Discussion Why suicide is so controversial?

[bananaolympus]

suicide is so controversial, one has the right to do anything with his body, so why things like abortions gets more accepted when they actually killing somebody, instead of a full grown person making his decision, we people have to go for tough ways to even gruesome, instead of something painless that a physician could put us dying around family members instead of all alone

 

[Forveleth]

1. Many societies have strong religious beliefs that say killing yourself is evil. These have been ingrained into society so we're all held to them.
2. It's about control. Keeping the less fortunate alive so they can serve the rich. If they kill themselves, who runs the factories? Who picks the food? Who pays the taxes?
3. Money. Locking them up in for-profit institutions so drug companies can sell more pills.

 

[Person27]

crab bucket mentality. Killing yourself alleviates your suffering, but it increases the suffering of everyone else (grieving relatives and friends, kids who are now without a parent, colleagues who are now one coworker short.)

For that reason, suicide was historically a taboo. It was seen as selfish.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I think death in general is a problem for people. Many fear their own deaths and they fear losing people close to them. Parents in particular are likely to feel mortified at the thought of burying their own children. So- in part, I think it simply doesn't make sense to them that some people want to leave early and, they don't want to be subjected to grief any sooner than they need to be.

Plus, like @Forveleth pointed out- there are strong economic and religious reasons for keeping people alive.

 

[ijustwishtodie]

I think that the main opponent to the right to die is religion because religious people believe that ending one's life earlier than their natural death (which is ironically extended by unnatural means) is a sin. Religious people believe that we have infinite virtue by merely being a human and that every human life (aside from the ones that contradict their religion) is sacred.

Although, of course religion isn't the only factor as to why people are against suicide as even a lot of atheists are against suicide too. The reason as to why I think this is the case is because, regardless of religion, there's a lot of indoctrination within movies and TV shows that talk about how death is the worst thing ever and so that's what the atheists believe as well.

Another reason as to why suicide is so controversial is because we're stuck in this cycle where we can't talk about our true feelings within the media as otherwise we'd get forcibly hospitalised meaning that those who attempted suicide and failed are obligated to say that they regret doing their attempt and so this causes people to believe that everybody would regret doing a suicide attempt. Additionally, because of how taboo it is to talk about suicide freely, people are starting to gain misconceptions about suicide as there's often people sprouting the trite phrases like "if somebody really wants to die, they will find a way to die otherwise they want to live" and "dying is so easy to do so you are just making excuses if you are still alive".

And last but not least, the governments are against suicide because they want as many wage slaves as possible. It's why they freak out when they see birth rates declining and it's why they spend a lot of money on natalism related things. At best, they can only allow assisted suicide for those who are terminally ill as they are going to die anyway whilst everybody else could get their money sucked out of them for their suffering indefinitely

 

[L'absent]

Because they love us and know that our inconvenience is only minor. They want to avoid us doing something stupid. They don't want us to give up all the good things life still has to offer us. They know what is right for us and if we don't understand it they lock us up in a facility with psychiatrists and forced pharmacological therapies which help us understand this wonderful existence. Religion can also help us, reminding us that only God can decide when everything must end and we must not be ungrateful towards the great gift of life. In the end, Jesus died to save us, right? This is the madhouse we live in.

 

[theboy]

Human Morals
Religion

 

[pthnrdnojvsc]

evolution spent hundreds of millions of years making sure animals and humans felt pain worse and worse with each suceeding generation. the result is a brain that can suffer unending constant unbearable pain. this is what they tell us is a gift and that we have to be thankful for. then we have to be thankful to work 15 hours per day working a job chores to do lists for this "privilege" of being under threat of extreme torture and to grow old all for no objective reason. that we have to be thankful for decay, diseases, parasites , bacteria , excruciating pain, extreme suffering, injustice , oprression, prison torture slavery . that we have to be thankful that we can't move away from pain when we want to escape life / pain when we want to with a gauranteed suicide method.

really ? can someone tell me why i have to live another minute or have to want to live another minute. even if this brain wasn't an abomination of extreme suffering ?

life is meaningless suffering and torture.

the human brain is an extreme torture chamber.

