People who attempt suicide are not write offs.

[Hermit]

Right up to the moment people are hoping for a intervention. Especially with hanging. Since folks who hang themselves alone always struggle to escape - frantic like, on autopsy.

How would you know? Did you ask the successful suicide cases? As for struggling to escape, that is a rather instinctual thing. It has nothing to do with one's mindset.

[cronus]

Right up to the moment people are hoping for a intervention. Especially with hanging. Since folks who hang themselves alone always struggle to escape - frantic like, on autopsy.

How would you know? Did you ask the successful suicide cases? As for struggling to escape, that is a rather instinctual thing. It has nothing to do with one's mindset.

Brain does what it does. Instinct or deep deliberation the regret is written in the claw marks and pulled muscles.

[cronus]

Right up to the moment people are hoping for a intervention. Especially with hanging. Since folks who hang themselves alone always struggle to escape - frantic like, on autopsy.

How would you know? Did you ask the successful suicide cases? As for struggling to escape, that is a rather instinctual thing. It has nothing to do with one's mindset.

Brain does what it does. Instinct or deep deliberation the regret is written in the claw marks and pulled muscles.

[Seth]

Right up to the moment people are hoping for a intervention. Especially with hanging. Since folks who hang themselves alone always struggle to escape - frantic like, on autopsy.

Many "hangings," particularly those of teenagers, are accidental. It's called "autoerotic death" or "the choking game" and young people do it for a sexual high. Nobody in the press will admit this however, which is where "the choking game" phrase came from. It's not a game, it's masturbation enhancement plain and simple and ought to be reported that way.

As for those who hang themselves to kill themselves, changing one's mind is one of those options you preclude when you decide upon suicide.

[Seth]

I presume that BG means that they all attempted suicide at some time, or at least seriously thought about it...

As for Seth's point, I certainly think that terminally ill people should have the right to die with dignity at a time of heir own choice.

Why only terminally ill people? They are, after all, terminally ill and will eventually die anyway. But the suicidal person living in mental agony every day can easily continue in that hellish torment for years or decades or an entire lifetime. Why should they not have the right to choose to end that torture as well? By what right does anyone presume to interfere with the exercise of that right in the first place. Isn't forcibly keeping a suicidal person alive a form of involuntary servitude?

I'm in two minds on this. I do take your point about exercising rights, and for someone "living in mental agony every day", it may well be the best option. However, young adolescents can have sudden mood swings, some of them very dark, but typically temporary. Suicide in that situation can only be regarded as a terrible waste...

Yes, it is, and I have personal experience with that, having been in that very position more than once in my life. I completely agree that people with suicidal thoughts need care and that such care should be available to them 24/7. However, there is such a thing as "rational suicide" and there are also people who have had interventions and counseling, and drugs and commitments to mental facilities who still cannot overcome their condition and it's important for society to accept the concept, along with the practice, of rational suicide and to not just accept it, but protect that right and the right of others to assist such persons if and when they have made the decision to end their lives.

Anti-suicide laws in the US began as a way to keep workers from killing themselves because of inhumane working conditions not because anybody gave a rat's ass about the individual's life, but rather because the government did not want anyone escaping their "responsibility" to labor, particularly slaves. It was bad for business, so the government outlawed it.

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-32857408

First Great Western apologises for 'shocking' death announcement

A rail company has apologised after a staff member told passengers the train was delayed because someone "couldn't be bothered to live any more".
Passengers aboard a train to Plymouth were delayed after a fatality on the line.

Esmee Phillips, 21, complained to First Great Western, saying "the shocking and callous" loudspeaker announcement left people "completely open-mouthed".
The company has apologised for "any distress caused".

(continued, nearly 'one under' myself one time on account of drink rather than intention....can happen to anyone....)

[Blind groper]

On my list of nine people.
It is correct that the main thing they have in common is an attempt at suicide. However, it is a little more than that.

1. They all suffered from depression.
2. They all attempted suicide.
3. They all failed in that attempt.
4. None tried again.
5. They got their lives together.
6. In the long run, all of them thrived, and made exceptional lives for themselves.

In the USA, there are 220,000 suicide attempts every year. Only 20,000 succeed. Most of those attempts are done on impulse, and most of the failed suicides never try again. The leading cause of suicide attempts is depression, which is an illness. Those people suffering from that illness will not get over their sickness quickly, but most will eventually recover to some degree, and many will go on to live long, happy, and fulfilled lives.

