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16 Dec 05 - 05:48 AM (#1628605) Subject: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Azizi For some reason, I woke up this morning thinking about the subject of suicide-not my own suicide I hasten to say. In this Mudcat thread on Depression & Anxiety I shared a personal experience that I had with a close friend of mine who was acting as a support person for a friend of hers, and was devastated when that friend took his life. On another current thread that I won't identify, a Mudcatter shared the news about the suicide of her close friend. Another Mudcatter posted on that thread his hope that the person who committed suicide finds the peace that he could not find in this life. That thread may also have contained the abbreviation RIP {rest in peace}. It's that comment about finding peace in death, as well as that commonly used "Rest in Peace" abbreviation that surfaced to the front of my mind this morning when I woke up out of a dream. I wonder, is it part of folks' religious beliefs or philosophy that anyone {including or especially people who commit suicide} really rests in peace after his or her death? Or-put another way-do people believe that all a person does after death is to rest in peace? I believe in reincarnation. My personal belief [and I don't share it in any effort to win converts]is that people rest in between returning to earth {as a human being}, but after an interval of therapeutic rest-which may be short or long in earth time-the individual studies what went right & what went wrong in his or her immediate past life. In doing so, the individual becomes aware of what he or she has to work on in their next life. I believe that people are not born as blank slates. While few people have any conscious remembrance of their [many] past lives, I believe that most people retain talents and skills and interest we have worked on and earned in our other lives. I also believe that we retain unconscious memory of our close relationships with others. This accounts for me why we are led to certain people and have intense feelings {positive or negative} towards those individuals. A core part of my belief in reincarnation is that not only were we connected to other people in past lives, but we repeat those connections over and over and over again. We plan {or it is planned for us} to reincarnate at certain times and in certain circumstances so that we can continue working on our relationships with those people. So-for instance-a former male lover in a past life takes on the role of your boyfriend or your husband in this life-or -since people switch genders according to my belief system, in this life that person could be one's wife or one's brother or sister, or one's son or daughter. Or that person could be one's enemy or a boss you simply can not stand. In my belief system, suicide is tragic because of the loss of a person's life and potential. Suicide is also tragic because it throws a monkey wrench in plans that have been made to work on or work through issues arising from past encounters or emotional and spiritual debts owed to others. Those issues and debts don't go away, but have to be worked through in whole 'nother life. That's my belief anyway. Does anyone here care to share his or her opinions on the subject of suicide and-most particularly-what their religion or belief system says about it, particularly with regards to the "rest in peace" saying? Thank you. |
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16 Dec 05 - 06:19 AM (#1628612) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST Knowing my luck I'd come back as myself |
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16 Dec 05 - 06:35 AM (#1628616) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: open mike we had a scary indicent in an on-line music room i was in last night. Someone who few of us knew, burst in the room, made several mentions about ending it all, jumping off a bridge, etc, then disappeared. We were at a loss to know what to do. Most thought it was just a ploy to get attention, but then that often is what an ATTEMPTED suicide is all about....we were powerless to find out what the actual situation was, and not able to do anything about it either way. The anonymity and distance involved in internet transactions often has complications. |
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16 Dec 05 - 07:10 AM (#1628640) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Paul Burke I try not to have beliefs- they get in the way of thinking- but my provisional speculation at the moment is that we only think we are conscious. Don't get me wrong, we are feeling, thinking, interacting etc.- but its the "we" bit that is a mistake. In other words, there is only one consciousness- that of the sum total of the universe (or multiverse if you're a Pratchett fan)- of which what we think of as our consciousness is a minute subset. So in this light, suicide is no problem for the protagonist- getting there is the problem. Their consciousness merely ceases to be the small hot bubble of fast activity that thinks it is autonomous. On the other hand, the results for other people can be devastating. I know one woman who has been unable to hold on to a long term relationship all her life, probably as a result of her father's suicide when she was an adolescent. It's this consideration that has buoyed me up on the (mercifully) few occasions when I've been tempted to solve no more problems. |
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16 Dec 05 - 07:55 AM (#1628657) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* THe religion I was born into teaches that suicide is a "mortal sin", but that forgiveness is always possible with God, of course. IN some cultures, suicide was considered a highly honourable means of checking out under certain circumstances (ie in Japan, the soldiers on the losing side would commit suicide en masse rather than be captured). And it was customary for the aged among the Inuit of the far north to wander off to die alone during periods of famine, for example, thus freeing up food/supplies for the younger people. As for me, I agree with what you said about reincarnation, Azizi, with one addendum --- there is no judgment, really. People are free to do whatever they like, and they are responsible for any effects their actions have on others. So, suicide may create more karma than it resolves, as the person's family and friends deal with the aftermath. Also, when a person dies in an extremely negative emotional state (which is often the case when a Westerner commits suicide), they carry on in that same emotional state, with or without a physical body, until it is resolved/healed. In that case, suicide resolves nothing - it just prolongs the agony. |
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16 Dec 05 - 08:45 AM (#1628669) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Janie Steven Levine, a Budhist clinician and close associate of Ram Dass has written extensively from his experience with terminally ill patients. He thinks that the first thought a person has after they have suicided is "Oops." I have been fortunate in my career so far to have not had a client successfully suicide, but have a number of clients who have made a serious attempt, or who I have petitioned for commitment to prevent an attempt. In every single case, once the individual was thinking more rationally,(ie the psychosis or severely distorted thinking that can occur with depression were remitted) they were dismayed at themselves and extremely relieved that they were not successful. I have also worked with a number of people who were struggling with the emotional effects of the suicide of a loved one. I don't know if people who suicide rest in peace. I don't know what any of us do, if anything, after death. But the people they leave behind suffer tremendously. If the person who suicided is aware of this, I doubt seriously that they can rest in peace to have seen what pain their choice brought to those who loved them. Janie |
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16 Dec 05 - 08:47 AM (#1628671) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Amos I would add that the problem of suicide is that one finds the issues one was fleeing come right along with you and await your inspection, like so many tin cans on a puppy's tail. A |
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16 Dec 05 - 08:53 AM (#1628675) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Donuel My thoughts on suicide is that it should be punishable with LIFE with no chance of parole. My thoughts on reincarnation are: to each their own, but I wouldn't want my airline pilot to believe in reincarnation. |
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16 Dec 05 - 08:57 AM (#1628680) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Janie Sometimes people with psychotic disorders will have command hallucinations. They will hear persecutory voices berating them without respite. Those voices may command the person to suicide. When suicide is attempted or occurs under these circumstances, I think it fair to say that the individual is not acting under their own volition. Some (but certainly not all) of my clients who have attempted suicide, or who have been at serious risk to attempt, were as angry as they were depressed and dispairing. In these instances, suicide can be seen as extremely passive-aggressive. Janie |
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16 Dec 05 - 08:59 AM (#1628682) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: the one ask leonard cohen; no it leaves you who are left behind so hurt i would not wish anyone the pain of losing somebody. |
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16 Dec 05 - 09:51 AM (#1628729) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: mack/misophist I think (not believe, there's a slight difference there) that when you die, you cease to exist. So for a few, suicide may be the best solution for overwhelming problems. Once I knew a man who betterly resented the intervention of the mental health services after his first and second suicide attempts. The third was successful. |
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16 Dec 05 - 09:52 AM (#1628731) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: CarolC My beliefs are very similar to your own, Azizi. On the subject of suicide, though, I tend to believe that at least once in our many lifetimes, we choose suicide because we reincarnate in order to experience all of life, and we can learn from that experience as well. But I believe that for the most part, committing suicide creates a lot of work for us in subsequent lifetimes. |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:00 AM (#1628739) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Jeri Another person's suicide doesn't cause people who are left behind as much pain as the left behind person's own feelings that if only they had done something differently... I wouldn't feel bad if a person with a terminal illness made a conscious decision to end their lives. On the other hand, those suffering with the pain of healable illness or injury should be helped. If they still commit suicide, they did so as a result their reactions to their illness or injury, and if there is an afterlife, the wrongnesses of a soul hosted by a physical brain and body aren't going to follow them. And a compassionate God would not punish them further. I think that those here who like to think of suicides burning in Hell are those who may believe they're going to get a consolation prize for just putting up with life. They've missed the point too. Reincarnation? Speculation is interesting, but I don't know. If life is a road, the future is hidden in mist that only parts when you take another step. Neither you nor I have ever been all the way to the end. You may be sure of what's up there, but I'll wait to see. |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:04 AM (#1628745) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* I've worked with a few Native medicine people over the years; shamen who facilitate traditional funeral ceremonies and do spiritual/psychological healing work with the bereaved. The events I've witnessed / experienced after a suicide convinced me that life after death is much more than a "belief", and that people "do" just as much after they die as before; characteristic emotions/behaviours just carry on as usual. A few years ago, a very depressed friend committed suicide. Very difficult to deal with, as everyone who'd been close to him worked through their guilt and sorrow, their personal versions of "IF only I'd done XXXX, maybe he'd still be around ..." This person was a womanizer, the "needy" type always looking for a new "Mommy" to look after all his affairs for him. He'd been through one woman after another over the years, tried to hook me in at one point. No go. Well, after he died a few local "wanna-be Indians" did their version of a traditional Medicine Wheel ceremony for him. Laid a circle of stones around a big ole tree, did a pipe ceremony offering prayers and tobacco and inviting -- or perhaps I should say