size of a dwarf. Once you have convinced yourself that this person really is tiny, your fear of them will diminish.

NLP, of course, is highly controversial. It works for some, but not for others (not for me, either). The better, but more long-term and more difficult method is the one I stated above, i.e. trauma therapy.


Absolutely. If you are completely unwilling to accept advice, however, that really is your own loss. Sorry to be blunt, but that's the way it is. All suicidal persons I know are actually quite willing to listen to advice. They may disagree with it, but they certainly have open ears.

But those who don't? Well, frankly, they haven't sunken low enough. I know how harsh that sounds; I hear it thrown at myself over and over. But most of the time it's true. If you're unwilling to make anything out of your life, or even to listen to someone's advice how you might be able to accomplish anything positive at all, nobody aside from yourself will be able to help in any way at all. Psychological research can only go so far. The one person who understands you best is always yourself; you just sometimes "don't know it", and that's when you need professional help.


It's a cop-out, not a solution. It's the thought process of 1) my life isn't worth anything, 2) I'm not willing to listen to anyone who might be able to convince me otherwise, 3) I'm right anyways, everyone else is wrong, 4) therefore, I'm wasting my time, 5) let's go commit suicide.

1) is already wrong, but many make that mistake. I certainly fall into that trap a lot. However, there's always 2), and that's where things get interesting. If you're willing to "Think Different" (hah), even for one brief moment, and listen to something somebody else has to say, no matter how crazy it may sound, it could make a huge difference. And if not, well, tough.


Yes, absolutely. But every life does have a purpose, no matter how hard one might convince oneself otherwise. Suicide can only follow years over years of negative inadvertent self-manipulation. A person's job is it to turn that around.

Life is an opportunity. Take it or leave it.

Marvin you have a very strange outlook.
Glad I don't know you.

It seems to me that such therapy would only work for people who haven't thought things through. Your suggestion of people seeing things differently suggests to me they haven't made an informed decision. Like I said, I can understand that there will be cases like that but there will also be cases of intelligent people who make a clear cut and well thought out decision.


Isn't every interaction we make manipulation to a certain extent? One way or another when we discuss anything, we are trying to make each other see that our own opinions are valid. That requires some degree of psychological manipulation.


Not if you have nothing to lose. Also, accepting advice is something you can only do so much before you accept that you've heard all the advice on offer but disagree. Unfortunately, disagreement is often not an option. I can draw such direct parallels with this and religious people. Day in day out, my relatives try to persuade me that their views on religion are right and when I disagree, they just say well if you're not prepared to listen, you're never going to understand what we do and assume that I must have been tarnished by some negative influence.


Well, on the other side of the coin, you could call life a cop-out from suicide because you are too scared to come to terms with your own mortality. A solution is merely an answer to a problem. If life is a problem then suicide can offer a solution. It may not be the best in everyone's eyes but the option is there.

What I'd be interested to hear is how people would react if they heard that a child molestor had committed suicide. I often find that people react a little differently when it comes to people they feel deserve to die.


I don't agree with that I'm afraid. When you see young children die needlessly, you start to wonder if any life has a purpose. It seems to me the only purpose humanity has managed to find is to exist.


I could actually agree with that. I think in a lot of cases, it would be a result of thinking a certain way. I know that I never used to have the opinions I do now, it is only after about 10 years of expanding that initial view that I've reached this point.

But the thing is, I don't consider my viewpoint to be negative so much as facing up to reality. In a way, most upbringings are an unrealistically positive external manipulation what with all the Disney movies. Contrast that with the upbringing that terrorists give their kids of hatred and you can see that all kids are manipulated to thinking like their peers.

The reality that I began to see is that I'm not the smartest person, I'm not the best looking, I'm not the nicest person and there are inherent limitations placed on me from my birth. One of those being that I will inevitably die. The more that I look around at where people supposedly find their purpose in life, the more I see people just finding ways to distract themselves from the fact this event will happen.

I think the biggest contributing factor to my opinion has been observing the people around where I live. The biggest two influences I've found are religion and alcohol. I was raised in a strict religious home where everything in life had to have something to do with God or Jesus and making them happy and to live a happy God-fearing life with that one special person you find to love for ever and ever. I went to a school and now work among people whose only goal in life is to get pissed at the weekend and presumably forget about life and to get laid with whoever is nearest. Neither of those options are acceptable to me.

Can anyone here actually say for sure what their purpose in life is? Generally the answers come back like, I live for my wife and kids, I'm living for God or I'm living life in the search for a purpose.


I agree. If you find your place in life and are happy then by all means continue. Otherwise I think it's acceptable for people to leave it.


I don't follow. Why are you glad you don't know me? Do I freak you out?

I'm not like a goth or something, I'm a pretty average guy with an alternative viewpoint about life, that's all.

