Discussion Famous quote about suicide

[violetdevil]

The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill themselves doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling. -David Foster Wallace


David hung himself in 2008.

 

[MatthieuFrederickW]

That hits the nail on the head, a perfect description.

 

[EternalShore]

ig~ Altho, terror wouldn't be the right word to explain it! xD Just understanding that a terrible experience following by peace is better than the suffering wrought by your current and predicted life is better~ :(

 

[Captive_Mind515]

Great quote.

I always thought the jumpers in 9/11 got some very strange coverage in the media. Nobody outright said it, but you could just feel an undercurrent of disbelief at what they had done. The same reaction you frequently get with other suicides. They were brave people who jumped from those towers… heroic people actually. There's nothing shameful or crazy about ending one's suffering!

 

[Foreverix]

Great quote.

I always thought the jumpers in 9/11 got some very strange coverage in the media. Nobody outright said it, but you could just feel an undercurrent of disbelief at what they had done. The same reaction you frequently get with other suicides. They were brave people who jumped from those towers… heroic people actually. There's nothing shameful or crazy about ending one's suffering!

100%. Even though every one of those jumpers on 9/11 was a homicide, reactions seemed to be muddied by some sense of shame. One girl the media interviewed, when asked if she thought the iconic upside-down "Falling Man" could be her father, she flat out screamed that her father wasn't a coward like that.

I know grief and shock can make people say and do rash things. But I can't help but wonder if her reaction wasn't more common amongst the public, except nobody wanted to admit it.

Regardless, it's despicable to say such a thing about anyone who takes their life into their own hands. It's further proof that society, by and large, doesn't want to see it and be forced to grapple with their own life and mortality. It's incomprehensible to them.