Why is suicide so taboo?

[avoid_slow_death]

Of all the taboos left in society, suicide seems to be the most universally reviled. Why is this? Well, my thoughts are because as human beings our instincts drive us not only to procreate, but protect the survival of the species as a whole. Suicide rejects the very core that drives human existence. Its like a big fuck you to it and therefore it is the ultimate sin.

Also, people are inherently selfish as a survival mechanism. As a species, we are physically far inferior not only to most animals, but the very environment as well. The only reason we thrive and strive and dominate like we do is because of our ability to use reasoning to adapt to our environment or adapt our environment to us. However, this is never one individual developing and evolving these ideas. Its communities if individuals. So, instinctively, many try to prevent others from rejecting life because it sends the signal that the community is in disarray and the problem needs to be addressed immediately.

What are your alls thoughts on the matter?

 

[Celerity]

With the exception of people with dependents, it is a victimless crime. It's the same way with homosexuality. Who really gives a shit what somebody does if it doesn't affect you? I don't get it either.

I think the truth is that many (maybe most) people think about suicide at least once in their life, and the only thing that keeps them alive is the taboo and fear of punishment in whatever afterlife they believe in.

 

[suicide4me]

It shouldn't be taboo, it should be a right. There isn't one person alive that asked to be here. I myself have stayed alive for others most of my life, but I just can't do it anymore. I also hate when people use the term selfish to describe suicide. I feel the opposite. I feel it's selfish to demand someone else stay and live a miserable life when they don't want to be here. I understand love and attachment and I wish that so many of us could be happy and want to live, but that's not realistic. I hope no one calls me selfish when I ctb next month, it's finally my time.

 

[virginiawoolf]

suicide is a social taboo as homosexuality often is because if we were all to die or be gay the society would not continue

 

[motel rooms]

Because of the survival instinct. All humans have it (as a lot of us are painfully aware), & since suicide goes against the instinct for self-preservation, we as a species fear it. The SI is so strong that the belief that human life is the greatest good is universal (religions even call it "sacred")

 

[Vicepuma]

If suicide has never been on your mind, you will never understand why someone would want to commit suicide. There are exceptions to this rule, but they're rare.

It's the same with depression. People who have never been depressed will never understand how terrible it is.

I think quite a few people here probably used to have a somewhat normal life once. No matter how long it's been. I know I did. I never thought about suicide back then. If you asked me about it back then, I would probably have said it's stupid or whatever.

Only now, many years later, when I am faced with both medical and mental issues, do I understand. Why someone would want to end their life.

We are still very afraid of the unknown. It's much easier to be anti-suicide, be a "good person" and want to keep people from doing it. It's much harder to try and understand why people would want to end their life. Especially when you've never been in the position yourself. People don't want to think about these things too much.

Death scares us. Anything that strays from the "normal path" in life will scare people. If you have a normal life, a person telling you they want to kill themselves will scare you. Why would anyone want to do this? Life is great! They are afraid to face the truth... that life is not great for everyone.

PS: death still scares me too. But I can absolutely understand why someone would consider suicide. So many things in life are beyond our control. Life isn't easy. Not even for "normal" people. So many people on this website experience life on extreme difficulty. But why continue that suffering when you could end it sooner? The inevitable is coming some day anyway.

 

[usernameforhere]

A couple of reasons I think.

Suicide is at least thought of by way more people then is realized. i assume that other people do it makes them feel uncomfortable.

most people are scared of dying and fear usually produces interesting reactions

a lot of people never ask large questions about their lives so it's foreign to them

and everyones autonomous nervous system is designed to keep you alive. It goes against the design of our biology.

basically it hits on every fear, pain point of existence

 

[blue_muse]

It's taboo because it goes against the grain of how everyone is meant to chase and create the idyllic. Being suicidal is supposed to be temporary until someone resumes towing the line again. The general narrative is there to teach everyone that problems can be fixed, life is worth living, there's beauty in life etc.

To someone conditioned to the general narrative, suicide is like facing the grim reaper face-to-face.

 

[WornOutLife]

Because normies ara programmed to live and as they're part of the majority of the world, they wanna impose that way of thinking on us.
"Why would you want to die? Life is precious!" Yeaah, sure.

 

[Lucien]

It's probably the ripple effects and collateral damage that truly worries institutions who are running most of this show.

