Discussion Why is suicide actually bad?

[bubblebunny]

I'm going to be honest if someone said "I'm going to kms" my first instinct isn't to say "go ahead buddy".

But when I try think about actual reasons why it's bad I can't think of any?

1 It's a decision for yourself so people's feelings and opinions about it are not relevant to "bad" here.

2 Staying alive is not inherently valuable, meaningful or good.
Missing out on XYZ are hypotheticals so again not relevant.
It's subjective and if the person already decides it's not worth it to them, it's not bad to them.

I feel like the above are pretty straightforward and easily agreed upon but here's where people seem to not get it.

3 It is a short term decision so actually not being sane in the moment doesn't matter because you can't regret it.

The only times sanity matters is to prevent consequences of something.

So if you eliminate consequences…
Why is it bad?


This all assumes that you get euthanasia. So first they put you to sleep (so you have until you fall asleep to change your mind) before they inject the "final blow".

Now I do still understand the uneasy feeling because if governments now said "You know what you're right! Let's make euthanasia accessible to anyone who asks!" I'd definitely raise an eyebrow. It's that uneasy feeling we all get that I'm trying to put words to, as in what is it? And what is it based on? Why is it logically not bad but does it feel emotionally off?

(It's similar to like sexworkers who are like 25+, clearly aware, (assuming there's no coercion) consenting but you'd still be like uneasy or not recommend anyone to do sexwork while there's nothing wrong with it if they are fully able to consent!)

I'm still working on refining this but let me know what you guys think!

 

[soributton]

The reason is that it isn't. Suicide only affects the person doing it. The only reason I could consider suicide as a bad or wrong is if someone decides to take others with them (shooting, murder-suicide, etc). As long as the person committing suicide does not hurt anyone else in the process, I do not find it immoral.

 

[Higurashi415]

Staying alive can be fun and it's the only thing you own anyway, really, so it's pretty much relevant as far as YOU are concerned. If you die, others will deal with it one way or another, but you are no longer. No longer there to experience anything, not even your leaving. There are plenty of reasons not to CTB, as far as you are concerned.
Now I realize you mentioned "bad"... this is an absolute term and a very big word. What even is bad? According to whom? You or others? I think you should very much care about that, others... eh, the global economy won't care, +1 and -1 isn't very much in this situation. Doesn't matter.

 

[bubblebunny]

The reason is that it isn't. Suicide only affects the person doing it. The only reason I could consider suicide as a bad or wrong is if someone decides to take others with them (shooting, murder-suicide, etc). As long as the person committing suicide does not hurt anyone else in the process, I do not find it immoral.

100% agree!!!!!

 

[jenson]

I used to think it was bad but I've started to think maybe its more cruel to force miserable people to continue living. There's this idea that things will get better that people always push but thats just not always true. Not just with the terminally ill but people like me who just don't function well. Sometimes I think its just better to let people call it. It was a good run but maybe its time to go.

 

[bubblebunny]

Staying alive can be fun and it's the only thing you own anyway, really, so it's pretty much relevant as far as YOU are concerned. If you die, others will deal with it one way or another, but you are no longer. No longer there to experience anything, not even your leaving. There are plenty of reasons not to CTB, as far as you are concerned.
Now I realize you mentioned "bad"... this is an absolute term and a very big word. What even is bad? According to whom? You or others? I think you should very much care about that, others... eh, the global economy won't care, +1 and -1 isn't very much in this situation. Doesn't matter.

Staying alive can indeed be fun but the person who decided to commit suicide already decided it's not fun enough to stay, so it is truly not relevant anymore cause no one who thinks life is genuinely fun wants to commit.

Here I use bad in the most literal way as in an unpleasant experience
so
"When I ask why is suicide bad?"

I'm asking
"How does suicide cause an unpleasant experience for the only one it actually concerns? "

And I still don't feel like I could any relevant answer

I used to think it was bad but I've started to think maybe its more cruel to force miserable people to continue living. There's this idea that things will get better that people always push but thats just not always true. Not just with the terminally ill but people like me who just don't function well. Sometimes I think its just better to let people call it. It was a good run but maybe its time to go.

No seriously like it truly doesn't always get better? And people mostly don't do anything to make it better for you than just say it magically will work out.

