Discussion Simple argument against "other's lives" and "it gets better"

[Proteus]

Before I start, it's important to note grief is very real. The impact on death touches many people and it's a completely valid feeling that doesn't make you selfish. In no way this post tries to invalidate your feelings.



There are two common arguments against the right to die: that it always gets better and that you cause more pain to your loved ones. I decided to tackle them together. It works like this:

1. If everything gets better, that includes grief, so one can then overcome loss. This means grief loses some weight.

2. If one can't get over loss, it means some things can't be healed. If some things don't get better, this extends to, at least, some suicidal people. This means some suicide has base.

3. "It always gets better" is factually false because, among many other things, degenerative diseases exist. "It sometimes gets better" is sometimes false. This means not everything improves, thus some suicide has base.

4. "Your loved ones" ignore the pain of the suicidal is often bigger than grief (not becauae grief is weak at all, but because they go through too much). Most people who lose someone don't consider suicide, which means they didn't exhaust every way of coping, which is guaranteed on the suicidal. If it rarely compares to the extreme effect on a suicidal person, this means grief loses some weight.

 

[dragonofenvy]

Usually, I'm pretty good at coming up with an argument no matter what my personal beliefs are and what the viewpoints in the argument are (I often like to be a contrarian even if I believe the opposite just to make people think a bit). I must say I can't think of any way to counter these arguments for the moment. So, thus far, I'd say these are pretty damn good points. I'm gonna throw these on my note.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I do agree. I guess the problem with it though and why you can even sense anger sometimes towards suicidal people (someone posted the other day that a pro-lifer called suicide 'abusive' behaviour) is that they almost see it as if this pain has been deliberately inflicted on them (by us.)

So- I suppose the argument is- would you deliberately cause harm to someone? Most people (hopefully) wouldn't. I'd argue that those who suicide rarely do it with the prime motive to inflict harm on their loved ones. It's just a terrible side effect. It's collateral damage. But still- they will likely take the moral high ground and say- they would never do that to someone/ us.

Of course- I'm sure we could argue that they're deluding themselves. Just by living, the majority of us are exploiting other people. People and animals are suffering in order that we live a more comfortable life than them. Plus, many people here have been abused by those around them. They deliberately caused harm to us via neglect or abuse wilfully so, just how righteous they are is also debatable...

Still- I suppose it's about blame at the end of the day. Is someone/ multiple people to blame for your suicide? If your suicide causes others to experience ideation and they then kill themselves, are we to blame for their death? (Ok, we can't be, because we're dead but, you know what I mean.) Would any of us willfully start a chain of events that leads to multiple suicides? Are we to blame for that because ultimately- we performed the act willingly, knowing the possible consequences? Or, does everyone have agency? Everyone has the potential to get over anything. It's just a matter of choice on whether we do?

I want to just say that I'm playing devil's advocate here. I do actually agree with you. I'm just laying down a more pro-life (I'm imagining) side for the sake of argument...

But- if anyone can get over anything then, no one is to blame for anything because it's a simple choice on whether to be happy or sad. We can simply forget the things that hurt us in the past and, move on. We know that isn't true though. The awful likelihood is- people are on here because they can't get over some of the awful things that have happened/ are happening to them. Some people in turn won't get over their suicide. The difference there could be intention/ wilful action.

I think it's fair to point out the disparity between how people should be a be to refrain from suicide and continue with their agonising life because their suicide will destroy the lives of those around them. There is a weird bias there. But still- I suppose the problem is wilful action. Are those people in your life deliberately causing it to be so awful? Of course, in some cases- they will be! Or- are they innocent bystanders?

If/when we suicide, we do it knowing the pain it could cause. So- perhaps their argument is- the pain a suicide causes is deliberate. (Ok, their pain was a side effect but, it was very likely considered worth it to us to rid ourselves of our own.) The pain someone goes through in life to get them to the point of wanting to suicide isn't (always) deliberate. It may well not have come from them either. If they cared enough about the person to be devastated by their loss- maybe they were actually a nicer influence in their life.

That's not to say the person shouldn't suicide. It's just to say- we're all human. Ideally, most people don't want to hurt the ones they love (you'd hope.) Sadly, suicide will hurt some people. Maybe people who really don't deserve to be hurt. People we'd give almost anything not to hurt but- that's the crux of it. Can we continue with our miserable lives just so as not to hurt them? Not always.

