The Hippocratic oath is far too frequently interpreted as a mandate to unilaterally inflict life as broadly and indiscriminately as possible.
Can’t die, he still owes us taxes /s
Then, after you get “saved” from suicide, they strip you of your rights and shove you in a cell for up to five days.
And that attitude is what the staff will have towards you. You are there to be punished for daring to be suicidal and trying to reject the gift of life. You’ll probably lose your job after the hospital stay, and then get stuck with thousands in bills for the “treatment” (sitting in a room watching day time tv while you listen to people in psychosis or dementia getting the shit beaten out of them by the staff.)
But this is a good thing! It’s so much better to be alive then not dead, that’s why we need to abuse suicidal people!
No no, you don’t get it. You have to suicide the slow American way with cancer and heart disease. Pick your favorite form of socially acceptable self mutilation today!
And then the people all clapped and patted themselves on the back for saving the guy and went about their day. But the guy went back to the same life full of problems that led him to despair. Crippling debt or depression. Estrangement from loved ones that are no longer willing to reconnect. Loneliness or defamation or disease. It’s easy to save someone from jumping, but this is not help. That is not the help they need. They need constant and long term help, assistance, and support.
Saving a stranger from a suicide attempt has a vibe to it like preventing an abortion from happening without providing any further support for the mother or the child. Congrats, you saved a life, technically. But you did nothing to save the life.
There’s a chance someone else in that crowd understood and began taking daily time to interact with the man. It’s not impossible.
You just doubled the abortion prevention vibe
This is why I dislike people who stop suicides. It’s their choice and their right. Mind your business, asshole
Ironically though, the ones who are driven to suicide are often the ones you want to keep around. The ones who cause the pain should be removed from our world
What I think would be most ethical if I saw someone about to commit suicide by jumping (or other means) would just be to use my words to talk with them but not physically stop them.
Nobody asks to be brought into this world. You should be allowed to determine when you’ve had enough.
No. You stay. Suffer alongside us. No one clocks out early.
But not out in public.
Whether out in public or in private is better, depends on context.
Although it’s probably a bit beyond social media debate. When it comes down to “seeing a strangers body floating in the river” , “finding your sibling hanging in the next room” or “found at a kindergarten playground”.
spoiler
All of those examples are based on real life acquaintances who ended their lives, and their discovery. And to be clear: The kindergarten one was discovered before the kids arrived.
If assisted suicide was accessible public suicides likely wouldn’t be common. The number of people with exploded heads that emergency responders find would decline drastically I imagine.
Then where? Not like you can walk into a funeral home and be like “Yep, I’m done, I’ll take your deluxe ‘End it now’ package please”
No one is stopping you from trying this.
You can in some countries.
My personal moral code is that we should only use communication to try to stop suicide, I think it’s unethical to physically stop them.
I would only get them out of the situation once they tell me they changed their mind.
Yeah this is the same thing I’ve established. Just be like “hey I won’t physically stop you, but I suggest you reconsider”
I respect your line but will not follow it for myself.
Ohh, my turn to post this classic:
The view from halfway down - Alison Tafel
The weak breeze whispers nothing
the water screams sublime.
His feet shift, teeter-totter
deep breaths, stand back, it’s time.Toes untouch the overpass
soon he’s water-bound.
Eyes locked shut but peek to see
the view from halfway down.A little wind, a summer sun
a river rich and regal.
A flood of fond endorphins
brings a calm that knows no equal.You’re flying now, you see things
much more clear than from the ground.
It’s all okay, or it would be
were you not now halfway down.Thrash to break from gravity
what now could slow the drop?
All I’d give for toes to touch
the safety back at top.But this is it, the deed is done
silence drowns the sound.
Before I leaped I should’ve seen
the view from halfway down.I really should’ve thought about
the view from halfway down.
I wish I could’ve known about
the view from halfway down—And now I want to watch bojack again
I love this poem to death (ironically enough). Planning to get a tattoo related to it.
Damn the guy must have felt terrible in that moment.
Well yeah you finally have the knowledge that this earth isn’t worth living in and finally overcame your body’s built in instinct to not die, and some assholes literally force you to stay alive by grabbing onto you like nearly every depiction of hell or hades that has ever existed including tying you to the bridge with ropes.
You don’t know if the man was willing to be saved at this point, he may have been in a situation where he wasn’t able to hold himself up. Also this appears to not be the US, I assume they have their own cultural views on suicide and often cultures do have longer term solutions for people who are suicidal, Some cultures in Africa will take a normal workday off as a group and have a public celebration of sorts they will stay in the sun most of the day and community members will all individually take time to talk to the community member in need and show effort to spend time with them about anything at all, they rarely talk about their troubles is what I understand. There are approaches that differ from the west and there’s places with less stigma.
I bet they chatted shit to him about their god as well
i get that these people need more help than just being convinced not to do it, but in that moment isn’t talking them out of it the right thing to do?
I think the question is who are you to force your choices on others?
