What are your thoughts on suicide? Personally, I think it's a way of coping when people can no longer face up to the realities of life. Some would say it's a coward's way out, some would say it's bravery... A lot of factors can push a person to their limit. It's just quite troubling that teens nowadays (at least in my home country), find it so easy to throw away their lives. As an article I read so aptly put, "lost love, failing grades, dropping out of school... These weren't reasons to kill yourself with before".

Aside from social factors, there is also the possibility of clinical depression, but that would be hard to determine unless there really is a diagnosis.

Yes, I'm making this in memory of someone I wish I could have talked out of suicide.

Well, even if you do account for clinical depression, its not like EVERY teen has it. Sure, there's probably some undiagnosed cases. But still.

Anyway, I don't really look at it as a matter of cowardice or bravery. I look at it as giving up. Any "normal" death is admitting defeat, as well. So I consider life a battle against the odds, I suppose. But its their right to do what they want, I suppose. Of course, that isn't to say that if a friend jumped off a bridge I'd be happy about it. But I'd respect their choice.

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Yes, it is technically giving up on life itself.

You say it's neither cowardice nor bravery, but if I was to follow your logic wherein you say life is a battle, how can killing yourself be neither? When you kill yourself it may be thought of as an automatic loss in the battle you call life. In that essence you might as well be running away, which can also be thought of as cowardice. In the same sense, when you kill yourself, the "odds" can no longer reach you. As not everyone can choose this option in battle, it might also be thought of as bravery. I'd state the Kamikaze pilots in WWII as case in point, but since they have deeply rooted beliefs in their military wherein death is highly preferrable over getting caught, I'd rather not. Just my thoughts.

I don't look at giving up as cowardice, or bravery. It is simply giving up. I would type more, but I don't feel much of a passion to argue here. Also, I'm fairly set in my perception of these things. Beyond that, I don't really associate a good or bad side to cowardice or bravery. They are as they are, I guess.

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I know exactly how you feel, calli.

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Suicide around here has a highly common factor; it's more about realizing 'you can never get a job, get a family, etc, etc'. For example, failing the college entrance exam, then being lambasted by people who you thought would support you. That sort of thing, along with repeated failures to accomplish something meaningful, is enough to drive a person to suicide.

It's basically a reaction to realizing that everyone's out to hurt you - and in desperation, ending your life so you don't have to suffer anymore, and denying them the satisfaction of continuing to remind you of your failures.

... at least that's the thoughts I had back in 2003 when I realized how much of a failure I was.

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I agree with that, failures (especially repetitive ones) plus lack of a good support group can lead to a suicide. Add people kicking you further when you're already down. Usually people can manage intense criticism of their lives, but some can't handle the stress it brings therefore offing themselves in hopes of shutting people out effectively.

As someone who has attempted to hang myself before today, I can say from a personal perspective it was more of a snap decision than anything else. When I tried to off myself in 2010, I'd been thinking about it for a long time, making elaborate plans to throw myself under a train or jump off a building. I was fucked up about failing exams, losing all my irl friends and generally I just couldn't see any upside coming to my life any time soon.

However, instead of any of that, one day I just failed a phone interview, freaked the fuck out, tied myself a noose and attempted to hang myself. Didn't work, and afterwards I actually felt better for it. Something about coming that close to offing myself actually seemed pretty amusing to me afterward.

So yeah, I tend to think it's not so much bravery as a total overwhelming emotional response to whatever is happening in one's life. Weather it's clinical depression or just a series of overwhelming events, I think everyone has a snapping point.

As to Remon's point about giving up, I think you can look at that in two lights. Sure, you're giving up on life, but you're having to defeat something that's been doing it's best to stop you from dying your whole life. Your human self-preservation. It's not an easy task in itself, because part of your brain will always be doing it's best to keep you alive. It is a victory in itself to overcome that fear of dying, and your own survival instinct.

(R.I.P. Someguy ;_;)

Cowardice, bravery, surrender, conquering. Its how you look at it. Personally I find the toughest part of my life over. But I guess that's because I grew a thicker skin and found a way to warp and deal with things. How it turns out for other people is just a course of consequence and how they decide to deal with it.