coercing - him to take up residence there, so he could be accessed at that place by the living for "spiritual guidance". When I heard THAT part of the ceremony, BIG warning bells started going off. WHy would anyone want "spiritaul guidance" from someone who was so messed up he'd taken his own life?!? And why try to "trap" a soul here, on the physical plane, when they so obviously wanted out at all cost? I didn't like it at all --- felt so uncomfortable I left, without a word. Over the next few months, my life became, quite literally, a version of hell. I couldn't seem to get rid of the obsessive greiving thoughts about him during the day, and he was constantly in my dreams. He'd disguise himself and chase me, try to trap me. At one point I saw him, in my dream, performing weird incantations over my sleeping bod. I'd wake up from these dreams in a cold sweat, feeling like something was tied around my neck choking me. Well geez, and here he'd died by hanging himself too ... At one point, I was so angry and so sick of the mental/emotional torment that I went back out to that Medicine Wheel and demolished it. Threw all the stones away with the intention of releasing his spirit and thereby breaking that strange and most unhealthy connection with me. ANd geez, y'know, after that I had no more trouble! No more nightmares. No more fear, anger, or grief. No more "invisible ropes" choking me all day long. No more obsessive thoughts or constant urges to perform his original songs in public. (Haven't sang one of those in YEARS now, as a matter of fact). And no one was more surprised - or relieved - than I! Mind you, the people who'd set up that circle were none too impressed when they heard I'd broken it without consulting them. BUt at that point, I couldn't have cared less. Especially when a few weeks later, I bumped into the young woman he'd been "in relationship" (of sorts) with when he died. Apparently she'd been having the same experiences I was, plus a few others (ie after seeing him in a dream she'd wake up to find her apt just reeking with a most familiar and foul odour, stuff unexplainably flying off the walls, knocks on the door/walls and no-one there etc). It was getting harder and harder to explain these things to her young son, to feel safe and secure in her own home she said. She mentioned that a couple other women he'd been close to had also been "beset" with this type of upsetting phenomena -- and then she told me that everything had quieted down over the last month or so. Said she hadn't "heard" from him over the last few weeks at all - as a matter of fact, not since I'd torn down that Medicine Wheel, even though she still knew nothing about that! :-D Anyway, thanks for listening to all this. I have absolutely no "proof" of anything I've said here, and I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything. Believe it or not, whatever you like --- those are simply my own experiences and interpretations thereof. Nothing more. |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:06 AM (#1628748) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST,Art Thieme ;-) Suicide is the sincerest form of self criticism. ;-) ;-)Art ;-) |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:27 AM (#1628770) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* Sometimes people with psychotic disorders will have command hallucinations. They will hear persecutory voices berating them without respite .. Janie, I'm wondering -- as a psychiatrist, do you think that what I experienced could have been a "psychotic episode" of sorts, triggered by the trauma of my friend's suicide? |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:36 AM (#1628782) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST What a load of bollocks this thread is. Azizi you are a fruit |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:41 AM (#1628787) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* GUEST, I'd call you a vegetable, but vegetables do have some virtue. |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:47 AM (#1628794) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Little Hawk I was not aware you'd broken up that medicine circle, Daylia. You really tune in strongly to spirit stuff, I must say. I was there for some of that gathering, but just to give him a send-off, not to build a medicine wheel or anything like that. Seems to me that I left about half way through. Azizi, I see it pretty much the way you do. Nothing much to add. I suspect that suicide causes further difficult karma to deal with farther on, rather than allowing one to "rest in peace", but there may be specific situations where it would be somewhat appropriate. I'm not sure one way or the other about that. The Japanese certainly thought that way, and so did the Romans. |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:53 AM (#1628798) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Janie m/m, I know that is sometimes the case. I also believe that if some one truly wants to die, they will eventually find a way to do so. And I think people have the right to commit suicide. However,in the majority of situations, suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems. They do not, however, have the right to include me in their plans. When a person shares with me their intent, or I discover their action before they are dead, I have a legal, moral and ethical responsibilty to intervene. I think this is true of me as an individual, and not just as a clinician with legally and societally defined responsibilites. To tell another person of your intent to suicide, and then demand that person to do nothing, is the ultimate "double bind" and there is nothing more passive-aggressive. The person may successfully suicide. I have to keep living, and live with myself. I will intervene for my own well-being, if for no other reason. The clients I work with are savy about the mental health system. They know that if they tell me about their intent that I will take every possible action to intervene. I therefore operate on the assumption that 1. They still have some ambivalence about suicide somewhere in their psyche, or 2. They are mad and vengeful enough to kill themselves in order to "punish" some one else (sometimes, me, the therapist.)and want to be sure the other knows they are being punished, or 3. both of the above. Jeri, I agree with what you say. But those feelings of responsibility and guilt are normal and expectable, and a person who is thinking cogently knows the effects their suicide might have on others. Janie |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:56 AM (#1628803) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Janie The above refers to suicidality associated with psychiatric and psychdynamic issues. Suicide in the face of a terrible, suffering illness, or to escape torture or to protect some one else (throwing yourself on a grenade) may well be different propositions all together. Janie |
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16 Dec 05 - 12:19 PM (#1628858) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Janie daylia--(I'm a licensed clinical social worker, not a psychiatrist, but since I work in the public system my practice consists of people who tend to be much more severe in their illness than a private practice therapist commonly sees.) Regarding your question--who knows? And I'm not sure it matters. What matters is you took action that was meaningful to you and it helped. When my sister died from breast cancer I was with her. Immediately after she died I had the experience of "feeling" her consciousness move through my brain--like butterfly wings--and the thought was inserted "Janie, it's beautiful, I don't know why I was so afraid." Did that really happen as I experienced it, or did I have a brief psychotic reaction to the overwhelming stress and loss of her immediate passing? I had never had a psychotic experience before, but I also had never sat with a sister as she died either. I'll never really know, and it really doesn't matter. I was comforted and helped through the moment by the experience, what ever that experience was. Janie |
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16 Dec 05 - 12:32 PM (#1628863) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Peace It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) by Bob Dylan Darkness at the break of noon Shadows even the silver spoon The handmade blade, the child's balloon Eclipses both the sun and moon To understand you know too soon There is no sense in trying. Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn Suicide remarks are torn From the fool's gold mouthpiece The hollow horn plays wasted words Proves to warn That he not busy being born Is busy dying. Temptation's page flies out the door You follow, find yourself at war Watch waterfalls of pity roar You feel to moan but unlike before You discover That you'd just be One more person crying. So don't fear if you hear A foreign sound to your ear It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing. As some warn victory, some downfall Private reasons great or small Can be seen in the eyes of those that call To make all that should be killed to crawl While others say don't hate nothing at all Except hatred. Disillusioned words like bullets bark As human gods aim for their mark Made everything from toy guns that spark To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark It's easy to see without looking too far That not much Is really sacred. While preachers preach of evil fates Teachers teach that knowledge waits Can lead to hundred-dollar plates Goodness hides behind its gates But even the president of the United States Sometimes must have To stand naked. An' though the rules of the road have been lodged It's only people's games that you got to dodge And it's alright, Ma, I can make it. Advertising signs that con you Into thinking you're the one That can do what's never been done That can win what's never been won Meantime life outside goes on All around you. You lose yourself, you reappear You suddenly find you got nothing to fear Alone you stand with nobody near When a trembling distant voice, unclear Startles your sleeping ears to hear That somebody thinks They really found you. A question in your nerves is lit Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy Insure you not to quit To keep it in your mind and not fergit That it is not he or she or them or it That you belong to. Although the masters make the rules For the wise men and the fools I got nothing, Ma, to live up to. For them that must obey authority That they do not respect in any degree Who despise their jobs, their destinies Speak jealously of them that are free Cultivate their flowers to be Nothing more than something They invest in. While some on principles baptized To strict party platform ties Social clubs in drag disguise Outsiders they can freely criticize Tell nothing except who to idolize And then say God bless him. While one who sings with his tongue on fire Gargles in the rat race choir Bent out of shape from society's pliers Cares not to come up any higher But rather get you down in the hole That he's in. But I mean no harm nor put fault On anyone that lives in a vault But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him. Old lady judges watch people in pairs Limited in sex, they dare To push fake morals, insult and stare While money doesn't talk, it swears Obscenity, who really cares Propaganda, all is phony. While them that defend what they cannot see With a killer's pride, security It blows the minds most bitterly For them that think death's honesty Won't fall upon them naturally Life sometimes Must get lonely. My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards False gods, I scuff At pettiness which plays so rough Walk upside-down inside handcuffs Kick my legs to crash it off Say okay, I have had enough What else can you show me? And if my thought-dreams could be seen They'd probably put my head in a guillotine But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only. |
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16 Dec 05 - 01:01 PM (#1628880) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Little Hawk And that, my friend, is probably the single most astounding piece of songwriting ever. In my opinion. Young Bob was sure tuned in. |
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16 Dec 05 - 02:12 PM (#1628932) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Deda I pretty much agree with Azizi, to the extent that I have any firm ideas. I used to be convinced, have convictions -- "ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." The only thing I would add is that people who have children, of any age, and who go on to commit suicide, have a uniquely terrible impact on their offspring. The scar of having had a parent commit suicide seems deeper, darker, harsher, less forgiveable to me than having had a friend, lover, sibling, even a child do so. Suicide casts a great long shadow over following generations that never really goes away. Even if someone says, "My grandfather committed suicide -- of course that was before I was born", the statement itself is somehw ghastly, it speaks of enormous and somehow contagious, incurable, inheritable pain. I didn't fully realize when my own children were small that I had a duty to shield them from my own pain, folly and vulnerability. They seem to have come out amazingly well, all things considered. |
