Venting The right to leave.

[gothbird]

There are nights when the weight of staying feels heavier than anything, when the soul drags like a satellite long out of signal. And in those hours, I don't want comfort—I want honesty. I want to speak plainly about the unspeakable. About the right to leave. About how this world clutches our wrists with trembling hands and calls it love, how it stuffs our mouths with hope when all we wanted was nothingness. I want to grieve aloud the absence of choice, to say, without shame or fear, that wanting to go should not be met with cages, sermons, or suspicion. Just understanding. Just the dignity of being heard.

Suicide is an uneasy subject—one that people dress in platitudes about hope, cautionary tales of rashness, and a well meaning but patronising instinct to rescue. It is rarely spoken of plainly. Behind the veil of concern lies a hypocrisy: in nations that claim to revere freedom and bodily autonomy, there exists no honest defence for denying a person the right to die on their own terms.

If autonomy is to mean anything, it must include the freedom to depart. We allow people to reject treatment, to drink themselves to death, to live wildly and wrecklessly, to make poor and painful choices because we accept, however begrudgingly, that liberty includes the right to falter. Yet when death is chosen deliberately, we retreat. Sovereignty vanishes. The govt., the doctors, the family—everyone steps in. This is not freedom. It is custody. And to say that someone may not die when they wish is to declare that their life no longer belongs to them.

That is not a small claim. It is an audacious moral intrusion, rarely acknowledged for what it is.

Often, suicide is dismissed as the product of madness, the symptom of a fixable illness. But the truth is more ambiguous. While mental illness raises the risk, it is not a universal explanation. A 2018 study in Psychological Medicine found that up to 40% of suicides in some groups occurred without any clear psychiatric diagnosis. Moreover, there are those who suffer for years—through unrelenting pain, incurable conditions, or a profound existential weariness—whose wish to die is steady, reasoned, and immune to intervention. These are not people in momentary crisis. These are people for whom life has simply lost its meaning.

Even when illness is present, the idea that suicidal thought is always irrational does not hold. Depression, trauma—these are not illusions. The pain is real, and often unbearable. To insist someone in such a state must carry on, because we've decided their mind can't be trusted, is to treat them as children. We don't force a cancer patient to accept chemotherapy. Why then do we treat the mind's suffering as less valid than the body's?

Worse still, prohibition does not work. We know this. We've seen it with abortion, with drugs, with sex work. Ban a thing, and it does not vanish—it goes underground. More desperate. More dangerous. The same is true of suicide. Deny people safe, gentle ways to die, and they will seek violent ones: the jump, the rope, the bottle of pills scavenged from the back of the cupboard. These are not inherent to suicide—they are the consequence of a world that refuses to treat death with care. Just as outlawing abortion never stopped abortions, outlawing suicide does not stop death. It merely ensures it is lonelier, uglier, more traumatic for all involved.

What we call suicide prevention is often punishment in disguise. Involuntary holds, forced hospitalisation, chemical restraint—these are not acts of healing. They are acts of control. Many who experience them report feeling more afraid, more broken, more inclined to lie in future. They learn, swiftly, that honesty is dangerous. That speaking of death means forfeiting one's freedom. So they go quiet.

And yet, in countries where assisted dying has been legalised—Switzerland, the Netherlands, parts of Canada and Australia—we do not see a collapse into chaos. Quite the opposite. People report feeling calmer. Safer. More able to carry on, simply because they can choose not to. When death is no longer forbidden, life begins to feel less like a sentence. Studies suggest that suicide rates among the elderly even decline in such places, especially among those with chronic conditions. The data is clear: giving people the right to die does not hasten death. It often delays it.

To say this aloud is uncomfortable. Some fear that granting this right sends a dangerous message—that life is cheap, or despair incurable. But this is a false dichotomy. To allow is not to encourage. We do not accuse palliative care doctors of promoting death. We do not say that legal abortion signals hatred of children. A mature society can tell the difference between freedom and endorsement.

Yes, there are risks. The fear that vulnerable people—especially the young or unsupported—may act rashly is real. But we navigate such risks in other parts of life without sweeping bans. Marriage, childbirth, irreversible surgeries—all life altering, all permitted with safeguards. Why not suicide? Why not waiting periods, thorough assessments, informed consent—rather than silence and shame?

Another concern is that legalising suicide might pressure the disabled, elderly, or mentally ill to die—that society might subtly suggest they are burdens. This fear, too, deserves respect. But the answer is not prohibition. It is parity. If the right to die is made available, it must be accompanied by the right to live well. No one should feel coerced, and no one should be told their worth depends on their productivity or ease of care.

