No, actually, I disagree. There are circumstances, for example if you abuse your wife and kids - in any way, sexually, physically, emotionally, whatever - you are, in fact, probably causing more trauma and consequent damage than your death would cause. Think of it like this: by repeating the behaviour you've learnt, which is why you hate yourself, you are training your children to do the same thing. When they have kids they will hate themselves just as much as you do, because they will do the same thing. Do you really want them to suffer like that - like you are now? Imagine how you're going to feel when you watch them repeating the process with your grandchildren. To avoid this you must either: a) stop doing it; or, if you can't, then b) stop yourself. In such cases, which aren't rare, the 'loved' ones may be upset and miss you for a bit and they may have to carry a burden of guilt and shame for the rest of their lives, but often the damage avoided by removing yourself from the situation is greater than the damage you would cause if you continued.
Hey McD,
The content of this paragraph holds some truth. So the question here is Are you referring to yourself? Or is this hypothetical conjecture? As in Are you abusing your wife and kids for real, or are you just making an argument to support the validity of suicide in certain situations.
If it is the former, and you are contemplating suicide to prevent yourself from damaging those that you love, then I think thatsuicide is very defintely *not* the solution. I know that what I am to propose is somewhat clinically pragmatic, bnut consdier the consequences of the suicide. If you take your own life to end your own destructive behaviour, you still leave destruction in your wake. I was seriously suicidal for about two and a half years (as in every day I came within minutes of going through with it). The only thing that kept me alive was the effect that my suicide would have on my children. How can you know what the effect of that suicide would have on those children? Maybe they end up blaming themselves, and live their lives thinking that *they* were the reason thatyou killed yourself - you just can;t know - and you could end up causing as much, or even *more* damage to the children than the real life abuse, from which they could still recover. ATleast if you are alive you are in a position to change the situation and make amends for the things that you have done. Suicide has a permanency thatyou can never retract.
If this was a picture of you - or just a scenario in a potential someone's life - I think that the better course of action is to seek help and try and fix that part of you (or who-ever) that is exhibiting the destructive behaviour. Taking your own life may seem to you to be the quickest and easiest solution to bring to an end the damage that you are doing to others, but it is most certainly not the
best solution - just the simplest for you. If you really care about the people being injured in this scenario, then you owe them more than martyrdom.
There are many ways to remove yourself or your behaviour from the situation other than suicide, all of which would have a more positive consequence than suicide, and which also offer you the chance of repairing your own life as well - a situation in which
everyone stands a chance of winning as versus the alternative in which everyone definitely loses
something.
Having been there - having stood on the precipice of oblivion - I can certainly sympathise with how impossible the task of trying to get better (as versus giving up) seems to be but I alo know that I have survived long and far enough to no longer feel that way - that is to say that I know that it is
possible - even if the solution is not perfect - and even if I still have a long way to go.
What I am trying to say is that the argument that you presented here (suicide being better than continuing to inflict harm on others), is not a valid one - as firstly there are other more productive options available both to yourself and those you love - and secondly (and perhaps more importantly) your suicide
will definitely cause severe harm to those that you love and are trying to protect through your actions.
I
do understand that you (or who-ever) probably does not feel strong enough to seek help, and that this is one of the reasons that suicide is on the table in the first place - but justifying suicide as a means to ending the suffering that is being caused to others through abuse does not stand up to the scrutiny, given the very definitely damaging repercussions that the suicide would have on those whom the proposed suicide would protect.
no matter how difficult to implement - if you'e really concerned aout your loved ones - there are better courses of action.
TMP
