Suicide Rates Up in Rural America

[Ultralight]

There is an incredible lack of empathy and insight on this thread, in my opinion.

For some people, suicide is not a problem, it is a solution. The problem is their illness --- be it physical or mental.

I have mentioned this before, my friend Frank killed himself a few years back. I miss hanging out with him. We always made each other laugh so much by riffing on each other's darkly humorous and off-color jokes.

But Frank had profound depression. Being alive was mostly agony for him. When he took his own life I felt relieved. He was finally no longer suffering. His pain was over.

I admire his bravery.

[Teacher Terry]

There’s no lack of empathy here. You are a odd duck with a weird outlook on life.

[Tybee]

I think it's the terrible impact on those left behind that makes me very nervous when I hear folks my age say they plan to move to Oregon if they get very ill or very broke. It just shouldn't have to be that way, that people off themselves because they cannot get help. In my opinion, of course.

[JaneV2.0]

I think it's the terrible impact on those left behind that makes me very nervous when I hear folks my age say they plan to move to Oregon if they get very ill or very broke. It just shouldn't have to be that way, that people off themselves because they cannot get help. In my opinion, of course.

You have to be actively dying to get suicide assistance in Oregon--if I remember correctly--with only a few months to live. "Very broke" wouldn't cut it.

[Tybee]

Yes, I think folks don't quite get the Oregon model, at least the ones I have talked to!

[Gardnr]

There’s no lack of empathy here. You are a odd duck with a weird outlook on life.

+1.

[ApatheticNoMore]

It's not a lack of empathy. Some people have untreatable depression and that is why they kill themselves. The thread was about increases maybe due to issues in rural America, lack of opportunities etc.. Although they intersect suicide due to circumstances is not suicide that is inevitable. Chronic untreatable depression (and yes we're talking about the hard cases where nothing works) and you could win 20 million dollars in the lottery tomorrow and might still off yourself, but that's not the same as offing yourself because of circumstances, unable to afford healthcare, therapy, find work, pay bills etc. etc. If you really think external circumstances play no role, please note the fact that suicides go up recessions, as they do. That's excess deaths due to the business cycle. I have heard 1/5th of global suicides are due to unemployment.

So who is it that has a lack of empathy again? With "off yourself, it's courageous". 1) people have a right to end their lives 2) it's troublesome that suicide rates are INCREASING, because they are (and not just of people at the end of their natural lives). This may mean misery is increasing and what is so great about that?

(I got part-way through the emile durkheim book with my bf and we quit ha, so it's a little more complex than that. That book was so slow to cut to the chase, I now know 10,000 things that don't cause suicide according to Durkheim. But maybe we'll get back to it)

[ToomuchStuff]

Could this just be a matter of the survival of the fittest?

A friend from back in my hometown simply cannot fit himself into the world today with its educational, interpersonal, values, and skills requirements.

So he chose to become a drunken, drug addicted, and destitute person barely living on the fringes of our society. He is, truly, killing himself in slow motion. He could hit fast forward at any moment.

He can't adapt to our era.

Chosen to become an addict? I didn't realize addiction never had any physical or mental hooks, but was a choice.

Haven't we had discussions on this board in the past, about introverts, verses extroverts (what is your personality, etc)? I don't think what time frame your in, has much effect on that, as what you have grown up around/background, etc.

Over the years, I have known quite a few who have killed themselves (drunken Russian Roulette/card game, gave two boxes of ammo to a friend, because it was the "wrong caliber", only to find two bullets missing a few days latter when giver shot himself), or attempted (wrists slashed, attempted hanging). Even stopped one (children's song makes suicidal, as it was the last memory before parents abandonment).
Could you be the lack of empathy discussed in this thread?

[Chicken lady]

UL, would it not be better if your friend were ALIVE and no longer in pain?

i don’t think we lack empathy, I think we want a different solution.

Also, it’s lovely if your friend had a nice clean exit that didn’t damage or destroy the people around him, but that is rarely the case. I love three people who are living with the damage from someone else’s suicide (two guns and the high speed lane of the highway - talk about destroying other people’s lives!), and I am watching one slowly destroy a good friend’s family right now (gun). And in the last case, the pain was definitely inflicted by society.

i also came far too close to losing someone I love to suicide because of domestic abuse. And No One had any idea what was going on in that house. If she had had a gun instead of a broken bottle...

[LDAHL]

The problem I see with suicide is the same problem I see with capital punishment: the impossibility of correcting impulsive mistakes.

I don’t say it is never justifiable, but I think the bar should be set extremely high. Especially if it requires outside assistance to happen. I’d rather force a dozen people to live on in misery than take one salvageable life.

It probably does betray a lack of empathy on my part that I have difficulty placing myself in the position of someone who takes no interest in existence. Life is a gift, even when it’s the equivalent of a nasty old fruitcake.