Discussion The "awful" thing is not suicide but all that preceded it.

[Tom9999]

When people hear of someone committing suicide, they usually express emotion around the person having committed the act. They usually say stuff like "What an awful thing to do!" or "How could they do such a thing!". They may then even discuss ways in which to make suicide harder to accomplish.

But rarely does a person sincerely ask "What was the reason?", "Why did they do it?", or (more pointedly) "What made them suffer so much?"

These responses aren't socially acceptable because they point out that suicide is an end result of a problem, not the problem itself.

The awful thing is the suffering the person had to endure. Suicide is awful only in that it points to the existence of unbearable meaningless suffering. Suicide itself is merely the action taken to end that suffering.

It's not that the act of suicide needs to be made harder to accomplish.

It's the enduring of meaningless suffering we need to make harder to experience.

If suicide were socially acceptable - like divorce is now in the US - there would be a lot more open discussion around why the person's life didn't work out just as there are now free and open discussions about why a marriage didn't work out.

This would help a lot by then making things that contribute to suicide also more socially acceptable and easier to discuss.

Divorcees used to live in shame. This made it very difficult to openly discuss thoughts of getting a divorce and so also difficult to talk honestly about the marriage. This made it difficult to get help for solving the problems in the marriage, with the result that people were forced to endure years of misery silently.

It's the same for suicide and life.

 

[Élégie]

Thanks for sharing, Tom. This isn't the first post I've seen from you, and I must say that I appreciate your insights.
Once again, I agree with you... especially with that part:

But rarely does a person sincerely ask "What was the reason?", "Why did they do it?", or (more pointedly) "What made them suffer so much?"
These responses aren't socially acceptable because they point out that suicide is an end result of a problem, not the problem itself.

 

[Rachel74]

My grandad hung himself in the early 60s and my nan tried to cover it up as she was ashamed he'd done it. It was still a criminal offence then and my grandad couldn't be buried in consecrated ground. It's still the same now!

 

[Tom9999]

Thanks for sharing, Tom. This isn't the first post I've seen from you, and I must say that I appreciate your insights.
Once again, I agree with you... especially with that part:

Thank you for letting me know my words have bought you pleasure. I appreciate that!

My grandad hung himself in the early 60s and my nan tried to cover it up as she was ashamed he'd done it. It was still a criminal offence then and my grandad couldn't be buried in consecrated ground. It's still the same now!

I'm sorry to hear about your grandad.

A cousin of mine killed himself. No one ever talks about it, much less analyzed why. Several of my other cousins suffer from suicide-motivating afflictions. No one talks about that either.

So no one learns how their childhood contributed, and so it just goes on to the next generation.

The worst thing about suicide is the silence caused by vilifying it.