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16 Dec 05 - 02:16 PM (#1628939) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Amos Daylia: Good work; and a terrific tale. A |
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16 Dec 05 - 03:00 PM (#1628966) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Bill D Azizi...early in your post was this- "I wonder, is it part of folks' religious beliefs or philosophy that anyone {including or especially people who commit suicide} really rests in peace after his or her death? Or-put another way-do people believe that all a person does after death is to rest in peace?" Reflections about reincarnation took up most of your post, yet you ask about suicide and its ramifications as if reincarnation were a given. As you might expect, I do not subscribe to past-lives theory, so my ideas about the relevance of suicide are partly shaped by my attitude. Still, I agree that suicide is 'usually' sad, regretable and unnecessary. I do wonder how those who DO believe in reincarnation think it happens....and more importantly, when did it start? No one seems to 'remember' being a cave dweller 27,000 years ago. Did our very, very remote ancestors get reincarnated...and did THEY commit suicide? With what result? The metaphysics of such belief systems are staggering....How many 'souls' are there...and if everyone now living has one to be reincarnated, whose are they using, since the population used to be MUCH smaller? It seems like you must postulate infinite souls, yet an infinite number would never all get a turn, much less dozens of turns, 'resting' or not 'resting' in between turns. No, it isn't necessary that you reply or debate me...it's just Bill D the sceptic again, wanting to be sure that various aspects of the issue are 'out here' to be chewed on by those who are not sure... |
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16 Dec 05 - 03:27 PM (#1628976) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Little Hawk To answer your question "when", Bill... The problem is that bodies, or body-minds, think in terms of time because they exist in time. The Spirit does not. It exists outside of time, outside of form, beyond numbering things, and outside of any measurable distance or separation of any kind whatsoever. A body-mind can talk about that, but cannot grasp it...or see it...or do anything with it. How do you grasp the formless, dimensionless, and timeless? Contrary to what you said, there have indeed been cases when people remembered 'past' lives under very primitive circustances. You think in terms of "now" and "then". To the Spirit it is only Now. You think in terms of "here" and "there". To the Spirit, existence is everywhere simultaneously. You think in terms of "you" and "me". To the spirit, we are inseparable aspects of One Being. You think that this planet is the ONLY place we can incarnate. It's one of an ifinite number of places (and times, and dimensions) in which we can incarnate. You could kill everyone on this planet, destroy the whole globe, and life would take form elsewhere. You could destroy our galaxy. It wouldn't matter. Spirit cannot die. It takes form where and when it will. And, no, I do not require or expect you to believe any of that, and if doesn't even matter whether or not you do. ;-) But it is an answer to your questions. I have had any number of times when I sort of wished I wasn't here...but that's not exactly the same thing as contemplating suicide. I could never think of a method that I was willing to use. I just sort of wanted to check out, but wasn't willing to throw the switch, as it were. Just sort of vaguely wished the switch would throw itself somehow. I think it's a death wish that motivates people to do many risky things, such as, driving very recklessly, taking drugs, smoking, anorexia, and so on. It's not NECESSARILY a death wish, mind you, but in some cases it is. I've seen any number of people commit slow suicide by means of their self-destructive habits. Our society encourages them to, as a matter of fact, because it's often quite profitable for certain sectors. |
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16 Dec 05 - 03:36 PM (#1628986) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: bobad ".........the formless, dimensionless, and timeless" That sounds like the definition of "nothing". |
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16 Dec 05 - 03:39 PM (#1628988) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Little Hawk Many people, by the way, feel suicidal around Christmas...or have thoughts about it. It's partly the short daylight hours, and partly the sense of failed expectations, compared to the excitement of childhood Christmases past. Not exactly "the season to be jolly" for everyone, is it? I wonder how many people are truly happy around Christmas? My guess would be: a small minority. |
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16 Dec 05 - 04:14 PM (#1629009) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Bill D well, LH, like bobad, I don't relate to definitions which seem to fuzzily end up referring to 'nothing'. If 'spirit' is to be meaningful, it can't be 'nothing', and yet you grant the concept an overarching presupposition of existance using words which dodge all attempts at being pinned down to anything specific. *smile*...You speak of all this "universality of spirit" as if it were a **given**, an unassailable, obvious, non-debatable Platonic Form. In previous discussions, you saw my opinions that words can fool us into supposing that we are saying something, and then acting like poetic cotton-candy when we try to examine them. *shrug*...no law agin' it, and it's a pretty picture, but I gotta have more substance to MY ∞ and spirit... stay well and have a happy holiday season! |
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16 Dec 05 - 05:13 PM (#1629020) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Little Hawk You're just not reading the right stuff, Bill. ;-) I take this sort of thing as a given at this point. Want an intro? Read Eckhard Tolle, "The Power of Now". It's a brilliant book that will either interest you or totally not interest you, depending how you relate to it. You will either find it fascinating or meaningless. Here's an example, Bill: What gives the night sky meaning? Is it the stars? Perhaps. Or is it the empty space, the nothingness, which permits the stars to show themselves? Without that field of "nothing" you would not be able to perceive all the individual "somethings" that show themselves on it. That is what Spirit is like. It's like space. It's a featureless context that contains everything, an apparent nothingness, out of which all individual things arise and are seen. It's like the white space that I type these letters on. You relate to the letters and find meaning. Without the empty space they appear upon, you could not see them. The empty space provides context. Spirit is that which provides context for everything. Without context, you HAVE no meaning. Without some empty space between your eyeballs and what you are looking at, and some space AROUND what you are looking at...you CAN'T see it! A mind cannot be seen. But...out of that mind arise all sorts of observable phenomena. You can't see my thinking mind. It appears in no way. But...my thoughts show themselves in phenomena (these typed words), in actions, in emotions, etc. Spirit is the formless thought, the measureless potential, out of which all manifestation arises. It is "nothing" in your terms, but EVERYTHING you see comes from it. You can't see or measure my thoughts. But...they are real. They will still be real when I have no body, and am said to be 'dead'. They will presently form another body. Then you'll say, "Ah! There he is. He's real." Your seeing me is not a requirement for my existence in Spirit. But...my existence in Spirit is the same as everyone else's. It is here in form that I appear separate. The space around my form and yours is what makes that perceivable. |
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16 Dec 05 - 06:26 PM (#1629079) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Amos I'd offer that it depends on how you define something and nothing. If you are defining these terms as parts of the usual matter-space-time continuum, they aren't there. That doesn't make them nothing; it just makes them outside the usual framework of thing-ness in material terms. A |
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16 Dec 05 - 06:29 PM (#1629086) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Rapparee He was an artist and a pretty good one. One hot July day his wife couldn't find him -- she walked into a shed and found him. Hanging from a beam. Eventually, her two sons were taken away and she was committed to a mental facility. No one, as far as I know, has ever figured out why he did what he did. And as far as I know, she's spent the last 30+ years in the care of the State of Ohio. Two years later, Mom came home from shopping and the garage door opened upon the body of her son. He'd killed himself by firing a 12 gauge shotgun into his head. Why? as far as anyone could tell, because he'd dropped from an "A" to an "A-" average. Not that his parents cared -- they had been a close family and apparently a happy one that put no special emphasis on good grades. Dad took to drinking heavily and Mom eventually divorced him and took the two other kids. Suicide is not a victimless crime. |
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16 Dec 05 - 06:48 PM (#1629100) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST,First Responder Years ago I was part of an ambulance team that responded to a 911 call from a very distraught father. His daughter was sitting in his chair but she wasn't moving. He couldn't wake her up by calling her. He seemed very 'distant' to the 911 operator who in turned passed that info on to us in the ambulance. We entered the house and one of the team went to the father. The other two of us went to the daughter. She was a beautiful young girl with long straight hair and soft facial features. The .22 was leaning across her body and she was sitting up fairly straight in the cushioned leather chair. I looked at the ceiling and saw a small hole about two feet behind where she was sitting. And time stopped--because I knew. There was so little blood on the skin just behind her lower jaw. I couldn't see the tiny hole through the top of her head without moving some of her hair aside. The police got there within two minutes of our arrival. We took the father to a hospital. The ride back to our base was very subdued, very quiet. Not at all usual for us. To this day I don't understand. She wasn't even sixteen. There is an old saying I learned that was attributed to the Apache (Native North American people): I have no pockets to put that in. I think I will never have pockets to put that in. |
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16 Dec 05 - 09:26 PM (#1629194) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Bill D I won't mess up this important thread any more, Little Hawk....maybe another one, about 'nothing' would be interesting...(I studied *nothing* formally at one time...so I do see where you're heading...but....) anyway, it's too far afield for now. We've strayed even from reincarnation. |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:00 PM (#1629223) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: kendall I see it as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:04 PM (#1629228) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* Regarding your question--who knows? And I'm not sure it matters. What matters is you took action that was meaningful to you and it helped. Janie, thanks for the reminder about what's really important, and especially for sharing your beautiful experience with your sister here. ANd thank you too, Amos. |
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16 Dec 05 - 10:56 PM (#1629245) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Little Hawk I see it as a temporary (and poor) solution to a problem that is likely to have further repercussions for a very long time...on one's own spirit, and the lives of others. I say it's temporary, because the soul of the suicide lives on. Therefore it promises escape, but doesn't deliver it. There may be specific circumstances, though, where it makes sense, such as giving your own life to save others. |
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16 Dec 05 - 11:29 PM (#1629261) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST Between the thought and the action - falls the shadow (TS Elliot) http://www.seppo.net/nike.html |
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16 Dec 05 - 11:37 PM (#1629263) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST,.gargoyle Lots of music:
Theme from MASH
We Had Joy We Had Sun
cute little poem about how messy it is.