In the end, the ban on suicide is not about care. It is about control. It is the govt. insisting that it owns your life, even when you can no longer bear to live it. It is a religious conviction—all life is sacred, no matter how it feels—smuggled into secular law. And it is imposed upon those who no longer consent to be here.

I do not judge those who make their way secretly to Switzerland. Who tell no one. Who slip away with as much dignity as the law will allow. I understand them. When you have cried out for years and been met with slogans, platitudes, surveillance, or force—when even your most sincere expression of pain is treated as pathology—it makes sense to stop speaking. To leave. To choose peace over performance.
And yes, that silence will hurt the people left behind. But it is a silence that was earned. A silence built over years of being dismissed, infantilised, or told that your will does not matter.

We must stop framing suicide as a failure of policy, of medicine, of resilience. It is not always preventable, and it is not always wrong. Sometimes, it is an act of self possession. Sometimes, it is the last freedom left.
To permit it is not to glorify despair, but to uphold a deeper ethical truth: that we each own our own suffering. That we are, even at the end, sovereign.
A world that denies this is not a kind one.

Not every star is meant to burn forever. Some collapse gently into themselves, not in failure, but in fulfilment of their nature. Not every voyager returns from the edge of the galaxy; some chart their own course into the dark, leaving behind trails of light we glimpse only long after they've gone. There is no shame in drifting beyond the orbit of others. No shame in choosing stillness over the ceaseless pull of gravity. Sometimes, the bravest thing is not to endure the orbit, but to let go—to become part of the silence between worlds. It is not abandonment. It is not cowardice. It is simply departure. And in the vast expanse of existence, even that must be allowed.

Thank you for letting me spill all this out. Sometimes, it's the only way to breathe.

 

[Nobody'sHero]

"When death is no longer forbidden, life begins to feel less like a sentence."

"Not every star is meant to burn forever. Some collapse gently into themselves, not in failure, but in fulfilment of their nature. Not every voyager returns from the edge of the galaxy; some chart their own course into the dark, leaving behind trails of light we glimpse only long after they've gone. There is no shame in drifting beyond the orbit of others. No shame in choosing stillness over the ceaseless pull of gravity. Sometimes, the bravest thing is not to endure the orbit, but to let go—to become part of the silence between worlds. It is not abandonment. It is not cowardice. It is simply departure. And in the vast expanse of existence, even that must be allowed."

Please don't leave... Perhaps your life's mission is to battle for the right to die...

 

[divinemistress36]

Beautiful writing old soul <3

 

[gothbird]

"When death is no longer forbidden, life begins to feel less like a sentence."

"Not every star is meant to burn forever. Some collapse gently into themselves, not in failure, but in fulfilment of their nature. Not every voyager returns from the edge of the galaxy; some chart their own course into the dark, leaving behind trails of light we glimpse only long after they've gone. There is no shame in drifting beyond the orbit of others. No shame in choosing stillness over the ceaseless pull of gravity. Sometimes, the bravest thing is not to endure the orbit, but to let go—to become part of the silence between worlds. It is not abandonment. It is not cowardice. It is simply departure. And in the vast expanse of existence, even that must be allowed."

Please don't leave... Perhaps your life's mission is to battle for the right to die...

Maybe. Maybe I'm here to argue for the exit sign I still haven't used. Maybe I'm meant to claw through the walls just to tell others where the cracks are. It's a cruel kind of calling, isn't it? To stay, just to defend the right not to. But I hear you. I do. And I'm still here—for now. Because I believe someone has to scribble notes in the margins. Choosing rest doesn't make you weak, and choosing to keep going doesn't make you noble. Both are hard. Both are holy. So maybe my mission is just this: to sit by the door and promise, softly, that it's real. That it's there. That no matter how long you stay, you were never trapped.
I don't think I'll be here much longer—perhaps just a few more months, if that. I'll offer what I can while I remain, try to be useful in the in between. But the weight of this body, the relentless ache of illness—both of the flesh and the mind—has hollowed too much of me. This isn't living. And I've reached the edge of what I can bear.

Beautiful writing old soul <3

Thank you, truly. It means more than I can say. Some days I feel like all I have left are words—and it's a kind of comfort to know they still reach someone.

 

[Nobody'sHero]

Maybe. Maybe I'm here to argue for the exit sign I still haven't used. Maybe I'm meant to claw through the walls just to tell others where the cracks are. It's a cruel kind of calling, isn't it? To stay, just to defend the right not to. But I hear you. I do. And I'm still here—for now. Because I believe someone has to scribble notes in the margins. Choosing rest doesn't make you weak, and choosing to keep going doesn't make you noble. Both are hard. Both are holy. So maybe my mission is just this: to sit by the door and promise, softly, that it's real. That it's there. That no matter how long you stay, you were never trapped.
I don't think I'll be here much longer—perhaps just a few more months, if that. I'll offer what I can while I remain, try to be useful in the in between. But the weight of this body, the relentless ache of illness—both of the flesh and the mind—has hollowed too much of me. This isn't living. And I've reached the edge of what I can bear.