Really though- that's why I wish we could be more open about things with people. If they had a greater knowledge about how much someone was suffering and, how desperately they wanted out- perhaps they would be more understanding in letting them go. Maybe it would be enough for them to feel relieved that their loved one was no longer suffering but- there we go. We're actively disuaded from revealing things like depression and ideation and how much we are struggling. People may say that we're encouraged to reach out but- you can see on here, the reactions when people do. Sometimes they become parihars, sometimes they're just flooded with platitudes, sometimes they're carted off to the psyche ward.

 

[dragonofenvy]

That's not to say the person shouldn't suicide. It's just to say- we're all human. Ideally, most people don't want to hurt the ones they love (you'd hope.) Sadly, suicide will hurt some people. Maybe people who really don't deserve to be hurt. People we'd give almost anything not to hurt but- that's the crux of it. Can we continue with our miserable lives just so as not to hurt them? Not always.

People do things that hurt others all the time, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. Most of the time it's something in-between, or not intentional at all. I think when someone commits suicide they know they'll hurt someone it's just a matter of whether the pain they will cause is worth them enduring even more. If we look at a case of a loving family, it almost certainly will hurt them forever. Is this same loving family right to allow the suicidal person to continue suffering? That's not a yes or no answer. I don't think this is something that can be thought of in terms of black or white. Assisting the person in distress has merit, but allowing them to end their suffering also has merit. There are a wide variety of actions one can take in a situation like this depending on the scenario, all with the potential for harm, benefit, or both. I had a much better argument and many more points to make but my sleeping pills overtook me and now I can't think of them. Maybe tomorrow I'll chime in again.

Bear in mind our bias considering that pretty much all of us here are suicidal. Bear in mind too that objectivity and subjectivity in a topic like this, in my view, have equal importance.

 

[Forever Sleep]

People do things that hurt others all the time, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. Most of the time it's something in-between, or not intentional at all. I think when someone commits suicide they know they'll hurt someone it's just a matter of whether the pain they will cause is worth them enduring even more. If we look at a case of a loving family, it almost certainly will hurt them forever. Is this same loving family right to allow the suicidal person to continue suffering? That's not a yes or no answer. I don't think this is something that can be thought of in terms of black or white. Assisting the person in distress has merit, but allowing them to end their suffering also has merit. There are a wide variety of actions one can take in a situation like this depending on the scenario, all with the potential for harm, benefit, or both. I had a much better argument and many more points to make but my sleeping pills overtook me and now I can't think of them. Maybe tomorrow I'll chime in again.

Bear in mind our bias considering that pretty much all of us here are suicidal. Bear in mind too that objectivity and subjectivity in a topic like this, in my view, have equal importance.

I completely agree with you. Like you say, it's not a right or wrong type situation. It's people's emotions we are guaging and basically- we can't. We can't even know for sure how we would react to some awful event in the future. But yeah- it's kind of impossible to measure your pain against someone else's and against future events. It really can't be a completely logical assessment that: My experience of life is worse than that person's. We don't actually know that for sure. But further- the pain I'm in now is much worse than the grief they're going to feel if I leave them. We don't know that either.

I think suicide is more- I've done all I can to limit the pain on my loved ones- eg. writing notes, making a will, ensuring they don't find the body- if possible. But- I'm at a point where I don't feel able to cope with my pain anymore and- I hope they can understand that. It's a very personal thing though.

What I would say is obvious is that all people who do suicide did so because their own resources for dealing with their own pain ran out. Our coping levels are going to be different for all of us. Plus, I'd say very few people suicide wanting it to hurt others.

I ran a couple of different polls ages ago. One was on whether (if it were possible) you would choose whether to have been born to begin with. 77% said they wouldn't have been. The second poll was on whether you would (if you could) use the (Harry Potter) spell: 'Obliviate' on your loved ones to erase their memories of you before you CTB. 63% said they would.

So- from that, I tend to take it that the majority of suicidal people at least here, feel as if their life was thrust upon them. They didn't choose it. They don't want it. If you force someone to do a very responsible job that they aren't qualified to do and, they didn't volunteer for- can you really blame them if they screw it up? Even if they screw it up with terrible consequences? If a passenger ends up being the only one conscious on an aeroplane and they have to try and land the thing but fail- were all those deaths their fault? Of course not! Was it the fault of the pilots? Maybe not either if it was an engineering fault or some weird natural phenomenon.

