So - suicide

[pdudgeon]

If we're talking about what I said,....

no i was not addressing your post at all, or any other posts in this thread, and i sincerely appologize if anything i posted led you to believe that i was.

I was merely relating my feelings about my own family member's decisions and actions relating to the experience of actively participating in the assisted suicide of a family member, and then later requesting others to participate in their own assisted suicide. And no, i'm not refering to comfort care. in both cases it went far beyond that point.

 

[akmom]

So what I'm gathering, Ezoo, is that you think suicide is selfish/wrong if the person is a parent? Or if their suicide is unexpected and messy? Because if that is the only criteria that really makes a suicide selfish, then it seems like you are suggesting that suicide is acceptable if pursued through a thoughtful, organized process (such as assisted suicide). I doubt that's what you meant (though I personally do endorse it), but if it is, then perhaps it is society's aversion to suicide that drives people to do it in these appalling ways.

If you could walk into a doctor's office and make your wishes known, and then go through a legal process of settling your affairs, announcing your intentions so friends/relatives could make their peace and seek closure, and be evaluated by a psychologist to determine whether this was indeed a willful choice (rather than an impulse, duress, or insurance scam, etc.), and then be euthanized painlessly at a scheduled date, then perhaps you wouldn't have people hanging themselves in closets or bleeding out in bathtubs.

I had a suicidal friend in high school who was really in the pits, for years. She blatantly said that the only reason she was still alive is because she didn't want to hurt her friends and family, and if they could just be at peace with it, she'd die. That's a hard thing to hear. Of course we told her to hang in there, but watching someone live who doesn't have any desire at all to live, really makes you wonder who is being selfish.

 

[pdudgeon]

So what I'm gathering, Ezoo, is that you think suicide is selfish/wrong if the person is a parent? Or if their suicide is unexpected and messy? Because if that is the only criteria that really makes a suicide selfish, then it seems like you are suggesting that suicide is acceptable if pursued through a thoughtful, organized process (such as assisted suicide). I doubt that's what you meant (though I personally do endorse it), but if it is, then perhaps it is society's aversion to suicide that drives people to do it in these appalling ways.

If you could walk into a doctor's office and make your wishes known, and then go through a legal process of settling your affairs, announcing your intentions so friends/relatives could make their peace and seek closure, and be evaluated by a psychologist to determine whether this was indeed a willful choice (rather than an impulse, duress, or insurance scam, etc.), and then be euthanized painlessly at a scheduled date, then perhaps you wouldn't have people hanging themselves in closets or bleeding out in bathtubs.

I had a suicidal friend in high school who was really in the pits, for years. She blatantly said that the only reason she was still alive is because she didn't want to hurt her friends and family, and if they could just be at peace with it, she'd die. That's a hard thing to hear. Of course we told her to hang in there, but watching someone live who doesn't have any desire at all to live, really makes you wonder who is being selfish.

the thing is that in this life there are very few people who are not connected in some way to another human being.
From the time before we are born till ater we die, we are connected to someone.
Whether it be thru a family relation, thru friendship, being employed or being an employer, thru commerce, writing, reading, or just listening our senses connect us to this world. and all the activity that happens around us affects us and is in turn being affected by our being here.

we think, we speak, we hold opinions, we bring joy, we laugh, we cry, but we are participants in each moment of life. and in that participation however great or small it may be, the lives of others are changed irrevocably because we are alive.
To die without compleating a life is to die too soon.

 

[DZoolander]

Which is kind of why I put a hierarchy of importance based upon type of relationship... To me, a parent/child relationship weighs far more heavily than a friend/buddy/acquaintance/etc. It might sound kind of crappy - but even moreso than a parent/brother/sister (although of course immediate family weigh more than "friends").

Why? Because to a degree what you say is right. It does make you wonder who is being selfish. The reason why I weigh kids so heavily is due to the intrinsic nature of the parent/child relationship. Kids have a *right* to be selfish in that respect - I think. Every other relationship in your life is circumstantial. Friends come and go. Family - you happened into by circumstance. Your kids, though, that's different. You made them. They exist only because of your choices - and you serve as a marker in their life in a manner far different than anyone else will. The combination of those two things makes it really hard to argue that they're being "selfish" in the same way you could argue it about a friend, IMHO. Don't make something unless you're prepared for the moral duty you will then have to it's well being (I think).

That all being said - what you said first about euthanasia is kinda the direction I would go in. What makes suicide wrong, I think, is the impact it has upon others. As a result, some suicides are "more" wrong than others. I don't know if you could go so far as to say that the only times that it's selfish/wrong is when they're a parent. To me that's just the best example of when it's most egregious and serves as one end of the scale. The other end of the scale would be like a castaway doomed to isolation forever on some deserted island. How could you make an argument that he/she had an obligation to continue living? I don't think you could, ya know?