Thank you, truly. It means more than I can say. Some days I feel like all I have left are words—and it's a kind of comfort to know they still reach someone.

All paths lead to pain but they are different... Either way, you will not be forgotten, wish I could have met you sooner.

 

[Michi_Violeta]

Breathe all you want, you do it beautifully. These past few months I keep mulling over a simple phrase that came to mind: when you have no will to live, life feels like it's against your will.

What you express reminds me of an article on Psychology Today I read years ago and haven't been able to find again. It discussed the concept of rational suicide and mentioned something the author called "having an author's perspective on life." It struck a chord, reminded me of an essay about a contemporary interpretation of Kant's concept of enlightenment, and academic bullshit aside it was as simple as if was beautiful.

Some of us live our life and look at it as if it's a work of art, our work of art. And we may not get to decide everything thay affects it, sadly people seem to walk into our studio and mess with our painting or scribble over our manuscript, but we at least should be able to decide how the story ends. Does the protagonist just fade into obscurity and live a boring, normal life? Do they get to live a happy ending or die waiting and fighting endlessly and hopelessly for it? Or do they take a stand and end it all on their own terms?

It's a matter of dignity and autonomy. Two key terms in Western culture, in our definitions of good, of legal, of wellbeing. If someone decided death is more dignified than their life, nobody has any right to question that. If someone makes an autonomous choice to end their life, for whatever reason they deem fit, who are we to force them to live?

Of course, this doesn't apply to underage people, but it still applies to those with poor mental health. Yes, there's the possibility of recovery, but it's a very long and painful process. Why can't we deny treatment like, say, cancer patients? If nobody can force you to undergo medical treatment for a chronic disease, why are you forced to undergo psychiatric drugs and psychological therapy? Just because there's not a tumor in my body it doesn't mean I want to live with a tumor in my soul, subjecting myself constantly to the mental version of chemo only without the results.

Anyway, now I'm the one spilling out, sorry! Point is you're right, you're evidently smart, and any pro-lifer or cop lurking this forum should honestly reconsider their hypocritical perspective.

 

[gothbird]

All paths lead to pain but they are different... Either way, you will not be forgotten, wish I could have met you sooner.

I feel the same way most days. Some people get to walk paths lined with light; ours feel like they were built from barbed wire and grief. It's comforting—strange, but comforting—to know that I won't be forgotten. That even in this little digital space, where we're more usernames than names, someone saw me.

Thank you for that. Really.

I'm still here for now. Maybe not for long, maybe not for always, but while I am—I'm walking beside you. Whether your path leads out, or loops back around.

Breathe all you want, you do it beautifully. These past few months I keep mulling over a simple phrase that came to mind: when you have no will to live, life feels like it's against your will.

What you express reminds me of an article on Psychology Today I read years ago and haven't been able to find again. It discussed the concept of rational suicide and mentioned something the author called "having an author's perspective on life." It struck a chord, reminded me of an essay about a contemporary interpretation of Kant's concept of enlightenment, and academic bullshit aside it was as simple as if was beautiful.

Some of us live our life and look at it as if it's a work of art, our work of art. And we may not get to decide everything thay affects it, sadly people seem to walk into our studio and mess with our painting or scribble over our manuscript, but we at least should be able to decide how the story ends. Does the protagonist just fade into obscurity and live a boring, normal life? Do they get to live a happy ending or die waiting and fighting endlessly and hopelessly for it? Or do they take a stand and end it all on their own terms?

It's a matter of dignity and autonomy. Two key terms in Western culture, in our definitions of good, of legal, of wellbeing. If someone decided death is more dignified than their life, nobody has any right to question that. If someone makes an autonomous choice to end their life, for whatever reason they deem fit, who are we to force them to live?

Of course, this doesn't apply to underage people, but it still applies to those with poor mental health. Yes, there's the possibility of recovery, but it's a very long and painful process. Why can't we deny treatment like, say, cancer patients? If nobody can force you to undergo medical treatment for a chronic disease, why are you forced to undergo psychiatric drugs and psychological therapy? Just because there's not a tumor in my body it doesn't mean I want to live with a tumor in my soul, subjecting myself constantly to the mental version of chemo only without the results.

Anyway, now I'm the one spilling out, sorry! Point is you're right, you're evidently smart, and any pro-lifer or cop lurking this forum should honestly reconsider their hypocritical perspective.