Have you seen Hitchcock's film "Rope"? If not, go rent it.

Um, duh? We are talking about suicidal people, right? That pretty much requires that someone hasn't "hasn't thought things through".


Suicide is never an "informed", "clear-cut" or "well-thought-out" decision. Period.


To a degree, yes, of course. The question is: do we handle it? Can we handle it? What do we do with it? If we become too manipulate in a direction that we don't like, we need to find a way to steer back. Change our social surroundings, our work environment, our defining parameters.


Nobody has nothing to lose. Life is a huge gift, and that alone is something to lose.


Are they Christian? Because, if they're Christian, yet not "prepared" to accept other beliefs, they don't in fact understand Christianity, in my book.


No. Life is the chance, however slim, that you will be able to turn things around, and make it better.


But life in itself is not the problem! The problem is that you haven't found anything good to do with it for a while. And suicide is not a solution to that problem, but is in fact the decision "I can't be bothered to / am too dumb to / am too weak to / etc. find something enjoyable and useful to do in my life". Suicide is not a solution; it's a workaround.


That's a very shallow point of view.


I think the word you're looking for is "cynical".


And that's bad? It makes people happy. What's so terribly wrong with that?


Steve Jobs is neither the smartest, nor the best-looking, nor the nicest, richest or in any other way "best". Yet, there are millions who admire him.

You don't have to be the smartest, best-loking or nicest. And if by "inherent limitatoins" you mean genetic inferiority, then you've already manipulated yourself. Looks are subjective. You're subscribing to the majority's perception for good looks.


Of course they wouldn't be. There's other choices out there, you know.


They haven't found theirs, and they're avoiding trying to find it.


Acceptable, perhaps. Particularly bright of them? No.

I hear that a lot but it's lost its meaning or rather I never found any consistent meaning in it. Imagine you get some kid who is blinded from birth and who is born into a poor family always on the edge of starving to death. Where is their gift? To me that kind of gift would be like giving a kid a dead puppy for Christmas. You could call it a gift but it's not really worth a lot.


Yeah Christian. I agree with you that they don't seem to understand their own beliefs.


Ok, but here's what I'm not getting. You are saying that life is a chance to make the best of a possibly bad situation. But for what end? You're going to die anyway. Every action you peform in life ends up as just a memory. They aren't significant in any far-reaching sense.

Suicide might be an acknowledgement that you can't be bothered to do anything about it but why is taking the path of least resistance a stupid thing to do? Is there something enjoyable in the act of struggling all the time that I'm missing?

It's like when you were at school and someone would just push you and want to start a fight. Most people wouldn't want to start a fight and immediately just walk away. Every day I meet people who want to start a fight whether it's in business or relationships and I'm just tired of fighting to justify an existence I don't want. Weren't we always taught that walking away is the smartest thing to do?


Reality is always somewhere between gullible and cynical. I prefer my end of the pool.


Disney make people happy by feeding them false ideas about how the world is. Religion does the same and I think they make things worse. I don't suppose it's all that bad giving people false hope because they might make something of it but I think it gives people a false sense of security and leaves them unprepared for more likely eventualities.


By "inherent limitations", I meant the limitations associated with the human condition. The fact we are never able to achieve everything we can imagine and we are ultimtely constrained in an existence over which we have very little control.

Also, admiration is fine if that's what you want out of life. However, there have been many people who have been admired by millions and killed themselves.


Sure there are other choices in life as to what you want but I was curious as to what they were. Has anyone here found a purpose in life? Surely someone must have a rough idea.


Why would someone avoid trying to find their purpose in life?


Ok, let's take an example of someone in prison. They have a choice to live in an empty cell for the rest of their life or die. Which is the smart choice?

Now consider someone who lives in an emotional prison.


I haven't seen it I'm afraid, I'm generally not into older films. What kind of things would I get out of it? The plot being:

"Two young men strangle their "inferior" classmate, hide his body in their apartment, and invite his friends and family to a dinner party as a means to challenge the "perfection" of their crime."

I'll see if I can get hold of it online somewhere. I find it hard getting movies made in the last 10 years from my local movie store let alone 1948.

It seems to be a common conclusion that those with physical or mental disabilities are unable to lead a happy life, but every bit of research I've seen strongly suggests the opposite.


Humanity strives on the achieves of individual men which are remembered through centuries, if not millennia. To believe that your life will never amount to anything can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.


Because it doesn't make you come off as a particularly willful and powerful person. When you do commit suicide, you'll be exactly right: you will be forgotten.


Yes, achievement.

Climbing a mountain is tough, but ending up at its peak and being able to look down is an irreplaceable moment of joy.


Walking away from meaningless fights, sure. Walking away from challenges? No.


That's your choice to make.