Sincerely, find a mental health clinic - THIS WEEKEND!!!
Begin a dialogue - even two minutes - and call back later.
Sincerely,
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. |
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16 Dec 05 - 11:53 PM (#1629273) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Ebbie I've been doing a lot of thinking about life after death and about reincarnation lately. I tell you- I have found no answers. Some of the things that are incomprehensible to me: 1) The concept of seeing someone again. What does that mean? That the mother who died when she was 30 and the babe was born and the son who is now 90 years old will meet up yonder and take up their family relationship again? That's absurd. So it must be that we mean that 'spirit' continues. And then it occurs to me that if it is significant that two spirits meet again, then it seems to imply that the current family relationship was short lived and cursory. Reincarnation may well fit into that scenario and the next connection may well be of next door neighbors. 2) If one accepts that people/spirits do 'wait' for their significant others to rejoin them on the other side, might it be that the baby that died when it was three days old and the child who died at 4 years and the dead 7-year-old second grader are all the same 'person'? Think about it- say a young man died at 29. Let's say that his best friend who was also 29 at the time of the young man's death wil live to be 80. She wants him to 'wait' for her on the other side. That means that he has time for a number of very young lives (let's postulate that they were born for the sake of other persons) and still be waiting for her. Bill D, I would love to see your mind take on this kind of exercise! (For the record, I think Little Hawk's take on this subject is profound.) |
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17 Dec 05 - 12:09 AM (#1629276) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Amos Connections are infinitely flexible if they aren't constrained by location and time. So what it means to "see someone again" is a dynamic and instantaneous exchange of attention; if this exchange is used to create a familiar picture of a person in material form, that's more a function of one's own habit than a function of what another being looks like, I would expect. It isn't a matter of getting stuck in some form ort other because of anothers' expectations or desires. We are very habituated to being located by meat tokens, since that's how we pretend to present ourselves to each other. But the connections between live beings are much more than that. How much more depends on how socked in the individual is into the mechanics and electronics of meatspace, which varied wildly from person to person. A |
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17 Dec 05 - 12:44 AM (#1629286) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST,.gargoyle Ebbie - you are concerned ofver trival matters.
The Bible clearly states, "You will be known, as you have been known."
Sincerely, |
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17 Dec 05 - 08:07 AM (#1629387) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST,*daylia* The ride back to our base was very subdued, very quiet. Not at all usual for us. To this day I don't understand. She wasn't even sixteen. First Responder, your awful story brought back an awful memory, of a 21 year old neighbour who made good on his threat and shot himself in the head with his father's rifle, right in front of his ex-girlfriend and her grandmother. To punish the girl, I suppose, for breaking up with him. His father, the local fire chief, responded first to that 911 call. :-( Could blame it on the fact that the young man just lost his job, that his girlfriend had kicked him out because he was drinking heavily, or that it was February (the most depressing time of the year for a lot of people). Or maybe we could keep it real simple and say that if he hadn't had access to a gun, that young man would still be alive today. His family would have spared years of anguish and his girlfriend 6 months in the psych ward. I believe that's true. And it's probably the same for that teenage girl you found. Guns just make killing too easy - if people had to stab or hang themselves etc, they'd be less likely to bring about their deaths as a means of revenge or attracting attention. I know what it is to be depressed, to feel that everything's been lost, that no one cares or ever did care, that there's nothing more to live for. I know what it is to be in such physical pain and mental/emotional turmoil that every day is a dreaded test of endurance. I know what it's like to obsess about killing oneself - going over possible ways and means and methods and repercussions and finding none of them satisfactory. And I also know this - if I'd had access to a gun during that thankfully brief period of my life, you probably wouldn't be reading this today. WHen I was younger, the fact that my children were very small always brought me to my senses when I 'sink' that low. I could NEVER have inflicted my own suicide on them ... but once they were grown, believe me it was alot harder to find a good reason to keep on keepin on. So, praise be, I'm GLAD I never liked guns, and always refused to allow one in my home. daylia |
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17 Dec 05 - 08:35 AM (#1629401) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Doug Chadwick I don't believe in reincarnation. I didn't believe in it last time either. DC |
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17 Dec 05 - 09:50 AM (#1629434) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Rapparee Daylia, there are too many ways to kill oneself to blame one method. Suppose that young man decided to throw himself from a height in front of those people. Or to cut his throat, spraying them with blood. No, it doesn't do to blame the method. He should have had help. I don't know -- perhaps those who succeed with suicide have something in their makeup, some defect. You came through, others did not. It sounds harsh and it is, but perhaps "the weak died on the way." Perhaps the people at Jonestown and the Heaven's Gate bunch were too easily led and were chosen BECAUSE they could be easily led. The same would be true of Martin's suicide bombers, too. I'm not an expert in this area and I'm glad I'm not. And these are just musings, nothing more. |
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17 Dec 05 - 10:12 AM (#1629452) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *Laura* Have you read '4:48 Psychosis' by Sarah Kane? It was her last play and she committed suicide shortly after finishing it. It's fascinating and beautifully poetic as well. xLx |
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17 Dec 05 - 11:03 AM (#1629476) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Bill D Ebbie...I could, as you might imagine..*wry grin*, write several pages of the ways my 'mind' might go in taking on these thoughts....but today & tomorrow are gonna be quite busy...so...briefly....(well, MY idea of 'briefly') It seems to me that the idea of living forever is totally fascinating to we humans who, alone among species, are aware of mortality and can comtemplate other possibilities. Therefore, reincarnation and 'souls' or 'spirit' which provide a theoretical means for accomplishing reincarnation are obvious and natural creations of those who wish to believe.(read Eric Hoffer) If it can be imagined, it will be....it is too simple an idea NOT to be thought of and believed, over & over....and it has been in every culture we have records of. Only the details of 'how' the soul/body/spirit might continue differ, depending on the society, culture and religion which gave rise to them. It is SUCH a tempting idea that it is WORK to NOT believe in it. It is SO easy to write fascinating, poetic and ummmmm..'profound' thoughts and stories about souls, heaven, 'meeting on the other side', returning in a 'different' body...etc...etc...etc....that the opposite view.."I think death is simply the end" sounds boring, sad, and unfair!! "How DARE he suggest that the 'pretty' stories are false and that I won't meet my Mother again!" To put it a bit differently...it is easy to have a belief....it takes a lot of thought and resistance to peer pressure to sort through beliefs and decide whether the evidence presented is compelling. 27 paragraphs of examples, logic, counter-examples and socio-psychological ruminations follow. |
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17 Dec 05 - 11:17 AM (#1629481) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Little Hawk Good one, Doug! ;-) Ebbie - I have heard that spirits, being basically pure thought itself, can "appear" any way they want to...and that when one spirit wishes to "see" another specific spirit whom they have known, then they see them pretty much the way they would most want to see them...something like that. And it is not governned by timel. It's timeless. Time is something that has a function in the physical dimension(s), where things are separate and have distances between them. Time is the measure of distance. There is no distance in pure thought. Thought is instantaneous. (the firing of neurons in a physical brain is not instantaneous, but thought is) Most spirits would prefer, I imagine, to appear in the prime of life...but maybe they would prefer to be as a child or an old person for some reason...who knows. In any case when one spirit recognizes another it is recognizing not outer form, but familiar patterns of consciousness. Being pure thought, we each are quite unique and recognizable to one another. In Spirit, to think of someone IS to be with them...immediately...whether they are "alive" (in a body) or "dead" (not in a body). That's what I've heard. Can't say if it's true or not... Gargoyle - I figure that most of us could benefit from some good therapy now and then...if we could find the right therapist. Therapists are fallible too, and sometimes they do more harm than good. They can also be quite expensive. I've known people who got totally screwed up by therapists. I've known others who were greatly helped by them. |
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17 Dec 05 - 12:21 PM (#1629505) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Amos Bill, You are building a self-referential chain based on a sharply bounded phenomonology. At some point the fact of observation itself and all it entails will present itself for understanding. It is not awareness that defines the spirit -- hell, any chipmunk has some. It is rather awareness of awareness. That's where the center of all these constructs is found. For the rest, cf. Little Hawk, above, the monk amongus. A |
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17 Dec 05 - 02:55 PM (#1629568) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Bill D Amos..I don't DO 'bounded' philosophy, and phenomonology, by definition is not bounded...it is merely an approach to describing "the thing-in-itelf"...whether or not the 'thing' has any objective reality! If the only way you'll allow UNbounded thinking is to require that we 'accept in order to see', I'd suggest that we have a serious difference of opinion about what constitutes 'bounded'. As to 'self-referential chains', what do you you call a system that assumes concepts in order to describe, define and speculate on their nature? "Now let's all stipulate that 'spirit' and such like nouns are really relevant, and in an important sense, "there"...here's what they must be like!"....ummmmmmm Little Hawk, our resident monk ♫"I've got plenty of nothin', And nothin's plenty for me..♫ |
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17 Dec 05 - 03:00 PM (#1629576) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Peace While thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking, I thought I'd thought that what I'd thought was what I'd thought. However, on re-examination, I see it wasn't so. |