Now, I apoligize for this, but I'm going to bring up a slightly off-topic point. When Hanzo says he looks back on that and kind of laughs over it, how it relieved some of that stress, it makes me think of something. I've had a lot of close calls where I've nearly snapped my neck or fell off of something high or nearly paralized myself. After all of these, right from the beginning, whenever I look back on it I find it amusing. Perhaps there's a natural instinct to enjoy the close proximity to death, or to say that you walked away unscathed. Now to bring it a little back on topic. In these events, you can't help but feel how weak humans can be, physically. And yet there are tons of examples where they overcome impossible odds wile undergoing great physical trauma. So does the strength of a human depends on their physical form, or is it more based off of their strength of will? If it is a strength of will, if you really wanted to die, wouldn't it be extremely easy to kill yourself? I don't necessarily associate hopelessness with not wanting to live, keep that in mind. One might lead to the other, but what is it that really pushes you to that point? Is that a force of will as well? Just stuff to think and argue over. I don't necessarily have a concrete opinion on this.

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@Hanzo, yep this was for someguy. T-T kinda miss our conversations, and seriously, I wonder if another person's presence in his life would have made a difference...

I also kind of agree with your point of suicide being an impulsive decision. Yep, I also did try to take my own life before, but by taking an overdose of pills (which didn't work). I think it was because I was hating my life at the moment and it was all unravelling in my mind and I just wanted it all to stop. If I was thinking rationally I would have thought that my death wouldn't really had made a difference, but I was too caught up in what I was feeling at the moment. And yes, I'm happy now that I didn't off myself then.

@Remon there were a lot of things you mentioned in your paragraph, so I'll try to go through them. Physical strength is different from strength of the will. I think it's the strength of will (or lack of thereof) which drives a person to kill himself. Yes, I do think that if a person really wanted to die, they'd find ways to do it, which results in successful suicides.

People have different breaking/snapping points, as each person has different sets of priorities in life, so it is hard to say what pushes a pson to the brink of taking his/her own life

I've never considered taking my own life and when I look back at all those moments where I could have died easily, I do not find it amusing. I just get pissed at myself for acting so stupid. I don't really see any humor in death, and no matter how bad it gets, I will probably always look for something about life that makes it all worth it, and decide that it is. Even if you fuck up, you can always just start over, or keep fighting. That's what I think.

"May he, in Light, forever spam that great spamboard in the Sky - forever in the valley of the spammers, may he joyously and odiously spam the netizens of Heaven, and may we bombard his threads with much joy and spam. Rest in peace, my friend - see you again!"

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Because fuck being serious, I can be emotional when a fellow fuckhead is remembered.

... okay.

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This. I feel stupid for trying to anhero back in 2003. I would never have met you guys if I did.

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Most people who did try and not really suceed doing it feel stupid for trying to do it later on. But some still can't get get a grip on themselves and will try again and again until they succeed in offing themselves.

Seriously, I think it's a waste of potential when people kill themselves.

I've been once in pretty grimm situation that in which I really wished to die, but it was physical pain speaking for me... If it comes to just mental pain, I can't say anything since I never experiences such thing.
I can understand suicidal thoughts as a way of running away from the pain, but it's most of the time temporary state, pressure of the situation on a weak mind.
One thing i can is that suicide is a waste of time you have, but i wouldn't stop anyone if that person really wished to kill himselve.
People that want to die are just weak, or rather not strong enough to keep on living, or just too stupid to see any other logical solution. It's theirs choice, not my bussiness.

But when a strong person has a will to die

Well shit, you can be damn well sure of it

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I think you're pretty wrong on that one. You can be emotionally strong as stone and still suicidal. Look at China for great examples of this. Apple's manufacturing facilities where so many people committed suicides they built suicide nets to stop people from dying from the jump.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides

Another factor is, sunlight. In countries with low sunlight, e.g. Finland, suicide rates tend to be higher. Added to that, countries with stigma about being "strong" also have high suicide rates, such as South Korea and Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... icide_rate