Everything else exists somewhere along that scale.

The problem in arguing the merits for or against euthanasia is that it gets messy trying to figure out how to handle that middle ground. Clearly you don't want it to be just willy/nilly or available to anyone who might simply be experiencing what will end up being transitory feelings - but to argue that it's available to no-one regardless of the suffering they're experiencing appears equally inhumane. That's why people like Dr. Kevorkian became so notorious and split public opinion so drastically.

Ya know?

 

[akmom]

So if we take that position - that parents and certain other influential people have a unique lifelong commitment - how does a terminal illness play into that? If a parent has reached their elderly years, and their children are long grown, probably even have grown children of their own, and this elderly parent/grandparent is facing a terminal illness, what kind of measures are they obligated to take to stay alive for their children? Are they, too, obligated to live on dialysis or feeding tubes or await organ transplants so as not to leave their children too soon? Should they undergo chemotherapy to milk a few more months out of a terminal cancer diagnosis? If they are facing a particularly painful end-of-life situation, are they less entitled to doctor-assisted suicide (where that is available)? And does it make a difference if their children are actively involved in their lives, or haven't visited their nursing home in years?

And if they are, in fact, entitled to decline these extra life-saving measures, at what point do you feel they are entitled to do this? If it would only extend life by a few days? Months? A few years, if those years are expected to be ones of very limited physical or mental capacity? Because it sounds like that was, in fact, what Robin Williams was facing. He wasn't a young man. He was ill, apparently physically and mentally. And I have to say, after a lifetime of depression, I don't know if we can seriously say that it was a transitory feeling, or that he wasn't in a logical state of mind. I suspect he knew exactly what was going on in his mind and knew from 60 years of experience how to deal with it. But ultimately decided that his prospects this time weren't worth fighting for. It's very sad. But I suspect the grief his children are experiencing is similar to what most "children" their age experience with the natural loss of a parent.

 

[bluegreysky]

Before I met my husband, so... early 2009... I thought I wanted to die.
College had been tough and my last year I really slipped and didn't perform well. I didn't know what I wanted to do after. I didn't have a job lined up.
The one retail job I did have that was good enough pay let me go suddenly. I'd been seeing an evil punk and he'd toyed with my heart.
My friends were moving far away.
My roommates were kicking me out so their friend could move in.
And I felt very very far from God.
It all came to a head when I got a sinus infection, and had to stay home sick one day. I felt awful, called the guy who was supposed to care about me and asked him to come bring me soup. He said he was busy but he'd get around to it. I never heard from him. I felt so alone and so uncared about and that's when the thought first crossed me.
So I took finals the next week, finished school and then the week after that, my job let me go.
I'd still been toying with the idea but when I thought very hard,
I realized it wasn't "being done living" that I wanted, it was to be away from the life I had....and starting over to try and do it right this time.
So I loaded up my car and drove back to my hometown without calling anyone to tell them I'd gone.
And when people called me, I didn't pick up.
I was going to stay in my old town and in a few months of saving up move to another state, never once letting anyone back in my college town know what had happened to me. I wanted them to think I might have died.

When I finally decided to get right with God (for a little while at least) and go back, I found out that 5 people had noticed and missed me.
I thought no one would.

What I craved was the magic ability to let others think it was too late, while watching from afar to see who my real friends were... those people would be looking for me and worrying about me.

 

[mkgal1]

Don't make something unless you're prepared for the moral duty you will then have to it's well being (I think).

From what I've heard from people that have been suicidal because of clinical depression....they ARE considering their loved one's well being (it's just that it's distorted as to what that means). They don't want to be a burden--and that's how they perceive their life--as a burden on others.

 

[mkgal1]

I'd posted this in the other thread, while this one was closed:

I only just heard the sad, sad news of Robin Williams’s death. My wife sent me a message to tell me he had died, and, when I asked her what he died from, she told me something that nobody in the news seems to be talking about.

When people die from cancer, their cause of death can be various horrible things – seizure, stroke, pneumonia – and when someone dies after battling cancer, and people ask “How did they die?”, you never hear anyone say “pulmonary embolism”, the answer is always “cancer”. A Pulmonary Embolism can be the final cause of death with some cancers, but when a friend of mine died from cancer, he died from cancer. That was it. And when I asked my wife what Robin Williams died from, she, very wisely, replied “Depression”.