The tribal mind also views suicidals as disgusting, disease-ridden and so on and so forth. I think that archetype is enough to overpower any attempt at connection. It's much more efficient to call someone an ungrateful vermin who doesn't know better. The alternative is internalizing the many horrors of reality.

This dehumanizing tactic isn't anything new throughout history when something is annoying to the elite. They freely exploit natural human instinct and reinforce it where there's some benefit. Most of us are cattle, let's be honest. Freedom of thought is for the highest echelons of society only. They can't live in the power trip fantasy unless they know someone under them is trawling through mud.

 

[lonerclown666]

Because Normies want to believe life is beautiful and fair

 

[eclipse]

Because it's extremely painful to lose someone to suicide, and the vast majority of people agree on that. Combine that with the fact that many people who commit suicide do it in an acute situation of distress rather than from a long-grown will to die. There are many people who survived suicide attempts and later were happy they didn't succeed.

Absolutely not trying to devalue the wish of the suicider, I'm going to kill myself too, but I believe I do understand the other side, even if I disagree with their methods.

 

[eternalmelancholy]

Pure biologic impulse to survive. Our ancestors clearly demonstrated this trait and passed it along to us.

People with low survival instinct obviously died out before they could spread their genes.

I curse my ancestors every night before bed. It is my prayer.

 

[Celerity]

Because it's extremely painful to lose someone to suicide, and the vast majority of people agree on that. Combine that with the fact that many people who commit suicide do it in an acute situation of distress rather than from a long-grown will to die. There are many people who survived suicide attempts and later were happy they didn't succeed.

Absolutely not trying to devalue the wish of the suicider, I'm going to kill myself too, but I believe I do understand the other side, even if I disagree with their methods.

Yeah, the MoSt SUiCiDes ARe ImPULsiVe thing is true even if it's annoying. As for me, it's been 16 years coming, so not really very impulsive at this point.

 

[motel rooms]

I curse my ancestors every night before bed. It is my prayer.

I only curse my immediate ancestors

 

[eternalmelancholy]

There are many people who survived suicide attempts and later were happy they didn't succeed.

I think this is just selection bias. People who survived attempts but still want to die will keep trying until they finally succeed. Or those who failed an attempt but now are too scared to try again in the near future. So they just live with the shame and fear in secret.

These are the stories you never hear about because society only pushes the narrative that suicide is something shameful and regrettable.

 

[Tackingintothewind]

With the exception of people with dependents, it is a victimless crime. It's the same way with homosexuality. Who really gives a shit what somebody does if it doesn't affect you? I don't get it either.

I think the truth is that many (maybe most) people think about suicide at least once in their life, and the only thing that keeps them alive is the taboo and fear of punishment in whatever afterlife they believe in.

Is it victimless. I would be ending my pain but the pain I would give to my loved ones... my dad has already had two heart attacks and he has such an extremely anxiety about covid he's rejecting all logic. What would happen to him if I ctb. I'd probably kill him.

My mum would never get over it. She'd blame herself. She'd not be entirely wrong about it either but she's far from the only reason and I dont want her to blame herself.

My friend circle has already lost one person relatively recently and whilst I'm sure two of them would be fine I know one of them also suffers from mental health problems.

My grandmother is a recent widow and I'm her only grandchild, what would this further blow do to her?

There are many times I want to die. But thinking about what could happen afterwards, could I still do it?

Also it's not a crime, not where I live. That however is the reason for the taboo, the effect it has on other people.

Its definitely not about procreation as many countries have removed the taboo about being gay or transgender. Something which I am happy about.

 

[Celerity]

Is it victimless. I would be ending my pain but the pain I would give to my loved ones... my dad has already had two heart attacks and he has such an extremely anxiety about covid he's rejecting all logic. What would happen to him if I ctb. I'd probably kill him.

My mum would never get over it. She'd blame herself. She'd not be entirely wrong about it either but she's far from the only reason and I dont want her to blame herself.

My friend circle has already lost one person relatively recently and whilst I'm sure two of them would be fine I know one of them also suffers from mental health problems.

My grandmother is a recent widow and I'm her only grandchild, what would this further blow do to her?

There are many times I want to die. But thinking about what could happen afterwards, could I still do it?

Also it's not a crime, not where I live. That however is the reason for the taboo, the effect it has on other people.