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17 Dec 05 - 03:09 PM (#1629580) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: CarolC For some of us, Bill, these things aren't "assumed". They are experienced. Whether or not you are willing to accept our word about what we experience, and whether or not you are willing to accept that we are no more imagining our experiences than you are, is another matter. |
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17 Dec 05 - 03:25 PM (#1629592) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* Daylia, there are too many ways to kill oneself to blame one method. Suppose that young man decided to throw himself from a height in front of those people. Or to cut his throat, spraying them with blood. No, it doesn't do to blame the method. He should have had help. I don't know -- perhaps those who succeed with suicide have something in their makeup, some defect. You came through, others did not. It sounds harsh and it is, but perhaps "the weak died on the way." Yes, "survival of the fittest" is important. But still, because I did not have instant access to a firearm -- or even to prescription drugs -- at least I was spared the temptation of such quick, easy-looking "solutions" at those weakest, most dangerous of moments. The stats do indicate a direct relationship between access to guns and "completed" suicides. According to the Canada Safety Council and Mood Disorders Society of Canada, reducing access to guns is an effective means of reducing/preventing suicide. "The proportion of completed suicides is highest with a firearm (92 per cent). A home where there are firearms is five times more likely to be the scene of a suicide than a home without a gun ... Nearly 80 per cent of all firearms deaths in Canada are suicides, compared to 15 per cent of homicides. A firearm is the method used in nearly 20 per cent of all suicide fatalities. Some say that in the absence of a firearm, a suicidal person will seek out another method, but research indicates that is not so. A Quebec study by the Centre de pr�vention du suicide 02 examined whether suicide rates were related to gun ownership rates.4 It found that where hunting for sport is common and firearms are more readily available, the firearm suicide rate is higher than in urban areas. Moreover, as the firearm related suicide rate increased, so did the overall death rate by suicide. The researchers concluded that if a suicidal person does not have access to a firearm, there is no evidence that another method will be used, at least not one as lethal as a firearm." Interesting. The 21-yr old I mentioned above also enjoyed killing - or hunting, rather - for sport. Like most of his family and friends. |
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17 Dec 05 - 03:38 PM (#1629607) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Ebbie In Juneau some years ago a man left a suicide note in his apartment before he went out to throw himself off a bridge. He was later found dead in his apartment from hanging, his wet clothes in a heap nearby. Alaskan ocean waters are cold. |
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17 Dec 05 - 06:22 PM (#1629679) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Bill D Carol...and others..I have NEVER doubted that people have the 'experiences' that they refer to. I do not even suggest that I am discussing all this with folks who make up stuff.... I merely reserve judgement on the ultimate cause of these experiences. I know half a dozen possible ways in which 'unusual' experiences can happen that do not require mystical, metaphorical or metaphysical explanations. I, myself, have had for example, vivid dreams that made me wonder why those elements got all mixed up in my subconcious. The human brain/mind is complex beyond anything we have learned to sort out yet, and new stuff is being discovered everyday. Those of us who do NOT have 'spiritual' or other 'private' experiences...(memories of past lives, encounters with ghosts, OOB happenings, precognition, and other paranormal revelations) may perhaps be forgiven if we scratch our heads at some of the reports and look for other possible explanations for our friends' reports of events which we poor "unconnected" ones are missing! ☺ I am willing to learn and be educated, when & if that is possible, but elaborate stories and revelations which are preceded by "...I believe that..." are not exactly what I find convincing...(I know, I know...YOUR beliefs do not depend on whether *I* am convinced. I have no notion that anyone is going to suddenly doubt their cherished beliefs because ol' Bill typed some "but look here" stuff.) ....but maybe on occasion someone will take some extra effort and look a bit deeper into it all...and maybe we'll ALL learn more because they do. |
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17 Dec 05 - 06:26 PM (#1629682) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* "Only when the form grows clear to you, will the spirit become so too." -- Robert Schumann, Advice to Young Musicians (1848) |
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17 Dec 05 - 06:30 PM (#1629688) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Peace "I must confess that a man is guilty of unpardonable arrogance who concludes, because an argument has escaped his own investigation, that therefore it does not really exist. I must also confess that, though all the learned, for several ages, should have employed themselves in fruitless search upon any subject, it may still, perhaps, be rash to conclude positively that the subject must, therefore, pass all human comprehension." (David Hume, 1737) and/or "... the senses alone are not implicitly to be depended on; we must correct their evidence by reason, and by considerations, derived from the nature of the medium, the distance of the object, and the disposition of the organ, in order to render them, within their sphere, the proper criteria of truth and falsehood." (David Hume, 1737) |
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17 Dec 05 - 06:39 PM (#1629692) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Little Hawk Daylia, I think your point about guns is well taken. People commit suicide because they cannot bear the pain they are experiencing (either emotional or physical pain, usually emotional, sometimes both). Given that most suicide methods carry the risk of further pain, they are not easy to contemplate. There's taking pills, of course, but what if the dosage isn't right and you simply wake up in misery in the hospital? More pain. Shooting oneself appears to be the surest way of a QUICK exit, with no physical pain. Jumping off a tall building involves the terror during the fall. Nobody wants that. Drowning does not appear very inviting. Even less so does hanging. It's no surprise to me that people who have a gun handy are somewhat more likely than not to use it if they want to "check out". Since I feel virtually certain that consciousness survives death, I do not much like the idea of shooting myself, and then having to deal with all the repercussions in Spirit and on other people. It's a miserable business. Damn depressing. No easy way out whatsoever. It's enough to make a person think of doing away with himself! Hmmm. Seem to have come full circle here, and ended up at a dead stop. I figure if I did not believe in an afterlife, I would be far more inclined to commit suicide in difficult times. It would be a handy escape, you see. If you cannot escape, then what's the use of just accumulating more bad karma? Bill - too bad we don't live in the same town. We could talk over coffee and trade books. |
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17 Dec 05 - 06:49 PM (#1629699) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Ebbie Little Hawk, come to the next Getaway. I will find a little corner somewhere where you and Bill can exchange some thoughts- if you'll let me, I will be there. |
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17 Dec 05 - 07:24 PM (#1629719) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: MASH4077 It's almost a month now since I posted a.k.a 'emotionally screwed'. well I didn't do it and the method that I finally decided on...when I have full access to several guns.... pills! ..the old 'overdose, was the method I decided on.... with guns, there could always be the chance of survival, but maimed or incapacitated.. and I sure as hell wouldn't want that, plus it's messy for the people who have to come clean up.. anyway up , I didn't , pulled myself up by my bootstraps and since found out why I had been treated like I had by that person... turns out they had even bigger problems than me................ |
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17 Dec 05 - 07:26 PM (#1629722) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Little Hawk Good communication can solve a lot of problems, can't it? I'm glad to hear you made it back into the daylight. |
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17 Dec 05 - 07:36 PM (#1629729) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: CarolC I know half a dozen possible ways in which 'unusual' experiences can happen that do not require mystical, metaphorical or metaphysical explanations. Yes, I realize this. Your explanations are some of the possible "ultimate cause(s) of these experiences". As are the things others of us have described. Obviously you don't have to accept what others regard as being ultimate causes of anything. Personally, I use the word "believe" as a preface to my descriptions of what I consider to be "reality" because "I believe" that none of us can really prove anything. Not even that we, in fact, exist at all. So as far as I'm concerned, everything we hold to be "real" is based on belief. |
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17 Dec 05 - 07:41 PM (#1629731) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Rapparee Great, MASH4077! That's wonderful. Daylia, you could have simply put your head in a plastic bag and drifted away in CO2 narcosis. Take a couple sleeping pills or a couple stiff drinks first to dull the ol' reflexes.... Yes, access to a fairly certain way of killing oneself would suggest that that method would be the most common one. Ready access to active volcanoes made jumping into them a prefered method in Japan for a while. Those who seek death will find it. There are too many cases, documented cases, of people who will themselves to die, including at least one case I personally know of. I deplore the fact that some people feel so trapped that death is for them the only escape. Even more I deplore the further destruction such leaves behind. |
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17 Dec 05 - 11:01 PM (#1629792) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Bill D Peace...in the 'spirit' of the season Bah! Hume-bug! Yep, Little Hawk...if it were easier to visit, we could probably enjoy some chats! (But at the Getaway, Amos was there, and we spent...oh...all of 45 seconds referring to our 'discussions', and then it was off to the music *grin*) |
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17 Dec 05 - 11:05 PM (#1629794) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Peace Good one, Bill. Have a great season yourself. Love your posts, your thinking and your writing. |
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17 Dec 05 - 11:07 PM (#1629797) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: bobad Ditto what Peace said. |