In other words, my message is that a person who attempts suicide should not be written off. If possible, the suicide attempt should not be permitted, and the survivor should then be given the care to help them recover from their illness.

[cronus]

A situation waiting with number ten there? can't help you deal with Russian roulette but ten in a lifetime is freak out time?

[Seth]

On my list of nine people.
It is correct that the main thing they have in common is an attempt at suicide. However, it is a little more than that.

1. They all suffered from depression.
2. They all attempted suicide.
3. They all failed in that attempt.
4. None tried again.
5. They got their lives together.
6. In the long run, all of them thrived, and made exceptional lives for themselves.

In the USA, there are 220,000 suicide attempts every year. Only 20,000 succeed. Most of those attempts are done on impulse, and most of the failed suicides never try again. The leading cause of suicide attempts is depression, which is an illness. Those people suffering from that illness will not get over their sickness quickly, but most will eventually recover to some degree, and many will go on to live long, happy, and fulfilled lives.

In other words, my message is that a person who attempts suicide should not be written off. If possible, the suicide attempt should not be permitted, and the survivor should then be given the care to help them recover from their illness.

I'm fine with that so long as you aren't infringing on the rights of everyone else in a vain attempt to "not permit" an "impulse" suicide attempt. And so long as you agree that once the decision is no longer an "impulse" decision, but is a decision made after due consideration, the person must be allowed to proceed.

[Blind groper]

Seth

I have no problem with euthanasia, and there are situations where suicide is a rational choice. However, these things must be done with caution, and according to a system. As I think we both agree, impulse suicide should be prevented. Preventing it includes removing the tools for suicide as much as we can.

There is a bridge in Auckland City, NZ, which is perched high above a freeway. Some years ago it was a favorite suicide method, with people jumping off it every year. The local City Council built safety mesh high above the railings to prevent this, and now no one uses that bridge for suicide. Removing the tools for suicide is a rational choice.

[Seth]

Seth

I have no problem with euthanasia, and there are situations where suicide is a rational choice. However, these things must be done with caution, and according to a system. As I think we both agree, impulse suicide should be prevented. Preventing it includes removing the tools for suicide as much as we can.

Wrong.

There is a bridge in Auckland City, NZ, which is perched high above a freeway. Some years ago it was a favorite suicide method, with people jumping off it every year. The local City Council built safety mesh high above the railings to prevent this, and now no one uses that bridge for suicide. Removing the tools for suicide is a rational choice.

Actually, they put the mesh in place to keep bodies from falling on and killing motorists below I suspect. How many OTHER bridges are there that don't have such netting in NZ? How many cliffs, tall buildings or towers?

More importantly however is that the government did not demolish the bridge nor did it ban other tall structures from being built merely because someone might possibly use that object as a tool for suicide.

Government's mandate does not include wrapping the whole of civilization in cotton bunting and forbidding them from going outside of their padded cells lest one or two of them decide to kill themselves, which they will do by gnawing through their veins if they really want to do so.

People commit suicide with all sorts of tools. Do you propose to ban all of them? If not, why not? If your supposed justification for banning inanimate objects is suicide prevention, then to be ethically and morally consistent you must advocate banning ALL such objects, not just one type that you have a particular personal paranoid aversion to. For you to focus on one tool as you do while ignoring all the rest is obvious evidence of unreasoning bias and an acute failure of reason and logic on your part.

[Blind groper]

The bridge I mentioned was altered due to the simple fact that so many people had used it for suicide. Obviously, tall buildings and the like that are not so used will not be enmeshed. But other suicide magnets are altered to prevent suicides, as I suspect is also the case in the USA. Removing the opportunity for suicide simply makes good sense.

[tattuchu]

We have seen people on this forum treat would-be suicides as losers who should be written off. "Let them kill themselves - no loss!"

I don't recall anybody here saying anything like that

[cronus]

We have seen people on this forum treat would-be suicides as losers who should be written off. "Let them kill themselves - no loss!"

I don't recall anybody here saying anything like that

Yes, that is why it is so quiet...

[mistermack]

I don't give a toss about peoples' right to harm themselves.
In fact, I don't give a toss about peoples rights at all. So long as we have laws, we restrict rights.
So long as the laws are arrived at in a democratic way, and people are free to fuck-off somewhere else, if they don't like it, I'm ok with it. In fact, I support it.
Laws are what make the world a great place to live. When you get a bad law that you can't live with, you can campaign against it, or fuck off.

So long as you are free to do both, it's ok. When it goes wrong, it's usually because democracy and freedom have broken down anyway.