Its definitely not about procreation as many countries have removed the taboo about being gay or transgender. Something which I am happy about.

After they grieve, yes it is. You're not directly hurting them, and no one owes it to me to live a life they don't want.

 

[Tackingintothewind]

After they grieve, yes it is. You're not directly hurting them, and no one owes it to me to live a life they don't want.

Did you read my post? It could kill my dad and my grandma, make my mentally ill friend suicidal, and my mum would never get over it. She'd never stop grieving.

 

[ClownMe]

The main reasons in my opinion are:

-religion.

-we live in a society that expects you to contribute by working 40+ years at a crap job you hate and then have the worst years of your life (psychically) to enjoy as a "reward" before they bring in the next batch of sorry souls to put through the same cycle.

-if you have a good family, you will feel bad about committing suicide.

 

[Celerity]

Did you read my post? It could kill my dad and my grandma, make my mentally ill friend suicidal, and my mum would never get over it. She'd never stop grieving.

You really can't know that it would cause a heart attack, but by all means, if that makes you continue on.

 

[eternalmelancholy]

The only victims in suicide are the people who can no longer exploit your existence. Mainly the government and the upper class.

Suicide means one less taxpayer, one less wage slave, one less consumer and one less breeder of future slaves.

It is no secret the upper class views us as cattle. Everytime the topic of declining birth rate comes up, the importance of the economic growth is always mentioned but never anything that address the decreasing quality of life for the average citizen. Which is the main factor why people have less or no kids.

 

[eclipse]

I think this is just selection bias. People who survived attempts but still want to die will keep trying until they finally succeed. Or those who failed an attempt but now are too scared to try again in the near future. So they just live with the shame and fear in secret.

These are the stories you never hear about because society only pushes the narrative that suicide is something shameful and regrettable.

I don't disagree. I'm just saying those people exist, and that may reinforce society to treat it as "doing something stupid". I do agree that it makes them turn a blind eye to people who imo should be allowed to end it. I just understand it from an emotional point of view even though I disagree with the generalisation.

 

[greyhound]

I think it's taboo due to the religious / philosophical worldview held by majority of people today. Most people still either practice or are influenced by one of the major religions, and so for them your life is not your own, it's given to you by God, and suicide is thus an act against God's will.

The other fraction of people are scientific atheists, and according to them we are animals and so suicide is fundamentally opposed to our biological imperative to stay alive and procreate.

These two viewpoints dominate most people's thinking and so suicide remains taboo.

It's odd to me why even seemingly individualistic religions like Buddhism would be so anti-suicide though. I was reading this book recently about death and dying by this Tibetan Buddhist. It was ok, but what shocked me was to learn that traditionally in Tibet the corpses of suicides were left to be eaten by birds. It still seems a bit crazy to me that we are willing to put animals down at the drop of a hat to prevent them from suffering, yet somehow humans are supposed to suffer to the bitter end. This would seem to be contrary to the tenets of both religion and science.

 

[motel rooms]

what shocked me was to learn that traditionally in Tibet the corpses of suicides were left to be eaten by birds.

That sounds like an ordinary Tibetan "sky burial" that everyone used to receive - the corpse was chopped up into pieces and fed to birds, who then flew up into the sky ("sky burial")

 

[FuneralCry]

If there was more acceptance towards suicide then everyone would do it. This would destroy society.

 

[motel rooms]

If there was more acceptance towards suicide then everyone would do it. This would destroy society.

In the Netherlands, Belgium & Luxembourg it is possible to request euthanasia on the grounds of psychiatric suffering, & their societies are not falling apart...

 

[noname223]

Many healthy people cannot imagine how it is wanning to ctb 24/7. They do not want to be confronted with this so called sad event. They like to avoid unpleasant stuff and instead wanna have fun all the time. (As David Forster Wallace would state).
Moreover i think there is an alliance between conservatives/religious people who deny the right to die and progressives who want to save lifes. They want to be the good guys because life is so precious.
There's barely an alliance for us. Almost nobody really cares until yourself is in the same situation...

 

[JustAMatterOfTime]

In the past and still in some third world countries where there is no state pension of any value the children are meant to look after the parents / grandparents. This is also why you have women in Africa having 6+ children so they have enough to look after her when she gets old. This is not the only reason of course but just a thought of mine that the mother looks after you and you are expected to look after or at least help provide for her when she is too old to work.