Not false, just simplified. And it doesn't matter; the goal was to make people happy, and that worked. The people got precisely what they asked for. That's not propaganda; it's a bargain.


That's called ignorance. It is not an entertainer's job (Disney) to work on that.


But they would be admired even more if they had continued with their lives and achieved even more.


You can't tell someone else the answer to this question, because it is completely individual. You won't know until you've lived the better part of your life what purpose it had.


Because there are times and situations where it is a whole lot easier to keep whining about how horrible one's life is, rather than trying to constructively find the things that are right and wrong about it. (Welcome to the stereotypes of LiveJournal and Myspace. And yes, I have a LiveJournal, so call me hypocritical.)


That depends on what they can do. Can they read books in prison? Write journals?


There is no such thing.

I'm in a glass case of emotion!

That wasn't meant as an actual comment; I just watched Anchorman recently is all.

That philosophical systems based on idealized hypotheticals don't work in the real world like they might appear to in theory, and how screwed up it is to learn that the hard way.

On top of that it's also one of the greatest films ever made. The whole thing is done in one long continuous shot except for a single cut toward the end. Since the film reels only lasted about 10 minutes he had to use tricks like having someone walk past the camera so he could change to a new reel without breaking the continuity of the shot. On top of that, the two main characters are gay (although it's subtle and certainly not mentioned explicitly) at a time when it was totally unacceptable, so their dynamic is interesting. Even ignoring all that, the suspense it perfectly crafted.

Ok sure but I was using them as examples of how people might be unhappy. Just because some people can be happy in bad circumstances doesn't mean everyone should be. Telling someone there's someone worse off than them doesn't make their situation better, it's just an attempt to make them feel guilty.


I've seen that answer come up a lot before. What difference would it make to the individual if they are remembered centuries on? Do you think it makes a difference to Isaac Newton how he changed the scientific world? We appreciate it but it's unlikely that he would have known the impact his work would make.

Now you might say that the world would be far worse off if he had killed himself but no one would ever know. That's what I was saying about limitations in the human condition. It doesn't matter what we do because nobody really cares. Irrespective of our personal choices, others live out their lives in their own way because we are all disconnected.


Do you know how much willpower it takes to kill yourself? It's different for everyone of course. Living is easier for some people.


And that's all it is. A moment of joy. When you break it down, it's just your body forming chemical reactions in a nice way. There's nothing far reaching about it.

The hill was placed there as was gravity, making it difficult to climb. As human beings, we have been designed to appreciate only relativism. You can't be happy without sadness, you can't have tall people without short people, otherwise we have no way to define them. But because we have been designed that way, how can there be any true achievement?


Again it depends on what you view life to be.


I agree that you might not know until you are older but I presume people would have an idea of what they'd want their purpose in life to be. I also have to assume given that there are old people around that someone must have shared their opinion on the matter but I've never heard a reasonable one. Everyone asks the question what is the meaning of life but no-one ever answers it in a way that they or anyone else believes that there is an answer, personal or universal.


But if nobody presents any solutions then what else is there to do?


Yeah but there you are reverting back to the idea that people can find meaning in anything. The same goes for modern art. Some people put up work made out of rubbish and to some it's rubbish, to others it's art. People sometimes present ambiguous pieces and leave it up to the audience to find something in it. You can't criticize some members of the audience for not seeing what other people see. That's another analogy of reality being between gullibility and cynicism. Are people who see meaning in rubbish gullible or are people who see nothing in rubbish cynical?


Maybe not an inescapable prison but an emotional prison certainly exists.


Ok, I managed to get hold of it. It sounds quite interesting. I understand that purely philosophical ideologies don't always apply to the real world but I form mine from my observations of it rather than the converse.

Sorry Marvin to leave you all alone in this fight. I'll get back to it soon. But let me say that at least Chucker is talking constructive ideas and debating the situation. He is acknowledging that perhaps people should be happy and he is atlking about situations where they are not happy. Giant just through in a few insults, a few "you're deluded"s, and a few "you're way to simple"s.

Pot, kettle...and it's not an "insult" to point out fatal flaws in an argument.

Secondly, what's really interesting about the words you attribute to me in quotes here

and here

and here

and here

is that I never used those phases, nor did I even use any of those words at all.

I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that someone who invents a personal philosophical system supported by imaginary, prejudice-revealing 2D hypotheticals would also fabricate and falsely attribute quotes to try to mischaracterize and dismiss criticism.

[QUOTE=giant]Pot, kettle...and it's not an "insult" to point out fatal flaws in an argument.