 

[OnceTheHappiestMan]

There is another perspective where suicide can look bad,

In many cases there are other people involved, family, friends, loved ones, and not always can we expect they understand out decision, and they are going to suffer a lot, they are going to be victims of our act. Actually, unless we talk about real physical incapacity (the ones that are accepted for euthanasia in some countries) the normal case is they are not going to understand it, we can find it unfair but it's the reality.

So from an uninterested third party point of view it would look like just passing your pain to them, in an energy conservation metaphor kind of thing.

And that's where the (in my opinion) unsolvable dilemma is. It is as unfair for them to ask us to keep going as it is for us to ask then to understand or even celebrate our decision.

 

[saikou]

The reason is that it isn't. Suicide only affects the person doing it. The only reason I could consider suicide as a bad or wrong is if someone decides to take others with them (shooting, murder-suicide, etc). As long as the person committing suicide does not hurt anyone else in the process, I do not find it immoral.

it definitely will hurt the people around you, but i also think that its somewhat selfish of them to make someone stay alive when they are suffering so much for themselves

 

[thatonegirl]

Because society still does not view mental illness as a legitimate illness, despite chemical imbalances and neurological differences frequently being the cause. When everything has been tried, the only thing left is to "tough it out." Stay alive and be miserable knowing that nothing can be done to help you. We don't even do that to animals. We call euthanizing them an act of mercy. Where's the mercy for suffering humans?

 

[dearreader]

Because "suicide is bad" is a metanarrative—a universal truth that society has come up with for the sake of closure or understanding one another, when it reality, it is never that simple.

To preface: I think that "no truth exists"-type rhetoric is a VERY slippery slope, because there are obviously things that should be universally accepted as immoral, but I don't...necessarily think that suicide is one of them? Suicide has a bad rap because perception is reality, and everything that follows someone's suicide is experienced on the behalf of those around them. Family members, friends, peers, etc...who are, understandably, distraught and/or wildly uncomfortable with the thought. That's where we get narratives such as "if only we had listened!" or "they could've been saved!" yadayada.

It's odd, because oftentimes when someone dies—either through natural causes or some freak accident—a dozen people will chime in with something like "they're in a better place!" or, once again, the self-soothing rhetoric. By contrast, suicide will never be percieved positively, because the public cannot peer into the victim's head and decide if it was/wasn't for the better. They're just left with the lack of closure, hating themselves for not seeing the signs and wondering what they could've done better (even if the suicide was no fault of their own!). And so, the resolve is to put up societal guardrails to avoid that grief from the jump. Can't search "suicide" without 20 different webpages/hotlines contaminating your results, can't really joke about it, any warning signs and you're getting sent on a grippy sock vacay LOL.

What really irks me is that this problem could be alleviated if suicide were less taboo. That's not to say that more people should kill themselves—I wish the idea had never crossed my mind—but it is to say that, if we held more open dialogues about it, it'd probably be less devastating for everyone else. Maybe your child/parent/friend/etc. is in a better place too.

 

[NameOfAction]

It is only bad insofar as drug use is bad, or self harm is bad. I don't think it's bad, but many people don't understand it, and humans fear what they don't understand.

In my book, your own person is fair game. Anything you do to you is, well, up to you. Other people tho, nope. Can't hurt others, just not your place to, ever

'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so'

 

[Forever Sleep]

It's difficult to deny that it affects other people. It is obviously devastating for some to lose a loved one via suicide. The grief does seem to be more intense than other types of death. So- there's that. Is it ok to knowingly inflict that on others?

We could argue that they shouldn't feel that. That if they really loved us, they should be relieved for us- that we escaped a life we found painful. But then- we know ourselves- it's hard to just not be upset about the things that do upset us. If we're refusing to just not be so unhappy we want to die then, they can also claim to feel so unhappy after losing someone- they may feel the same. It obviously isn't 'good' to inflict that on someone.

The level to which it affects people will likely vary though- according to the connections they have made. I imagine a parent leaving young children behind will create more impact than someone with terminal illness in their 80's.

It's not exactly our 'fault' always- that we have made connections throughout life. To some extent, it's unavoidable. It's maybe not entirely fair to say we 'owe' these people things either. But then- obviously it's not good to deliberately hurt them. In that regard, I'd say suicide was (unfortunately,) bad.