Don't apologise. That line about life feeling "against your will"... It explains a thousand things that are hard to say out loud. The way getting out of bed feels invasive. The way the sun can feel violent. The way even your own breath feels borrowed.

The "author's perspective on life" is one I've never heard phrased that way, but it feels familiar. It's exactly what I've been living. Looking down at this thing I'm supposed to be shaping into something meaningful, watching the page smear and tear every time someone else puts their hand on it. And still somehow it's mine. I might not have chosen the genre or the setting or the opening act, but the ending? That's the only part I've ever asked to write myself.

Dignity and autonomy. Exactly. We mythologise those words in Western society until someone tries to use them for real. Suddenly dignity becomes conditional. Autonomy gets redefined as selfishness. But if we truly believe in those values, then we need to believe in them when they're hard to stomach—not just when they're palatable.

Your analogy to chronic illness is spot on too. I've used it too. People accept the refusal of chemo. They accept DNR orders. They accept hospice care over last ditch treatment. And yet when the illness is internal—psychic, soul-level pain—they turn around and say "try harder." It's not about curing us. It's about controlling us. Mental health care isn't always care. Sometimes it's custody.

Anyway. I'm grateful for your reply. You reminded me that other people are thinking critically about this. Not just emotionally, not just impulsively, but analytically. Ethically. And you're right: this shouldn't be controversial. It's a human rights issue.
We're not asking to be understood. We're asking to be allowed.

 

[FuneralCry]

I understand as all I personally hope for is to not exist, non-existence is all I see as desirable and is all that can bring me peace from this existence where I'm just waiting and hoping to not exist anyway that I never would have chosen in the first place. It's just so extremely cruel how the torture and suffering of human existence is seen as to so cruelly force and prolong even know this existence was imposed in the first place, all I wish for is painless guaranteed death with no more pain and no more suffering, I just never should had suffered in this existence at all and I always suffer so much from how there is no acceptance towards the right to leave.

 

[Forever Sleep]

So beautifully and compellingly written. I only wish someone in a position of power would read it and truly think about what you expressed. None of your arguments were extreme or ill considered to my mind. In fact, you had foreseen potential problems and suggested ways they could be mitigated in most instances.

The only qualm I have concerning assisted suicide for the ill, disabled, unemployed, homeless etc. touches on what you said. That there is concern that these vulnerable groups may be pushed towards it. This wouldn't need to be done vocally even. If our governments decide to cut benefits all over the place (which they are doing already,) quality of life for many people will surely drop. That will surely mean they will be begging for assisted suicide! I suppose my concern is- What is the cheaper option for our governments? Is it cheaper to ensure their lives are so unpleasant that they willingly leave early and they don't have to support them on lifelong benefits? Conversely, maybe they'd prefer to keep them alive and on expensive medications so that their rich buddies in pharmaceutical companies rake in the rewards.

I think in an ideal world, we would be giving enough support to those who are on the fence about suicide so that they are able to live a good enough quality of life to want to stay. This isn't an ideal world though! There's only a finite amount of money. So, realistically- will that option actually be available?

Having said that, I have read arguments that- if only they stopped spending out on forcing people to live when they were adament to die- prolonged psyche holds, forced medication etc. That money could be spent on the people who feel suicidal but who would want to live given more support. We're in an odd situation where there are people desperatey screaming out for help who are being denied while others who really have lost all hope and just want to be left alone are hounded. Even members here I would say have been let down by the system (in the UK.) @FireFox springs to mind. I wish something would change but I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime. Or at least, only for the terminally ill I suspect- in the UK anyway.

 

[the_etherealmuse]

This is beautifully written, and perfectly encapsulates my feelings.

There are nights when the weight of staying feels heavier than anything, when the soul drags like a satellite long out of signal. And in those hours, I don't want comfort—I want honesty. I want to speak plainly about the unspeakable. About the right to leave. About how this world clutches our wrists with trembling hands and calls it love, how it stuffs our mouths with hope when all we wanted was nothingness. I want to grieve aloud the absence of choice, to say, without shame or fear, that wanting to go should not be met with cages, sermons, or suspicion. Just understanding. Just the dignity of being heard.

Suicide is an uneasy subject—one that people dress in platitudes about hope, cautionary tales of rashness, and a well meaning but patronising instinct to rescue. It is rarely spoken of plainly. Behind the veil of concern lies a hypocrisy: in nations that claim to revere freedom and bodily autonomy, there exists no honest defence for denying a person the right to die on their own terms.