Perhaps Depression might lose some its “it was his own fault” stigma, if we start focussing on the illness, rather than the symptom. Robin Williams didn’t die from suicide. He died from Depression*. It wasn’t his choice to suffer that.~http://www.umbrelr.com/robin-williams-die-suicide/

 

[mkgal1]

Another pertinent article:

A responsive, emotional crowd of more than 3,300 people filled Saddleback’s Worship Center for The Gathering on Mental Health and the Church, a daylong event hosted by Saddleback, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Orange County. The event marks the first initiative of Saddleback Church’s new ministry for mental health issues, a mission Saddleback hopes other churches will replicate.

Friday’s conference featured a lineup of pastors, academics, and psychiatrists who spoke about the church’s potential and necessary role in dealing with mental illness and disorders. According to Saddleback, about 600 of the attendees are struggling with mental illness. An additional 6,000 people tuned in for the event’s live webcast, which will be archived and made available to the public for free.

The conference took place just eight days before the one-year anniversary of Saddleback pastor Rick Warren’s son’s death. Matthew Warren, 27, shot himself on April 5, 2013. The youngest of the Warrens’ children, Matthew struggled with lifelong depression.

According to the National Institutes of Health, one in four adults experience mental illness each year— that’s about 61.5 million Americans. One in 17— about 13.6 million people— live with chronic, serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, major depression, or bipolar disorder.

Church members are not immune to the statistics.~WORLD | Rick Warren launches mental health ministry | Sophia Lee | April 1, 2014

 

[akmom]

I think that particular comparison is a bit of a stretch. A person who dies from cancer can have any number of actual causes of death (depending on which one comes first). And a suicide can have any number of actual causes (overdose, hanging, gunshot). But depression isn't inherently lethal. Cancer is. Suicide is. So those are sufficiently explanatory. But saying that someone died of depression would be confusing. I'm thinking especially of children, who might hear an explanation like that and not fully grasp the fact that depression itself isn't lethal, but rather inspired the suicide. You wouldn't want kids, with a rudimentary understanding of what depression is, to have a bad day and worry that it might actually kill them. You know?

 

[mkgal1]

I think that particular comparison is a bit of a stretch. A person who dies from cancer can have any number of actual causes of death (depending on which one comes first). And a suicide can have any number of actual causes (overdose, hanging, gunshot). But depression isn't inherently lethal. Cancer is. Suicide is. So those are sufficiently explanatory. But saying that someone died of depression would be confusing. I'm thinking especially of children, who might hear an explanation like that and not fully grasp the fact that depression itself isn't lethal, but rather inspired the suicide. You wouldn't want kids, with a rudimentary understanding of what depression is, to have a bad day and worry that it might actually kill them. You know?

All of that is complicated and adults struggle to understand it all as well.

Cancer isn't always lethal either......I think it's a good comparison. One can't will themselves to get over cancer.....just like one can't will themselves to get over depression.

Depression, BTW, is far more than "having a bad day", and maybe that's a place to begin---to educate ourselves so that we may properly educate our children.

 

[DZoolander]

So if we take that position - that parents and certain other influential people have a unique lifelong commitment - how does a terminal illness play into that? If a parent has reached their elderly years, and their children are long grown, probably even have grown children of their own, and this elderly parent/grandparent is facing a terminal illness, what kind of measures are they obligated to take to stay alive for their children? Are they, too, obligated to live on dialysis or feeding tubes or await organ transplants so as not to leave their children too soon? Should they undergo chemotherapy to milk a few more months out of a terminal cancer diagnosis? If they are facing a particularly painful end-of-life situation, are they less entitled to doctor-assisted suicide (where that is available)? And does it make a difference if their children are actively involved in their lives, or haven't visited their nursing home in years?

And if they are, in fact, entitled to decline these extra life-saving measures, at what point do you feel they are entitled to do this? If it would only extend life by a few days? Months? A few years, if those years are expected to be ones of very limited physical or mental capacity? Because it sounds like that was, in fact, what Robin Williams was facing. He wasn't a young man. He was ill, apparently physically and mentally. And I have to say, after a lifetime of depression, I don't know if we can seriously say that it was a transitory feeling, or that he wasn't in a logical state of mind. I suspect he knew exactly what was going on in his mind and knew from 60 years of experience how to deal with it. But ultimately decided that his prospects this time weren't worth fighting for. It's very sad. But I suspect the grief his children are experiencing is similar to what most "children" their age experience with the natural loss of a parent.

Gotta admit - when I found out about the Parkinson's thing - my feelings changed a bit about it and I had the reaction of "Well, ok, I can see that." I just didn't feel compelled to take the conversation here in a different direction as a result of it - since we're now kind of talking in the abstract.

That being said - yes - I do think that other things do come into play like that. In some situations - I would be in favor of medically assisted suicide - so that those faced with truly debilitating conditions could be granted the chance for a dignified exit/prepare for it/etc.