 

[bobblong]

It's because of religion , and profit . Religion teaches you that life is a "gift" and will be punished in hell if you do off urself . And if there are too many suicides , the economy will be severely damaged .

 

[ScaredOfMachines]

It's just the way things are I guess. Religion has made suicide a taboo in our society, and people keep holding onto it because it's simple and easy to understand. What other people are saying about the government just wanting more wage slaves is probably true as well, but I want to try and see it in a somewhat more positive light.

 

[Gustav Hartmann]

The money argument is ambiguous. On the one hand is the medical and care industry very profitable on the other hand would society save a lot of money if they could get rid of ill, insane and old people. Today, when more and more work is done by machines and computers slaves are needed less than consumers. In times of slavery suicide was a thread to the property of slave owners and they invented hell, were suicides will get eternal punishment. Today is economic growth the Golden Calf of capitalism and growth means in the end population growth. The upcoming degrowth movement will not only preach antinatalism but probably suicide too.

 

[avalonisburning]

It's taboo because people externalize their own inner turmoil over existence and death onto the suicidal. They don't know what comes after. It signifies an absolute loss of control, certainty, and permanence.

They hear that someone is suicidal and they try to relate to it by thinking "What if I wanted to die-" and that's where they stop thinking, because the possibility of death, especially an early, voluntary one, is overwhelming and frightening. It's too foreign and anathema to their personal model of reality to meaningfully engage with.

 

[FuneralCry]

It's just so cruel and horrible to me how there's no acceptance towards preferring to not exist over suffering in this futile, torturous existence, I'd personally always prefer to cease existing no matter what, non-existence truly is all I wish for. Under no circumstances would I wish to suffer all for the sake of it in this existence I never would have chosen that was imposed just to die in agony from old age.

I need the option to just painlessly cease existing in peace and never suffer ever again as non-existence truly is all that's desirable for me. I find it deeply undesirable to be enslaved in this dreadful existence where there's no limit as to how much one can be tortured, non-existence is all I personally hope for, it terrifies me how trying to die can go wrong and just lead to way worse suffering as a result, I simply just wish to cease existing and never be conscious ever again, human existence to me will always feel like a mistake and a burden that just causes so much suffering all for the sake of it.

 

[CandleShade]

Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, "He fought so hard." And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.

The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling

 

[foreverlanguish]

It's due to suicide being seen by most as this "easy" way out. It's considered selfish and negatively affects others who love you. Also, generally, people were raised to believe suicide is wrong and passed that logic on to their kids and their kids kids. Religion also makes a case against suicide, saying it's a sin and that it'll land you in hell. Pro lifers pretty much make it out as a bad and evil thing that is considered a crime against humanity.

 

[Promised Heaven]

We look and sometimes act perfectly healthy, and mental suffering doesn't seem real to them as there is no physical pain on the outside. People may think we're selfish or that our reasons to CTB are "irrational" and no person in sound mind can choose death (defining "sound mind" as a person choosing to live).

They feel if they let us die they've failed to treat or help us, leaving the pain and blame to them as if they killed someone and not us making the decision for ourselves.

We mourn when a person dies by suicide, and yet we get angry at them for the "irrational" decision if they survive. How ironic.

 

[bobpork]

Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, "He fought so hard." And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.

The so-called 'psychotically depressed' person who tries to kill herself doesn't do so out of quote 'hopelessness' or any abstract conviction that life's assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire's flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It's not desiring the fall; it's terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling 'Don't!' and 'Hang on!', can understand the jump. Not really. You'd have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling

I had to screen shot this, I hope you don't mind. (Lmk if you do)this was just so eloquently put, I could not have said or even thought a better way of explaining.

 

[PlannedforPeru]

I had to screen shot this, I hope you don't mind. (Lmk if you do)this was just so eloquently put, I could not have said or even thought a better way of explaining.

I believe the second part is quoted from David Foster Wallace, I didn't look too deep into the origin I just know I've seen it before.

 

[CandleShade]

I believe the second part is quoted from David Foster Wallace, I didn't look too deep into the origin I just know I've seen it before.

yes, and the 1st one is from Sally Brampton