If autonomy is to mean anything, it must include the freedom to depart. We allow people to reject treatment, to drink themselves to death, to live wildly and wrecklessly, to make poor and painful choices because we accept, however begrudgingly, that liberty includes the right to falter. Yet when death is chosen deliberately, we retreat. Sovereignty vanishes. The govt., the doctors, the family—everyone steps in. This is not freedom. It is custody. And to say that someone may not die when they wish is to declare that their life no longer belongs to them.

That is not a small claim. It is an audacious moral intrusion, rarely acknowledged for what it is.

Often, suicide is dismissed as the product of madness, the symptom of a fixable illness. But the truth is more ambiguous. While mental illness raises the risk, it is not a universal explanation. A 2018 study in Psychological Medicine found that up to 40% of suicides in some groups occurred without any clear psychiatric diagnosis. Moreover, there are those who suffer for years—through unrelenting pain, incurable conditions, or a profound existential weariness—whose wish to die is steady, reasoned, and immune to intervention. These are not people in momentary crisis. These are people for whom life has simply lost its meaning.

Even when illness is present, the idea that suicidal thought is always irrational does not hold. Depression, trauma—these are not illusions. The pain is real, and often unbearable. To insist someone in such a state must carry on, because we've decided their mind can't be trusted, is to treat them as children. We don't force a cancer patient to accept chemotherapy. Why then do we treat the mind's suffering as less valid than the body's?

Worse still, prohibition does not work. We know this. We've seen it with abortion, with drugs, with sex work. Ban a thing, and it does not vanish—it goes underground. More desperate. More dangerous. The same is true of suicide. Deny people safe, gentle ways to die, and they will seek violent ones: the jump, the rope, the bottle of pills scavenged from the back of the cupboard. These are not inherent to suicide—they are the consequence of a world that refuses to treat death with care. Just as outlawing abortion never stopped abortions, outlawing suicide does not stop death. It merely ensures it is lonelier, uglier, more traumatic for all involved.

What we call suicide prevention is often punishment in disguise. Involuntary holds, forced hospitalisation, chemical restraint—these are not acts of healing. They are acts of control. Many who experience them report feeling more afraid, more broken, more inclined to lie in future. They learn, swiftly, that honesty is dangerous. That speaking of death means forfeiting one's freedom. So they go quiet.

And yet, in countries where assisted dying has been legalised—Switzerland, the Netherlands, parts of Canada and Australia—we do not see a collapse into chaos. Quite the opposite. People report feeling calmer. Safer. More able to carry on, simply because they can choose not to. When death is no longer forbidden, life begins to feel less like a sentence. Studies suggest that suicide rates among the elderly even decline in such places, especially among those with chronic conditions. The data is clear: giving people the right to die does not hasten death. It often delays it.

To say this aloud is uncomfortable. Some fear that granting this right sends a dangerous message—that life is cheap, or despair incurable. But this is a false dichotomy. To allow is not to encourage. We do not accuse palliative care doctors of promoting death. We do not say that legal abortion signals hatred of children. A mature society can tell the difference between freedom and endorsement.

Yes, there are risks. The fear that vulnerable people—especially the young or unsupported—may act rashly is real. But we navigate such risks in other parts of life without sweeping bans. Marriage, childbirth, irreversible surgeries—all life altering, all permitted with safeguards. Why not suicide? Why not waiting periods, thorough assessments, informed consent—rather than silence and shame?

Another concern is that legalising suicide might pressure the disabled, elderly, or mentally ill to die—that society might subtly suggest they are burdens. This fear, too, deserves respect. But the answer is not prohibition. It is parity. If the right to die is made available, it must be accompanied by the right to live well. No one should feel coerced, and no one should be told their worth depends on their productivity or ease of care.

In the end, the ban on suicide is not about care. It is about control. It is the govt. insisting that it owns your life, even when you can no longer bear to live it. It is a religious conviction—all life is sacred, no matter how it feels—smuggled into secular law. And it is imposed upon those who no longer consent to be here.

I do not judge those who make their way secretly to Switzerland. Who tell no one. Who slip away with as much dignity as the law will allow. I understand them. When you have cried out for years and been met with slogans, platitudes, surveillance, or force—when even your most sincere expression of pain is treated as pathology—it makes sense to stop speaking. To leave. To choose peace over performance.
And yes, that silence will hurt the people left behind. But it is a silence that was earned. A silence built over years of being dismissed, infantilised, or told that your will does not matter.

We must stop framing suicide as a failure of policy, of medicine, of resilience. It is not always preventable, and it is not always wrong. Sometimes, it is an act of self possession. Sometimes, it is the last freedom left.
To permit it is not to glorify despair, but to uphold a deeper ethical truth: that we each own our own suffering. That we are, even at the end, sovereign.
A world that denies this is not a kind one.

