June 26, 2010

  • Dan the Theologian at TheTheologiansCafe just wrote a blog post on "Suicide."  The comments are interesting to read, and got me thinking about my thoughts on suicide.  I think most of the negative things I hear about suicide is that it's selfish, I guess because it's taking away your life without thought of how it'll impact the people you "leave behind."  I used to agree with it, that even if the person is having a really terrible life, that it ultimately is self-ish, because they are doing it to make themselves "happy," which is self-oriented.  Then in my suicidal thoughts (CIRCA 2003), I've also emphatically disagreed with my previous assessment because I thought, no way... if I'm so (insert long string of unkind adjectives), I'm actually doing them (whoever "they" are) a favor by ridding them of me.  So it's not selfish, it's... good.  The jury's out on this one.

    Dan wanted to know if a person was suicidal, do you think the person would cry out for help first?  In a way, if you were going to kill yourself, and it was decided, it makes sense you'd just do it... because saying you're going to do it opens the possibility someone will stop you.  But is it fair to say people who threaten suicide aren't really going to do it, they just want attention?  I would still take any comments seriously because are you really going to challenge someone to kill themselves - and what if they do ?

    Then there was this one comment, "suicide is the final exaggeration, so probably [they'd cry out for help]."  I guess some people cry out for help more tangibly than other people.  But about the "final exaggeration" part, ultimately the biggest insult to someone who is suicidal, or one of.. is to say "you think you're so important but <news flash> you're not!" There are better ways to be a friend, even if being suicidal is probably making a big deal of things that aren't that big.

    I found an article on the New York Times by Errol Morris, it's a 5 part series about anosognosia, which is basically not being able to recognize what you don't know and therefore, not being able to fix it.  It's funny how one of the commenters says Sarah Palin might be affected by this since she has no idea how much she doesn't know, and therefore dismisses whatever doesn't fit into her line of thinking while remaining ignorant.  I think I have/had an overly active fear of anosognosia.  I prefer to have been "aware" of what I didn't know rather than have been completely ignorant.