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17 Dec 05 - 11:25 PM (#1629812) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Bill D By the way...there is a fascinating little paragraph in the notes at the bottom of a page in one of Humes works...I wish I could remember exactly where. He has been going on about his theories and the solipstic nature of his philosophy, when he sort of says as an aside (paraphrased)..." ...though I have thoroughly examined all my logic and find it unassailable and beyond refute, I must admit that sometimes the implications of it become too much, and I have to quit thinking about it and clear my head by treating the world as if it WERE real and physical...etc..." I will see if I have the original text book and post what Hume admitted about his own concepts... What we learned in class was that Hume WAS very, very methodical and VERY hard to argue with within the confines of his own system. His logic was internally sound, but he never seemed to fully appreciate the assumptions he had to make to set the premises he used. I once put up pictures of Hume and Kant on the bulletin board of our graduate seminar room, with quotations under each one ...and each quotation saying almost exactly the same thing... "It is universally accepted that, to explore philosophy, we must first begin with 'experience'...." ...and under the two quotations, I wrote "Well, so far, so good!" It got a few chuckles, as after that first paragraph, Hume & Kant headed off in totally different directions as they worked out what to DO with our examination of experience! I suspect that we are just wired to 'like' different ideas, just as we like different flavors of ice cream....and it's a real trick to learn how to stand to the side and examine our own patterns of reasoning and decision making...but it can be VERY enlightening. |
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17 Dec 05 - 11:28 PM (#1629814) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Bill D (ooohh still awake, hmmm...couldn't even get my addendum in before you replied!..) and the same good wishes to you, my friends! Have good health and good cheer all thru the season...and the year to come! |
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18 Dec 05 - 12:20 AM (#1629821) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Azizi I'm still in lurking mode [a periodic occurance for me], but I feel compelled to mention that although I'm finding this conversation intellectually interesting, for me, the intellectual considerations of death, and suicide, and reincarnaton, are far less important than the other sharing that has occurred in this thread. For the record I want to state that I recognize that it might hurt some to consider this topic and it might be painful to revisit some of the experiences that have been recounted. However, it is my hope that this discussion helps more than it hurts. I also want to echo Bill D's wishes to all here: "Have good health and good cheer all thru the season...and the year to come!" Azizi |
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18 Dec 05 - 06:29 AM (#1629881) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* Gee, Rapaire, those are quite the helpful suggestions! CO2 narcosis aided by a plastic bag? Didn't occur to me. Duh. I was deploring the fact I had no garage to sit in with the engine running instead. :-/ The alcohol/sleeping pills thing probably wouldn't have worked though. I'd have had to see a doctor to get the pills, and I was afraid to go. He/she would have asked way too many questions, maybe even thrown me in the loonie bin (a fate worse than death, in my book). Plus, my stomach usually rejects alcohol, quickly and violently, whether I want it to or not. Hmmm. Little Hawk is right. This IS damn depressing. Enough already! So to lighten things up a bit, I offer you all The Suicide Guide Found it yesterday. Seems to be geared toward the under-25 set (statistically, the age group most likely to suicide). It's well-informed, non-judgmental and witty too. For example, here's the author's thoughts on what awaits a person in the afterlife post-suicide (he gives both religious and atheistic versions): His [Dante's] picture of Hell is about what you'd expect, in that there are different levels of hellness depending on what kind of an asshole you were. If you're surprised that suicides wind up in Hell at all, you have to understand that the bitch about suicide is that under the Christian scheme, it qualifies as murder. Dante's Hell has the suicide cases living in a suburb of murdererville. This may sound unfair, but remember that murder isn't a horrible crime because of what it does to the murdered. That person is gone, what do they care? No, the crime is against the murdered person's Mom and brother and sister and best friend and all their coworkers and the people he or she owed money to. All of the people who depended on that person or would have depended on them in the future had they been allowed to live, all of the people who will feel the crushing waves of misery and loneliness due to their abrupt absence, they're the victims. And since suicide creates the same real and emotional devastation as homocide, the two are treated as the same crime. I know, it sucks. But remember you're not being punished for what you did to yourself, but what you did to those around you when you pulled the trigger. That's the thing, suicide has a way of only hurting the people who liked you. The people who hated you will forget your name in a month and, in fact, the evil bastards who tormented you and drove you to this will actually be a little happier with you gone. Suicide is like a bunch of your friends saving up money to buy you a car and then you taking the car and running them over with it. So be prepared. If whatever afterlife is coming involves justice of some kind, you'll still have to answer for the fact that you ended this life by emotionally devastating all of the people who have helped you up until now, while simultaneously having bailed out on all of the people you were supposed to have helped in your remaining decades of life. From the friend who would have needed you to talk them through a tough time a month from now to the sweet girl who you were supposed to marry six years from now, all will be waiting to kick your ass in the afterworld... Honestly, if I knew a teen struggling in this manner I'd try to get them to read it! :-D ANd notice too, he doesn't say "you are not being punished for what you did to yourself when you stuck your head in that plastic bag" or "when you swallowed those pills" but "when you pulled the trigger". As if it's a given that a gun would be used. Something to think about ... |
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18 Dec 05 - 08:00 AM (#1629895) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* And a few inspirational words from one of my kid's longtime musical idols, Mr. Hurt CoPain "Don't expect me to cry for all the reasons you had to die. If you die you're completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I'm not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I've got. Though the sun is gone, I have a light." -- Kurt Cobain |
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18 Dec 05 - 08:16 AM (#1629899) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* Oops, forgot my personal favourite: "Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld So I can sigh eternally" -- Kurt Cobain (from "Pennyroyal Tea") |
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18 Dec 05 - 10:06 AM (#1629959) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Rapparee Daylia, I made a rather thorough study of ways to do yourself in, effectively and rather painlessly. Pills and alcohol are only two CNS depressants; you could use others. I myself couldn't use carbon monoxide as I would get a VIOLENT headache -- I'm a human CO detector, dating back to a wonderful old car my mother had that was rear-ended by a cop and the exhaust damaged (we couldn't afford to fix it, so we drove with the windows open year-round). I'll stop with this -- the subject is depressing and gruesome to me. It's one of the problems with knowing a lot of things. |
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18 Dec 05 - 08:56 PM (#1630303) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST,Joe_F I have read that a charitable form favo(u)red by British coroners in reporting inquests on suicides is "While the balance of his/her mind was temporarily disturbed". That clause might, of course, be prefixed pertinently to any other sentence in the person's biography. While the balance of my mind is temporarily disturbed, I am about to post this reflection. --- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net ||: Had enough? Drop dead. :|| |
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18 Dec 05 - 09:39 PM (#1630316) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST Any room for us atheists in this thread? It has been pointed out to me that as an atheist I have put myself above God through my pride and vanity. On the contrary, I consider that people who believe in God(s) and reincarnation and heaven and all the other "afterlife" stuff are victims of their own vanity and cannot accept the simple fact that human existence is a single event ending conclusively at death. I am over 60 and still in reasonable health so I have no reason to consider suicide at this stage. Nevertheless, if mother nature or lady luck should decide to deal me a bad hand I would be ready to take the ultimate initiative with complete disregard for the opinions of lawyers, politicians and clergy. As for my family I would not wish to be a burden on them and I have asked them to ensure that I do not obtain any medical attention which would prolong my misery in some half-alive existence. I consider this a practical outlook and make no apologies to anyone for it. |
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18 Dec 05 - 10:54 PM (#1630341) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Little Hawk Don't be silly, Joe F. You can't put yourself "above" something you don't think even exists! I don't regard atheists as people who are putting themselves above God. I just regard them as people who don't believe there's anything else except physical life, and that consciousness ends at death. Fine. I don't care. If you like to believe that, it's perfectly all right. If there is an afterlife, then you'll be pleasantly surprised. If there isn't, you'll never know if you were "right". LOL! In my case, if there is...I'll be happy to see it. If there isn't, I'll never know I was wrong. Sounds like a good deal to me. And who is asking you for an apology? Not me. Not God. There's no reason for you to apologize to anyone. You are NOT required to believe as others believe. We live in a free Universe, where belief is the business of the believer and of no one else whatsoever. That's my belief. As for vanity...every human ego (whether atheist or religious by nature) is the victim of its own vanity, unless it has achieved true selflessness and complete love for all people and other beings. How many have done that? A handful. You may have heard their names, you may not have. Some became saints and prophets, great teachers, and founders of great religions and philosophies. Others lived quietly, unnoticed, and died unknown to the masses of humanity around them. Vanity is like sweat and blood. It's everywhere. It is the common condition of man. |
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18 Dec 05 - 10:56 PM (#1630343) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Little Hawk S'cuse me! That last post of mine was to Guest, not Guest, Joe F. Just plain Guest. |
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19 Dec 05 - 03:27 AM (#1630378) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Paul Burke Atheists? As someone said, we don't have a special word for people who don't believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, so why a special word for people who don't swallow some other fairy tale? But as for methods, it must be time to quote one of my favourite poets: Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live. |
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19 Dec 05 - 07:44 AM (#1630435) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* Atheists who suicide thinking there's no afterlife would likely end up just as they expect. Their consciouness probably implodes into a sort of black hole of vegetative nothingfullness, possibly forming a quantum pocket of "signature" energy. THis quantum energy (the remnants of the atheists's disembodied and tortured mind and emotions) might then attract and conglomerate with other quantum pockets vibrating at the same low level. Like droplets of dirty oil on the surface of a pristine pool of eternal consciousness. What this might feel like is anyone's guess. So if you're the type that needs everything planned out and accounted for in advance, I suggest you're better off where you are right now. Especially if you're over 35 - do you really want to take the chance of Smelling Like Teen Spirit forever? |