Not every star is meant to burn forever. Some collapse gently into themselves, not in failure, but in fulfilment of their nature. Not every voyager returns from the edge of the galaxy; some chart their own course into the dark, leaving behind trails of light we glimpse only long after they've gone. There is no shame in drifting beyond the orbit of others. No shame in choosing stillness over the ceaseless pull of gravity. Sometimes, the bravest thing is not to endure the orbit, but to let go—to become part of the silence between worlds. It is not abandonment. It is not cowardice. It is simply departure. And in the vast expanse of existence, even that must be allowed.

Thank you for letting me spill all this out. Sometimes, it's the only way to breathe.

 

[Michi_Violeta]

I feel the same way most days. Some people get to walk paths lined with light; ours feel like they were built from barbed wire and grief. It's comforting—strange, but comforting—to know that I won't be forgotten. That even in this little digital space, where we're more usernames than names, someone saw me.

Thank you for that. Really.

I'm still here for now. Maybe not for long, maybe not for always, but while I am—I'm walking beside you. Whether your path leads out, or loops back around.


Don't apologise. That line about life feeling "against your will"... It explains a thousand things that are hard to say out loud. The way getting out of bed feels invasive. The way the sun can feel violent. The way even your own breath feels borrowed.

The "author's perspective on life" is one I've never heard phrased that way, but it feels familiar. It's exactly what I've been living. Looking down at this thing I'm supposed to be shaping into something meaningful, watching the page smear and tear every time someone else puts their hand on it. And still somehow it's mine. I might not have chosen the genre or the setting or the opening act, but the ending? That's the only part I've ever asked to write myself.

Dignity and autonomy. Exactly. We mythologise those words in Western society until someone tries to use them for real. Suddenly dignity becomes conditional. Autonomy gets redefined as selfishness. But if we truly believe in those values, then we need to believe in them when they're hard to stomach—not just when they're palatable.

Your analogy to chronic illness is spot on too. I've used it too. People accept the refusal of chemo. They accept DNR orders. They accept hospice care over last ditch treatment. And yet when the illness is internal—psychic, soul-level pain—they turn around and say "try harder." It's not about curing us. It's about controlling us. Mental health care isn't always care. Sometimes it's custody.

Anyway. I'm grateful for your reply. You reminded me that other people are thinking critically about this. Not just emotionally, not just impulsively, but analytically. Ethically. And you're right: this shouldn't be controversial. It's a human rights issue.
We're not asking to be understood. We're asking to be allowed.

The tragic beauty of it all —at least the way I see it— is that a person who commits suicide is no longer asking. I've been asking for love and empathy my whole life and even at 32 I feel I've been denied of what I need and deserve. If I decide to ctb, which I think I'll delay for a couple of months, it'll be because I'm tired of asking: I'm out.

Problem is, if people don't allow suicide under autonomous and humane conditions...then it'll only make matters worse. It's exactly like you said, prohibition doesn't work. Forbidding something never works as intended. You ban alcohol, you get Al Capone. You ban drugs, you get El Chapo. You ban N, you get people selling SN, you ban SN then you get people jumping off buildings or in front of trains traumatizing dozens of innocents. I'm not saying people who commit suicide or those who aid them are criminals, maybe it's a flawed analogy in that regards, but the point is people will still try and get what their want even if it's illegal: doesn't matter if it's drugs, sex, cheap Nike shoes, or their own death. Who knows, it wouldn't be absurd to imagine a new form of organized crime based on violent gangs offering euthanasia as a service! I mean, who could've imagined the power of drug cartels decades ago?

Finally, I'd just like to thank you too for those last words. I think I reason in quite an emotional way, but that's because I subscribe to an ethical theory and a worldview that values emotion in contrast to a world full of ideologies that I believe have overrated rationality. Something interesting about threads like this one is that it shows, to any observing third party, that this is not a community of desperate teenagers who don't know better than an """easy""" way out. Some people here, and it's both sad and beautiful to see, are perfectly autonomous and very well educated human beings. A large percentage of us here are writing in our second language.

The guy working for OFCOM, scouring these threads to profile us or to look for leads on """criminal""" SN suppliers, I bet you they can't write a paragraph as cogent as the ones you wrote. Their CV would probably have half the qualifications of mine. But this prejudice of us being just dramatic people who don't know better still persists. And it's so fucking disrespectful and dehumanizing that it only makes you think that you'd indeed be better out of this world...

 

[gothbird]

The tragic beauty of it all —at least the way I see it— is that a person who commits suicide is no longer asking. I've been asked for love and empathy my whole life and even at 32 I feel I've been denied of what I need and deserve. If I decide to ctb, which I think I'll delay for a couple of months, it'll be because I'm tired of asking: I'm out.