In the event that it's an adult child, with a terminally ill parent, I think the degree of obligation changes. The only real hesitance I have in saying that, however, is the stigma that's attached to suicide and the lack of an ability to bring your life to an end in an assisted manner. Those that are truly hopeless in the face of such things do end up resorting to the kinds of things that I think are tragic...because they really can't be discussed.

I think the scenario would be entirely different if a parent could say to their child "Look, things aren't going to get better. I'm getting more sick by the day - and it's going to be excruciating. I'd like to leave on my own terms - and the state/medical profession provides a vehicle for that." I think in a situation like that - the transition for everyone involved would be far easier and more accepted.

As it stands with the complete prohibition of any kind of actions like that - those poor people if things truly are intolerable are left with nothing but bad options...which do often have jarring and shocking consequences.

But to your question - yeah - I do think that the obligation owed from a parent to their child differs depending on context. Like, a 40 year old parent with a 15 year old child has a far different onus on him than a 70 year old parent with a 40 year old child (at least in my eyes). The obligation does remain - but lessens with time and circumstance (I think.)

 

[mkgal1]

Gotta admit - when I found out about the Parkinson's thing - my feelings changed a bit about it and I had the reaction of "Well, ok, I can see that." I just didn't feel compelled to take the conversation here in a different direction as a result of it - since we're now kind of talking in the abstract.

I'm kind of curious as to what the distinction is. Why is it understandable for a physical ailment.....yet not a mental one?

 

[DZoolander]

I do have to say, however, that I don't think (even as an adult expecting my parent's death) that I'd react to finding out my dad hung himself in the garage or blew his head off is in any way similar to how I felt when my dad died of natural causes.

I think I can say that with some degree of authority, because I've lost both of my parents...so I do know how that felt. I'm not left wondering how I might have felt if my folks had died...and then trying to compare.

Comparing how I actually felt with their deaths at the time - and then trying to conceive of how I might have reacted had I gotten a call from my brother telling me that he came home to find my folks in whatever state they were in as a result of suicide - ehhh - not the same thing at all though.

 

[DZoolander]

I'm kind of curious as to what the distinction is. Why is it understandable for a physical ailment.....yet not a mental one?

This will probably get me into trouble for saying this (and I don't mean to sound unsympathetic to those that suffer from depression...I truly am not) - but I draw a distinction between things where you feel like there is no getting out of it...and things where there truly is no getting out of it.

A person with advanced Parkinson's doesn't just feel like things are going to get worse (to maybe the next day not feel that way)... Things are gonna get worse...and there ain't a lick they can do about it.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

I'm kind of curious as to what the distinction is. Why is it understandable for a physical ailment.....yet not a mental one?

I need to note that people often say, "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem." My feeling when I hear this is, I am 50 years old and have had mental illness at least since I was 6. How "temporary" is that?

Again, I am not advocating suicide as a method of coping with mental illness. It is never the right answer. The victim of it is not thinking clearly, and I am not going to pass judgment, but the effect of a sudden, unexpected suicide on a family is horrific.

Here I am picturing another celebrity--the case of country singer Mel Street. Suffering from mental illness and addictions, he ended his life on his own birthday in 1978. He was having breakfast with his family and suddenly excused himself from the table. Moments later, a gunshot was heard. I don't know if his family has ever recovered. I cannot imagine their horror. At least the part about his seven-year-old son being sent upstairs to get Daddy for the surprise party, and finding him, turned out not to be true. It was his brother who investigated after hearing the shot, and I can't find evidence that he had a child.

In the case of a terminal medical illness, I think there is a gray area. We do put animals to sleep when we know there is no hope.

 

[mkgal1]

I need to note that people often say, "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem." My feeling when I hear this is, I am 50 years old and have had mental illness at least since I was 6. How "temporary" is that?

That's exactly what I was thinking (but in terms of Robin Williams, who was 63 years old). If there were a way out of being bi-polar....I'm sure he would have sought that out.

I even wonder if he had been prescribed pharmaceutical drugs to treat the Parkinson's that contributed to his death? A lot of drugs do have that as a side effect---and it's not a matter of will-power (or lack of will-power) for that to occur.

 

[seeingeyes]

I don't know that suicide is inherently more selfish than anything else we do. There can be selfish aspects to it, though, yes.

 

[mkgal1]

I just did a search to look up the drugs that are used to treat Parkinson disease. This is something that came up:

Depression not only affects your brain and behavior—it affects your entire body. Depression has been linked with other health problems, including Parkinson's disease.~NIMH · Depression and Parkinson's Disease

 

[Tropical Wilds]

I just did a search to look up the drugs that are used to treat Parkinson disease. This is something that came up:

It should also be said that the drugs that are used to treat Parkinson's have a primary side effect of increasing suicidal ideations.

Not ignoring the earlier part of the posts, just don't have time to answer at this second.