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19 Dec 05 - 07:55 AM (#1630438) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* PS -- on 2nd thought, maybe it's just like Hurt said after all .. "Where do bad folks go when they die? They don't go to heaven where the angels fly They go to the Lake of Fire and fry Won't see them again 'till the 4th of July I knew a lady who came from Duluth She got bit by a dog with a rabid tooth She went to her grave just a little too soon And she flew away howling on the yellow moon Where do bad folks go when they die? They don't go to heaven where the angels fly They go to the Lake of Fire and fry Won't see them again 'till the 4th of July Now the people cry and the people moan And they look for a dry place to call their home And try to find some place to rest their bones While the angels and the devils try to make them their own Where do bad folks go when they die? They don't go to heaven where the angels fly They go down to the Lake of Fire and fry Won't see them again 'till the 4th of July" -- "Lake of Fire", Nirvana |
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19 Dec 05 - 08:16 AM (#1630449) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: freda underhill "Atheists who suicide thinking there's no afterlife would likely end up just as they expect. Their consciouness probably implodes into a sort of black hole of vegetative nothingfullness, possibly forming a quantum pocket of "signature" energy. THis quantum energy (the remnants of the atheists's disembodied and tortured mind and emotions) might then attract and conglomerate with other quantum pockets vibrating at the same low level. Like droplets of dirty oil on the surface of a pristine pool of eternal consciousness." what a lot of twaddle. God is an athiest. |
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19 Dec 05 - 08:18 AM (#1630453) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* LOL |
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19 Dec 05 - 08:22 AM (#1630457) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Paul Burke I think *daylia* has let it slip there. The REAL reason you want to believe in a god is not so much to get spiritual survival yourself, but to get revenge on others who have crossed you in life- like Lazarus seeing Dives fry in hell. So all this talk about higher spirituality and so on simply boils down to "I'll tell Daddy and he'll spank you". |
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19 Dec 05 - 08:29 AM (#1630469) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* But what if Daddy doesn't need to be told diddley-squat? What if Daddy Knows It All Already? Besides, what if we ARE Daddy -- each and every one?? |
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19 Dec 05 - 09:11 AM (#1630500) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Janie Looks like this has turned into thoughts on life (or not) after death. Mystery...mystery....Thats what. We just don't know. I agree with Carol. We are all operating on belief when it comes to death. But whatever happens in death happens. I am comfortable with mystery. Janie |
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19 Dec 05 - 01:57 PM (#1630659) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Amos Forbes has forwarded a report on the connection between happy mind-sets and success in making positive things occur in life.. While it is usual to believe that having good fortune makes one happy, turns out the reverse is also true, something any competent metapsychologist knows, but which is now the conclusion of a great deal of scientific evidence. The relationship to the thread is self-evident: if you start yourself smiling, you will rapidly discover things worth smiling about. And the world will agree with you. A |
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19 Dec 05 - 02:25 PM (#1630676) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* Right on, Amos. And it fits right in with a correction I need to make about the lyrics I posted; Kurt Cobain did not write "Lake of Fire" - it's by the "Meat Puppets", and Nirvana covered it. "THe Meat Puppets". How very uplifting. ;-) Kinda reminds me of the electorate on their way to the polls .... |
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19 Dec 05 - 03:57 PM (#1630713) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Amos We are all Meat Puppetmasters; it is only when we forget that we become meat puppets, all unaware of how the strings are pulled. It is a bit like going to see a movie that you, yourself, wrote and produced, but somehow ending up stuck on the screen. :D A |
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19 Dec 05 - 04:02 PM (#1630721) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST GUEST, I'd call you a vegetable, but vegetables do have some virtue. Virtue? You live in a strange world you make your own |
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19 Dec 05 - 04:06 PM (#1630723) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Divis Sweeney Having worked in mental health for the past twenty six years and dealt with more cases than I care to recall, it is a selfish act. Escape your own problems and leave others to deal with them. I still meet family of those who took their own lives and still they ask themselves questions, could I have done more ? Why did they not talk to me ? One thing I did find though, all of those who did it, never gave us warning. Those who threaten it rarely do it. |
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19 Dec 05 - 05:07 PM (#1630769) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Ebbie daylia, after you posted your smiley in response to freda U I have hopes that you posted with a grin the following: "Atheists who suicide thinking there's no afterlife would likely end up just as they expect. Their consciouness probably implodes into a sort of black hole of vegetative nothingfullness, possibly forming a quantum pocket of "signature" energy. THis quantum energy (the remnants of the atheists's disembodied and tortured mind and emotions) might then attract and conglomerate with other quantum pockets vibrating at the same low level. Like droplets of dirty oil on the surface of a pristine pool of eternal consciousness." . Were I an atheist, I'd be snarling. |
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19 Dec 05 - 05:32 PM (#1630791) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* Hmm, just to clarify --- I meant "droplets of dirty oil" as a metaphor for the "disembodied and tortured mind and emotions" of suicide cases, and certainly not for atheists themselves or atheism in general. |
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19 Dec 05 - 05:37 PM (#1630796) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* PS I was assuming that suicide involves a tortured mind and emotions, whether the person is an atheist or an infantile believer in fairy tales. Perhaps I am wrong. |
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19 Dec 05 - 06:14 PM (#1630820) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST,member staying anon Divis Sweeney said that those who threatened did not do it. O yes they do, a relative of mine threatened for over 4 months before suicide came,in the back of car with connection to exhaust pipe. Not very nice for those of us left to pick up the pieces. |
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19 Dec 05 - 08:04 PM (#1630863) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Maryrrf I would tend to believe in reincarnation and that suicide is not an escape - the pain or problems will have to be dealt with in this life or another. But the horror of what the suicide of a friend or loved one does to the living is incalculable. Today at work a colleage learned that a relative had committed suicide. He was found dead in a fetal position in the bathtub, by his 19 year old daughter. I can't stop thinking about that poor girl, what she must be feeling, the guilt, the horror, the self doubt. You can bet that scene of walking in and finding her father dead in the bathtub will haunt her Christmas seasons for the rest of her life. |
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19 Dec 05 - 08:04 PM (#1630864) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Maryrrf I would tend to believe in reincarnation and that suicide is not an escape - the pain or problems will have to be dealt with in this life or another. But the horror of what the suicide of a friend or loved one does to the living is incalculable. Today at work a colleage learned that a relative had committed suicide. He was found dead in a fetal position in the bathtub, by his 19 year old daughter. I can't stop thinking about that poor girl, what she must be feeling, the guilt, the horror, the self doubt. You can bet that scene of walking in and finding her father dead in the bathtub will haunt her Christmas seasons for the rest of her life. |
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19 Dec 05 - 08:48 PM (#1630884) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Azizi I just found out that there are support groups for people who have had a loved one commit suicide. See this excerpt from one of those sites: "From within the circle, we talk about the past, I hear cries for fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters and friendships we thought would last. And we ache for the arms of a loved one of a time too short lived and of questions left more piercing than a knife. Oh, the questions come hauntingly, pressing your mind, when a loved one takes their own life. In the Circle I dare reach out my hand. In the Circle help me see there's a plan for me. And my story becomes yours as we struggle through the pain. In the Circle, we remember their names. We have daydreams of the future about how we thought it might be, with regrets of conversations that might have been the key. We are angry and confused as we struggle for our breath. Our hearts cry out in anger in what has been labeled a senseless death. We have good days and bad days, and without a trace, in the circle, tears and smiles meet as we gather strength together. Sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters and friendships felt deep in our souls, memories and moments left clinging to us, and questions of how to let go." -snip- Source: Survivors of Suicide That site also has a hyperlink for persons who are considering suicide. I sincerely hope that resources such as that site are helpful. Positive vibrations, Azizi |
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20 Dec 05 - 06:17 AM (#1631123) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Paul Burke You selfish lot! Some bugger is unhappy enough to kill themselves, and all you can think of is "Why did they make ME feel so unhappy?" All this empathy- with yourselves. You really like to set yourselves up as the spiritually aware, caring, loving ones, but can't apply it to someone who needed it. It's just another cover for self- absorption. |
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20 Dec 05 - 06:39 AM (#1631137) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Azizi Paul, regardless of whether they are spiritually aware or not, so many of the experiences that people have shared in this thread demonstrate that people cared for {meaning loved, and still love} and tried to provide emotional support {and other types of support} to another person who took his or her life anyway. People may respond to another person's cries for help, but the person crying may not respond to others' offers of help. Or {and this may be even more difficult}the person who succeeds in committing suicide may not have even presented to those close to him or her {or to the rest of the world} that he or she was that depressed or was even any more depressed than folks who do not try to or who do not succeed in committing suicide}. To call people who are left behind selfish and self-asborbed because they {we} admit our pain, is to add to our pain. I repeat what I've said before here-it's my hope that threads like this and Mudcat's "Depression/Anxiety" thread whose link I posted in my pain or others' pain. |
