Discussion the word suicide?

[henriksson]

suicide is such a harsh word. it feels almost vulgar because of the weight we give it. i think it's such a violent, mean word. why can't they call it something else? i understand that these words are meant to have weight because of not only their roots in latin language, but also because it really is a harsh topic, but it feels so odd to call it that when someone simply chooses to let themselves go in peace, on their own terms. it's the same action, but for some reason it feels more natural when someone dies in peace. the word suicide feels like a curse word, like if you say it you'll get told off by your parents. does anyone understand what i'm talking about?

 

[EvisceratedJester]

The word is only as harsh and vulgar as you choose to view it. I've never found suicide to feel like a violent or vulgar word. It feels neutral, in my opinion.

 

[henriksson]

The word is only as harsh and vulgar as you choose to view it. I've never found suicide to feel like a violent or vulgar word. It feels neutral, in my opinion.

i understand where you're coming from, it's just a word that everyone has catastrophized around me so it feels sharp

 

[SilentSadness]

Suicide is pretty neutral, it just means "to kill oneself". Many people use euphemisms like "ctb" or "took their life", it's up to you.

 

[golta]

Yeah, for me is also a very violent word . Also, the pronounce of it sounds as if you were cutting with a knife. It sounds like if it was murder

 

[feelinggloomy]

For me it's somewhat bothersome I chose to say my son ended his life and I say I plan to CTB. It was hard for me to hear people say my son killed himself. It made me feel even worse. Not sure why. Everyone is different I suppose and hears and feels things in their own way. Sometimes "committing" for me implies something wrong so I don't go with that phrase either. I also take some issue with "suicide prevention " as I don't think it's on people to "prevent" someone's free will to end their pain no do I think it's within our control. Of course I feel overwhelming guilty that I did and could not "save" my son. So many mixed emotions I don't know what to do with them all.

 

[Raven2]

I despise the term 'committing suicide' it's used to be illegal to attempt suicide and people have been fined or jailed for it in the past.
It's no longer illegal so the committing part should be omitted I think considering it no longer a crime.
I prefer to say they took their own life, just a gentler way of saying suicide since ive been on here though I just say ctb as I had never come across this term before being on this site.

 

[UnrulyNightmare]

I think it also depends on your language and the way you first learned about a word that gives it its 'feeling'. In my native language people use roughly translated the word self-murder. Which has never been appealing to me as I don't see it as murder. You can murder someone else (don't do it). But you can't murder yourself for the definition of murder is: "the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another."

So when you end own life and body, to me it never could be murder.
When I started looking into it more, in English, I came across the word suicide all the time. For me it created a feeling of power, of peace. If that makes sense. People who ended their lives are free of their pain. (I hope!)

Commiting suicide I agree, sounds harsh to me too. As I associate the word 'commiting' with 'crime'.

In the end I think it doesn't matter how you call it as long as it feels okay to you!

 

[ninfanatic]

The word is only as harsh and vulgar as you choose to view it. I've never found suicide to feel like a violent or vulgar word. It feels neutral, in my opinion.

I agree with this, but I also think it's easy to be influenced by how society and culture have applied it connotations that are always negative.

 

[locked*n*loaded]

suicidal | Etymology of suicidal by etymonline

"suggesting, leading to, or tending to suicide," 1777, from suicide + -al (1). Oldest… See origin and meaning of suicidal.

www.etymonline.com