Problem is, if people don't allow suicide under autonomous and humane conditions...then it'll only make matters worse. It's exactly like you said, prohibition doesn't work. Forbidding something never works as intended. You ban alcohol, you get Al Capone. You ban drugs, you get El Chapo. You ban N, you get people selling SN, you ban SN then you get people jumping off buildings or in front of trains traumatizing dozens of innocents. I'm not saying people who commit suicide or those who aid them are criminals, maybe it's a flawed analogy in that regards, but the point is people will still try and get what their want even if it's illegal: doesn't matter if it's drugs, sex, cheap Nike shoes, or their own death. Who knows, it wouldn't be absurd to imagine a new form of organized crime based on violent gangs offering euthanasia as a service! I mean, who could've imagined the power of drug cartels decades ago?

Finally, I'd just like to thank you too for those last words. I think I reason in quite an emotional way, but that's because I subscribe to an ethical theory and a worldview that values emotion in contrast to a world full of ideologies that I believe have overrated rationality. Something interesting about threads like this one is that it shows, to any observing third party, that this is not a community of desperate teenagers who don't know better than an """easy""" way out. Some people here, and it's both sad and beautiful to see, are perfectly autonomous and very well educated human beings. A large percentage of us here are writing in our second language.

The guy working for OFCOM, scouring these threads to profile us or to look for leads on """criminal""" SN suppliers, I bet you they can't write a paragraph as cogent as the ones you wrote. Their CV would probably have half the qualifications of mine. But this prejudice of us being just dramatic people who don't know better still persists. And it's so fucking disrespectful and dehumanizing that it only makes you think that you'd indeed be better out of this world...

You've said it perfectly: suicide, when it's truly decided, is no longer a request. It's the last act of sovereignty in a life where autonomy was never fully granted.

Prohibition always births something worse. Ban SN and people don't stop dying. They just die louder. On train tracks. In hotel bathrooms. In forests where no one finds them until it smells. The govt wants silence, but refuses to offer peace. And when peace is denied, chaos fills the gap.

You're also right about the caliber of people here. I've read threads more thoughtful, more emotionally literate, and more ethically sound than anything I've seen come out of most institutions. People assume we're broken children when many of us are just exhausted adults.

Thank you for writing this. Truly. When my PMs are open again, I'd love to write to you privately, if that's okay?

So beautifully and compellingly written. I only wish someone in a position of power would read it and truly think about what you expressed. None of your arguments were extreme or ill considered to my mind. In fact, you had foreseen potential problems and suggested ways they could be mitigated in most instances.

The only qualm I have concerning assisted suicide for the ill, disabled, unemployed, homeless etc. touches on what you said. That there is concern that these vulnerable groups may be pushed towards it. This wouldn't need to be done vocally even. If our governments decide to cut benefits all over the place (which they are doing already,) quality of life for many people will surely drop. That will surely mean they will be begging for assisted suicide! I suppose my concern is- What is the cheaper option for our governments? Is it cheaper to ensure their lives are so unpleasant that they willingly leave early and they don't have to support them on lifelong benefits? Conversely, maybe they'd prefer to keep them alive and on expensive medications so that their rich buddies in pharmaceutical companies rake in the rewards.

I think in an ideal world, we would be giving enough support to those who are on the fence about suicide so that they are able to live a good enough quality of life to want to stay. This isn't an ideal world though! There's only a finite amount of money. So, realistically- will that option actually be available?

Having said that, I have read arguments that- if only they stopped spending out on forcing people to live when they were adament to die- prolonged psyche holds, forced medication etc. That money could be spent on the people who feel suicidal but who would want to live given more support. We're in an odd situation where there are people desperatey screaming out for help who are being denied while others who really have lost all hope and just want to be left alone are hounded. Even members here I would say have been let down by the system (in the UK.) @FireFox springs to mind. I wish something would change but I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime. Or at least, only for the terminally ill I suspect- in the UK anyway.

Thank you for this—truly.

We already live in a world where the poor, the disabled, the unemployed, and the chronically ill are told, in a thousand indirect ways, that their lives are inconvenient. Not with words, but with slashed benefits, inaccessible housing, three month waiting lists, and the humiliating bureaucracy of survival. The fear isn't that governments will force assisted suicide but it's that they'll make life so unbearable that it starts to feel like the only dignified option.

But I don't think the solution is to withhold the right to die. No one wins in this system. The ones who want to live can't get help.

You're right! The money definitely exists. It's just misused. If we stopped wasting it on forced holds, surveillance, and punitive care, we could actually support people who want to stay. We could create a world where staying feels like a choice. That's the balance: freedom to die, and real support to live. One should never cancel out the other.

