I’m conducting a report on the topic of suicide for school. This requires me to get multiple perspectives on suicide from others that have struggled or still struggle with a mental illness. I am required to respond to the following questions:
1. Why is there still a stigma around suicide?
2. Why is a terminal illness treated differently than a mental illness?
3. Why can terminally ill individuals receive Euthanasia but not suicidal/depressed individuals?
4.Should there be euthanasia for suicidal individuals if they meet certain criterias?
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This is the perfect post
1. Religion and, lack of understanding, and the denial of the finality of death and the fact that we are all terminal anyway. For some reason people just wanna keep us here wether we like it or not. The ole judeo-Christian culture strikes again. Keeping someone from delaying the inevitable at all cost is nonsensical
2. There is this fallacy in the psychiatric community that basically all mental illnesses can be cured. If that was the case, then we would have far less mental illness today than we had 30 years ago, especially with the increase in psychiatric medications and counciling. The opposite is true – mental illness is on the rise. It’s also a proven neurological fact that the brain reacts the same way to emotional pain than it does physical. Meaning it can’t tell the difference. Terminally, or mentally ill, it should be up to the individual to decide wether or not to end there lives though peaceful and painless means since they didn’t sign up to be on this earth.
3. Well in most states, the terminally ill can’t even receive it. As for the mentally ill, there is this popular myth that they cannot make rational choices which is bull. It’s discrimination really.
4. Absolutely! If someone has suffered from a mental illness for years, sought treatment, therapy, and medication and is still suffering, yes they should be given the gift to go. The above statements express how I really feel – which is everyone has the right to choose. But the legal scholar in me understands that there must be a balance, I’d say put someone in a psyche ward for 30 days then see how they feel.
1.) Because society needs people to function, and suicide means people aren’t playing the game. Also it’s a force of habit, caused by religion and centuries of reinforced dogma. Also, some people just can’t understand the mindset or circumstances that make one constantly want to die, it’s foreign to them.
2.) Because physical illnesses are easier to see cause and effect, your leg hurts because your bone is broken, your tooth hurts because of a cavity. There has been plenty of opportunity to dissect and study the human body, to try to figure out what causes each particular pain, and thus how to fix it, or to know when it can’t be fixed. It’s a lot more difficult to determine the cause of something wrong in the brain functioning, so it’s harder to know which treatments can work and when it’s a lost cause. Some experimentation has provided helpful results, but the ‘cures’ aren’t clear cut and they vary from person to person.
3.) Because (going back to 2) it is easier to determine terminality with regards to a physical disease. And agreeing with wndoz, some believe mental illness invokes a lack of rational thinking, which is true in some cases but not always.
4.) Yes. And I agree with all that wndoz said for this.
1) Why not?
2) Because they are different things.
3) Note the word “terminal.”
4) No.
I think your answer to 4 means you have more hope than I do.
Probably, but that’s not why I answered 4 that way.
There are numerous ways to kill yourself. I don’t think society should make it easy to do it.
Now, I can imagine a hypothetical situation were a depressed quadriplegic with no friends and money should have the right to die. In that case my answer is a pretty crappy thing. I fear encoding special cases like that into law. The phrase “opening a can of worms” comes to mind.
There are no easy answers for these questions.
hm, you have a point. Thank you for that perspective.
1. All societies throughout history have had stigmas, driven by adherence to the conventions that make society function, and a stigma against suicide has always been a common one. Why does it still exist? Well, different cultures oppose it for different reasons, but in the West it is largely considered the product of a mind that is “ill” and needs to be “corrected” in order to comply with a “normal” way of thinking. People want free will, but fear it in others. (Some stigmas help society function, though, such as a stigma against slapping somebody because they disagree with you).
2. Not only are most people poorly educated on the subject of mental illness, but the science is still in the early stages of learning about it. This means a lot of disagreement on the true cause and nature of mental problems. As a result, the diagnosis of a mental illness is highly subjective and people form their opinions of it based more on emotion than reason. This makes it easy to consider physical illness as being “real” and mental illness as being a fabrication. Plus, humans need scapegoats to avoid having to face their own shortcomings.
I will have to answer the other two later.
For #1 I should have added that suicide is widely viewed as selfish and/or a sign of weakness. A rather hypocritical stance considering how Western society glorifies selfishness.
3. Assisted dying clinics in Europe have approved a handful of clients who wanted to die due to mental illness, but they received a lot of criticism for doing that. One of the primary criteria for choosing to die is that one be of sound mind, and if a person who is not terminally ill wishes to die that in itself is considered a symptom of mental illness. so a person who wants to die due to mental illness cannot be permitted to die because they are mentally ill. The perfect way to always win an argument – use circular logic!
4. Yes, anyone of a certain age and above should be allowed to make this choice. Each person has complete ownership over their own life and their own body. However, we have to be very careful that this kind of law isn’t abused. We wouldn’t want a government declaring certain people as unfit and sentencing them to death. This has happened.