Just how responsible/ obliged are any of us to keep on living when, we didn't choose to be here to begin with? Are parents willing to accept that they produce children in order to enslave them? No, they like to think they are giving that life freedom to choose their own path in life but realistically- they're not. There are some- in fact- plenty of paths that we will be strongly disuaded from. Chances are, the majority of us will have to comply with societal rules, earn money and support ourselves and stay alive for as long as possible to do that. Maybe cruel to say it but- if you want to 'blame' anyone for starting a timeline that always ends in death regardless and can very easily contain a fair chunk of suffering and wage slavery- surely, you have to blame the people that started this experiment to begin with- parents.

Ironically, you have to wonder if it's them that also feel the most hurt and anger after a suicide because- they weren't expecting to bury their children. But, there we go- I'm an anti-natilist at heart. I wish more people would consider all the possible things that might befall their child in life. Not just the good things.

But- I do agree with you. I was just throwing stuff out there. I think the 'obliviate' poll shows that more people would actually like to be able to reduce the suffering their suicide might cause.

I think intention is important actually because, it shows competency. We are actually making these decisions being aware of their effects. That may be terribly painful for loved ones to accept. I think that's in part why the mental illness/ mental incompetency idea is so often cited as the cause for suicide. I don't think those left behind like the idea that they were left deliberately- under any circumstances. They prefer to think their loved one wasn't thinking clearly enough to consider them.

I agree though- they ought to have enough empathy to think about what they were going through to get them to that point. That's why I was saying- I wish it was more acceptible/ more useful to be open about these things. That way, loved ones could have time to get used to the idea.

 

[Proteus]

would you deliberately cause harm to someone?

Most wouldn't at all! Almost everybody does it to avoid their personal harm. It's important to note lots of suicidal people have huge dilemmas about their friends and families and it's really hard for them too.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

"It gets better" can only matter to the perspective of the living, not from the perspective of one who's dead. For those who are dead, there is no better for them as time ends for them then and there from their perspective. There's no future they can go to hence saying that "it gets better" is illogical were one to succeed in a suicide attempt

 

[onbekend]

"It gets better" to me is just a motivational statement. Nothing special, everyone already knows it's a flawed argument, even the pro-lifers.
Now as for the whole argument about other peoples lives, It's a bit more interesting. To me it's kind of like a way to blackmail others into not committing suicide.
I've seen it used by Pro-life people as a last ditch attempt to say something that might convince someone to not CTB, before they start getting personal and often times rude about it.

Just as you said however, You can use their other arguments against them. If everything gets better, then that applies for those around me too. So why should I care about other peoples lives when millions of people have died in war and disease, and their families recovered?

 

[TAW122]

Before I start, it's important to note grief is very real. The impact on death touches many people and it's a completely valid feeling that doesn't make you selfish. In no way this post tries to invalidate your feelings.



There are two common arguments against the right to die: that it always gets better and that you cause more pain to your loved ones. I decided to tackle them together. It works like this:

1. If everything gets better, that includes grief, so one can then overcome loss. This means grief loses some weight.

2. If one can't get over loss, it means some things can't be healed. If some things don't get better, this extends to, at least, some suicidal people. This means some suicide has base.

3. "It always gets better" is factually false because, among many other things, degenerative diseases exist. "It sometimes gets better" is sometimes false. This means not everything improves, thus some suicide has base.

4. "Your loved ones" ignore the pain of the suicidal is often bigger than grief (not becauae grief is weak at all, but because they go through too much). Most people who lose someone don't consider suicide, which means they didn't exhaust every way of coping, which is guaranteed on the suicidal. If it rarely compares to the extreme effect on a suicidal person, this means grief loses some weight.

I think your reasoning and you summarized it up pretty well. Yes, while grief is real, bodily autonomy and the person (the suicidal one) who is suffering greatly definitely deserves peace because no one else is experiencing the suffering directly other than the person themselves. Furthermore, yes if the "gets better" statement and logic can be applied to grief just as well. It's sad that pro-lifers don't really think introspectively and only parrot off cliches and platitudes.