So during that little chat we had on Tuesday, one point the speaker made- that suicide is for weak cowards and drunks- was, to me, shocking, inappropriate, and offensive. Suicide cannot be simplified to that. It can be the result of years of mental anguish at the hands of bullies. Death is no more appealing to people considering suicide than it is to people who are not. It just seems preferable to the life the individual is leading, which is incredibly sad.
Many people who commit suicide are mentally ill and it boggles my mind that someone would even begin to suggest that they are weak, irresponsible, or delusional. That’s just plain ignorant, even if it’s intended to be motivational. This attitude is the reason victims of bullying or mental illness often feel so stigmatized-the “it’s-your-problem-take-it-like-a-man-and-deal-with-it” mentality that many people have. But it’s not as black-and-white as that. There’s always a choice, yes, but if the pain of living is that unbearable, how can you blame someone when he or she ends it? People like Jack Kevorkian* get blasted for advocating doctor-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, but I doubt the critics realize how degenerative and physically excruciating these diseases are, as opposed to being able to peacefully die after wrapping up all loose ends. Are people wrong in wanting that? It's a valid question to be pondered, and I think it's difficult for people to think about the possibility of choosing the vast unknown of death over the ups and downs of life. It opens up a whole Pandora's Box of ethical dillemmas, too: should doctors help people commit suicide? Who has the right to even control that? Are there any other options for these people?
Suicide is not committed by the weak; it is committed by those who feel they have exhausted all other options. It is not when some drunk guy falls over the edge of a balcony. If someone who commits suicide has been drinking, chances are they were doing to work up the nerve. The speaker seemed to be suggesting that people get drunk and commit suicide for kicks and giggles. I'm just hazarding a guess here, but I don't think that's true. If more was done to help people prevent suicide by preventing bullying and diagnosing mental illness, we might have fewer suicides to worry about.
I just want to say that this post does not promote suicide, but neither does it dismiss it as a drunken idiot's solution to life's problems. It's heartbreaking for everyone involved, but isn't the unbearable pain some people have to live with equally terrible?
*Jack Kevorkian (1928-) is a doctor and proponent of doctor-assisted suicide. He advocates euthanasia in cases where the patient has no chance of survival, and a large chance of being in extreme pain. Kevorkian is also well-known for videotaping such an instance and sharing it on TV. He spent eight years in prison for second-degree homicide as a result of his actions.
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