From a suicidal persons pov that’s exactly what I imagine that would feel like. Also the insane amount of embarrassment from a huge crowd of people that are all there because of you. Some of whom are probably “it’s all in your head” kind of people. It is hard enough to open up and show your feelings to one trusted person, let alone an effin crowd.
That said, the guy that they saved can now say “F you and see you tomorrow” so that’s something.
Oh man I’ve got a couple words for ya.
let alone an effin crowd.
A person can be smart, but people are fucking stupid.
Please don’t you ever equate yourself to what more than one person thinks.
You’ve thought about you more and your opinion is the most valuable when it comes to you. Be yourself at all times. Maybe you’ll do it enough and people will admire it. Maybe you have, just always forget about what others think, it has so much to do with you and so little to do with them.
You can’t share yourself if you’ve already molded it to be everyone else.
Fuck you. But I’d save you anyway.
This is one of the reasons not to try it in a public place, especially a busy one
Or the opposite of that.
The anti theses of the Rammstein song “Spring” (jump) where a guy is on a bridge just to enjoy the view until other people come who mistaken it for a suicide attempt and encourage him to do so. This ends when someone decides to actively help him
I can’t take Till seriously anymore, but that is one of my favorite songs ever. The mood is just so jarringly depressing. The song really paints a picture.
My intrusive thoughts vs my procrastination
(Yes, I do go to therapy)
(Yes, I do go to therapy)
Good for you, srsly. All the best for you, we’re rooting for you!
Poor guy just wanted to take a bath in the river.
But nobody gets to have fun in city waters.If I can’t have confirmation that the afterlife exists, NOBODY gets to kill themselves. Fucking idiots.
It’s an evolutionary trait from preventing harm to a herd member. It kicks in automatically for everyone but the far end of personality disorder spectrum, regardless of what rational thought patterns are without the surge of adrenaline.
You have a couple of decades worth of life left to deal with. You’ve got an eternity to be dead, and it could suck worse. Plus, if you’re a Buddhist or Hindu you’re probably gonna have to go through it all again. Might as well see this ride through to the end of the line.
I wish I could put you in my place and make you read that. Fuck you.
Why? It’s a simple risk assessment based one question:
If I kill myself, will it stop the pain?
And the answer is that I don’t know. Neither do you. For all we know, it could be worse.
To me, that’s an unacceptable risk.
Anything you infer or think I’m implying is based on your own assumptions (which are shallow and self-centered - you have no idea about the amount of pain I’ve suffered in my life, so fuck you very much too - pretty arrogant to assume you have a monopoly on suffering).
My original statement isn’t a moral or religious statement, it’s just one of fact. You have a limited amount of time to live. You have (apparently) an unlimited amount of time to be dead, you will be dead eventually no matter what, and being dead could be much worse than being alive depending on what you experience.
The odds that things will get better with suicide aren’t in your favor. That’s just a fact, kid. Don’t be in a rush to make things worse for yourself and everyone around you.
Occam’s Razor: The simplest explanation is often the correct one. It’s a whole lot simpler that there’s nothing when we die, rather than the whole afterlife business.
Which, incidentally, is what the ancient Egyptian’s conception of hell was:
In order to receive judgement the dead journeyed through the various parts of the Duat to be judged. If the deceased was successfully able to pass various challenges, then they would reach the Judgment of the dead. In this ritual, the deceased’s first task was to correctly address each of the forty-two Assessors of Maat by name, while reciting the sins they did not commit during their lifetime.[15] After confirming that they were sinless, the heart of the deceased was weighed by Anubis against the feather of Maat, which represents truth and justice. Any heart that is heavier than the feather failed the test, and was rejected and eaten by Ammit, the devourer of souls, as these people were denied existence after death in the Duat. The souls that were lighter than the feather would pass this most important test, and would be allowed to travel to Aaru.
The Duat is not equivalent to the conceptions of Hell in the Abrahamic religions, in which souls are condemned with fiery torment. The absolute punishment for the wicked, in ancient Egyptian thought, was the denial of an afterlife to the deceased, ceasing to exist in the intellectual form seen through the devouring of the heart by Ammit
One of the reasons I’ve decided to stick around. Plus, I just like walking like an Egyptian…
As a counterargument I’d like to point out that when there’s enough pain present you might just want to tap out.
Especially now since one of the lovely American corporates decided to fuck up pain medication for those that needs it for decades at the minimum, because they just had to get that fucking profit.
I’m not even American and I’m on about a third of what I theoretically should be. My doctors admit this, but anything more and there’s a risk of malpractice bullshit.
Hence, pain. Fuck that. I’ll tap out when enough is enough.
The major flaw in your reasoning is that you’re assuming that there’s less pain on the other side. It could be better, but it could be much much worse, especially if you’re carrying the regret of unfinished business left behind.
You might believe there’s another side but that’s not important to this situation. You’re projecting your personal beliefs on others.
The simplest explanation is that it’s the same as before you were born. Can you see how a religious view might lead to unnecessary suffering in this life?