Many believe suicide is a mental illness because of the brain scans done on depressed latients. I dont think its genetical or due to brain chemistry. I think your brain over time changes to cope with the over stimulation of stress and hardship. Its not that we are born with it, its cause and effect, thats what i believe.
Ive ended up in a coma in a hospital before attempting suicide. I was close, but i was found from over dosing on sleeping pills and tylenol.
Why did i do it? Why do i still want to die? Everyone has their reasons and each one is probably different. For me, i get bored easily, i see the end result of slaving away in live for things you cannot keep. Yea people will say if you are bored, find a hobby. Wow like i havnt done that before! I always end up getting bored. I use to socialize a lot, it wore me out, video games, all endless clicking.
Yes even church, i do believe in God and my only hope that if i do manage to take my life, i will find forgiveness for what ive done.
I have no desire to marry or have kids, my life also has fallen apart financially. I see the end, we are on a hamster wheel. So for me, i cant bare the thought of not only grinding my life out and having no motivation to go on for 40+ years, all for what.
Suicide is so political now too, people talk about value of life, but what about quality of life, they want to force you to stay alive and live a life they dont want to see or endure them selves. Maybe they want to keep us arround to protect them. After all they need soldiers, they need someone to clean their toilets.
I dont believe i have a mental illness because i want to die, and i dont think others dont either, what ever changes their brain experiences, is due to the mental angvish they experience and being doped up on a bunch of emotion controling chemicals probably addsto the changes in the brain chemistry.
Thank you for sharing. I often find myself thinking the same way about life “slaving away for others” I’m constantly working for someone who has more money than me, whether it be a corporation or a person. I wonder how someone finds happiness by doing the same thing everyday, work or school. I could never bring a child into this world in fear that they might end up like me,that would be selfish of me. I wonder how I’ll be able to live for another 60+ years. Technology is only improving which means the life span is only increasing.. People assume a mental illness and suicidal thoughts can be “cured” but I don’t think that is the case. Once someone has a mental illness they always have it just like someone who has type 1 diabetes. There are ways to suppress both, but not fully cure it. I’m going to hang in there a little bit longer because who knows my life might get better. I hope we both can find happiness one day.
Thanks for the reply, what i truely desired and worked for was freedom, what is freedom? How does it look?
Maybe there are as many answers as people. Is thinking you are free the same as being free?
but yet we are unhappy because we are stuck in places we cannot escape. Like for me, i work 55-70hrs a week. Get closer to 70 durring holidays. I purposly stayed single because i did not want to be anchored down incase things didnt work out for me and leave a wife and or kids behind.
We are often bombarded with “it will work out for the best” messages constantly, blind optimism. The truth is, things dont always work out for the best, how can anyone tell a strugling family those words. Then they end up on the street.
Sadly, blind optimism helps no one, little inspirational messages on FB make me shake my head amd sigh.
What can we do? Can life turn arround, yea, theres always a chance, you can keep trying you can keep rolling the dice.
The realist in me knows, the game is up, at least for me. You may have more chances, but like a game of solitare, evantually we come to a place where we have no moves left.
Thats what i think people neee to understand about a person that wants to die. It may take reflection and bunkering down amd working hard, and ive done a those things. The game is up for me, and good luck to you and everyone here. I have no moves left, i exist as a shell and play video games to distract and help my self cope for now. I cant bare to exist like this for 40 more years.
1. Religion plays a huge part in the stigma against suicide, but I think the stigma is essentially caused by fear. Firstly people are afraid of their loved ones dying. Mental illness is also difficult to understand to someone who hasn’t experienced it; there are usually stigmas against things people can’t understand. I’m not sure this counts as part of the stigma as such, but it’s worth adding that humans, being animals, naturally tend to be pro-life. Some people worry that mentally ill people will die when they could recover. Some feel responsible for suicidal people because they feel they’re unable to make rational decisions in their current state of mind.
2 & 3. The key word is “terminal”. It’s not possible to determine whether someone can’t or won’t recover from a mental illness. Generally we understand a lot less about mental illness than physical illness. We can’t recognise or diagnose it as easily and we’re still testing many different possible forms of treatment.
4. Not in my opinion. I think it would be incredibly difficult to draw up and recognise those criteria. While it would give people freedom and relief from pain, it would be a very controversial decision and I’d expect it to bring a lot more problems than those in the current situation.
The issue shouldn’t end with that decision though. There needs to be much, much more help available for chronically suicidal people. Healthcare professionals are so afraid of being held responsible for their safety that they often go neglected in the healthcare system.
I disagree with wndozh8er’s idea about spending 30 days in a psychiatric ward. Stays in psychiatric wards help some people, but in other cases they can be completely detrimental to patients’ health. They’re a very particular form of help and can’t be used as a test to determine whether someone is able to get better or not. At the present time, nothing can.
Thank you, I appreciate everyone’s responses.