And yes, in a world this rigged, there's always a risk that autonomy becomes exploitation. But denying people the right to die out of fear that others might abuse it is like denying housing because someone might squat.

You may be right though. We might only see progress for the terminally ill in our lifetimes. But if these conversations keep happening then maybe the door stays cracked for whoever comes next.

Thank you again for saying all this. You are also an expressive writer!

 

[unscrewedmoon999]

I don't think I can properly explain how gorgeous your writing is. How it resonates, how it puts tangled, messy threads of thought into a form that not only makes sense but speaks to the soul. The imagery you use is so fitting and beautiful, every time.

I agree with everything you've said, by the way. If we have control over our own lives, we should be able to decide whether to quit on life as well. Anything else is cruel, an infringement upon autonomy, and only done to make everyone else feel good that they "saved someone's life" when all they did was prolong our suffering.

Or they do it to avoid the grief they'd have to feel at our passing, but that's selfish of them, even if they don't mean it to be.

Animals get put down when they're in too much pain. Why can't we be the same?​

 

[gothbird]

I don't think I can properly explain how gorgeous your writing is. How it resonates, how it puts tangled, messy threads of thought into a form that not only makes sense but speaks to the soul. The imagery you use is so fitting and beautiful, every time.

I agree with everything you've said, by the way. If we have control over our own lives, we should be able to decide whether to quit on life as well. Anything else is cruel, an infringement upon autonomy, and only done to make everyone else feel good that they "saved someone's life" when all they did was prolong our suffering.

Or they do it to avoid the grief they'd have to feel at our passing, but that's selfish of them, even if they don't mean it to be.

Animals get put down when they're in too much pain. Why can't we be the same?​

It's hard to explain this stuff to people who haven't lived it. They hear the word "suicide" and immediately jump to panic. They think keeping someone alive is always the moral choice no matter how much pain that person is in, or how many times they've said they're done.

But like you said, that "saving" often isn't about the person suffering. It's about making other people feel better. About avoiding guilt. About pretending they did the right thing because someone didn't die on their watch.

And yeah—animals get put down when they're in too much pain. Just mercy. But if a human being makes the same call for themselves, suddenly it's a mental health crisis. Suddenly it's selfish. Suddenly they don't know their own mind. It's insulting.

People should be allowed to leave when they've had enough. It's not about glorifying death. It's about respecting choice.

Thanks again for saying all this.

 

[Michi_Violeta]

You've said it perfectly: suicide, when it's truly decided, is no longer a request. It's the last act of sovereignty in a life where autonomy was never fully granted.

Prohibition always births something worse. Ban SN and people don't stop dying. They just die louder. On train tracks. In hotel bathrooms. In forests where no one finds them until it smells. The govt wants silence, but refuses to offer peace. And when peace is denied, chaos fills the gap.

You're also right about the caliber of people here. I've read threads more thoughtful, more emotionally literate, and more ethically sound than anything I've seen come out of most institutions. People assume we're broken children when many of us are just exhausted adults.

Thank you for writing this. Truly. When my PMs are open again, I'd love to write to you privately, if that's okay?

Thank you for this—truly.

We already live in a world where the poor, the disabled, the unemployed, and the chronically ill are told, in a thousand indirect ways, that their lives are inconvenient. Not with words, but with slashed benefits, inaccessible housing, three month waiting lists, and the humiliating bureaucracy of survival. The fear isn't that governments will force assisted suicide but it's that they'll make life so unbearable that it starts to feel like the only dignified option.

But I don't think the solution is to withhold the right to die. No one wins in this system. The ones who want to live can't get help.

You're right! The money definitely exists. It's just misused. If we stopped wasting it on forced holds, surveillance, and punitive care, we could actually support people who want to stay. We could create a world where staying feels like a choice. That's the balance: freedom to die, and real support to live. One should never cancel out the other.

And yes, in a world this rigged, there's always a risk that autonomy becomes exploitation. But denying people the right to die out of fear that others might abuse it is like denying housing because someone might squat.

You may be right though. We might only see progress for the terminally ill in our lifetimes. But if these conversations keep happening then maybe the door stays cracked for whoever comes next.

Thank you again for saying all this. You are also an expressive writer!

Doesn't change reality much, but at least the words and arguments are there for anyone curious to read: both for the people who belong here due to some unfortunate reason and for the outsiders who are here with an ulterior and falsely altruistic motive. Definitely not the sort of arguments or thoughts you'd hear from broken little children if only they suspended their prejudices for an instant. I'm sorry if I sound paranoid, but with all those welfare checks going on and the censorship around this site I sometimes feel it's necessary to address these outsiders directly.

Feel free to send me a PM whenever you want/can, I'd love to keep talking with you too!