[OJFord]

I do think it's interesting that it's so widely stigmatised (illegal even) though: like we've collectively decided life is meaningful and must be lived to the best of your ability, deciding there's nothing in it for you and you don't want to take part is not (with very niche old-age && ill-health exception) allowed.

Weird, when you step back and think about it isn't it? If you're agnostic/atheist at least.

[Lio]

I would speculate that the societal stigmatisation of suicide is a form of social "guard-rails" that might keep someone from stepping to far in the wrong direction during a moment of weakness.

It might be the last thing that saves them when they are not in their right mind and have lost all hope and perspective. In that moment anything that can be done to protect them should be done because there is always hope, even if you can't see it right now.

Things do change.

[themaninthedark]

One of the things I often hear said about people who attempt suicide but fail by jumping is that they have a moment of clarity on the way down that their problems are not a big deal and are solvable except the current one of imminent death.

Not sure if this is true in all cases and what the outcome for these people is after time passes, do they still feel depressed or are things better for them.

But, if that is the general experience, then it makes sense for society to stigmatize the action.

[jvm___]

Bojack horseman has a poignant poem entitled The View from halfway down.

The View from Halfway Down

The weak breeze whispers nothing

The water screams sublime

His feet shift, teeter-totter

Deep breath, stand back, it’s time

Toes untouch the overpass

Soon he’s water bound

Eyes locked shut but peek to see

The view from halfway down

A little wind, a summer sun

A river rich and regal

A flood of fond endorphins

Brings a calm that knows no equal

You’re flying now

You see things much more clear than from the ground

It’s all okay, it would be

Were you not now halfway down

Thrash to break from gravity

What now could slow the drop

All I’d give for toes to touch

The safety back at top

But this is it, the deed is done

Silence drowns the sound

Before I leaped I should’ve seen

The view from halfway down

I really should’ve thought about

The view from halfway down

I wish I could’ve known about

The view from halfway down

[jacquesm]

Gooseflesh.

[rob74]

I guess it's the same as with the death penalty: it's a decision that's very permanent and irrevocable. Someone may be convinced that "there's nothing in it for them" now, but are you really sure they would feel the same in a few months or a few years?

[WhackyIdeas]

But if you have been feeling that way for many years, with non-stop feelings of dread, it’s hard to see things getting any better.

[starkd]

I suspect that is very seldom the case. Depression is cyclical. There are moments of joy and content. I think it speaks to a loss of hope in society at large.

[WhackyIdeas]

There are moments of joy and content, but for myself I always personally know that hell is just over the hill. Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy things. But I suppose there comes a time when some people just get too tired of it all. I also personally believe the act of taking your own life is utterly courageous… every cell in our body’s are designed to want to live. Pushing fast fear of the ultimate unknown is something else. And anyone out there who says crap like “the cowards way out” is an absolute pea brain in my eyes.

[WhackyIdeas]

Being downvoted for these points is a clear (and uncomfortable for mentally healthy people to digest) example of why depressed people often feel it’s pointless to speak and be honest about their thoughts. Because they feel no one wants to hear them.

[starkd]

There is a fine line between being honest with your thoughts and indulging in unhelpful solutions as anything other than unhelpful. Life is not about living on the terms you choose. You inherit the terms under which you are to live. Rejecting those terms is indeed cowardly. Being able to adapt is what takes courage. (And I say this with full awareness of my own limitations as well.)

[skissane]

> There are moments of joy and content, but for myself I always personally know that hell is just over the hill.

Is the belief that "hell is just over the hill" rational? Or is it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Maybe that belief is in itself one of the major causes of that "hell"–and, despite thinking that you "know" that, not genuine knowledge at all, rather a harmful delusion

[brigandish]

Lack of hope is the real killer, that's why it's so important to give a depressed person hope. Not optimism, hope.

[WhackyIdeas]

You can’t give a depressed person hope though. And even if you could box hope up, how would you make it last? At the end of the day, depression is a chemical imbalance and hope isn’t going realistically fix that - maybe that depression is a result of brain injury, like a nasty bump on the head that has permanently damaged the way the brain works… Depression is a long way off being solved.

[brigandish]

Depression is a state with causes. Remove the things that make it persist and it will go. If you’re talking about a chemical imbalance that itself is abnormal and could only truly respond to treatment like drugs (e.g. like schizophrenia and lithium) then I agree, but most depressed people have “normal” brains that are in a currently unhealthy state, so I’ll avoid arguing exceptional cases.

I’m also not suggesting that hope cures depression, I’m suggesting that hope prevents suicide. Basically, why kill yourself if there is hope? Depressed people aren’t being rational but then neither are optimistic people, each with their own distortions of reality. However, they’re not delusional, you might call it a state of hyper-realisticness that actually distorts through the destruction of possible branches in reasoning. An optimist thinks “it’ll be sunny tomorrow“, a depressed person thinks “it won’t be sunny again, ever”. Neither requires reasoning for their position snd can easily dismiss any given, but it can be done. Reason with an optimist and you will deflate them and they will react badly, usually we avoid this because it has little upside. Reason with a depressed person and they will also react badly but the upside is that it may sow the seeds of their remission.

Regardless of all their defences, distortions and dismissals, if they can be convinced there’s hope it will keep depression from being suicidal.

[skissane]

> At the end of the day, depression is a chemical imbalance

"chemical imbalance" is a myth – https://slate.com/technology/2022/08/ssris-chemical-imbalanc...

In fact, I think it is a very harmful myth. When people become falsely convinced that their depression is due to a "chemical imbalance", it encourages them to see their current mental state as something fixed and unchangeable – and then that false perspective helps to sustain and worsen their depression

[OJFord]

Even that suggests that living life is some kind of 'default' or 'obviously correct' state, that anything else has to supply sufficient reason to deviate from. Why should that be so, really? Just because we are born into it?

To be pithy: why must death justify itself, but not life?

[tasuki]

> Not optimism, hope.

What is the difference?

[Mikeb85]

Optimism is trying to convince yourself things are better than they are, hope is the idea that things can actually get better.

[brigandish]

Well put. I often see people who are not depressed who use optimism towards depressed people, because optimism will cancel out an ephemeral despondency as it doesn’t really require evidence or reasoning beyond “it’ll get better”. Depression is too well bunkered in for something like that.

[tasuki]

Thanks. By that definition, optimism is just a bad thing.

[starkd]

Murdering your self is still murder. There are other victims besides the person committing it. The reason why it is a taboo subject is because it is contagious in a way. When the idea is broadcast at large, there is an increasing likelihood that people on the edge will follow through. Suicide should not be romanticized or indulged.

[tasuki]

You do raise valid points.

On the other hand, Chris Seaton was apparently done with it. I think that's his prerogative, and he handled it gracefully.

[SoftTalker]

I wouldn't say I agree but can understand the point of view.

I think a lot of people would feel differently about someone who takes his own life because of a terminal illness such as cancer, where it's seen as a way to end up in the same place while avoiding a lot of pain and suffering. "Death with dignity." So why don't we feel the same way about someone with painful, debilitating depression? We don't really understand how to cure depression. We have some drugs that help some people, analagous to what narcotics do for people in physical pain. But we don't understand how to cure depression, as we don't understand how to cure cancer. Maybe someday we will, but what does that do for the people suffering today, who just want a way out?