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20 Dec 05 - 06:45 AM (#1631145) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Azizi Okay-Freudian's [mother's ?] slip is showing in the last line of my last post... What I meant to write was: "I repeat what I've said before here-it's my hope that threads like this and Mudcat's "Depression/Anxiety" thread whose link I posted in my first comment in this thread help to lessen other's pain as they have helped me to lessen my own pain." |
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20 Dec 05 - 07:47 AM (#1631182) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* I can see now that it was during those periods in my life when I was most self-absorbed, so caught up in my own perceived problems and grievances that I could barely see past the end of my own nose that I was also most depressed, most pre-occupied with the ifs and hows and whens of ending it all. And I agree with Divis - suicide is ultimately a selfish act. It's an act of violence not only against oneself, but against everyone who cared about the person. And often it is carried out with the specific intention of damaging those left behind as much as possible. Who did my heart go out to more -- the young man who shot himself right in front of his girlfriend, or his girlfriend, his mother, father and siblings? Sorry bud -- that young man was dead of his own volition. None of my "caring" or "empathy" would have brought him back. Sure, I grieved for him. In fact I learned a LOT from him (most of which I never really wanted to know) -- but my sympathy and empathy was better spent on those who loved him, the ones his violence had wounded so badly. In effect, he sentenced them all to a lifetime of pain and grief, just as he'd intended. According to StatsCan, suicide is the second highest cause of death among Canadian males under 30, and aboriginal people are many times more likely to take their own lives than any other group. Yes, there's much that can and is being done to prevent suicide, to improve living conditions and general health of these and other "at risk" populations. But after the fact? Energy and empathy is much better spent helping the living, imo. Azizi, thanks for the link. |
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20 Dec 05 - 10:12 AM (#1631282) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: *daylia* PS - re guns and suicide - I remember that young man sitting at my kitchen table a week before he died, having a beer with my husband. It was late, and my husband and I were arguing about guns for the umpteenth time. Hubby had been planning to buy one for over a year, I was too afraid to allow one around my kids or in my home. We had no good reason for owning a gun imo - we weren't hunters or farmers or cops after all. In fact, the only reason Hubby'd ever come up with for buying a gun was "for protection against people with homicidal tendencies". And here I'd always insisted that "protection against people with homicidal tendencies" was the best reason ever NOT to allow a gun in the house! So on and on it went, me insisting over and over again that violence, injury and death were a LOT more likely to happen if there was a gun lying around, and hubby ignoring or belittling my concerns. But the point of this story is, that young neighbour actually agreed with me that night! Yes, violence is much more likely with a gun in the house, he said. In fact, he was the only one of my husband's friends who had ever "taken my side" about guns! I was so surprised! Even thanked him, quietly, for his support before he left that night. The day he died he'd been at my door early in the morning, looking for Hubby, who wasn't there. He sat down at the table for a couple minutes, looking like he wanted something else - maybe just to talk? But I was sick myself that day, and my baby twins had had the flu for a week -- I didn't have the time or the energy that day to even make him a coffee, told him he'd best leave if he didn't want to get the flu too. When I found out what he'd done later that day, I was just wracked with guilt. Oh, if I'd only spent a bit of time with him, sick as a dog or not, I might have been able to help! After what he'd said about guns just a few days before, I might have been able to talk some sense into him. :-( But eventually, I just had to let all that guilt go. That guilt wasn't helping anyone - him, his family, or myself. Unfortunately, we cannot always be our brother's keeper. :-( Thanks for listening, daylia |
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20 Dec 05 - 10:17 AM (#1631289) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: ranger1 The winter after I graduated from college I was living with my grandparents. One morning, my grandmother and I found my grandfather dead in her sewing room. He'd slit his wrists with the bread knife the night before, after I had gone to bed. It took me a long time to forgive him for what he'd done, and the only reason I think I came to terms with it was because he was terminally ill and he'd been on Prednisone, which may cause depression in some people (a little fact that the doctor failed to mention, by the way). He never left us a note, either. I can understand why he did it, but I don't have to like it or the method he used. Spiritually how it all fits in, I haven't quite figured out yet. I like to think that we get a chance at a do-over until we get it right, though. |
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03 Jul 14 - 05:55 PM (#3638796) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST An old acquaintance died this morning - very old, would have been 100 in a few weeks - I hadn't heard, but she had fallen last week, so I guessed she had "took sick" in complications from the fall, and was saddened; but now I've found out she actually committed suicide, and suddenly feel much better. Now I am wondering if that is an appropriate reaction... nobody close to me has killed themselves, is this worse or better for the adult children, I wonder. |
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03 Jul 14 - 06:21 PM (#3638803) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST,# I have no idea, but keep in mind her children are likely in their 70s or 80s. |
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03 Jul 14 - 08:30 PM (#3638827) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: GUEST,Mrr at work Oops that was me again, I keep forgetting I have no cookies at work. Yes, her kids are grown and grandparents. Still. |
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03 Jul 14 - 09:21 PM (#3638834) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Ebbie At "almost 100 years old" I can almost understand why she took her own life. She must have seen friend after friend depart this life until she had few or no peers left, and may have decided she just wouldn't put up with it any longer. My father was 93 when he died and he often mentioned that there is no one left who had known him all his life. He was fortunate though, at age 89 he remarried, to a 76 year old woman and his last four years were happy ones. |
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03 Jul 14 - 09:38 PM (#3638835) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Rapparee As someone who volunteers to work with people who might well be "on the edge," I wonder why she felt that there was no one for her to turn to, to talk with. |
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03 Jul 14 - 09:45 PM (#3638836) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Bill D An amazing thread... I tend to read suddenly refreshed threads as if I had never seen them, and generally do not skip to the end, as I want to get a feeling for the entire flow of the discussion. There are obviously relevant links between meditating on suicide itself ....and its causes & effects on others.... and ideas about death itself and what might come 'after'. Since I participated in this thread 9 years ago, I have personally known 2 people who have chosen their own time to die.... both had incurable medical problems, and I was relieved that they were able to choose. The elderly woman Mrrzy knew evidently still had her senses and options working, and though the death of any good person is a sadness, I have felt for many years that their opinion should be the deciding one about when. I do, of course, hope that some intervention can be found for those who are merely depressed in some way. All too many could be helped if they would only ask...... |
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03 Jul 14 - 10:21 PM (#3638839) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: gnu They have a FB page. They do good work. |
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03 Jul 14 - 11:52 PM (#3638849) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Mrrzy I gather that she just didn't want to do the rehab and the pain and screw it, if that was where she was, she wasn't going to be there. I can't argue with that. |
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04 Jul 14 - 12:02 AM (#3638850) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: MGM·Lion This is a topic in which I have, as some will know, some knowledge & experience. Seven years ago my beloved first wife committed suicide as a result of degenerative illness which she determined, IMO rationally and courageously, had caused her to degenerate as far as she found tolerable. I went public about this, & had my Warholian 15 minutes as result. If interested, google ·grosvenor myer suicide· for various press letters, reports, feature, press & tv interviews &c. ~M~ |
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04 Jul 14 - 04:42 AM (#3638887) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Musket Wasn't it Dr Johnson who said that imminence of death is a salutary experience as it concentrates the mind so? I have no opinion based contribution to this thread but have been involved in the legal mess that followed an assisted suicide by a GP, both whilst the police were seeing if CPS felt there was a case to answer and later in the GMC fitness to practice hearing. (UK.) This led to being asked to sit on a think tank following attempts by MPs to bring this issue up. Michael's experience, being one that became public, was a case we used to look at the present legal, possible future legal and more importantly, support infrastructure for people in their situation and resolve. There are of course others, but his stuck in my mind as I knew of his name if nothing else. The one area we did manage to tighten though was the thorny issue of DNACPR (do not resuscitate.) In that respect, the wishes of someone who wishes to die are legally respected by healthcare professionals, and the latest prescription form has far more safeguards to consider than before. I went into such debate with an open mind and left it having formed no overall view to support or deny encouragement of suicide. I just know that it is a one way decision and not everybody has full mental capacity when making that decision, which means you have to ensure safeguards for those people don't fetter the wishes of people making decisions by a more rational thought process. In terms of suicide overall, there is a hangover from superstitious times regarding the legality and therefore social stigma, especially for those left behind. So whilst I cannot form a view concerning something I don't understand, I would certainly encourage debate and removing the social taboos surrounding it. |
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04 Jul 14 - 11:08 AM (#3639021) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Rapparee I should in fairness say that those I work with are usually younger veterans who suffer from various post-combat reactions,usually depression that lead to alcohol and drug abuse. They are screaming instead their own heads for help or some way out and unfortunately they all too often find an exit. I am not talking about those facing physical problems, and no, I do not think suicide is a 'weakness' no matter who does it. |
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04 Jul 14 - 12:46 PM (#3639060) Subject: RE: BS: Thoughts About Suicide From: Mrrzy It makes one furiously to think, doesn't it. |