QUOTE]

All you did was insult me and vaguely say that I didn't know what I was talking about, without citing any evidence. You never responded to the scenarios I brought up. You just said I didn't know what I was tlaking about. Here is your quote:

"This is just so ignorant of the reality of suicide. It's great to disconnect yourself from the reality of it and get pseudo-philosophical about it from afar, but the reality is that in most cases it, like murder, is fucking stupid and not a reasonable, calculated "solution." There is an argument to be made for suicide in cases of terminal disease, but for people who are just unhappy?"

ignorant, disconnected from reality, etc.

Did you provide any evidence that you know why people are unhappy or what it is like? Did you answer any of my scenarios. No. that is what Chucker is doing. He is responding to the SPECIFICS of the scenarios I raised. Just saying I am ignorant of the "reality of it" isn't a substantial argument.

I realize it is an emotional topic, but you still haven't responded, even once, to the question I raised several times about hopeless, chronic mental illness.

As in:

There's nothing to respond to. It's just a stream of prejudices packaged in an invented, shallow, imaginary and completely two dimensional hypothetical character. You might as well say, "well, what about Little Miss Muffet?"

In the real world people are complex, dynamic, unpredicatable, emotional, rational, have thoughts, feelings, likes and dislikes, occupations, interests, families, friends, acquantances, enemies, histories, dreams, pains, bodies, responsibilites, vices, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. Imaginary scenarios based on your own prejudices are completely and totally irrelevant in the real world.

Um, this sounds nice. I wish it could be completely true and the overriding factor in everyone's life.

In the real world, people who are good looking get drastically more attention then people who aren't. If you are a 38 year old woman who is good looking, you'll have lots of friends and dates. If you're really bad looking, you might not get a date for a year, especially if you are really overweight. I'm not saying how life SHOULD BE, I am stating how life IS. There are 2% on the end who just look really bad, and men are largely attracted to looks and will pass them by. Sorry that's the way it is, I'm simply reporting it. That's the dismal science of economics.

And this makes their lives not worth living? This completely baffles me.

I wasn't saying that this in itself makes someone's life not worth living.

- I initially gave a bunch of reasons why people could be really unhappy.
- giant said these were are "invented, shallow, imaginary and completely two dimensional hypothetical character"
- I used the above to point out that sometimes depressing things are straightforward. He said people are "complex, dynamic, unpredicatable, emotional,". I'm pointing out that in the real world sometimes there are straightforward factors that overwhelm a person's life that there is no solution for: poverty, mental illness, inability to have happy relationships, unattractiveness, emotional instability a psychiatrist just can't treat, etc.

Thanks for coming back but I'd like to clarify, I don't really want this to turn into a fight, assuming it hasn't. As I mentioned, I'm not the fighting type. Just like any other discussion, this thread is merely a means of sharing various viewpoints. I'm sure that like most people, we all form our opinions over a number of years and through personal experiences and I highly doubt those ideas would change significantly on viewing a thread on an internet forum consisting of posts from relative strangers.

I watched the movie Rope and I agree it was an excellent film but as I suspected not entirely relevant. The biggest difference between the subject matter of the movie and what we are talking about is that that the movie concerns people who think they have the right to end the lives of others based on their superiority over others' inferiority. One man having the philosophy that it would solve some problems and two people agreeing and thinking they can pull it off.

This is vastly different from a person taking their own life because there is no conflict between superior and inferior entities except in the sense of mind over matter and I know which of those is superior. The natural instinct the body has to exist is greatly exceeded by the mind's desire to do so. You could say that desires are only formations of the brain, which being constrained by the laws of nature would not try to kill itself given that nature tries very hard to encourage survival. But that lowers the value of human life to no more than that of animals. If so, animals are killed every day without the thought that such an act is significant in any way so why is it the case for humans?

So if we are just animals then we have no more purpose in life than animals do and dying is equally insignificant. If we are more than animals and our minds supercede our natural instinct then we have the right to choose which path to take.

As for the proposition that philosophical systems based on idealized hypotheticals don't work in the real world like they might appear to in theory, I would partially agree. However, as I explained above it depends on the hypothesis. Believing that suicide has a place and is a valid choice is no more idealised than the opinion that it doesn't. I actually believe it is less so.


Little Miss Muffet hung herself in the spider's web because she was arachnophobic but no one would help her because they were put off by the way she dressed. She lived an unhappy and lonely existence and she decided to take her own life when she realised it was but a pointless fairy tale full of constraints and fears that she did not invent. The only purpose she found was that inevitably the story would have a conclusion and this would merely be regarded as entertainment for future generations; nothing that really helped resolve her situation.


I don't think any of the scenarios presented in the thread have been irrelevant because I'm sure all of them have happened. As you say, human beings are complex, which is why I don't see how it's possible to say that they have to conform to any set of arbitrary standards. Just because it's hard to understand how someone can be so unhappy as to see suicide as the only option does not make it an option that should not exist in the sole interests of complying with an idealised point of view.