"Suicide is Painless” or so says the MASH theme song. But it is not painless to others who knew you, you sick son of a bitch. You left a wife and a son and daughter. You left a whole community agape. You destroyed your considerable legacy of community works.

This rant was brought on by the recent suicide of a prominent businessman in Pensacola. I knew him. He locked himself in his home’s safe room and shot himself. His other son died of a drug overdose at college 2 years ago; reported to be suicide. The businessman’s father was also a suicide. I just can’t fathom how sick a person has to be to do this.

To the OP:

Very sorry for the loss of your friend.

To add -

You may want to take a few days before you check back into this thread. These "suicide" threads usually get into a pretty heated debate about whether a person should or should not have the right to take their own lives if they choose.

Some of the responses will likely piss you off. Prayers for comfort, healing, and understanding to you and the all those affected.

yep. Lots of strong feelings on all sides.

Plus you have the mandatory "This shit again?" folks that read and post anyway.

I'm a bit in the middle. By definition, you are sick, so you likely won't fully consider how it will make others feel.

He was an acquaintance, not a friend. But a friend of mine was his friend also, and tried to help him recover from his son's suicide. His death struck our mutual friend hard. I posted how I felt about it.

The 20th marked a year since one of my closest officer friends killed himself.

I still go to text him almost every day, and curse the sonofabitch each time.

It's selfish as hell.

After so many suicides in my life, I refuse to judge the deceased.

Some I understand completely. My EMS partner turned out to be a pedophile. He shot himself to avoid arrest.

My sister was also looking at going to prison. She died of a heroin overdose, though I remain unconvinced it was self-administered.

Two were schizophrenic and finally gave in to the voices that said "Kill yourself."

I'm sure though, that in each case the desire to end the torment exceeded the desire to defy it.

It was their choice.

I had several friends shoot themselves. Al three had a lot on the heir minds that they would not share or ask for help. They had made up their minds what was to happen. I just pray they found peace.

I'm sorry about your friend.

Three generations of suicide, if I'm reading your post correctly. Makes you wonder whether there is part of our DNA that makes some people more susceptible than others.

I think that (aside from suicide to avoid prison or consequences) the apparent selfishness generally comes down to two things.

The person either:
A) has given no thought to it, due to being sick as mentioned above.
or
B) Truly believes their loved ones/the world is better off without them.

To reach that level of hopelessness and self-loathing, to actually believe your family will be happier and better off with you dead, is devastating to even think about.

There was a time in my life - the thought crossed my mind. "Yes or No" came down to how much I just didn't care anymore vs. the pain I would put my family thru.

Very glad I chose the latter and got some help to work thru very real demons.

That said, it was a frightening tightrope to navigate, you start trying to convince yourself that "they" will move on okay without you and none of it really matters anyway.


What is most frightening though - is once you walk down that path, the 'option' is always in the back of your mind. It just becomes easier to dismiss it as a valid one.

I do not think we are wired to fully comprehend suicide.

Nor are we so wired to deal with a lot of things that drive people to seek that as relief from pain or anguish beyond description.

Yet, we can get pretty close.

And there are as many "reasons" and "thoughts" in the minds of those who make that choice.

While I will suppose most are "out of their minds" with pain or anguish or other similar compulsion, there are certainly a few that do it to inflict pain or suffering or some vendetta or something along those lines.

For the first group, I can only hope that their is peace, anyone driven to that end, certainly is in need of true peace.

To those of the second group, I cannot find it in myself to want to understand such hatred and loathing of one's self that they are consumed by such hater for another.

But, I am not the final judge to that end, and most glad for that.

quote:

Originally posted by Palm:
I'm sorry about your friend.

Three generations of suicide, if I'm reading your post correctly. Makes you wonder whether there is part of our DNA that makes some people more susceptible than others.

You read my post correctly. That's what I think, but, like Sigmonkey says, I do not understand.

I'm sorry for your loss.

If a family member commits suicide you are more likely to do so yourself then the average person.

Doing so tells those that you left behind that it is an acceptable alternative.

The closer the relationship the more acceptable it becomes.

Over the years I had several co-workers kill themselves. I saw the devastation it had on family members and co-workers.

Counseling is definitely in order for all those that he was close to.

Suicide is a tough decision to come too, I'm sorry about your friend.

I'm sorry for your loss.

A suicide is a sometimes created by someone with a mental state that a normal sane person cannot even begin to comprehend (ie a mental sickness). Unfortunately, it leaves a lot of devastation of loved ones in it's path.

I can't judge any given suicide. Whatever drives a person to that has to be, by definition, pretty damn terrible.

If it is strong enough to override the desire not to die, either as a rational choice or a choice produced by disordered thinking, it must be pretty near irresistible.

It is hard for me to blame someone facing that kind of demon.

I am with the OP on this. Nuff said.

Firstly, sorry for the loss for you and your friend. Thankfully, the few I've lost have been natural causes.

As to the right or wrong of it, I decided a long time ago there are some things that I don't have the right to judge. If that is the decision they make, I have to assume they felt it the right one at the time.

Most suicidal people truly do not want to die, they just don't want to be in pain any more.

Mental illness is a terrible thing and our societal sigma to it makes it worse.

During a pause in the (otherwise normal) conversation, daughters boyfriend in the next chair over said: "enjoy your day" or some such, pulled out a pistol, put it to his head and pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening. The mess, unbelievable. The family, unconsolable. Everybody left guilty and angry. She's in therapy now going on a year.

Suicide is easy, it's livin' that's hard.